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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/78707-0.txt b/78707-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..277f329 --- /dev/null +++ b/78707-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5117 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78707 *** + + + [Illustration: UPTON SINCLAIR _Photo by Odiorne_] + + + + + UPTON SINCLAIR + + _A Study in Social Protest_ + + By + FLOYD DELL + + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + ON MURRAY HILL : NEW YORK + + + COPYRIGHT, 1927, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + UPTON SINCLAIR + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + TO + JOSEPH FREEMAN + + + + + CONTENTS + + + + + I PRELIMINARY EXPLANATIONS 11 + + II SOUTHERN BEGINNINGS 16 + + III ADOLESCENT DISCOVERIES 31 + + IV THE YOUNG HACK 41 + + V THE ARTIST IN REVOLT 49 + + VI THYRSIS 59 + + VII THYRSIS AND CORYDON 72 + + VIII THE JOURNAL OF ARTHUR STIRLING 86 + + IX MANASSAS 97 + + X THE JUNGLE 104 + + XI LOVE’S PILGRIMAGE 121 + + XII KING COAL 137 + + XIII JIMMIE HIGGINS 143 + + XIV THE BOOK OF LIFE 151 + + XV THE GREAT PAMPHLETS 159 + + XVI OIL! 178 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 189 + + INDEX 193 + + + + +UPTON SINCLAIR + +A Study in Social Protest + + + + +I. PRELIMINARY EXPLANATIONS + + +I. + +Americans generally are truly surprised and puzzled by Upton Sinclair’s +fame abroad--by the fact that he seems to be regarded throughout the +world as his country’s most distinguished literary figure.... So great +is the discrepancy between his position in the world at large and his +position in his own country, that a book about him may as well begin by +offering some explanation, to bewildered American readers, of his world +fame. + +The gist of the matter seems to lie in this: + +Modern industrial America is a new portent in an old world; and the +world has looked to American literature for realistic description and +intellectual interpretation of it--and has found these things chiefly +and best in the writings of Upton Sinclair. Other American writers of +our time may be more acute psychologists, wiser in the lore of human +nature, more able to analyze and dramatize the traditional passions +of mankind. But in our American literature generally there is no such +account--at once emotionally and objectively convincing--of what +America is in its most characteristic contemporary aspects, as may +be found in the novels and pamphlets of Upton Sinclair. And this very +simply explains the fact of Sinclair’s special eminence in the eyes of +the world among American writers of this period. + +From this point of view, then, it may roughly be said that, as an +expositor of modern industrial America, Sinclair takes rank with +Cooper, who put the America of the Indian and the pioneer on the +literary map of the world; with Mark Twain and (in so far as a prose +writer may be compared to a poet) with Walt Whitman--each of whom, in +his time, described and interpreted to the world a significant epoch of +American life. + +These are strictly literary considerations; another consideration, +not purely literary (at least not from the American point of view) is +also involved in the great respect which Sinclair enjoys abroad. The +Voltairean tradition of the literary man as a fighter against wrong, +a champion of the oppressed, still survives in Europe. It is not an +offense against good taste (as it would be in our politer American +literary world) for such writers as Zola and Anatole France to take +sides in a Dreyfus case. And when they hear abroad that the author of +_The Jungle_ has been arrested in New York City for “picketing” +the offices of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as a protest against the +treatment of miners in Colorado, or that he has been arrested in +California for reading the Constitution of the United States in public +in a “free-speech fight”, they do not regard it as an unliterary +eccentricity, but as a kind of heroism appropriate to a profession +which has not abandoned its pretensions to courage. + + +II. + +These preliminary pages may also serve to explain, to readers abroad, +some of the reasons for the failure of America to accord Sinclair the +rank to which it would seem that he is entitled by his achievements. +An obvious reason, of course, is that he interprets American life in +terms of a “class struggle” which is, as yet, alien to the idealistic +conceptions of the American intelligentsia in general. More will be +said on this point later. But there are, at the present moment, other +psychological obstacles in the way of a general recognition of Sinclair +in America. + +One of these is his temperamental attitude toward life. He is +recognized as being fundamentally a Puritan; and Puritanism (for +reasons to be gone into at length later on) is just now very unpopular +among the American intelligentsia. Sinclair has, indeed, by virtue of +his passionate realism, his poetic and epic vision, and his critical +and revolutionary thought, far transcended in his writings the +limitations of the Puritan point of view. Yet it is perceptible at +times, and to Americans in revolt against Puritanism it counts heavily +against him. + +Again, his attitude toward our machine civilization is one which +Americans find it difficult to understand--since it is neither the +popular one of uncritical adulation, nor the aristocratic one of +reactionary sentimental protest against the machine age as such. Both +these literary attitudes are well understood in America; but that a +writer may be an idealist, and yet be a cordial believer in this modern +machine civilization of ours, founding all his hopes for ultimate +justice and beauty and happiness upon machinery’s essential and +revolutionary possibilities, is still to the American mind a paradox. + + +III. + +Nevertheless, there are unmistakable signs in recent American criticism +of a growing respect for Upton Sinclair. Time’s perspective has given +a new dignity to the gallant literary movement with which his name +is associated. It is remembered that Europe’s greatest critic, Georg +Brandes, once said: “I find three present-day American novelists worth +reading--Frank Norris, Jack London, and Upton Sinclair.” The literary +movement of which these men were the leaders came (for reasons to be +recounted later) upon evil days, and seemed to end in discouragement +and chagrin. But now that it has very recently been revived in the +hands of younger writers, it is remembered that during that long +interval Sinclair remained its single unfaltering and powerful voice. +He can now be seen as a representative pioneer figure of an ambitious +interpretive effort of which the culmination is still to come in the +American literature of the future. + +Of so much honor, in his own country, this prophet is now assured. And +it is certain that, as the kind of literature comes into its own which +Frank Norris, Jack London and Upton Sinclair first showed us how to +write in America, his literary stature will, like theirs, increase in +the eyes of his fellow-countrymen. We shall know that he was of the +race of giants, and forgive him those faults which we perceive to-day. + +Meanwhile, his faults as well as his virtues will receive due attention +in this little book. But it may as well be said frankly that they +will be dealt with as the faults of a great writer, and analyzed with +the respect due to him as such. It should also be remarked that the +biographical details in these pages are intended to be subordinate to +the critical study of his development as a certain kind of writer--a +describer, critic and prophet of modern industrial America. + + + + +II. SOUTHERN BEGINNINGS + + +I. + +Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland, September 20th, +1878. His father was one of the Norfolk Sinclairs, his mother one of +the Baltimore Hardens. That is to say, he was by ancestry and birth +a Southerner. His childhood, moreover--until his tenth year, when +his family moved to New York City--was spent in the very Southern +atmosphere of Baltimore.... This background is so alien to the theme +of modern American industrialism as to arouse a wonder and provoke a +question: How did this child of the South ever come to write _The +Jungle_? + +For the South of his childhood had a history of its own, sufficiently +different from that of the factory-building North. It is true that +Baltimore, an important seaport in close proximity to coal mines, had +already begun its industrial career; but the relations of capital +and labor presented so far no tragic problems of which a little boy +would hear. And such vague rumors as might have reached the child in +Baltimore of the “labor troubles” up North--the strike in Chicago at +the McCormick reaper works, the agitation for an eight-hour day, the +Haymarket riot, and the hanging of the Chicago “Anarchists”--could +have made no deep impression on his young consciousness.[1] He was +living in another world than that. It was the world of an aristocracy +ruined by the Civil War and struggling to regain its place in the sun. + + +II. + +The Sinclairs of Norfolk had been a navy family. Before the first +Sinclair came to America, there had been Sinclairs in the British navy. +A Sinclair had commanded a frigate in the American navy in the War +of 1812.[2] His son had followed him into the navy, and had been in +command of one of the ships of Commodore Perry in the famous expedition +of 1852-54 which “opened up” Japan. But in 1861, this officer had had +to make a disastrous choice of loyalties.... There was a story which +was a part of the Sinclair family tradition, about the two old sea-dogs +who sat up all one April night in Norfolk, arguing out their duty and +their destinies. One was Lieutenant Commander Arthur Sinclair, the +boy Upton’s grandfather; the other was his old friend and shipmate, +Captain David Farragut. Both were Southerners, both Virginians--and +Virginia had that day seceded from the Union. They argued all night +in Sinclair’s study and in the morning Farragut went North to offer +his services to President Lincoln--while Sinclair stayed to fight for +the South.[3] History preserves the name of Farragut as the commander +of the victorious squadron which captured New Orleans and Mobile and +sealed the South within a fatal blockade. Sinclair’s further career is +recorded only in the obscure annals of the defeated Confederacy. He +commanded a blockade-runner which was sunk in a storm off the coast +of England, carrying him to his death, and his body was buried in a +churchyard at Hull. + +His family’s history was henceforth united with that of the lost cause. +His eldest son had served four years under his father in the U. S. +navy; he went into the Confederate navy, burned his ship to prevent its +capture by Farragut at Mobile, was an officer on the blockade-runner +_Alabama_ which was finally sunk in English waters, survived +to write a book about it, and died in poverty in a Soldiers’ and +Sailors’ Home. Another son was also in the Confederate navy, and, +more fortunate, lived to adorn New York society. Still another, Upton +Beall Sinclair, who was to become the father of the novelist, was too +young to see much of the fighting, though he took a gun and ran away +from home to help in the final defense of the Confederate capital, +Richmond.... The Sinclairs, along with all the rest of the South, were +ruined, at least until they could successfully adapt themselves to new +conditions. During the “reconstruction” period, when Southern affairs +were run by “carpetbagger” politicians from the North with the aid of +the votes of Negro freedmen, they were no longer members of the ruling +class, with a prescriptive right to places of power and pride. They had +to make their livings as best they could. + +Moreover it would be a long time before the cotton and tobacco +industries adjusted themselves comfortably to the new wage-labor +system. Slavery was gone, and the old aristocratic ease only a +sentimental memory. But the South loved its memories, bitter as they +were--and drinking, that generous accompaniment of the old aristocratic +ease, became an important solace of the harassed post-war period. +Even if the proud womenfolk of the South got up stealthily in the +dead of night to wash the doorsteps and perform other menial tasks, +thus honorably concealing their poverty, there was always money for +the menfolk to spend on good whiskey. The liquor trade thrived in the +ruined South. And so it was that Upton B. Sinclair became a wholesale +liquor salesman. + +The young salesman’s business took him to Baltimore, and there he met +and married Priscilla Harden, daughter of the secretary and treasurer +of the Western Maryland railroad. Maryland, violently Southern in +its sympathies--so much so that the first blood of the Civil War was +shed there when a mob resisted the passage of Northern regiments on +their way to Washington--had nevertheless been kept within the Union +by force of arms. It had not suffered with the rest of the South the +rigors of blockade; and though it had endured the inconvenience of +military occupation, it had not been devastated by invasion and battle, +and it was able to share to some considerable extent in the economic +growth and prosperity of the North after the war. The Hardens were +moderately rich; and one of Priscilla’s sisters had married a Baltimore +banker named Bland, who presently founded the United States Fidelity +and Guaranty Company, and became a millionaire many times over. + +Priscilla Harden’s marriage with the young salesman was less fortunate +in an economic sense. Mr. Sinclair was not a sufficiently enterprising +salesman, and was destined never to rise from the ranks. A gentle +little man, the soul of courtesy to women and of loyalty to his +friends, full of proud old Southern ideals of chivalry, having the +knightly Robert E. Lee as his _beau ideal_, he was not one to +succeed in business. + +In Upton Sinclair’s autobiographical novel, _Love’s Pilgrimage_, +there is a portrait of his father. From his old-fashioned aristocratic +point of view he hated this modern business world in which he +struggled. Those among whom his work took him “never guessed the depths +of his contempt for all they stood for. They had the dollars, they +were on top; but some day the nemesis of Good-breeding would smite +them--the army of the ghosts of Gentility would rise, and with ‘Marse +Robert’ and ‘Jeb’ Stuart at their head, would sweep away the hordes of +commercialdom.” + +Mr. Sinclair was devoted to his wife and worshipped his only son. He +was bitterly unhappy because his ineffectual efforts on their behalf +left them still mired in poverty. As he brooded over his failure, he +came more and more to resort to the solace of his own wares; and of +that, too, he was ashamed. But he could at least teach his son to be a +kind and chivalrous Southern gentleman. + +The boy’s mother was a Southern good woman, patient and practical. +Like other Southern women who had seen too much of the ravages of +drunkenness among their menfolk, she hated drink with a fierce hatred +born of fear. All her capacity for unworldly idealism was centered +in that emotion. She brought up her son to fear and hate liquor; +she herself did not even drink tea or coffee, because they were +“stimulants”, and there was in her example and attitude a continual +protest against “self-indulgence”--a touch of Spartan sternness. But +for the rest, she had an innocent and happy worldliness, which desired +and approved all the respectable comforts which life had to offer. +Except for this fear of the consequences of “self-indulgence”, a +fear which was emphasized by the family circumstances, her influence +upon her son would be wholly in the direction of conformity with the +respectable world. And if for a time she hoped to see him go into the +ministry, it was with the somewhat worldly expectation of seeing him in +a bishop’s robes.... + +In Grandmother Sinclair’s dining-room there was a portrait, well +remembered, of the old sea-dog, Commodore Sinclair; and the boy +Upton was told that he had his grandfather’s nose--in the portrait a +fierce, proud eagle-beak. And it was hoped that in the child’s quiet +stubbornness there was evidence of the ancestral trait of indomitable +will. The boy was to go into the navy, and might become a hero like his +grandfather. At the age of six, that was his ambition. + +It was no unreasonable ambition. His parents were poor, but--aside +from such influence as might be exerted by his rich relatives--poverty +would not stand in the way of the appointment to the Naval Academy +of a boy who was of cavalier stock and whose forefathers had served +the State. He might easily enough get the nomination to Annapolis +from his congressman; it was only necessary for him to be a bright +enough lad to pass his examinations--and there would be no difficulty +about that. Early in childhood, without having gone to school, he had +taught himself to read, and had already begun to exhibit a precocious +intellectuality. The only possible question was one of health. A +series of infantile diseases had left him a rather delicate child. +That was dealt with by keeping him out of school till the age of ten, +to give his body, in the homely phrase, a chance to catch up with his +brains. And, though he pursued his education with more intensity by +himself than he would have done at school, he did become physically +robust. There was, apparently, every reason to believe that young +Upton Sinclair would become an officer in the U. S. navy.... One can +imagine him thus now, a slight, straight, grizzled captain, something +of a martinet, unquestionably brave, not very popular, a little aloof, +doing his duty, carrying on the family traditions. But life had other +destinies in store for him. + + +III. + +The gentle, chivalrous father, unable to make a decent living for the +wife and son he loved, became in his discouragement more and more +dependent upon the liquid consolations which he peddled. Ashamed of +his lapses from grace, afraid to go home and confess himself again +conquered by his weakness, he would stay away, drinking himself into +the stupor of forgetfulness. The family poverty at times became +desperate. There were, to be sure, when bitter necessity had overcome +her pride, Mrs. Sinclair’s relatives to turn to for help. And the child +was, of course, always welcome at the homes of “Grandfather Harden” and +“Uncle Bland”. The Bland wealth was gained during the boy’s childhood +and youth, and he grew up amidst the constantly expanding grandeur of +the Bland family. The contrast between the luxury of these prosperous +Baltimore and country homes and his own dingy boarding-house background +made him feel more acutely the poverty of which he was the victim. + +Moreover, the help that was extended to his family by these more +fortunate relatives could scarcely be given without, in the eyes of +a sensitive child, an appearance of condescension, against which +all his pride was in revolt. It seemed to a child’s sense of justice +that the family needs rightfully entitled them to a chance for life +and happiness; and it was shameful that this should be granted them +as a favor, that they should have to beg for it. “To each according +to his needs” is the natural economic code of childhood.... But it +was inevitably with his own needs and their frustration that he was +secretly preoccupied. It seems, to a child, that all for which he +wishes belongs rightfully to him already; and it is hateful to him +that power over his own life and happiness should be in other hands, +to be granted as a favor, not conceded as a right. To have to beg for +what already belongs to one is, in the code of childhood, to pay too +humiliating a price for it. One would rather, if one is sufficiently +sensitive, go without. + +His sensitive egotism had thus in childhood become painfully +complicated with the poverty of his family and the wealth of some of +the family relatives. And, most painfully of all, he felt that he need +not remain, if he chose, the victim of his parents’ poverty. He was as +a child much loved by these rich relatives; and he understood that he +was always welcome to stay with them. This possibility, of escape from +poverty, never came up for formal decision, and remained for a long +time to torment him. But at the age of ten it emerged more definitely +into his consciousness, when his family decided to leave Baltimore. +They were going to New York City, where his father had got a position +as a traveling salesman--his line this time being hats, instead of +whiskey. It would have been very easy for the boy to stay on in +Baltimore and have his relatives’ assistance in getting an education. +In effect this would mean, when it came to his choice of a career, that +he would have all the advantages of a rich man’s son. He hated poverty; +and above all he dreaded going on with the endless and hopeless +struggle with drink in which his father was involved. But loyalty +and chivalry had been among the old-fashioned Southern virtues which +his father had inculcated in him, and he chose to share his father’s +struggle.... Perhaps he remembered the tale, heard as a child, of his +grandfather’s debate with Captain Farragut. Commodore Sinclair had done +his duty, and his grandson could do no less. + +It was a bitter duty which he had to look forward to. He was getting +old enough now to help his father in his times of weakness. Soon, when +his father did not come home, it would be the boy’s task to seek for +him in one saloon after another until he found him. Yes, and give him +the reassurance that he most needed--that they still loved him in spite +of everything;--and so bring him back to the boarding-house where his +wife sat and wept.... The boy, in choosing, knew what he was in for. + +The emotional relations between the boy and his father are described +in _Love’s Pilgrimage_, where the boy is called Thyrsis. “To +others his father was merely a gross little man, with sordid ideals +and low tastes; but to Thyrsis he was a man with the terror of the +hunted creatures in his soul, and the furies of madness cracking their +whips about his ears.”... “There were rich relatives, a world of real +luxury up above--the thing that calls itself ‘Society’. And Thyrsis +was a student and a bright lad, and he was welcome there; he might +have spread his wings and flown away from this sordidness. But duty +held him, and love and memory held him still tighter. For his father +worshipped him, and craved his help; to the last hour of this dreadful +battle he fought to keep his son’s regard--he prayed for it, with tears +in his eyes and anguish in his voice. And so the boy had to stand by. +And that meant that he grew up in a torture-house.” + + +IV. + +A sensitive child who grows up in an ugly and hateful world becomes +something of a poet in self-defense. He has to shut himself away from +all the world’s ugliness and hatefulness in an imaginative world +of books and dreams. His natural creative energies, baffled by the +obduracy of outward circumstances, will begin to work upon the more +plastic materials furnished by reverie. Books and dreams are his +natural refuge, and to become an artist his inevitable secret dream. + +“There was”, it is written of the boy “Thyrsis” in _Love’s +Pilgrimage_, “not much of what is called ‘culture’ in his family; +no music at all, and no poetry. But there were novels, and there +were libraries where one could get more of these, so Thyrsis became +a devourer of stories; he would disappear, and they would find him +at meal-times hidden in a clump of bushes or in a corner behind a +sofa--anywhere out of the world. He read whole libraries of adventure: +Mayne Reid and Henty, and then Cooper and Stevenson and Scott. And then +came more serious novels--‘Don Quixote’, and ‘Les Miserables’, George +Eliot, whom he loved, and Dickens, whose social protest thrilled him; +and chiefest of all, Thackeray, who molded his thought. Thackeray saw +to the heart of it; and no high-souled lad who read him and worshipped +him was ever after to be lured by the glamor of the ‘great’ world--a +world whose greatness was based upon selfishness and greed.” He needed, +it would seem, such help as Thackeray’s to enable him to resist the +very real temptation to become a part of such a world. + +He needed, moreover, figures with whose heroic renunciation he could +take satisfaction in imaginatively identifying himself; nor did he +fail to find them in this realm of ideal types. In his childhood the +most significant of these figures was that of Jesus--who had hated the +power of Mammon and built up a Kingdom of the Spirit. The idea of Jesus +driving the money-changers out of the Temple remained throughout his +childhood a vivid and consoling fantasy. And this secret Kingdom of the +Spirit, in which he walked in lonely exaltation, gave him reasons more +profound even than those of love and duty for refusing to live a life +of luxury. For the life of his rich relatives was not the ideal life of +his poetic dreams. It seemed to him that these riches were wasted. They +were not used in achieving beauty and happiness, but only in acquiring +toys. + +“What do I mean by toys?” he wrote later, in _Wilshire’s_. “Why, +just things. Nothing but things--all things in this big world except +half a dozen useful things. The uses of bread and bacon, of a stove +and a wood-pile, I recognize with all my heart; and also of beautiful +books in an occasional rare instance; and always, of course, of +prayer and music, of joy and love, of wisdom and high resolve. Those +things--that are as free as air and sky and the flowers--are serious +things; and all things else that this spreading earth has to show, all +the infinite unthinkability that is shut up in a thousand mighty cities +and is fought and cried for” by adult children “are _toys_--just +_toys!_” It is a cry out of his own childhood, when, forced +by unhappiness to take life seriously, he realized that these +grown-up people had by no means put away childish things. Toy-lovers +still, preoccupied with acquiring and displaying their toy-titles, +toy-learning, toy-houses, toy-food and toy-clothes, they were unable +even to wish for the real beauties and joys that life had to offer. His +path, then, surely, was different from theirs.... + +Yet, in so sternly and resolutely refusing to be tempted aside from +his own secret goal, he must have felt deep and aching regrets at +the good things which he was incidentally but necessarily giving up. +There had been a time in his childhood when he was naïvely fond of +luxury; there were relatives on his father’s side who were poor and +whom he did not care to visit because of a “snobbery of the palate”, +preferring the excellent table of his wealthier relatives. His mother +would scarcely have condemned that as “self-indulgence”; but it was a +worldly tendency which he learned to resist with Spartan asceticism. +In inwardly deciding to give up these luxuries, he must unconsciously +have felt it necessary to despise them; and among the luxuries which he +thus came to despise were such simple and innocent things as good food, +idleness, and play. His hard choice would seem to have confirmed him +in a too stern and ascetic attitude toward life. Some of the simple, +natural, happy, playful aspects of living were unconsciously classed +in his mind as temptations, and came to be regarded with the emotional +hostility[4] he had already been taught to feel for drinking, as +things to be feared and hated.... Nor, under the circumstances, was +that exaggerated emotion quite absurd. These things _were_ +temptations to him; and it was the effort to save his poet’s soul alive +that he became a Puritan. + + + + +III. ADOLESCENT DISCOVERIES + + +I. + +When the Sinclairs came to New York in 1888, they had not quite +left the South--for they stayed, at first, for a year or two, in a +“Southern” hotel on West 19th Street. It is described in _Love’s +Pilgrimage_ as inhabited by musty phantoms of the dead Southern +past--“old ladies who were proud and prim, and old gentlemen who +were quixotic and humorous, young ladies who were ‘belles’ and young +gentlemen who aspired to be ‘blades’. It was a world that would have +made happy the soul of any writer of romances; but to Thyrsis ... this +dead Aristocracy cried aloud for burial. There was an incredible amount +of drunkenness, and of debauchery scarcely hidden; there was pretense +strutting like a peacock, and avarice skulking like a hound; there +were jealousy, and base snobbery, and raging spite, and a breath of +suspicion and scandal hanging like a poisonous cloud over everything. +These people came and went, an endless procession of them; they +laughed and danced and gossipped their way through the boy’s life, and +unconsciously he judged them, and hated them, and feared them.... Most +of them were poor; not an honest poverty, but a sham and artificial +poverty--the inability to dress as others did, and to lose money at +‘bridge’ and ‘poker’, and pay the costs of their self-indulgences. As +for Thyrsis and his parents, they always paid what they owed; but they +were not always able to pay it when they owed it, and they suffered +all the agonies and humiliations of those who did not pay at all. +There was scarcely over a week when this canker of want did not gnaw +at them; their life was one endless and sordid struggle to make last +year’s clothing look like new, and to find some boarding-house that was +cheaper and yet respectable. There was endless wrangling and strife and +worry over money; and every year the task was harder, the standards +lower, the case more hopeless.” + +And now the boy went formally to school for the first time, an East +Side school, and played rowdily about the streets of New York with his +schoolmates, to whom he was familiarly known as “Chappie”. He was able +to do two years’ work in one, and at the age of twelve had finished +grammar school; but because he was too young to enter college, he had +nothing better to do in the meantime than take the last year of grammar +school over again. “The fates took pity on him,” he says of himself in +_The Goose-Step_, “and gave him as teacher for that year a jolly +Irish gentleman, so full of interest in his boys that he did not keep +the rules. If you wanted to ask him questions, you asked and without +first raising your hand; you might even get into an argument with him, +as with any boy, and if he caught you whispering to your neighbor his +method of correcting you was novel, but highly effective--he would let +fly a piece of chalk at your head, and you would grin, and the class +would howl with delight.” A collection of one or two hundred books, +given him by aunts and uncles and cousins on Christmases and birthdays, +he left with the school, where it became the foundation of a class +library, to the delight of the boys and the Irish teacher, so that he +left school in a blaze of glory. His school-life, though he was found a +sufficiently apt pupil, was not all so satisfying nor by any means so +unconventional as in these instances. But it was too late for him to +be really amenable to the social pressure of the school-room and the +school-yard; he was an individual, cherishing his own secret dreams. +Though he played with other boys, he had no chums, no real friends. +“Where,” as he asks, in _Love’s Pilgrimage_ of Thyrsis, “should he +meet people who knew what he knew about life? Where in all the world +should he meet them, save in the books of great men in times past?” + +Books were still his companions. In the summer of his thirteenth year, +when visiting his uncle in Baltimore, he discovered sets of Milton +and Shakespeare in expensive bindings, unread to that day and perhaps +since; he went straight through them in rapture, and found in Hamlet +a figure to shine in his imagination beside that earlier heroic and +beautiful figure of Jesus. For Hamlet was, like himself, a prince of +the spirit, cheated by the world out of his inheritance--the poet’s +natural inheritance of beauty and happiness. And Hamlet’s world seemed +to him like the world he had known all his life, in Baltimore and New +York. His predicament had made him think a great deal about the world. +It wasn’t, he knew, his father that was to blame for his misery; at +first he had thought the corner saloon-keeper was to blame--but behind +him he had seen first the brewer, then Tammany Hall, and finally rich +and respectable society, involved in a cruel and unscrupulous plot +to make money out of his own and others’ miseries. Yes, Hamlet, like +himself, was an idealist in revolt against the world. + +He had vague plans of wringing from this brutal world his chance for +life. He needed knowledge first of all. And so, still nominally too +young, and obliged to tell a lie about his age, he began in 1892 the +five-years’ course at the College of the City of New York, from which +he was to receive his A.B. at the age of eighteen. This institution, +then located in an old brick building at Twenty-third Street and +Lexington Avenue, is described in _Love’s Pilgrimage_ as a +poor-boy’s college, “where the students all lived at home, and had +nothing to do but study; and so Thyrsis missed all that beneficent +illumination known as ‘student-life’. He never hurrahed at football +contests, nor did he dress himself in honorific garments, nor stupefy +himself at ‘smokers’. Being democratic, and without thought of setting +himself up over others, he was unaware of his greatest opportunity, and +when they invited him into a fraternity, he declined. Once or twice he +found himself roaming the streets at night with a crowd of students, +emitting barbaric screechings; but this made him feel silly, so he +lagged behind and went home.” For he had gone to this institution with +a purpose of his own; he was to use it, not let it use or shape him. + +The college did, indeed, serve to introduce him to the world of +knowledge; “but that did not take long, and afterwards it was all in +his way. The mathematics were a discipline, and in them he rejoiced as +a strong man to run a race; and this was true also of the sciences, and +of history--the only trouble was that he would finish the text-books +in the first few weeks, and after that there was nothing to do save +to compose verses in class, and to make sketches of the professors. +But as for the ‘languages’ and the ‘literatures’ they taught him--in +the end Thyrsis came to forgive them, because he saw that they did +not know what languages and literatures were.” “I marvel,” he says in +_The Goose-Step_, “when I realize that it was possible for me to +read _The Acharnians_ of Aristophanes, line by line, and hardly +once get a smile out of it, nor have it occur to me that there was any +resemblance between what happened in that play, and the fight against +Tammany Hall and the Hearst newspapers which was going on in the world +about me.” Of the Latin professor he writes: “I can see this old +gentleman’s knitted brows and hear his angry tones as he exclaims: ‘Mr. +Sinclair, it is so because I say it is so!’ Five hours a week for five +years I studied with that old gentleman, or his subordinates, and I +read a great deal of Latin literature, but I never got so that I could +read a paragraph of the simplest Latin prose without a dictionary. The +professor of English literature chanced to be a propagandist--but +not, of course, of radical ideas of any sort; that would scarcely +have been tolerated. He was an ardent and argumentative Catholic, and +his idea of conducting a class in literature was to find out if there +was anything in the subject which could in any way be connected with +Catholic doctrine and history, and if so, to bring out that aspect of +the subject.” Finally, as his time in this college was nearing its end +he got a leave of absence on the ground that he had to earn his living, +and spent two months sitting on the bed in his eight-by-ten bedroom in +a lodging-house, spending his days and nights learning for himself. + +He made the great discovery of cheaply-printed prose classics--English +poetry he already knew by heart. The Spartan plainness, the lack of +outward beauty, in these little paper-bound volumes did not offend him. +“One could get so much for so little, in this wonderful world of mind! +For eight cents he picked up a paper volume of Emerson’s _Essays_; +and in this shrewd and practical nobility was so much that he was +seeking in life! And then he stumbled upon a fifteen-cent _Sartor +Resartus_, and took that home and read it. It was like the clash +of trumpets and cymbals to him. Hour after hour he read, breathless, +like a man bewitched, the whole night through. He would cry aloud with +delight, or drop the book and pound his knee over the demoniac power of +it. The next day he began the _French Revolution_; and after that, +alas, he found there was no more--for Carlyle had turned his back upon +democracy, and so Thyrsis turned his back upon Carlyle.” + +For, in the New York public schools, he had begun for the first time +to learn, as he could scarcely have learned in the South, the history +of his country as an experiment in democracy. His hatred of the +sham aristocracy of the South had made him thrill to the lessons of +democracy. He had read ten large volumes about Lincoln. And because +the great historic idea of democracy was something new to this young +rebellious Southerner, he could understand and respond to all its +revolutionary implications. These implications might be smugly covered +up in the school histories, but they were plain enough for him in +nineteenth century literature. “Wordsworth and Tennyson, Browning and +Swinburne--he followed each one as far as their revolutionary impulse +lasted. Even Ruskin, who taught him the possibilities of English prose, +and opened his eyes to the form and color of the world of nature--even +Ruskin he gave up, because he was a philanthropist and not a democrat.” + +Nevertheless, his own ideals were fundamentally more aristocratic +than he realized. It was from his father’s aristocratic point of view +that he had first in childhood learned to hate commercialism; and his +father’s notion of Gentility arising under the leadership of Robert E. +Lee to drive out the hordes of commercialdom had found its spiritually +aristocratic analogue in his childhood vision of Jesus driving the +money-changers from the Temple. It was as an aristocrat that he had +turned against plutocracy; but sensitive and energetic members of a +defeated aristocracy sometimes make common cause with the democracy +against their common enemy, the rich. So far his democracy was a little +like Byron’s. And his hatred of a sham Aristocracy was not the least +aristocratic thing about him. He was conscious of superiority to those +against whom he measured himself and his desire was for a Kingdom of +the Spirit where he should take his true rank among the peers of that +realm. + + +II. + +His family belonged to the Episcopalian church. He had been taught +the Christian virtues in his childhood, but theology had not been +emphasized. Church-going was more important than orthodoxy. It pleased +his mother to be escorted to church on Sunday by husband and son, these +correctly attired for the occasion in kid gloves and derby hat. Though +the family always lived in poor neighborhoods, it was to a fashionable +Fifth Avenue church that they went, to be taken by the polite usher +with padded shoes into the half-occupied pew of some more or less +hospitable church member. Coming out, they would look at the costumes +of the churchgoers, marvel at the Vanderbilt palaces they passed by +on their way home, and talk about how much everything must cost. The +boy’s mother, who had little enough of comfort and leisure in her +life, enjoyed these occasions innocently, and the father appreciated +the opportunity to dress up in his Sunday best and wear his tight and +“dressy” patent-leather shoes. But the boy, because he had a really +religious nature and took religion seriously, began to revolt against +this practice. It, too, he declared, was a sham.... From the age +of fourteen he had been the protégé and friend of a clergyman, the +Reverend William W. Moir, of the Church of the Holy Communion, in New +York. This warm-hearted clergyman had gathered about him a whole flock +of boys, rich and poor, and young Sinclair was one of his favorites. +To him the boy took his first theological difficulties, and was given +volumes of Christian apologetics to read. These completed his downfall, +for they revealed how feeble were the intellectual defenses of the +church against its critics. His clergyman friend was not, however, +seriously troubled about the boy’s agnosticism, declaring that he would +come back.... Nor were his family seriously troubled over his apostasy. +They were not interested in theological matters. But his refusal to go +to church was a different matter. That made his mother very unhappy. +And it shattered, moreover, her dream of seeing him a bishop.... + +At the same time he was beginning to pain his father by speaking +disrespectfully of the Democratic party. And when he presently went +on to utter disrespectful opinions concerning the Vanderbilts, and +respectability in general, he passed out of the range of parental +comprehension. + +And now, beside Jesus and Hamlet, a third great ideal figure came +into the world of his imagination--Shelley.... The course in English +literature at college had somehow failed to conceal that poet’s +existence. It was in his senior year, reading _The Skylark_ in +class, that he abruptly realized that what he was going through in +college was a “ghastly farce.” And accordingly he went home, to conduct +his own education for a time. His education had been all along an +attempt to discover the values of life, so that he might choose for +himself what his own life should be. His secret wish was to be a poet; +and now this wish was given its largest and noblest interpretation +by his worship of the great poet who had declared poets to be “the +unacknowledged legislators of mankind”. + + + + +IV. THE YOUNG HACK + + +I. + +He was, in a humble and practical way, already a writer. He had found +that he had the “curious knack” of doing trivial little things--verses, +jokes, poems--that pleased others. “They came from some little corner +of his consciousness, he scarcely knew how.” And, most incredibly, they +sold! He had been doing these things since he was fifteen. He was soon +making as much as four or five dollars a week doing these things in odd +moments.... + +The family fortunes being for the time improved, he was free to spend +these princely sums upon himself. And since what he most desired was +freedom, he was somewhat reluctantly permitted to have a room of his +own, away from his parents, paying his rent and buying his own food out +of his literary earnings. + +The room, a top-floor hall bedroom, cost $1.25 a week.[5] That did not +leave much for food; but he scorned the worldly demands of appetite, +and negligently fried his own meals, or thought his high thoughts +while he ate the cheapest dishes in the cheapest restaurants--thereby +laying up for himself in years to come a case of chronic indigestion. +He would stay in his unheated room until he got too severe a cold, and +then pay a precious dollar more to move into a room with a radiator in +it.... And meantime there was an “Uncle Terry”, an elder brother of his +father’s, sporting it in New York society. And occasionally the rich +Baltimore relatives would come to New York and invite the young student +to a dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria and a musical comedy afterward and +then perhaps a late supper. Doubtless they meant well; but their guest +would bitterly reflect, after an evening empty of beauty or meaning, +that upon what had been wasted in those few hours he could have lived +for months! + +From his fifteenth to his sixteenth year he went on in this fashion. He +spoke of becoming a lawyer; but this was more than anything else a mask +to hide, even from himself, his rash and beautiful dream of becoming a +poet.... And then, one winter midnight, when he was sixteen, there came +to him his first visitation of poetic ecstasy. + +He was walking at the time alone in a beautiful garden, for it was +during a holiday visit to those “upper regions” of luxury which were +his for the asking. The experience came suddenly and abruptly. “He +could not have told whether he walked or sat down, whether he spoke or +was silent--his consciousness was given up to the people of his dreams, +the companions and lovers of his fancy. The cold and snow were gone, +and there was a moonlit glade in a forest; and thither they came, one +by one, friendly and human, yet in the full panoply of their splendor +and grace. There were Shelley and Milton, and the gentle and troubled +Hamlet, and the sorrowful knight of la Mancha, with the irrepressible +Falstaff to hearten them all; a strangely assorted company, yet royal +spirits all of them, and no strangers to each other in their own world. +And here they gathered and conversed, each in his own vein and from +his own impulse, with gracious fancy and lofty vision and heart-easing +mirth.” + +That was the first of what he came to recognize as a poet’s ecstasies, +to wait for and welcome, and to remember as authentic signs of his +own election to a poetic career. For these visions were more real +than reality; and they summed up in some vivid form all that he felt, +and more than he was aware he knew, about life. They seemed to come +from unknown deeps of his soul; they were what the dull professors of +English literature were unwittingly referring to when they spoke so +glibly of a poet’s “inspiration”. + +He was at first so awed by these visions as to be disinclined to +grapple with them and attempt to fix them in words. It seemed to him +that a whole lifetime must needs be dedicated to realizing them in +verse. Yet “he soon discovered that these visions of wonder came but +once, and that when they were gone they were gone forever. And he must +learn to grapple with them as they fled, to labor with them and hold +them fast, at the cost of whatever heartbreaking strain. Thus alone +could men have even the feeblest reflection of their beauty....” + + +II. + +But, meanwhile, he was under the practical necessity of supporting +himself. His “curious knack” of writing things that sold must be +cultivated. And also, as his father’s earning capacity became more +uncertain and undependable, it was necessary for him to contribute to +the support of his mother. If he could make enough money by writing, +he need not quit his studies. And so, still holding fast to his secret +hope of becoming a poet, he threw the reserve of an immense stock of +youthful energy into the task of making a living by hackwork. He knew +well enough what sort of things he could write that would sell, and he +wrote them. Boys’ stories, tales of adventure, full of his own earlier +boyish dreams of adventure, flowed easily from his pen. + +There were also jokes to be manufactured at odd moments and sold to the +comic papers, or to artists who drew for the comic papers. A dollar +apiece was the established price. In an _Argosy_ serial written at +the age of nineteen, when he was commencing to break under the strain +of hackwork, he introduced a poet, come to New York with an epic poem +in his pocket, poor fool! but fortunately falling in with a smart lad +who supports himself by writing these jokes; and the process is thus +described by this latter character: + + “I have a regular list of joke subjects--there is the tramp joke, + the mother-in-law joke, the boarding-house joke, the small boy + brother joke, the life-insurance agent joke, the cannibal and + missionary joke, and so on. I have counted them up, and I am sure + there are fifty subjects.... + + “Then, to take the tramp idea, for instance; there are a dozen + things available in connection with tramps. There is the fact that + tramps don’t like to saw wood, that they are afraid of water, and + bull-dogs, and tough apple pies. You see, when you get the thing + reduced down like that it is very easy to take any one of the ideas + and build a joke up around it.” + +Shall we have, by way of illustration, from the scrap-book fondly kept +by Upton Sinclair’s mother during this period, a joke thus manufactured? + + Old Lady--You look as if you never washed, sir. + + Weary Will--Yes, ma’am; I prefer godliness. + +Not a very good joke? Well, the editor liked it, and that sufficed. +Another on the same theme: + + Peregrinating Peter--Look dere at dat sign! + + Emigrating Edward--‘Cleaning and dyeing establishment.’ What about + it? + + Peregrinating Peter--Didn’t I tell you them two allus went + tergidder? + +And here is one that harks back to the days of the “Raines law” hotels, +when beer could legally be served in New York on Sunday only with a +meal--the meal being, in practice, a sandwich, endlessly reserved to +each customer in turn: + + “The complaint reads,” began the justice, “that the plaintiff + entered your hotel on Sunday and ordered a sandwich and a glass + of beer. That he was peaceably enjoying the same when you, the + proprietor, assaulted him violently. Guilty or not guilty?” + + “Guilty, your honor.” + + “And why did you do it?” + + “Your honor, the feller did me out of a whole Sunday’s trade.” + + “How, pray?” + + “Why, he ate the sandwich!” + +Thus the “joke-factory”. And when Upton Sinclair is accused, as he +has been, of having no sense of humor, he is perhaps entitled to the +defense that he had to manufacture too many jokes at a dollar apiece.... + +Later came stories and serials in the _Argosy_, a cheap popular +magazine of adventure fiction. They had the first place in the +magazine, and doubtless his mother was proud of her boy’s achievement. + + It was early in the month of February, in the year 1804, along the + northern coast of Africa. + + A small vessel of Moorish rig was speeding over the Mediterranean + waves, urged onward by a fierce gale. The little craft was + close-reefed, and her decks were swept by the flying spray. + +Thus begins _In the Days of Decatur_, a novel complete in one +issue. And _In the Net of the Visconti_, a serial: + + In the month of June of the year 1402 two horsemen were riding + through a deep forest in central Italy. Their horses were spattered + with foam.... + +These youthful literary talents did not fail to attract the attention +of Street & Smith, publishers of five-cent novels, and presently +he was given a regular job producing this kind of fiction for +adolescents. Under military and naval pseudonyms, he wrote a weekly +series about life at West Point and another about life at Annapolis. +The Spanish-American war came on, and he sent both his young heroes +to Cuba. “Killing Spaniards” became a profitable literary occupation. +Each week he wrote a number of the Army weekly (15,000 words) and of +the Navy weekly (15,000 words), and every other week a complete volume +(over 50,000 words) for some cheap “library” series--accomplishing +during this period the almost incredible number of 56,000 words a +week. He kept two stenographers going all the time. One came one day, +the other the next day; he would start dictating at 8 o’clock in the +morning and dictate until noon, about 2,000 words an hour or 8,000 +a day, Sundays not excluded. In the afternoon he would revise the +typed matter brought in from the previous day’s dictation, and in the +evening he would take a long walk in the park and think up the next +day’s story. This was while he was still nominally a college student, +and actually undertaking to keep up his intellectual life. These +hack labors occupied some eight hours a day, leaving eight more for +intellectual pursuits, for he was operating on a sixteen-hour work-day, +leaving eight hours for the necessary business of eating and sleeping. +For these hack labors he received $70 a week, at the rate of an eighth +of a cent a word. At the age of twenty, he was turning out more than +two million words a year. + +He had shown that he was capable of coping with the world on its own +terms. But he had not given up his secret dream of becoming a poet. +Sometimes, when the ecstasy came, he would turn aside from these +necessitous labors, and try to capture its magic in a net of words. He +would try, and hope that he had succeeded, and know that he had failed. +Poetry is a jealous mistress. But he could not take time off to court +her properly. Street & Smith would not pay him a weekly salary while +he was learning to be a poet. The world did not want poetry enough +to pay for it. The best that was in him was worthless in the eyes of +the world. The world valued only this “curious knack” of turning out +adventure stories for adolescent minds. Be a hack, then, or starve! +There lay his choice. + + + + +V. THE ARTIST IN REVOLT + + +I. + +In this manner he earned his living and helped support his mother, +until he was twenty. He had finished college at the age of eighteen, +“passing comfortably near the bottom of his class”, and had entered +Columbia University as a graduate student. During these years, he had +written millions of words of hackwork--a total bulk, he had estimated +it, equal to the complete works of Sir Walter Scott! The psychology +of the period that immediately follows could not well be understood +without taking that fact into consideration. It is obscured in his +own autobiographical novel, _Love’s Pilgrimage_, and does not +at all enter into the quasi-autobiographical _Journal of Arthur +Stirling_. Both of these books tell of the frantic and frenzied +struggles of a young writer for self-realization in the midst of +poverty. In neither of these books will the young writer solve the +problem of poverty by doing any other kind of work except writing: and +this “no compromise” attitude, when carried to such extreme lengths +as it is in these books, alienates a good deal of the sympathies of +the reader. One is better able to understand such reckless and wilful +intransigence when one realizes that this is the maddened rebellion +of an over-driven hack. All work and no play may make Jack a dull +boy, when Jack is an ordinary citizen; but if Jack feels himself +to be an artist, too much hackwork and no opportunity for creative +self-expression makes him go berserk. It is the artist’s revolt against +slavery; and like any slave-revolt it is likely to be marked by “red +ruin and the breaking up of homes”. It is these years of successful +literary drudgery, these millions of meaningless and merely saleable +words, that explain the ruthless singleness of artistic purpose in the +face of every obstacle and in defiance of common sense. It is this +situation which explains the extraordinary combination of abnormal +personal sensitiveness with an inhuman indifference to all opposing +human claims, whether in himself or in others who are dear to him; and +it not merely explains but, more than anything else, serves to excuse +the belief, on the part of the young man himself, that the frightful +excesses of his morbid egotism are symptoms of “genius”. + +The onset of this period of revolt was necessarily delayed at first +and then intensified by a sense of his responsibilities toward his +mother. The burden of her support had lately been borne much more by +him than by his father. It may seem obvious enough to us that, in these +circumstances, she should turn to her relatives for assistance, leaving +the boy free to struggle with his career; but perhaps this was not so +obvious to the relatives--and it was an idea which could grow in the +boy’s mind only in the most painful fashion, and with the assistance of +an immense amount of quasi-impersonal idealism. + +He had to believe that his poetic career was of the utmost importance +to humanity--perhaps never a difficult thing for a young poet to +believe. And since being a poet meant necessarily being poor, his +poverty had to have a quasi-divine sanction and justification, which +his ascetically-religious tendencies made it easy for him to feel. +Poetry was to be not a career so much as a Mission. The Muse might +have spoken to him in such words as those of Jesus, saying: “If any +man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and +children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he +cannot be My disciple”. Indeed, the struggle through which he went +was in the nature of a religious conversion, such as has led more +than one zealot to break the bonds of filial affection and devote his +life to poverty and danger. Yet his repudiation of his mother--for +such it must have seemed to him--was a hard matter. And the partial +transformation of his earlier ambition from that of becoming a poet in +the pure and restricted sense to that of becoming a poetic novelist +was perhaps not merely due to the influence of years of story-writing, +but was a compromise with his sense of obligation to her. For he +conceived of himself as ultimately and brilliantly successful. Such +success would enable him to resume his obligations to her, without +endangering his own ambitions. But this was the utmost compromise of +which his tormented mind was capable. And in the meantime he had to +repudiate all human obligations that stood in his way. He had to hate +the Christianity he had already intellectually outgrown, and, with +some help from Nietzsche, whom he had read in the German, to scorn its +teaching of Obedience, as a slave-morality unfit for free men. + + +II. + +This, in his twentieth and twenty-first years, was his secret life, +and his preparation for the struggle soon to come. Ostensibly, he was +at the university in preparation for a career as a lawyer. “His mother +had given up all hope of seeing him a bishop, and they had compromised +on a judgeship.” But he easily found reasons for repudiating that +career: “Here at the university there was a law-school, and he met the +students, and saw that this, too, could not be. These ‘lawyers’ were +not seeking knowledge for the love of it--they were studying a trade, +by which they could rise in the world. They were not going out to do +battle for justice--they were perfecting themselves in cunning, so that +they might be of help in money-disputes.” Besides, “they were a coarse +and roystering crew, and he shrank from them in repugnance”. + +Being secretly dedicated to a literary career, he was particularly +sensitive to the deficiencies of the courses in English literature. +An eminent professor and critic assigned him a “theme” on College +Athletics. He decided to quit the course, and the following +conversation ensued, as reported in _Love’s Pilgrimage_: + + The professor gazed over his spectacles at him. “Why?” + + “I don’t think I’m getting any good out of it.” + + “But how can you tell what good you are getting?” + + “... I don’t seem to feel that I am.” + + “It’s not to be supposed that you would feel it--not at this early + stage. You must wait.” + + “But I don’t like the method, sir.” + + “What’s wrong with the method?” + + He was not sure, he said; but he did not think that writing could + be taught. Anyway, one first had to have something worth saying---- + + “Are you laboring under the delusion that you know anything about + writing?... Because if you are, let me disabuse your mind at once. + There is no one in the class who knows less about writing than + yourself.... It is my business to teach students to write. I’ve + given my life to it, and I think I know something about it. But you + think you know more than I do. That’s all.” + + And so they parted. + +In a similar course under an even more eminent professor and critic, a +grammatical error was discovered in a poem. “You will find such things +occasionally,” said the professor, as the story is told in _The +Goose-Step_. “There is a line in Byron--‘There let him lay’--and I +have an impression that I once came upon a similar error in Shelley. +Some day before long I plan to read Shelley through and see if I can +find it.” Shelley was the boy’s dearest friend; and he quit that course +also. + +Nevertheless, while at the university, he discovered for himself how to +master a foreign language. He familiarized himself in a few days with +the main features of its grammar and syntax, and then read--looking +up each word once for all time, and impressing its meaning so firmly +in his mind that he would never have to waste time looking in the +dictionary again. On the side he thus taught himself German, French, +and Italian and read immensely in all those languages. In German he +made enthusiastically the acquaintance of Goethe, a picture of whom as +a young poet he carried about in his pocket “like a lover”--perhaps, +unwittingly to himself, as a secret promise of the coming true of his +own rash poetic ambitions. + +His only friends were still in the world of imagination. He had no time +to make friends; and, if he had wished to do so, he was too much of an +oddity at the university; “there was a certain facetious senior who +had caught him hurrying through the corridors one day, declaring in +excitement that-- + + ‘Banners yellow, glorious, golden, + On its roof did float and flow!’ + +But he had long ago ceased to hope for a friend, or to care what +anybody thought about him; it was clear to him by this time that he had +made himself into a poet, and was doomed to be unhappy.” + +The time came when he could withhold himself no longer from his own +creative work. “There were many signs by which this state might +have been known. He went quite alone, and spoke to no man; he was +self-absorbed, and walked about with his eyes fixed on vacancy; he +was savage when disturbed, and guarded his time unscrupulously. He +had given up the last formalities of life--he no longer attended any +lectures, or wore cuffs, and he would not talk at meal-times. He took +long walks at impossible hours, and he was fond of a certain high hill +where the storms blew. These things had been going on for a year; and +now the book that had been coming to ripeness in his mind was ready to +be born.” + +The projected book was a novel, to be called _Springtime and +Harvest_. He was so full of this novel that he could not think about +anything else; “the professors at the university, and all his relatives +and acquaintances had given him up as a hopeless case”. But he had a +hundred dollars saved up; and he would spend the summer in the country +doing his book. + +In the early spring he went to Quebec, found a lonely shack in the +woods, had provisions brought to him twice a week, and wrote madly. + +It was his break for freedom. + + +III. + +That was in the spring of 1900, when he was not yet twenty-two years +old. The previous years, ever since he had grown conscious of his +poetic destiny, had been years of struggle and preparation to fit and +free himself for his chosen creative task. It doubtless seemed to him +that the preparation was complete, and that there remained but the +actual struggle of accomplishment, under the mere handicap of poverty. + +The truth would perhaps have been too discouraging to face. + +Though he had formally decided to seek fame as a writer of prose, he +had not really renounced his poetic ambitions; and we are obliged to +consider, as gently as possible, his claims to distinction as a poet. +His conceptions were truly poetic, and Shelleyan in their nature; it +is not strange that his verse should have been thinly intellectual and +of a rarefied emotional quality; it is natural enough that it should +have dealt with life not directly but through the medium of vague +images from some ideal fairyland; its lack of original music, its lack +of observation of the natural world, its lack of any striking verbal +qualities--all these are faults which might be overcome in time by a +young poet of great energy and high ambitions. The early poems of great +poets are sometimes terribly bad, and it would be rash to conclude from +the mere feebleness and unoriginality of a young poet’s verse that +he has no future. Yet in the fragments submitted for our examination +in _Love’s Pilgrimage_ it is impossible to find any positive +evidences of any sort indicating a poetic vocation. + +The same faults, indeed, are apparent in his early prose; but miracles +are more to be expected in the realm of prose achievement. Yet it was +with but a scanty equipment that this young writer faced the world +so confidently. This first novel of his, produced with his heart’s +blood, was a shadowy affair; for his heart had no blood in it yet, +only morals, ideas, and egotism. The terrible defect of this first +creative effort was his lack of knowledge of life. Such knowledge as +he had assimilated came from books. But of first-hand acquaintance +with life he gave no indication. His actual experience of twenty-one +years of existence in this troubled planet had been, it would seem, too +painful for realization in concrete form; it had been refined by some +psychic process into moral lessons, and it was in this dry form that it +reached his imagination, to emerge in earnest but jejune fables that +had but the remotest relation to reality. His imagination was securely +barricaded against actual life. Of actual life he was afraid, however +ardently he might live in his airy refuge of dreams and thoughts. Such, +indeed, was his conception of the poet’s life. It was by deliberate +intention that he turned his back upon the welter of experience. +Filled as he was with moral earnestness, he no doubt despised the late +nineteenth-century ideal of the “Ivory Tower”. Yet he lived in an +equally remote and cloudy refuge of his own--it might be called a Tower +of Clouds. + +So long as he continued to live shut away from life behind those cloudy +battlements, ambition and moral earnestness would scarcely avail him +to become one of the Shelleyan “legislators of mankind”. He would +have remained, for all his excellent intentions, utterly ineffective, +forever unable to gain a hearing. His “genius” had to be informed +by human experience before it could give him power to communicate +his emotions to mankind. And since his ascetic fear of life made him +incapable of learning joyously, he had to learn by pain. Life had to +batter down the walls of his refuge, force itself upon him, pry open +his eyes, pierce into his ears, overwhelm the defenses of his mind, +before it could reach his heart.... The education of the artist is +sometimes a complex business. A poem of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s, +well-conned by him at the time, tells of the pain involved in “making +a poet out of a man”. He was prepared to suffer that pain. But he was +unprepared to suffer the further pain, which was to complicate his life +for several years, of making a man out of a half-grown artist-boy. It +would take a woman to do that for him. + +But he was inured to pain, already an adept in those sufferings which +come from resisting the claims of life; and life, even in the shape of +woman, would find him a worthy and resourceful antagonist. It promised +to be an epic conflict. + + + + +VI. THYRSIS + + +I. + +The young poet’s struggle with human nature is told at length in +_Love’s Pilgrimage_. With the information there given, and with +inferences of our own, we may draw this brief outline of the origins of +that struggle in his mind. + +A pattern of fear--fear of the outside world--had existed in his mind +since early childhood. Specifically it concerned drinking. “In his +earliest childhood he had known that his father was preyed upon, just +as certainly as any wild thing in the forest. At first the enemies had +been saloon-keepers, and wicked men who tempted him to drink with them. +The names of these men were household words to him, portents of terror; +they peopled his imagination as epic figures, such as Black Douglas +must have been to the children of the Northern Border. But then, with +widening intelligence, it became certain social forces, at first dimly +apprehended. It was the god of ‘business’--before which all things fair +and noble went down.” And as this conception of the vast network and +conspiracy of worldly evil was widening in the intellectual realm into +an intelligent and useful theoretical understanding of the nature of +capitalist society, in the meanwhile--or so we may conclude--it was +broadening in the untutored realm of the unconscious mind into a more +or less morbid fear of woman, as the other great “temptation” of life. +And what is said in _Love’s Pilgrimage_ specifically of his fear +of the one temptation can be read as covering the other: “Outwardly +he was like other boys, eager and cheerful, even boisterous; but ... +life had made him into an ascetic. He must be stern, even merciless, +with himself--because of the fear that was in him.... The fear that +self-indulgence might lay its grisly paws upon him!” “So it was that +the soul of this lad had grown somber, and taken to brooding upon the +mysteries of fate. Life was no jest and no holiday, it was no place +for shams and self-deceptions. It was a place where cruel enemies set +traps for the unwary; a field where blind and merciless forces ranged, +unhindered by man or God.” + +It would not be strange if love itself were to come to seem to this boy +one of these “traps”. But at first it was only the simpler forms of the +sexual temptation that he feared. Not, indeed, in its grosser form, as +in prostitution; to one with his fastidiousness of temperament this was +no temptation; “the thought of a woman who sold herself for money”--he +had first heard of this strange transaction at college--“could never +bring him anything but shuddering.” Yet there were real temptations. +“All about his lodging-house lived the daughters of the poor, and these +were a snare for his feet.” At recurrent intervals a restlessness +would interrupt his serenity of work and study “and he would go out +into the night and wander about the streets for hours, impelled by a +futile yearning for he knew not what--the hope of something clean in +the midst of uncleanness, of some adventure that would be not quite +shameful to a poet’s fancy”--only to steal home unsatisfied, “baffled +and sick at heart”. He took, with some embarrassment, these troubles to +his clergyman friend, who told him of his own youthful struggle--“which +had resulted in victory, for he had never known a woman”. He emphasized +the importance of the boy’s choice: “On the one hand was slavery and +degradation and disease; and on the other were all the heights of the +human spirit.” He was eloquently recommended to “save and store” his +sexual energy, so that this base metal might become “transmuted to the +gold of intellectual and emotional power”. Such, he was assured, was +the “universal testimony of the masters of the higher life”. Tennyson’s +Galahad was referred to, whose strength was as the strength of ten +because his heart was pure.... Nor was this to be a denial of love, +but on the contrary its consecration. Some day he would meet the woman +he was to cleave to, whom of course he would expect to be a virgin; +and he must do her as much honor--“he must save the fire and fervor of +his young desire for his life’s great consummation”. And a “compact” +was made, according to which the youth was to write to the man every +month and tell him of his “success or failure”. In times of trial, the +thought of having to confess the truth to his friend was “like a sword +hanging over him”, and this alone was, on such occasions, what kept +him to his vow. Ordinarily, in a life so dominated by fear of sex, the +temptations are of a merely imaginative sort, since there is lacking +the courage to undergo those preliminaries of approach to the opposite +sex which must occur before the temptation can be of a very realistic +nature. But this youth’s masculine enterprise was not so wholly chained +up as that, it would appear, for _Love’s Pilgrimage_ recounts +one such hour of trial, in which a spirited girl at a summering-place +yields to his fiery importunities and makes a date with him, only to +be met by an ashamed youth who has in the meantime conquered these +impulses of his baser nature and now offers her his agonized apology +for his caddishness, together with some moral generalizations on the +subject. “Preaching won’t help it any,” she says; “I don’t want to +hear it. Good-bye.” For this, and other such vergings upon surrender, +he would punish himself by “months of toil and penance and of savage +self-immolation.... For several months at a time he would go without +those kinds of food that he liked; and instead of going to bed at +one o’clock he would read the New Testament in Greek for an hour.” +These moral struggles are reminiscent of Tolstoy’s, early and late +in life; except that Tolstoy was reproaching and punishing himself +for sins actually, rather than almost, committed. Like Tolstoy, he +kept self-reminding diaries and wrote exhortations to himself. And, +being an agnostic and unable to use the ordinary theological forms +of prayer, “he fashioned new invocations for himself: prayers to the +unknown sources of his vision, to the new powers of his own soul--‘the +undiscovered gods’, as he called them.” And “above all he prayed to his +vision of the maiden who waited the issue of this battle and held the +crown of victory in her keeping....” + +This ideal of a future sweetheart began to take shape in his mind. Some +lines by the English bachelor-schoolmaster, Cory, were like a refrain +to his thoughts on this subject: + + “Somewhere beneath the sun, + These quivering heart-strings prove it, + Somewhere there must be one + Made for this soul to move it; ... + _Some one whom I could court + With no great change of manner, + Still holding reason’s fort, + Though waving fancy’s banner._” + +First of all, that is to say, she should be one who would take him as +she found him; an inspiration to him (of course), she should inspire +him to go on doing precisely what he wanted to do; hers was to be +the surrender, not his in any degree. A sufficiently unlikely young +creature, yet one for which the young poet is inevitably bound to wish. +For the rest, she should be of an angelic purity and goodness.[6] + + +II. + +The vision of a distant wedded bliss, the reward of abstinence as +promised him by his clergyman friend, sufficed for a time; but his +poetic ambitions came presently to trouble and disturb that hope. As +a poet, doomed to poverty, he would be economically unable to accept +those conventions of marriage under which a husband is required to +support his wife.... These material limitations may have served to +halt the development of his love-ideals in a boyish stage. Nor is that +to be wondered at. A poet, in a society in which poetry is ordinarily +a neglected and unrewarded art, is faced by the painful choice of +renouncing either his art or the normal masculine satisfactions +involved in giving protection--a home, food, clothes--to his beloved. +He, then, was obliged to conceive their companionship in other than +terms of ordinary marriage. To take a wife, in the conventional sense, +would be to chain himself for life and give up all hope of achievement +in his art. And this very real danger to himself as an artist could but +reinforce his morbid fear of the actualities of sex, and confirm him in +his reluctance to assume an adult masculine rôle. + +Under these not unfamiliar circumstances, the artist as a young man +sometimes accepts the compromise of casual, temporary and irresponsible +relationships; but to an ascetic young artist of high ideals these +were impossible. He was able to conquer his merely physical instincts; +but what would happen when he actually fell in love? Would he fall +blindly into the “trap” set by nature? If not, how would he seek to +avoid it?... In the meantime, at nineteen and twenty, he cultivated the +art of music, as a means of sublimating these troublesome emotions, +attended concerts, worshipped the hero-soul of Beethoven, and practised +till his fingers were raw and his back aching, on the violin. In +summer, in the country with his mother, he would take his violin into +the fields and play all day to the squirrels. A musician, arriving at +that summer resort, driving over in the hotel bus, heard an Italian +woman in the street singing the ‘Tannhaüser March’. He asked the woman +where she learned it; and she explained: “Dey ees a crazy feller in de +woods--he play it all day for t’ree weeks!” + +At the age of twenty-one, it seemed to him that with the help of music +he had “beaten his devils”, and come to be “master of himself”. + +Then he went to the country to write his book. + + +III. + +The first fury of his creative impulse had barely spent itself when +his mother and another woman, her oldest friend, arrived to spend the +summer in a boarding-house in a village near Quebec, and with them the +other woman’s daughter, a dark-eyed girl of twenty. The girl brought +his lunches to the negligent young poet at work in his cabin in the +woods, and a companionship was begun, with emotional consequences that +made it difficult enough for him to concentrate on his work as a young +poet should. They were, in fact, before the summer was over, involved +in the torments and problems of first love. + +She was a girl whom he had admired for her beauty, but scorned for her +submissiveness, and never for a moment in his imagination cast in the +heroic rôle of a poet’s mate. Not was she, apparently, at all suited +to such a rôle. From the worldly point of view, a poet’s mate should +doubtless be an eminently practical and capable person; and from the +poet’s own point of view she should be by temperament and education +able to understand and sympathize with his ambitions. None of these +things was true of this dark-eyed girl of twenty. She was spoiled +and wilful, fond of leisure and comfort, fond of play, with a deep +capacity for the pagan enjoyment of life. And perhaps it was these very +qualities, the dramatic complement of his own impersonal, fanatic, +Puritanical qualities, which attracted him to her.... That can be +understood; and it can be understood that he should fool himself into +thinking that he was going to educate and train her to be like himself +I But what perversity of feminine nature could have so laid open her +young girl’s heart to the worship of this scornful youth, and made her, +not merely fall in love with him as a summer’s idle diversion, but be +ready to go with him upon his own harsh terms into a life of poverty +and struggle? Perhaps it was the charm of his distinction, for he was +certainly like no other man she had ever known: though she might have +considered him as a well-brought-up young girl should, merely “queer”. + +Perhaps it was something authoritarian and quasi-parental in his +attitude toward her; for he began his wooing by scolding her for the +kind of life she lived--for being an idle butterfly. + +Then this conversation: + +She: “But people aren’t to blame for the lives they live!” + +He: “Why not?” + +She: “Because--they can’t help them. They are bound fast.” + +He: “They should break loose.” + +She: “That is easy for you to say. You have no ties.” + +He: “I did have them--I might have them still. But I broke them.” + +She: “Ah, but you are a man!” + +He: “What difference does that make?” + +She: “It makes all the difference in the world. You can earn money, +you can go away by yourself. But suppose you were a girl--shut up in a +home, and told that was your ‘sphere’?” + +He: “I’d fight--I’d break my way out somehow, never fear. If one +doesn’t break out, it simply means that his desire isn’t strong enough.” + +So it begins. It might be a Russian wooing of the Nihilist period. +It seems that the butterfly has a soul, and truly desires freedom. +The young Nihilist tells her sternly that she must work for her +salvation. She begs humbly for instructions, for tasks--and he sets +them. He lectures her on Christianity, on marriage, on the wrongness +of the world as it is; and she listens with glowing eyes. Of course +the master reads his unfinished masterpiece to his pupil; she thinks +it wonderful.... Kisses begin to mingle with these lectures; boy and +girl kisses, cool as the touch of a flower. Yet even kisses such as +these awaken in his mind the reverberations of an old alarm; and he +commences to explain to her the essential loneliness of his destiny as +a poet. “And do you expect to have no human relationships as long as +you live?” she asks in awe. They discuss that. There is, it seems, a +possible mate for him. But she would have to endure every privation. +He would not turn aside one step for her sake. No, rather he would +drive her as mercilessly as he drove himself, up the steep hill toward +perfection. Not, one would think, an alluring prospect for a joy-loving +young girl! Yet it fails to frighten her. He quotes in warning: + + “Maiden! a nameless life I lead, + A nameless death I’ll die; + The fiend whose lantern lights the mead + Were better mate than I!” + +And now, in a month or two of companionship, she has had good reason +to know how realistically true that warning is. She knows how much +more important his book is to him than her mere company. He sets her +to learning German. He scolds her for not learning it instantly. A +sufficiently quaint courtship! But he is her master; she takes gladly +what he gives, the lectures, the scoldings, and, more infrequently, +the kisses. He is ashamed of kissing, as an unworthy weakness--and +doubtless also a waste of good time that might have been devoted to +further counsels of perfection. And presently it is understood that +she is his mate; by no means his perfect mate as yet, but presumably +to be perfected by further lectures, scoldings, and German lessons. Of +course, it is made clear, they are not sweethearts in any ordinary +sense. There has been already too much of kissing and petting; she is +to get down to her German, and grind away at that, so that some day she +may be his intellectual equal.... + +In _Love’s Pilgrimage_, where this courtship is described in +detail, the girl is called Corydon and the boy Thyrsis. The choice +of those names, Thyrsis and Corydon, for the principals in this +boy-and-girl romance, is relevant to the boyish and poetic ideal which +the young lover so gallantly and absurdly attempted to impose upon the +recalcitrant facts of their human nature. The original Thyrsis and +Corydon, in Greek and Roman pastoral poetry, were shepherd-boys and +dear friends; and it was such an idyllic and quasi-boyish companionship +in thought and work, without any of the disturbing influences of sex, +that this young lover had in mind. He was spiritually unprepared for +any surrender to the tempestuous waves of man-and-woman love; and if he +was so harsh and graceless in his treatment of his young sweetheart, +it was out of fear. And he may well have been afraid. He seemed to be +the master in this relationship, the dictator of hard terms which she +meekly accepted. Yet was he truly in control of the situation? Or did +this girl submit with such proud humility because her heart knew a +secret which he had yet to learn? + +His learning of it proceeded slowly. Their talk and their studies +lasted late into the night at the lonely cabin in the woods. The gossip +of a summer resort community can be imagined, and the alarm of the +two mothers. The young people, conscious of their purity, could only +despise a world which thought that love necessarily meant “obscenity”. +“Everybody is thinking obscenity about us!” he said to her indignantly. +They stubbornly persisted in their companionship until the girl was +taken away to New York.... Now the young poet had time to write on +his book in peace; yet his thoughts of her gave him no peace, and he +spent the precious hours of his hard-bought freedom in writing long +letters to her. Not love-letters, precisely; they were scoldings on +paper, because the thought of her kept him from his work; exhortations, +warnings. He was trying to escape from her. Yet it was not she, after +all, who held him fast caught in that net; it was something within +himself, battling against his fears--the rash desire for life. Then +furiously he threw himself into the task of writing, to escape the +problem which confronted him. + +The fact seemed to be that he had taken this girl’s destinies into his +own hands; she was his. But upon what terms? He had preached his quaint +Tolstoyan-Tennysonian idealism to her, and she had accepted it; she was +ready to live with him as a sister in one room in New York that winter. +This plan was reluctantly renounced on medical advice; apparently it +was not so easy to live an ideal life in defiance of the conventional +world.[7] What choice then was left except abandonment of a spiritual +responsibility he had undertaken--or ordinary marriage? That autumn he +came to New York knowing dazedly that he was going to marry her. + + + + +VII. THYRSIS AND CORYDON + + +I. + +Thyrsis and Corydon, as we may for a while continue to call them, were +married in New York City one day in October of that year, 1900. They +had no money with which to set up housekeeping, and so they lived +with his parents, while waiting for the book, which had been finished +somehow amidst all this storm and stress, to be accepted. + +The book wasn’t immediately accepted; it was, to the young writer’s +astonishment, rejected--the first of many rejections.... Now that he +had so rashly taken unto himself a wife, it was agreed by everyone that +he should get a job and support her properly. But he refused to do so. +Behind him lay the meaningless slavery of hackwork from which he had +barely escaped with his poet’s soul alive; back into that slavery he +was not going. And was it not fully understood that it was his mate’s +privilege to share the hardships of a poet’s life? + +In a world of relatives and friends who kept wondering why her husband +didn’t get a job, who pitied her for what seemed to them her strange +and humiliating position, the girl did not, as she might easily have +done, lose faith in her artist-husband. But she began to lose faith in +herself--feeling herself to be a weak and inferior and merely human +person mated with a relentless, inexorable and inhuman will. Sometimes +the shock of some new frustration in his career, some disappointment +at the hands of an editor or publisher, left him a hurt boy to be +comforted in her arms. But these moments were brief; ashamed of his +weakness, he would lash himself to some new task, and send her to her +corner to attend to what seemed to be her wifely duty of studying +German. She could not get on with German, and that made her feel more +abysmally inferior. It seemed that they had no time to be together, now +that they were married. They did sometimes play Bach together, in his +savage and determined and utterly unsentimental fashion. She liked to +be read to, but he was too impatient for that--he ravaged the newspaper +of its contents in three minutes and tossed it gutted aside, and dealt +with books in a similarly purposeful and efficient way. If he spared +time for a walk, he fretted at the frightful waste of time required +for her dressing and primping. They ate, then and later, haphazardly, +and lived for periods on cold food, bringing on in him a chronic case +of indigestion and increasing his querulousness. It was small wonder +that she in turn developed a case of nerves; and her capacity for thus +giving pain brought her what all her capacity for giving joy had never +brought, the reward of her husband’s serious attention. He would sit +up with her all night and discuss and analyze her morbid fears, in the +light of the latest therapeutic knowledge from abroad. It seems to +have become, under those conditions, something of a habit for her to +indulge in what were nicknamed “soul-mates”, as a means of securing +some attention from her husband. + + +II. + +It was his fierce determination to fight it out as a writer if he +starved. His novel, _Springtime and Harvest_, was at last +privately published, in the spring of 1901, with money borrowed from a +relative. It contained a preface telling about himself and his hopes; +this book was to be the first of a library which he intended to found, +“for the purpose of increasing helpful reading among the humble people +of our land.” He added: “_Springtime and Harvest_ may fail, and +subsequent books may fail; but that library is quite certain to come. +The writer is a man who gives all his time to his art, and some day +or other, he will have money; it is by this use of it that he hopes +to keep clean his artist’s conscience.” _Springtime and Harvest_ +sold two hundred copies, enough to pay back the relative. This same +relative, impressed with his energies and abilities, had already +offered him a very good job in the financial world. But he did not want +a job, he wanted a chance to develop his genius. He became shameless, +and wrote begging letters to rich men famed as philanthropists, asking +for a subsidy. Impersonal subsidies, not given out of friendship but +for the encouragement of young talent, do now to a limited extent +exist; perhaps Upton Sinclair’s later propaganda on behalf of that idea +had something to do with its realization; but there was no such kindly +custom then. His letters, when not thrown in the wastebasket by the +rich men’s secretaries, were answered with the information that if he +were truly a young man of genius he would find in poverty and struggle +the best encouragement to achievement. Young poets must not, by rash +generosity, be prevented from learning in suffering what they are to +teach in song! In his case there was some truth in that smug and cruel +notion; at least, it was to take more suffering than he had yet known +to make him understand life.... + +He was still self-imprisoned in his tower of clouds. His idealism could +not yet accept the human terms of marriage. The medical advice upon +which the chaste earlier plans of the lovers had been abandoned had +been accompanied with the information (which was news to Thyrsis) that +actual marriage need not result in children. The advice, upsetting +enough to the whole universe which the poet had erected upon his +neurotic fear of life, had been only with much misgiving on his part +acted upon. Marriage had opened a new world to him; but it was a +too disturbing world, too alien to that cloudy realm of ideas and +moralities, of disciplines and duties, in which he was accustomed +to move; his generalizations had no meaning in this new pagan world +of delight--and he presently, from high motives drawn from his own +habitual realm, felt that it was his duty to renounce it. He had +thoughtfully and earnestly concluded that it could not be right to +enjoy the raptures of the marriage bed unless those raptures were +consecrated to an unselfish purpose, namely that of creating new +life. That purpose was not at all a part of his plans; it was totally +in conflict with the much more important purpose of fulfilling his +consecrated literary ambitions. Nevertheless, the idea of renunciation +had come too late; it appeared that these connubial raptures had after +all not been mere ignoble and unfruitful self-indulgence, but had been, +however unintentionally, dedicated to their proper biologic purpose, +after all. + +And now the chagrined poet could in secret mock bitterly at himself as +a deluded victim of Nature, and trace in memory the steps by which he +had been led into that very trap of human responsibility which he had +thought himself wise enough to avoid.... Yet there was a possible way +of escape, even now, from the trap. And these bitter soliloquies were +interrupted by a practical discussion of the question whether this new +life, so inimical to the poetic career, should be permitted to be. It +was discussed upon high moral grounds, pro and con. And it was in the +nature of an astonishing revelation to the young poet of a hitherto +unguessed secret of the feminine heart when, while they were trying +to make up their minds, he observed Corydon’s profound interest and +delight in a sufficiently ordinary baby halted in its carriage before +the park bench where they sat talking. Was it, then, possible that +this girl, who had come to him as a poet’s mate, and was presumed to +be interested in nothing but inspiring and assisting his career--was +it possible that she _wanted_ a baby? That, he concluded, was +actually true; and, in the irreconcilable conflict of moral duties +which the situation otherwise presented, that merely emotional factor +was giving the deciding vote. Thyrsis was becoming more human. + + +III. + +The birth, in December 1901, of his child, an event of which he was a +startled witness, was almost too appalling a glimpse into that realm +of human experience from which he had tried to escape. Yet not long +afterward he was able to confront his memories of that event with a +sufficiently fearless mind and build them up into one of the most +remarkable scenes in the whole of modern realistic fiction--the scene +being later incorporated into his novel, _Love’s Pilgrimage_.[8] + +The child, a son named David, was a personage of sufficient importance +to affect even such an inflexible determination as that of this young +poet. He did not get a job, but he did hackwork. His pen had lost its +old fluency in that sort of writing, it was no longer a knack but +an agony; but he did it in desperation, together with book-reviews +and every sort of literary odd-job by which he could make a dollar. +He raised a laugh in an editorial office by offering, as an expert, +to review a book on the care and feeding of infants; he was willing +enough to be laughed at if he could thus get a much needed book without +having to pay for it. _Springtime and Harvest_ was republished +by a regular publishing house late in 1901 under the title _King +Midas_, without diminishing either his poverty or his obscurity.... +A new literary project needed for its accomplishment more peace than a +new baby permitted, and he had to go elsewhere to work for some weeks; +in the meantime his wife and her child were taken away by indignant +relatives, and when he returned he was forbidden to see either of them +until he should have “come to his senses” and agreed to behave like +a proper husband--that is, get a job. By letter between the parted +parents it was arranged that the nurse should bring the baby on a +certain day and hour to a certain place in the park, so that he might +see his son. A nurse did come to the spot at that hour, wheeling a +baby much less beautiful than he remembered his own as being; and he +was miserable until his telegram, asking if the baby had red hair, was +answered by one explaining that the nurse had been ill and not able to +go to the park that day!... But even this pressure failed to bring the +stubborn young poet to terms, and his wife and child were presently +allowed to go and share his poverty. + + +IV. + +His second novel, _Prince Hagen_, though not published until +1903, was written in 1901. In 1902 he wrote _The Journal of Arthur +Stirling_, a book which made a considerable sensation in the +literary world, and which will be dealt with in the next chapter. +Still poor, and unknown to the great public, he moved in the spring +of 1903 to the outskirts of Princeton, N.J., where he lived with his +wife and child in a shack in the woods, and wrote two more novels, the +second of which was to bring him worldwide fame. His intellectual and +artistic development during this period will be considered at length +in the following chapters; but, as a significant detail revealing the +progress and suggesting the limits of his emotional development, we may +fix our attention on that shack in the woods near Princeton. + +In the back pages of _Country Life in America_ for June 1904, +following the accounts and pictures of expensive and luxurious summer +residences for the rich, there appeared a brief article entitled _A +Country House Built and Furnished for Only $156_ (Photograph by the +author). It began: + + The writer of this article is pursuing the occupation of unpopular + novelist, and is attempting what few even of the popular novelists + attempt--to live on his royalties. + +One does not need to turn to the signature to know that it was written +by Upton Sinclair. Yet for purposes of comparison we may, before +going on, interpolate here some fragrants of a manifesto composed the +previous spring, just before moving to this tiny house in the country: + + ... born to sing and to worship, as I was born to sing and to + worship ... + + ... stewed and mashed in misery for a lifetime, as I for seven long + years ... + + ... I could not greet my Muse until I had flung my banner wide ... + + ... You laugh at me, no doubt, but some day you will heed me ... + +Unquestionably there is power in these phrases; but unquestionably also +they are boyish.... And now we return to the article in _Country +Life_: + + Prior to the discovery herein to be set forth, I lived, as + most city-bred and non-wealthy people live, in a flat or a + boarding-house in winter and in a summer hotel in the warm months. + +To be sure, it is scarcely true that “most city-bred and non-wealthy +people” in America go to summer hotels for the “warm months”; he was +perhaps thinking of the class he was addressing in that publication: +workingmen do not read _Country Life in America_.... But this +prose, in comparison with the fragments of last year’s manifesto quoted +above, has in it the quality of civilized conversation; the shrill +boyish note is gone; it is a man speaking. The boy has grown up. And +he has grown up, somewhat in spite of himself, through the influence +of human experience in its most inescapable domestic terms. He has +been living, not in a poetic Shelleyan grotto, but in what despite +some unusual features is nevertheless unmistakably a home. He has +been a husband and father,--doubtless not a very good husband, for +a preoccupied artist may easily fail, and a puritanical idealist is +pretty certain to fail, to be that--yet the head of a household, a +breadwinner, a man responsible to wife and child; he has almost if not +quite ceased to dramatize himself in the grandiose rôle of a solitary +and unique figure bearing the burden of a poetic doom. He has become +considerably humanized, and as it happens through suffering--for +domesticity is not the least of those miseries in which, as he +complained in his manifesto the previous year, he had been stewed and +mashed. Corydon does not seem to have been a very efficient housewife +or very capable mother; and she probably seemed to an impecunious young +poet dreadfully extravagant. They were both terribly overworked. Yet +domesticity, to the young poet a monster of such frightful mien that to +be hated need but to be seen, when endured sufficiently was found to +have human values of its own; and though he might never be said to have +been thoroughly domesticated, though the close and warm intimacies of +family life remained something to shy away from as much as possible, +yet he had gained something from his experience which now led him to +show other young people the way to these life-values, at a price within +their meager means! + +And so to continue with the article; the next few paragraphs are +introductory to his theme, but interesting for their realistic +information: + + So overwhelming was the force of custom that for many years I + never dreamed there was any other way to live. At last, however, + the truth dawned upon me that I was foolish to pay for the + use of a hotel in the country when what I wanted was only the + country and not the hotel. I chanced one day to be walking in the + woods when I came upon a little cabin which had been built for + picnicking purposes by a lady who had immediately afterward been + providentially smitten with a rheumatic knee. This house I hired + for $25 for the season, and then I began to discover what things + there were in life. This house had cost about $400; and from force + of custom I rented it without inquiring further. + + Meantime, also, I went back to the city in winter, though there was + nothing I wanted in the city except books.... I am writing this + article because I know that there are in New York many thousands of + poets, painters, musicians, and other would-be dwellers in the land + of the spirit, living in just exactly that way, and never dreaming + that there is any other way for them to do it; that there is any + sort of shelter save a hall bedroom at $2 a week, or any sort of + food save what is shoved at them over a restaurant table at twenty + or thirty cents a dish! Figure up the cost of a hall bedroom at $2 + a week for a lifetime ... + +Thus far, to be sure, this is simply a country studio for artists that +is being suggested; but it abruptly becomes a home in the same sentence: + + and then consider that houses suitable for the occupancy of poets + and lovers may be built at a cost of from $50 to $150, and dwelt in + all the year round at a cost of $6 a week for two and $2 more for + the baby. + + Five years ago, the writer met a charming young couple one summer, + engaged, and painfully in love. With the naïveté of lovers, + they told me all about the problem--which was that he was only + twenty-six, and was earning only a poor $1800 a year; and they had + waited two years already--they expected to wait one more, and then + he would receive $2,200, and upon that they were heroically going + to try to get along. The writer has not seen them for three years, + but just the other day he made inquiry. Whether the increase was + delayed or their courage gave out, he does not know--but they are + still engaged! + +It may seem a little unfair for this young writer, of all persons, to +taunt these cowardly lovers; but that he can do so means that he has +at last accepted that impulse which in spite of so many qualms carried +him into marriage as, not a weakness nor a folly, but a thing to be +proud of--not a mere falling into a “trap of Nature”, but a responsible +action of his own; that is to say, his sexual impulse is at last +acknowledged to be a part of himself, and not a “devil” nor an “enemy”. +But to proceed: + + The house shown in this illustration cost $156. This figure is + larger in two respects than necessary--mistakes were made in its + construction, and it was built in a place where lumber is very high + in price. As described in this article, it can be built for about + $125. + + It stands about three miles outside of Princeton, New Jersey, which + was chosen because it is a beautiful town with a library. The house + is built upon a long strip of land bordering a dense woods; this + strip has a score of great trees upon it, and no less than a dozen + springs, of various degrees of coldness. It was of no use to the + farmer who owns it, and he rented it for $10 a year. + + The house is 16×18 feet. It has three rooms--a kitchen, a bedroom, + and a living-room--respectively 6×7, 9×7, and 11×16 feet. Six by + seven sounds small for a room, but every part of it was calculated + beforehand, and there is plenty of space.... + +He continues with details of its construction and cost. There is a +piazza, to be used as a dining-room in summer. “A good deal of the +furniture is home-made, of plain white pine; it can be varnished or +covered with pretty stuffs, though the present house is in the Spartan +style.” The house took six days to build. “Enough crockery and kitchen +utensils--agate-ware and unbreakable--can be bought for $5 or $10, +and then the house is inhabitable--for poets and lovers!” Near-by in +the woods is a study, costing $25. “It is 8×10, and sounds small; but +it holds a table, a book-case, a stove, a trunk, two chairs, and an +unpopular novelist”--who presently was to write there a book that would +be read all over the world.[9] + +It is a brave description; but certain reflections present themselves. +This “Spartan” simplicity, one feels sure, is not dictated entirely +by poverty, but by a Spartan temperament; and one is equally sure +that the Corydon of whom one has read in _Love’s Pilgrimage_, +however delighted she might be at having a house of her own to be +mistress of at last, would have preferred something less bleak. She +was not Spartan: she was Corinthian, rather; and her tastes have not +been consulted, or have been sternly overruled, in the planning of +this home. One looks at the photograph so proudly furnished; a neat, +bleak, Quakerish place, for whose drabness poverty does not wholly +account--the home of an ascetic, a despiser of soft living, of comfort, +of ease; the home of one who recognizes the uses “of bread and bacon, +of a stove and a woodpile”, and scorns all beauty except that “of +prayer and music, of joy and love, of wisdom and high resolve”, and +perhaps of “beautiful books in an occasional rare instance”--a moralist +still! And one remembers, in one of Corydon’s letters in _Love’s +Pilgrimage_, the wistful cry: “Oh, but how I want a poor taste +of joy!” One might guess that a girl of her temperament would be +exasperated into rebellion by a husband who was afraid of beauty and +joy in its most innocent forms, afraid even of his love of her; and +that this rebellion would take forms calculated to torment and madden +even him out of his Olympian austerity. Not a happy prospect for this +marriage! But even if it should ultimately prove too great a strain for +either of them to endure, it was meanwhile breaking down, apparently +as far as human experience was capable of doing so, his imaginative +resistance to reality; and its robust influences, combined with those +of a new philosophy of life, to be discussed later, served to make, out +of a conceited boy-poet, a man and a writer. + + + + +VIII. THE JOURNAL OF ARTHUR STIRLING + + +I. + +In 1903 there appeared a book entitled _The Journal of Arthur +Stirling_, purporting to be the real diary of a young poet who +had, after a bitter and unsuccessful struggle, committed suicide. An +editorial introduction, signed “S.”, gave a sketch of the poet, and +quoted from a New York newspaper a notice of his death “by suicide in +the Hudson River”. + +The book was something of a sensation among that small class of +American readers who cared enough about their country or its literature +to be moved by the thought of a poet being driven to suicide by neglect +in the midst of one of the richest cities in the world. The book was +widely reviewed, and though it was generally felt that Arthur Stirling +was a “difficult” young man, abnormally sensitive in his attitude +toward life and overstrained in his attitude toward his art, the book +was praised by those who knew artists as a true picture of young +genius.[10] + +The book incidentally related certain rebuffs and indignities at the +hands of editors and publishers. And these publishers, recognizing +themselves in the story, did not fail to recognize the young poet as +Upton Sinclair--and so the truth came out. The critics, especially +those who had compared the journal of Arthur Stirling with the diary +of Marie Bashkirtseff, resented being hoaxed, and discussion of the +book ceased. It was treasured, however, among discerning readers as +being, despite the fact that its author was still alive and kicking, +a sufficiently authentic account of the exasperated psychology of the +young artist in his struggle with poverty and neglect. + +Time has confirmed that judgment; the book remains a permanently +valuable and interesting contribution to our knowledge of what may +without prejudice be called youthful genius, and--more than that--a +moving plea on its behalf. + +But it is further interesting to us as a stage in its author’s +development. It was the second book after his marriage, and it deals +directly with his own most acute problems--not only the problems of +poverty and neglect, but with the psychic problem involved in his own +conception of himself, his destiny, and his duties.... The book was +written feverishly, day and night, during six weeks in the spring of +1902, on an island in the St. Lawrence River. His son had been born in +the previous December. The birth of his child had necessarily altered +the course of his life; it had bound him to reality. And it was with +the inescapable necessity of such an alteration in the course of his +life, the necessity of making terms with reality, that he was now +in violent inward struggle. He had, by rebellion, just previously, +established himself as a poet and a free soul; as such he had no +chains; even his marriage had by prescriptive arrangement involved +no human obligations whatever; he stood alone, and compromised with +nothing. And he had hardly had time to enjoy this freedom when it was +snatched away from him, not by a world that he could defy and resist, +but by Nature--including his own newly discovered Human Nature. If it +was an evil and ugly world that kept him in poverty, it was something +in himself which could scarcely be dismissed as ugly or evil that bound +him to his wife and child. And it was at the behest, not of the world, +but of this something in himself, that he had to compromise, and give +up his freedom. In giving it up, he gave up necessarily what had been +his fundamental conception of himself, as a Poet, consecrated only to +his career, free from every other duty. A painful renunciation, and +one which he would be slow to make. In leaving, then, his wife and +child, to go away and write this book, he was not merely attempting +desperately to make some money, he was taking this occasion to deal in +terms of art with the internal conflict which obsessed him. + +The Arthur Stirling of the book was based in part upon Sinclair’s +imaginings concerning the life of an actual young poet whom he had +met once or twice--a waiter and a snow-shoveller, who had sought a +publisher in vain, yet of whom it had been said by an eminent poet in +Sinclair’s hearing that “he had written lines not surpassed by one +of his years since Keats”. But it was chiefly, of course, based upon +his own experience as a neglected writer. It begins, however, with +the young poet writing his book--and this part of the story goes back +to, and might be an actual diary of, his life two years before, when +he had made his great break for freedom--when, with a hundred dollars +in his pocket he had left the world behind and gone to a shack in the +country to write his great book.... That is to say, he had gone back +to the days when he was free, to the days when he had a right to think +of himself as a poet. No girl casts her shadow over these pages. The +tragedy must be blamed upon the world, not upon her.... And now, once +more a poet, he savors again in memory the beauty and the pain of the +poetic doom: + + It is not merely the vision, the hour of exultation; that is but + the setting of the task. Now you will take that ecstasy, and hold + on to it, hold on with soul and body; you will keep yourself at + that height, you will hold that flaming glory before your eyes, + and you will hammer it into words. Yes, that is the terror--into + words--into words that leap the hilltops, that bring the ends of + existence together in a lightning flash. You will take them as they + come, white-hot, in wild tumult, and you will forge them, and force + them. You will seize them in your naked hands and wrestle with + them, and bend them to your will--all that is in the making of a + poem. And last and worst of all, you will hold them in your memory, + the long, long surge of them; the torrent of whirling thought--you + will hold it in your memory! You are dazed with excitement, + exhausted with your toil, trembling with pain; but you have built + a tower out of cards, and you have mounted to the clouds upon it, + and there you are poised. And anything that happens--anything!--ah, + God, why can the poet not escape from his senses?--a sound, a + touch--and it is gone! + + These things drive you mad.-- + + But meanwhile it is not gone yet. You have still a whole scene in + your consciousness--as if you were a juggler, tossing a score of + golden balls. And all the time, while you work, you learn it--you + learn it! It is endless, but you learn it. In the midst of it, + perhaps, you come down of sheer exhaustion; and you lie there, + panting, shuddering, your hands moist; you dare not think, you + wait. And then by and by you begin again--if it will not come, you + _make_ it come, you lash yourself like a dumb beast--up, up, + to the mountain-tops again. And then once more the thing comes + back--you live the scene again, as an actor does, and you shape + it and you master it. And now in the midst of it, you find this + highest of all moments is gone! It is gone, and you cannot find + it! Those words that came as a trumpet-clash, burning your very + flesh--that melody that melted your whole being to tears--they are + gone--you cannot find them! You search and you search--but you + cannot find them. And so you stumble on, in despair and agony; and + still you dare not rest. You dare not ever rest in this until the + thing is done--done and over--until you have _nailed_ it fast. + So you go back again, though perhaps you are so tired that you are + fainting; but you fight yourself like a madman, you struggle until + you feel a thing at your heart like a wild beast; and you keep on, + you hold it fast and learn it, clinch it tight, and make it yours + forever. I have done that same thing five times to-day without a + rest; and toiled for five hours in that frenzy; and then lain down + upon the ground, with my head on fire. + + Afterward when you have recovered you sit down, and for two or + three hours you write; you have it whole in your memory now--you + have but to put it down. And this forlorn, wet, bedraggled + thing--this miserable, stammering, cringing thing--_this_ is + your poem! + +Every moment of this lost poetic life is dear to him, infinitely +precious, worthy to be recorded: the egotism, the querulousness, the +hysteria--these, too, are part of the poet’s doom, and beautiful as +such. + + I am wild to-day. Oh, how can I bear this--why should I have to + contend with such things as this! Is it not hard enough--the agony + that I have to bear, the task that takes all my strength and more? + And must I be torn to pieces by such hideous degradation as this? + Oh, my God, if my life is not soon clear of these things I shall + die! + + Oh, it is funny--yes, funny--Let us laugh at it. The dance-hall + musician has brought home his ’cello! I heard him come bumping + up the stairs with it--God damn his soul! And there he sits, + sawing away at some loathsome jig tunes! And he has two friends in + there--I listen to their wit between the tunes. + + Here I sit like a wild beast in a cage. I tell you I can bear any + work in the world, but I can not bear such things as this. That I, + who am seeking a new faith for men--who am writing, or trying to + write, what will mean new faith to millions--should have my soul + ripped into pieces by such loathsome, insulting indignities! + + Oh, laugh!--but _I_ can’t laugh--I sit here foaming at the + lips, and crying! And suppose he’s lost his position, and does this + every day! + + Now every day I must lay aside what I am doing and sit and shudder + when I hear him coming up the steps--and wait for him to begin + this! I tell you, I demand to be free--I _demand_ it! I want + nothing in this world but to be let alone. I don’t want anybody to + wait on me.--_I don’t want anything from this hellish world but + to be let alone!_ + +And, in another mood: + + To get the mastery of your soul, to hold it here, in your hands, at + your bidding, to consecrate your life to that, to watch and pray + and toil for that, to rouse yourself and goad yourself day and + night for that; to thrill with the memory of great consecrations, + of heroic sufferings and aspirations; to have in your heart the + power of the stars, of nature, of history and the soul of man ... + +It is a lingering farewell to a beautiful past. For the Poet must +die. There is no place for him in such a world. When he has suffered +enough, he will take himself out of it. He endures his last indignity, +and faces tranquilly the death toward which he goes. “Do I believe +that I shall ever live again? I know that I shall not.... He has given +me an hour.... My life was beautiful.... There are no thoughts in +Oblivion.”... “No one will find my body, and no one will ever care +about it.” + +Three years later Upton Sinclair wrote, in the preface to a new +edition: “No truer book than _The Journal of Arthur Stirling_ has +ever been written; it is the book of all my boyhood’s hopes and dreams, +and it is as dear to me as the memory of a dead child.” + +It does preserve, with infinite love, the memory of a dead child--a +dead poet, tenderly and regretfully put to death by his own hand. + +It foreshadows the end of an epoch, and the beginning of a new life. + + +II. + +_The Journal of Arthur Stirling_ contained, incidentally, a +message. With the giving up of his own poetic career, he had become +conscious of the needs of others--a class-consciousness in the artistic +realm. + + You let every man go his way--you let him starve, you let him + die in any hole that he can find. The poet--tenderest and most + sensitive of all men! the poet--the master of the arts of + suffering! Exposed on every side, nervous, haunted, unused to the + world, knowing how to feel and knowing that alone! Is not his life + an agony under any conditions,--is he not tortured for you--the + world? And you leave him helpless, despairing! + + What is the matter with you?--How can you be so blind? There are + some of you who really love books--look and see the story of + genius--if it be not a thing to make you shudder and turn sick. + It has been so through all the ages, and it will be through all + the ages to come until society has a conscience and a soul. Tell + me if there is anything in this world more frightful than the lot + of poets who have been born poor--of Marlowe and Chatterton and + Goldsmith, Johnson and Burns and Keats! And who can tell how many + more choked before even their first utterance? + + I can not talk of that, for it makes me sick; but I will talk + of the poets who were born rich. Is it not singular--is it not + terrible--how many of the great stalwart ones were rich? To be + educated, to own books, to hear music, to dwell in the country, to + be free from men and men’s judgments! Oh, the words break my heart! + + --But was not Goethe rich, and did he not have these things? And + was not Hugo rich? And Milton? When he left college he spent five + years at his father’s country place and wrote four poems that have + done more to make men happy than if they had cost many millions of + dollars. + + But let me come to what I spoke of before, the seven poets of this + century in England. + + I name Wordsworth and Byron, Tennyson, Browning and Swinburne, + Shelley and Keats. I said that six of them were independent, and + that the other--the greatest--died like a dog. + + Wordsworth came first; he was young and poor and struggling, and + a friend left him just such an independence as I have cried for; + and he consecrated himself to art, and he revolutionized English + poetry, he breathed truth into a whole nation again.... Think + that the world owes its possession of Wordsworth’s poetry to the + accident that a friend died and left him some money! + + I name Byron; he was a rich man. I name Tennyson; he had a little + competence, and gave up the idea of marriage, and for ten years + devoted himself to art; and when he was thirty-two he published his + work--and then they gave him a pension! + + I name Browning; Browning went his own way, heeding no man; and he + never had to think about money. I name Swinburne; and the same was + true of him. + + I name Shelley; and Shelley was wealthy. They kept him poor for a + time, but his poems do not date from then. When he wrote the poetry + that has been the spiritual food of the high souls of this century, + he lived in a beautiful villa in Italy, and wandered about the + forest with his books.... + +This state of affairs and its remedy were set forth, a few months after +the publication of the book, in an article entitled _My Cause_, +in the _Independent_. This is the “manifesto” referred to and +fragmentarily quoted on a previous page; it begins: + + I, Upton Sinclair, would-be singer and penniless rat, having for + seven years waged day and night with society a life-and-death + struggle for the existence of my soul; and having now definitely + and irrevocably consummated a victory--having routed my last foe + and shattered my last chain and made myself master of my own life: + being in body very weak and in heart very weary, but in will + infinitely determined, have set myself down to compose this letter + to the world, before taking my departure for a long sojourn in the + blessed regions of my own Spirit. + + I should not write a letter to the world for the purpose of setting + myself right; being “lord of a thousand dollars,” the world no + longer exists for me. What people think of me is not whispered in + the forests that I love, and I have read my last review, and waited + upon my last publisher, and cringed before my last rejection. The + sole reason for my writing is that in that world there are surely + others, born to sing and to worship, as I was born to sing and to + worship, but born less capable than I in the world’s low way--less + willing to fight the world with its own weapons--less cunning, less + unprincipled, than I. For such there being in the place from which + I have escaped no salvation, and no prospect, save to be stewed and + mashed in misery for a lifetime, as I for seven long years, I could + not greet my Muse until I had flung my banner wide and declared + myself to men. + +The remedy which was set forth in equally eloquent terms was an +institution to be supported by rich men for the purpose of endowing +young authors of talent--an “American University of Literature”, with +a Board of Trustees “consisting of the noblest and truest and most +reverent literary men of the time”, employing “a corps of carefully +selected and trained readers” to consider and pass on manuscripts +offered in evidence of the possession of talent worth encouraging: +the standard of judgment being “not what the Public Wants, but what +American Literature wants, and what God wants, and what beauty and +truth and righteousness want....” + +Only three years later, judgment upon this scheme was passed by the +author himself in somewhat brutally realistic terms. “I look back +upon it now”, he wrote in the preface to the new edition of the +_Journal_, “as an amusing illustration of the guilelessness of my +attitude toward the world. If any such plan were to be proposed to-day, +I should say that it was a device to emasculate literature, as the +newspaper and the college and the church have all been emasculated; +and I should argue that it were better for the young author to starve +all his life than to compromise with the powers that are in control of +the wealth of the world to-day. My error lay in supposing that it is +literature that makes life, instead of life that makes literature.” + + + + +IX. MANASSAS + + +I. + +_The Journal of Arthur Stirling_ had been the death-cry of +his boyhood’s ideals; and it was heard by a Socialist editor and +lecturer named George D. Herron--a gentle ex-clergyman, a man much +lied about at the time in the newspapers, which chose to represent +a divorce and re-marriage of his as a “free-love” arrangement, so +that he was a notorious figure and in public esteem a monster of +iniquity. It was he who subsidized the young author during the period +of his hardest struggles, and it was his influence which led him to +read Socialist books and listen to Socialist arguments. There ensued +a swift conversion; for the young man badly needed a new ideal to +live by, in the place of the one which life had so rudely shattered; +and the Socialist philosophy was peculiarly suited to his needs. +His scientific interests, his acceptance of the Darwinian ideas of +evolution, his repudiation of the church and of mysticism, his interest +in history and belief in the democratic ideal, his sense of justice and +abhorrence of a class society, his Utopian tendencies, his conception +of himself as a rebel and revolutionist, had half prepared him for the +new philosophy of Socialism; nothing, indeed, had stood in its way +except the doctrine, centering about his own personal ambitions, of +literature as the determining influence in human progress: and once +he had given up his poetic ambitions, it would not prove difficult +for him to dethrone literature from the supreme place he had assigned +it, in favor of humbler material factors, as required by the Marxian +theory. It was not, he now perceived, literature that made life, but +life that made literature; it was, on the whole, the way men made +their living that determined their thought, including their sense of +right and wrong. What, then, he had found wrong with the world was +due fundamentally to its economic arrangements; and these economic +arrangements were in their very nature, according to the Marxian +reading of history, temporary; this present period of capitalism was +a passing phase in mankind’s conquest of its environment. It would be +destroyed by its own machinery; for the machine method of production +brought into existence a larger and larger class of wage-workers, +whose interests were necessarily inimical to those of the class which +lived on profits and dividends; and when these workers had learned the +lesson that they had nothing to lose but their chains and a world to +gain, in the words of the _Communist Manifesto_, they would unite +for revolutionary purposes, destroy capitalism, and create a workers’ +commonwealth all over the world. He conceived this, in accordance with +the somewhat mild Socialist ideas of that period, as an essentially +peaceful process, to be brought about by voting the Socialist ticket; +the votes being influenced by “agitation”, in which a writer who had +the good of the world at heart could find an honorable and useful and +sufficiently important field for the exercise of his talents.... But, +truly more important than all this, so far as his development as a +writer is concerned, was that aspect of the Socialist philosophy which +gave, to one who had always feared and hated the world, some realistic +means of discriminating among its values, so that he could more freely +and fearlessly enter into an imaginative intimacy with it in all its +crude detail. His old ethico-artistic theory of life, which had held +him in imagination at as great a distance as possible from raw life, +and had permitted him imaginatively to entertain life’s welter only in +the highly sublimated form of precept and principle, had thereby played +him false both in love and in art, had fooled and cheated him on every +hand. This new theory of life, finding order in the very midst of what +had been an unintelligible chaos, made him braver and bolder in his +imaginative approach to human experience; it enabled him to see beauty +where before there had been only ugliness, and it is ultimately to the +bracing influences of this new philosophy that we owe his development +into a great realistic novelist. + +His nearness to the Socialist philosophy is apparent in _Prince +Hagen_, written in 1901--a spirited and amusing though too obviously +didactic satirical fable, in which a Nibelung out of Wagnerian opera +comes to New York and pursues an instructive career in Democratic and +Republican politics, high society, and finance, and then proposes to +take back to the Nibelungs the benefits, already set forth in somewhat +Shavian terms, of Christianity and capitalism. It was published in +1903, and dedicated to his Socialist friend, Dr. Herron. But its +criticism of the world was his own--not Marx’s. + + +II. + +He had planned a novel of the Civil War--a trilogy, in fact--to be +called _The American_. It was announced under that title in the +_Independent_ article, where he spoke of the Civil War as “to me +the greatest art-theme now unpre-empted”, “one of the most tremendous +efforts of the human spirit in all history”, and declared that he hoped +to give “the next four or five years” to the task. This projected work +had also been described in _The Journal of Arthur Stirling_: + + The world is filled with historical fiction; it is the cant and + sham of the hour.--Bah! + + --This is what I long to do; to take the agony of that struggle and + live it and forge it into an artwork; to put upon a canvas the soul + of it.... + + I saw some of it to-day, and it made my blood go! + + I saw a poet, young, sensitive, throbbing at the old, old wrong, + at the black shame of our history; I saw him drawn into that + fearful whirlpool of blood and passion, driven mad with the pain + and the horror of it; and I saw him drilled and hammered to a grim + savageness, saw him fighting, day by day, with his spirit, forging + it into an iron sword of war. He was haggard and hollow-eyed, + hard, ruthless, desperate.... I saw a man, wild and war-frenzied, + riding a war-frenzied horse; he rode at the head of a squadron, + bare-headed, sword in hand, demon-like--thundering down-hill upon + a mass of men, stabbing, slashing, trampling, scattering! Above + the roar of it all I heard his cry: “Finish it! Finish it!” + + And afterward he staggered from his horse and knelt by the men he + had killed, and wept. + + --I saw him again. It was when the man of the hour had come at + last; when the monster had met his master; when, day by day, they + hammered it ...; when they closed with it in death-grapple in a + tangled wilderness, where armies fought like demons in the dark, + and the wounded were burned by the thousands. I saw companies of + fainting, starving, agonized men retreating, still battling, day + by day; and I saw the wild horseman galloping on their track, + slashing, trampling--and still with the battle-yell: “Finish it! + Finish it!” + + I saw him yet a third time. It was done, it was finished; and he + lay wounded in a dark room, listening. Outside in the streets of + Washington a great endless army marched by, the army of victory, + of salvation; and the old war-flags waved, and the old war-songs + echoed, and he heard the trampling of ten thousand feet.... + +The first volume of this projected trilogy appeared in 1904, under +the title _Manassas: A Novel of the War_. As written, under the +sobering influence of the new philosophy that had intervened in the +meantime, it is by no means so rhetorical a work as might have been +expected from these announcements. It is, in fact, his first realistic +novel. It is at the same time beautiful. Its many-cadenced and never +negligent prose bends tenderly or humorously over the most minute +details of everyday life, and rises with a mature magnificence to the +height of the most chaotic battle-scenes, never once losing its grip on +reality. It impresses one, re-reading it after many years, as a great +war-novel. It has its special limitation, sufficiently characteristic +of the author in this transition phase: sex does not exist for its +hero; but that limitation, ridiculous enough in afterthought, does +not count against it as much as might be supposed. Politics fill that +foreground of emotional interest usually occupied in fiction by women, +and so profoundly passionate are these political emotions that one +scarcely notices, and does not resent, the substitution. The hero +is a Southern youth who goes to visit relatives up North, becomes +interested in the Abolition agitation, becomes gradually a convert and +an enthusiast, and, when the war begins, enlists in a Boston regiment +that is mobbed in passing through Baltimore on its way to Washington, +and takes part in the great defeat of Northern arms at Manassas, where +the book ends. Its historical background is marvelously sketched in; +and, though it may be a heretical taste, it is possible to prefer its +battle-scenes to those of _The Red Badge of Courage_, or, indeed, +to anything short of Byron’s in _Don Juan_ and Tolstoy’s in _War +and Peace_. Jack London, it may be remarked, called it “the best +Civil War book I’ve read”. + +But it is interesting not only as a novel, but as a memorial of a +private struggle of his own. It is not for merely literary reasons +that a child of the South goes over to the traditional enemy. The +aristocratic South, the old South, was still alive in him; it was +the South in him that, in spite of all his efforts to be modern and +scientific and democratic, still gave him that unconsciously lordly +attitude toward life. He had only changed its terminology and not +its essence when, as a Prince of the Kingdom of the Spirit, as a +poet-aristocrat, he had demanded of the world his rightful place in the +seats of spiritual rulership of mankind. When he hated the South, as he +had done since boyhood, it was something in himself that he hated. And +now, when he had cast off these lordly pretensions that had only gained +him mockeries and injuries, and sunk his own aspirations toward freedom +and happiness in those of the masses of workingmen, now more than ever +he needed to free himself from his Southern heritage. It was for that +reason that he fought the Civil War over again in his imagination. In +the person of his hero he had to make war on the South; the slavery of +black men was his pretext--it was himself that must be set free, before +he could go on to write the new books that called to him.... + +The rest of the trilogy was never written. In the fall of 1904, he went +to Chicago to get material for a book about Packingtown. He worked +there seven weeks, came back with his imagination aflame, and--pausing +in 1905 to found the Intercollegiate Socialist Society[11]--wrote a +book that changed his whole literary career. + + + + +X. THE JUNGLE + + +I. + +In 1905 there began to appear, in a Socialist weekly, the _Appeal +to Reason_, published in Girard, Kansas, a novel of the Chicago +stockyards, by an almost altogether unknown writer: _The Jungle_, +by Upton Sinclair. I can remember, as a boy of eighteen, reading in my +_Appeal_ that first chapter describing the wedding party of Jurgis +and Ona, and my delight in the rich, full-blooded humanity of that +scene. It was the happy prelude to what was to be, as week after week +the story unrolled itself, a tragic panorama of working-class life, +true, terrible, and magnificent.... + +The story was simple enough; it related the fortunes of a group of +immigrants who lived and worked in the stockyards district--their +struggle to get ahead, to own a home, to bring up their children +decently, while all the time they are brutally exploited, preyed +upon, robbed, outraged, by the unscrupulous forces which find in +their poverty and ignorance and helplessness mere opportunities for +enrichment. The group is crushed, one by one, in the struggle; the +old men are thrown on the scrapheap to starve, the women are drawn +into prostitution to keep body and soul together, the children die; +Jurgis himself goes to prison for smashing the face of a brutal boss, +and when he comes out his little world had been destroyed as if by an +earthquake--and he is left to wander, getting wisdom as he wanders, +and coming at last to believe in a Socialist reconstruction of this +hideous world. At every point the story is enriched by the most vivid +and relentless realistic detail; one is immersed in the filth and +stench and cruelty of the stockyards, and one feels the sublime human +aspirations which even there burn unquenchably in humble hearts. + +For a while the knowledge that a great new novelist had appeared in +America was almost confined to the readers of that Socialist weekly--no +small audience, however, for the “_Appeal_ army” of enthusiastic +subscription-getters had drummed up half a million readers for that +publication. The first public, therefore, of this astonishing novel, +was of farmers resting in stocking feet beside the stove of winter +evenings, and of discontented workingmen in a thousand cities and +towns--an audience which, whether rural or urban, understood the +truths of human suffering which it so vividly portrayed. That was its +first success--its recognition and acclaim by a proletarian audience. +Then came recognition by fellow-writers, who heard of this strange +and powerful novel being published in a Socialist weekly, and sent +for back numbers. David Graham Phillips wrote to the author: “I never +expected to read a serial. I am reading _The Jungle_ and I should +be afraid to trust myself to tell you how it affects me. It is a great +work. I have a feeling that you yourself will be dazed some day by +the excitement about it. It is impossible that such a power should not +be felt. It is so simple, so true, so tragic, and so human. It is so +eloquent, and yet so exact.” And, of course, Jack London, his comrade +in the Socialist movement, did not fail to acclaim this achievement. +“The _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ of wage slavery”, he called it; and with +that legend on the jacket and in the advertisements it was brought +before the general American public in book form in 1906. It was an +immediate and enormous success. It became a “bestseller” in America, +England and the British colonies. It was translated into seventeen +languages, and the world became aware that industrial America in its +toil, its misery and its hope had found a voice. + + +II. + +But the literary sensation in America had already become secondary to +the shock of its readers in learning of the conditions under which +their meats were prepared in Packingtown, not as affecting the workers +but as affecting their own health--for the story dealt incidentally +with the use of condemned meat. The author later remarked that he had +aimed at the public’s heart and by accident had hit it in the stomach. +His deepest concern had been with the fate of the workers, and he +realized with bitterness that he had become a celebrity not because the +public cared anything about the workers, but because it did not want to +eat diseased meat. + +The public was more or less prepared for such charges against +the packers, on account of the “embalmed beef” scandal during the +Spanish-American war. President Roosevelt, responding to a widespread +popular demand, sent a commission to Chicago to make an investigation +of conditions in Packingtown. This commission was assisted, at +Sinclair’s expense, by Ella Reeve Bloor, who had been familiar with +conditions there and had helped him in his seven weeks’ investigation +preliminary to the writing of the novel; and the researches of this +commission appear to have confirmed the chief charges made in the book. + +The young novelist accepted, as a Socialist, the opportunity which this +situation provided for agitation. But the packers, and large business +interests in general, were aroused, and all their power and influence +was used to keep this agitation from reaching the public, and to +represent the young agitator as an irresponsible sensation-monger. He +set up a publicity bureau, worked twenty hours a day, wrote articles, +sent telegrams, and gave interviews to roomfuls of reporters; but so +thoroughly had the newspapers been mobilized by the business interests +as a medium of defense that the publicity he actually achieved for the +workers’ cause was slight; and on the other hand, his own reputation, +in genteel literary and critical circles, and among the public at +large, was seriously damaged. In the course of these efforts, President +Roosevelt said to him: “Mr. Sinclair, I have been in public life +longer than you, and I will give you this bit of advice; if you pay +any attention to what the newspapers say about you, you will have +an unhappy time.” He might have taken this as a warning that his +temperament was not suited to public life, for he could not get used to +being lied about in the newspapers; but he persisted in his efforts, +and he did have a very “unhappy time”. + +Nothing in particular was done about the workers’ conditions. Even the +President’s meat-inspection law, as finally passed, had, in the opinion +of those behind it, all its teeth drawn first. Sinclair continued his +attempt to agitate the question, but the public had been reassured, and +the effort was futile. In _The Brass Check_, where the complete +story of this period is told vividly, he says: “I look back upon this +campaign, to which I gave three years of brain and soul sweat, and +ask what I really accomplished.” He had taken, he says, a few million +dollars away from the Chicago packers, “giving them to the Junkers of +East Prussia, and to the Paris bankers who were backing enterprises +to pack meat in the Argentine”. He had also added a hundred thousand +readers to the circulation of a popular magazine, which speedily +repudiated its early muck-raking habits and became a defender of big +business; and he had made a fortune for his publishers, who immediately +became conservative and devoted their profits from _The Jungle_ to +promote a kind of writing hostile to everything in which he believed.... + + +III. + +_The Jungle_ was in fact the climax of a literary movement in +America which had aroused the fear and anger of large business +interests. The great middle-class reform movement, marked in the +political field by the careers of Bryan, Roosevelt and the earlier +Wilson, had produced an audience sympathetic to the telling of +unpleasant truths about American political and business conditions. +In the magazine field this was called “muck-raking”; there were +sensational revelations of the inside workings of Wall Street by Tom +Lawson, of municipal corruption by Lincoln Steffens, of Standard Oil +history by Ida M. Tarbell, of Beef Trust finance by Ray Stannard Baker. +In the fictional field there was a corresponding literature, written +by such men as Robert Herrick, Frank Norris and David Graham Phillips. +This literature had its social revolutionary fringe: Jack London +was an avowed revolutionist, and such Socialist critics of society +as W. J. Ghent, John Spargo, Robert Hunter, Charles Edward Russell +and William English Walling, had a wide hearing. A professor named +Thorstein Veblen had written a devastating book called _The Theory +of the Leisure Class_, and phrases from it passed into general +intellectual currency. These conditions were sufficiently alarming, in +a country where every year, in one great industry or another, there +was a bitter struggle between employers and men, in which bullets +were the decisive factor. And now a young man, by writing a book, had +put a great industry on the defensive before the whole public. It +was necessary to tighten the grip of business upon the intellectual +world. The newspapers were already well in hand; but there was a group +of free magazines which were making money out of “muck-raking”--the +very center of the intellectual rebellion. Big business struck at +this group of free magazines, effectively, through the medium of +advertising. The magazine policies were changed. Writers were called +off from investigations of industrial conditions. An immense campaign +of optimism was begun, and a cheerful outlook upon American industrial +conditions was preached and made synonymous with patriotism. The +writers for the most part changed with the times, and adapted their +views to the new editorial demand; the others were silenced or +discouraged. A few prominent radical journalists, unable to tell the +truth any longer in the magazines, bought one of their own; but they, +too, presently succumbed to the spirit of the times.... Sinclair +quotes, in _The Brass Check_, the titles of some representative +articles from a recent issue of that once-daring magazine: “How We +Decide When to Raise a Man’s Salary”, “The Comic Side of Trouble”, +“Interesting People: A Wonderful Young Private Secretary”, “From +Prize-Fighter to Parson”.... + +The public, deprived of the intellectual stimulant of unpleasant truth +before it had quite got used to it, was easily trained in more cheerful +tastes. Those writers who sought to revive the art of muck-raking found +themselves with an indifferent audience. “People aren’t interested in +that sort of thing any more.” While as for fiction, the old genteel +tradition reasserted itself, the standard of non-controversiality +became identical with the standard of decency, and any author who dared +to violate this standard ran the risk of finding himself removed in +critical esteem beyond the pale of literary respectability. + +The measure of the wrath of the masters of America and the docility +of its intellectual class during this period may be taken from the +Gorky incident, which happened in the spring of 1906, coincident +with the _Jungle_ agitation. The great Russian novelist, Maxim +Gorky, had come to America to raise funds for the cause of Russian +freedom--a cause long since made popular among even the respectable +American intelligentsia by the writings of the American journalist, +George Kennan. A great welcome was prepared for him. But it happened +that two radical union leaders, Moyer and Haywood, were on trial for +their lives in a Western state in the course of an industrial war +between the miners and the coal-barons. Their cause had been espoused +by the Socialists, who now asked Gorky to sign a telegram of sympathy +to Moyer and Haywood. He did so. A White House reception to Gorky was +immediately canceled. And then the American papers, at the instance of +the Czarist embassy, began to denounce Gorky, on the pretext that he +had “insulted” the American people by bringing with him as his wife +a woman to whom he was not married. It was known to those who made +the charge that Russian revolutionists married without the churchly +processes which alone were “legal” in Russia, and that Madame Andreieva +was his wife according to the revolutionary code; they had known that +all along, and had not made use of the fact. Now they unloosed upon +him the furies of a hypocritical moralistic journalism. He was hounded +out of New York hotels, denounced in pulpit and newspaper throughout +the country; his mission was destroyed. And the American men of letters +who had been proud to be invited to dine with this Russian giant, were +afraid to brave that storm: one and all, the respectable writers turned +tail and fled, not daring to call their souls their own--a black day +in the calendar of American letters. Great reputations fell that day, +Mark Twain’s among them, in the minds of boys and girls, now grown up, +who saw that humiliating and cowardly action with the clear eyes of +youth and were ashamed for their country. If American literature is now +less timid about sex, that young indignation may have something to do +with it. But those boys and girls did not know why America and American +men of letters had suddenly become so prudish: they did not know that +Maxim Gorky’s influence had been destroyed in that sudden journalistic +whirlwind, not because of the lack of churchly blessings upon his +union with Madame Andreieva, but because he had rashly intruded into +an American economic struggle on the unfashionable side. He, and the +writers of America, must be taught a lesson, and made to realize who +was running this country and what happened to anybody who tried to +interfere with them. + +The stage of Upton Sinclair’s literary career, immediately ensuing +upon his immense celebrity as the author of _The Jungle_, falls +within this period when “muck-raking” was being outlawed and editors +and writers taught a lesson by those in control of American business. +He was one of the few who dared to brave this Thermidorian reaction, +and he was chief of those to suffer from it. It is his temerity +which explains the fact that his reputation in America as a novelist +fell during that period to zero, or lower. He missed, by remaining a +“muck-raker”, his chance of regaining literary respectability. His next +novel, _The Metropolis_, published in 1907, was an attack on New +York society; and _The Moneychangers_, published in 1908, was an +exposé of Wall Street. Nor is this explanation to be discounted by the +fact that _The Metropolis_ and The _Moneychangers_ were not +very good novels. + +The point is worth laboring. Novels far inferior to those two would, +in that period, have maintained Upton Sinclair in American critical +esteem, if they had been of a different tendency; not to realize that +is to be ignorant of American criticism and its fashions. It was the +fashion to sneer at Upton Sinclair, and to accept the yellow-journal +pictures of him, in which he was represented as a mere sensation-monger +and fool to boot. Georg Brandes, generally accounted the world’s +greatest modern critic, was astonished at this American neglect of +one of its greatest writers; on visiting this country in 1914, he +took pains to say to the reporters who met him at the steamer that +there were three American novelists whom he found worth reading, among +these being Upton Sinclair. The statement, as it generally appeared in +the press, referred only to Frank Norris and Jack London, omitting +Upton Sinclair’s name altogether. Doubtless it was naïvely regarded +as incredible that anyone should really take this disreputable +“muck-raker” seriously.... And it was not until a new rebellious +literature and criticism emerged after the war, under the leadership +of Sinclair Lewis and H. L. Mencken, that Upton Sinclair was again +mentioned among American writers by any reputable native critic who was +not a Socialist. + + +IV. + +_The Metropolis_ and _The Moneychangers_, though better as +propaganda than as art, are nevertheless of interest to us for what +they reveal of their author’s psychology at this period. The former +novel grew out of his observations of the life of the idle rich during +his fame as the author of _The Jungle_. His celebrity made him +naturally an object of curiosity and interest to these rich people; +and its secrets, such as they were, were readily exposed to him. It +happened to be within his power, if so he chose, to remain in such a +life. A group of capitalists had come to him, as he relates in _The +Brass Check_, “with a proposition to found a model meatpacking +establishment; they had offered me three hundred thousand dollars worth +of stock for the use of my name”; and he adds: “if I had accepted that +offer and become the head of one of the city’s commercial show-places, +lavishing full-page advertisements upon the newspapers, I might have +... been invited to be the chief orator at banquets of the Chamber +of Commerce and the National Civic Federation, and my eloquence would +have been printed to the extent of columns; I might have joined the +Union League Club and the Century Club, and my name would have gone +upon the list of people about whom no uncomplimentary news may be +published under any circumstances. At the same time I might have +kept one or more apartments on Riverside Drive, with just as many +beautiful women in them as I wished, and no one would have criticized +me, no newspaper would have dropped hints about ‘love-nests’.” This +opportunity, no temptation in reality, appears nevertheless to have +intrigued his imagination sufficiently to make such a “temptation” +the theme of his new novel. Its hero comes to New York and undergoes +the temptation of wealth and luxury. It is a kind of ironic sequel to +the unfinished trilogy of the Civil War; its hero is the son of the +man who fought in _Manassas_ to save the Union from destruction. +The Union had, by that epic agony, been saved--for what? For this, +says the disillusioned author, pointing to the waste and vulgarity and +triviality of the life of the “Four Hundred”.... It will be seen that +the theme psychologically precedes that of _The Jungle_; and it is +not surprising to find the book revelatory of an actually less mature +point of view than is shown in that masterpiece. Its emotional effects +are of a juicelessly ethical character. The young hero turns his back +upon these temptations, and resolves to earn an honest living! One +remembers Jurgis in _The Jungle_; he could not turn his back on +Packingtown--he had to live its life; and only thus are we enabled to +know what Packingtown was. Yet, through some identification of himself +with his young aristocrat in this later book, the author is unable to +imagine his surrender to metropolitan luxury, even for a moment; so +that we never learn, in any emotional sense, in any sense but that of +factual detail, what metropolitan luxury means. The _dégringolade_ +of a high-souled young man under such influences--and possibly his +eventual revolt under other influences--was the story called for by the +theme. It was never written; only the surface details are presented. +So meager a use of the vast powers displayed in _The Jungle_ +suggests some internal conflict in connection with this theme, and we +may perhaps be permitted to look there for the answer to this literary +riddle--if it is permissible at all to inquire why a writer does not +always remain at his best. + +_The Moneychangers_, a sequel to _The Metropolis_, had the +same central character. The book was based upon the panic of 1907, +of which it undertook to give the “inside story”. It might have been +treated as an epic theme; but it was viewed in too narrow and factual a +way, through the eyes of this aristocratic young moralist-hero, who, as +the total upshot of these events, is merely surprised and shocked that +people can be so bad--and refuses to dine at the house of one of the +scoundrels. There was to have been a third volume; it was written as +a play, _The Machine_, and in it the hero falls in love with the +scoundrel’s daughter, who has in the meantime taken up settlement work +and renounced her father’s riches. It was, then, toward this grand +event that that creation moved! + +Jack London had written of _The Jungle_: “It is alive and warm. It +is brutal with life.” No one would say that of _The Metropolis_ +or _The Moneychangers_. They are emotionally thin performances. +Ill-health, and poverty after the Helicon Hall experiment (see next +chapter), doubtless partly account for this inadequacy. In both novels +the hero remains essentially untouched by all that goes on about him, +scarcely more than an observer--a disembodied ghost, as it were, of +the author himself, looking on and taking note of all that happens +with an admirable journalistic faculty, but capable of no depth of +human emotions. In _The Brass Check_ the author remarks that +the critics were cross with his hero, saying that he was “a prig”, +and that he “ought to have been really tempted by the charms of the +lovely ‘Mrs. Winnie Duval’,” and he goes on to say: “It has happened +to me, not once, but several times, to meet with an experience such +as I have portrayed in the ‘Mrs. Winnie’ scene, and I never found it +any particular temptation. The real temptation of the Metropolis is +not the exquisite ladies with unsatisfied emotions; it is that if you +refuse to bow the knee to the Mammon of Unrighteousness you become +an outcast in the public mind. You are excluded from all influence +and power, you are denied all opportunity to express yourself, to +exercise your talents, to bring your gifts to fruition. One of the +reasons _The Metropolis_ had a small sale was because I refused +to do the conventional thing--to show a noble young hero struggling +in the net of an elegant siren. The temptation I showed was that of +the man’s world, not of the woman’s; the temptation of Wall Street +offices, not of Fifth Avenue boudoirs. It was a kind of temptation of +which the critics were ignorant, and in which the public, alas, was +uninterested.” Indeed, an interesting theme. And a pity it is that +these novels did not actually deal with it. But we are now perhaps +in a position to make at least a guess at the psychic conflict which +held the author’s emotions so tight-locked during the composition +of those two books: it might well have been, no vulgar conflict of +worldly ambition with his high ideals, but a conflict involving his +old aristocratic emotions--for he had been offered, Tantalus-like, +the opportunities of public leadership, only to have them snatched +out of his grasp--a conflict between the poet-prophet, the Shelleyan +“unacknowledged legislator of mankind”, and the newer humbler rôle of +the imaginative novelist who identifies himself with weak, suffering, +stumbling, pitiful humanity itself. For a moment he had taken the +latter rôle, and produced a masterpiece of prose fiction. But the poet +in him demanded another destiny; and in that conflict he became neither +poet nor quite novelist, but journalist-agitator. + +In the meantime, in 1907, he had published a book entitled _The +Industrial Republic_. Its dedication, “To H. G. Wells, ‘the next +most hopeful’,” is an allusion to an inscription written by Wells in +a book presented to him: “To the most hopeful of Socialists, from +the next most hopeful!” The Wells book was _A Modern Utopia_; +and in this book Sinclair goes him one better. It is sub-titled: “A +Study of the America of Ten Years Hence”. It is a Socialist America +that is thus described, though its Socialism is of so mild a sort +that even the American Socialists of those days must have found it a +somewhat watery potion. “If Mr. Bryan would only procure and read a +really authoritative treatise upon modern scientific Socialism (say +Vandervelde’s _Collectivism and Industrial Evolution_) he would +understand that his programme is so close to that of the Socialists +that the difference would require a microscope to discern.” And this +Bryanesque government-ownership Socialism was to be brought about by +the election, in 1912, of a radical Democratic President, probably +William Randolph Hearst. “It may be, of course, that some one else +will get the Democratic nomination in 1912; that matters not at all +in my thesis--the one thing certain is that it will be some man who +stands pledged to put an end to class-government. Following it there +will be a campaign of an intensity of fury such as this country has +never before witnessed in its history.” This is a remarkably accurate, +if somewhat exaggerated, foreshadowing of the Wilson-Roosevelt-Taft +campaign of 1912, which was fought out fiercely on social issues. +But he goes on to predict an industrial crisis, a new “Coxey’s Army” +marching on Washington, a panic, and then the Revolution: needless to +say a peaceful one. The captains of industry will have been told by +the President that, “since they can no longer run their business, they +must allow the Government to take possession and run it--the price +to be paid for their stock being a matter for future negotiation, and +a matter of no great importance to them in any case, because of the +income and inheritance laws just then being rushed through Congress.” +The revolution, thus defined, was to take place “within one year after +the Presidential election of 1912”. It was a youthful guess that +one need not be ashamed of having made, though one may smile at the +youthful rashness of putting it on record in print; it was based on +some quite widespread Social Revolutionary expectations of the period, +and its immediacy seemed natural enough to a young Utopian in a great +hurry. + +But, with a revolution coming in six years, there might have seemed the +less reason for him to discipline his imagination to the novelist’s +difficult and humble task of representing human nature. If this +young writer was to be henceforth of distinguished use to American +literature, he had to suffer more hurts and disillusionments. + + + + +XI. LOVE’S PILGRIMAGE + + +I. + +The success of _The Jungle_ in 1906 had put the young author +immediately in possession of some thirty thousand dollars; and +with this money he founded, that fall, at Englewood, New Jersey, a +co-operative undertaking called the Helicon Home Colony. This project +had been outlined in an article that summer in the _Independent_, +in which he said: + +“Here am I on my little farm, living as my ancestors lived--like a cave +man or a feudal baron. I have my little castle and my retainers and +dependents to attend me, and we practise a hundred different trades: +the trade of serving meals, and the trade of cleaning dishes, the +trade of washing and ironing clothes, of killing and dressing meat, +of churning butter, of baking bread, of grinding meal, of raising +chickens, of cutting wood, of preserving fruit, of heating a house, +of training children, and of writing books! And all these crowded +into one establishment, in close proximity, and all jarring and +clashing with each other! And all carried on in the most primitive and +barbarous fashion, upon a small scale, and by unskilled hand labor.” +The coöperative argument, as developed by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, +follows: “It takes a hundred cooks to prepare a hundred meals badly, +while twenty cooks could prepare one meal for a hundred families and do +it perfectly.... It takes a hundred ignorant nursemaids to take care of +the children of a hundred families, and develop every kind of ugliness +and badness in them; it would take only twenty or thirty trained nurses +and kindergarten teachers to take care of them coöperatively, and +bring them up according to the teachings of science.” He goes on to +say that “there must be, in and near New York, thousands of men and +women of liberal sympathies, who understand this situation clearly, and +are handicapped by its miseries in their own lives--authors, artists +and musicians, editors and teachers and professional men, who abhor +boarding-houses and apartment hotels, and yet shrink from managing +servants, who have lonely and peevish children like my own, and are no +fonder of eating poisons or of wasting their time and strength than I +am. There must be a few who, like myself, have realized that it is a +question of dragging through life a constantly increasing burden of +care, or making an intelligent effort and solving the problem once +for all. To such I offer my coöperation. I am not a business man, but +circumstances have forced me to take up this problem, and I am not +accustomed to failing in what I undertake.” + +Many answers were received to this announcement, and the plan was +experimentally carried out by fifty or sixty people, including ten +children. The colonists bought nine and a half acres of land sloping +down from the Palisades on the Hudson, within an hour of New York +City. There was a large three-story building, formerly a boys’ school, +equipped with a pipe organ, a swimming pool, a bowling alley, a +theater, a billiard room, thirty-five bedrooms, a children’s dormitory, +dining-room and play-room, a heating system, etc. Lodging cost $3 +a week, meals $5 a week, “or $4 if we only eat two meals”; and the +children were taken care of at a cost of $4 a week apiece. + +“I look back on Helicon Hall to-day,” says Upton Sinclair in _The +Brass Check_, “and this is the way I feel about it. I have lived +in the future; I have known those wider freedoms and opportunities +that the future will grant to all men and women. Now by harsh fate I +have been dragged back into a lower order of existence, and commanded +to spend the rest of my days therein. I know that the command is +irrevocable, and I make the best of my fate--I manage to keep cheerful, +and to do my appointed task; but nothing can alter the fact in my own +mind--I have lived in the future, and all things about me seem drab and +sordid by comparison. I feel as you would feel if you were suddenly +taken back to the days when there was no plumbing and when people used +perfume instead of soap.” + +This colony of middle-class intellectuals was not a very radical +experiment; but it furnished the newspapers an opportunity for +sensational stories none the less. Reporters were always snooping +about, spying in the nursery and eavesdropping in the pantry, and +going back to write stories about “Upton Sinclair’s love-nest”. When +William James and John Dewey came to visit the colony and talked of +current affairs beside the fireplace, that was not news; but when, +at the weekly dance, according to the democratic traditions of the +place, the resident professor of philosophy danced with the two pretty +Irish girls who waited on the table, that was something to be spread +before a shocked America. Among the reporters was a young Yale College +student named Sinclair Lewis, afterward the famous author of _Main +Street_; he tended furnace at Helicon Hall and afterward wrote it +up for a New York paper. What he wrote was playful, and the colonists +would have enjoyed the fun except that some of them had their livings +to think about. Subsequently an American newspaper was sued for libel +by Upton Sinclair for scandalous lies concerning the Helicon Home +Colony; a retraction and apology were printed, but the American public +continued to believe the worst. + +This eminently conservative and, within its own limitations, entirely +successful economic and social experiment came abruptly to an end after +six months. One night in March, 1907, a fire, possibly of incendiary +origin, burned Helicon Hall to the ground, destroying among the total +contents of the house all of the young agitator’s manuscripts and +documents, including certain documents concerning defective armor plate +furnished to American battleships. The Helicon Home Colony was wiped +out. + + +II. + +Upton Sinclair had been for a young author, rich, and thus he had spent +and lost his riches. Now he was a poor man; and for a number of years +he was to be tormented by indigestion and by domestic unhappiness. +He commenced a wandering life, spending the summer of 1907 at Point +Pleasant, New Jersey, the winter at Bermuda, the next summer in the +Adirondacks, meanwhile writing _The Metropolis_ and _The +Moneychangers_. During a winter’s “rest” in California in 1908-9 he +organized a traveling theatrical company to produce Socialist drama, +and put on three of his own plays. He then went with his family to +live at the single-tax colony at Arden, Delaware, where he remained +for three years. During all this time he was the butt and victim of +newspaper mockery and sensationalism. But in 1910 there occurred at +Arden a preposterous incident which relieved the newspapers of the +trouble of making up lies to print about him. The truth, for once, was +amusing enough. Sinclair tells the story in _The Brass Check_. + +“Close upon the edge of Arden there dwelt an Anarchist philosopher, +a shoemaker hermit, whose greatest pleasure in life was to rise in +public meetings and in the presence of young girls explain his ideas on +the physiology of sex. The little Economic Club of Arden invited him +to shut up, and when he claimed the privileges of ‘free speech’ the +club excluded him from its meetings and when he persisted in coming, +had him arrested. It happened that the members of this Economic Club +were also members of the baseball team, and they played a game on +Sunday morning; so the Anarchist shoemaker repaired to Wilmington and +swore out warrants, on the ground of their having violated an ancient +statute, dating back to 1793, forbidding ‘gaming’ on the Sabbath. It +happened that I did not belong to the Economic Club, and had nothing to +do with the trouble; but I had played tennis that Sabbath morning, so +the Anarchist shoemaker included me in his warrants. + +“So behold us, eleven young men summoned to the office of a Wilmington +Justice of the Peace one evening, and finding the street packed solid +for a block, and people even climbing up telegraph poles and lamp-posts +to look in at the window and watch the proceedings.” + +They were fined, but refused to pay their fines; and so they were +all sent to jail for eighteen hours. “When we came out from the jail +we were met by twenty-two newspaper reporters and three cameramen, +and everything we had to say took the front page, top of column. +Incidentally, I got a curious revelation. For years I had written +poetry, and had never been able to get it published; but now I found +that by the simple device of writing it in jail, I could get it on the +front page of every newspaper in Philadelphia and New York!” He quotes +two lines: + + ‘And then in sudden stillness mark the sound-- + Some beast that rasps his vermin-haunted hide.’ + +“When my cell-mate, Berkeley Tobey, read those lines, he remarked: +‘That’s me!’ To which I answered: ‘Tobey, that’s you’.” + +The cells in which they had spent the night had been characteristic of +the American jail system, filthy and swarming with vermin; they had +been given food unfit for animals. Men were serving life-sentences in +this jail, working in a clothing factory under a sweatshop contractor, +without a spot where they could get a glimpse of sunlight or a breath +of fresh air. What these released members of the Economic Club told the +reporters about conditions in that jail “made an uproar in Delaware”. + +Furthermore, they served notice that they were going to have the +Attorney General of the state and the Chief Justice of the supreme +court arrested for playing golf on Sunday, so that they might find out +what it was like in jail. It was decided by the authorities that no +more arrests would be made for “gaming on the Sabbath”, and the prison +commissioners decided to add an exercise court to the prison. + +“I look back,” says Upton Sinclair, “upon my life of nearly twenty +years of muck-raking, and am able to put my finger on exactly one +concrete benefit that I have brought to mankind. Twenty or more men who +are serving life sentences in the Newcastle County Workhouse owe it to +me that they get every now and then a glimpse of the sunlight and a +breath of fresh air!... + +“Can you blame me,” he asks, “if I stored away in my mind for future +reference the fact that when it is necessary to get some important +news into the papers, I can manage it by getting myself sent to jail? +This”, he adds, “is a discovery which is made, sooner or later, by all +social reformers; and so going to jail becomes a popular diversion and +an honorable public service.” + + +III. + +_Samuel the Seeker_, in 1910, had marked the lowest ebb of its +author’s powers. Indigestion seems to have been largely to blame: “my +poor tummy”, he says, “simply wouldn’t let me feel any emotions.” +Accordingly _The Fasting Cure_, in 1911, an account of the means +by which he had finally restored himself to health, has a closer +relation than it might seem to have to the literary life. Novelists, +like armies in the Napoleonic maxim, get ahead on their stomachs. And +thus there appears, in the same year, another great novel--_Love’s +Pilgrimage_. + +It is the story of his own life, or rather, of the earlier part of it, +up to the year 1904. So many references have already been made to it +in these pages, and it has been drawn upon so often for biographical +material, that it will be dealt with here briefly. But a letter from +the Dutch novelist, Frederik van Eeden, may be quoted: + +“It is surely your greatest book, and very nearly one of the great +books of the world.... You give wooing, marriage, pregnancy, birth, in +great classic lines.... Of course you have read Zola’s description of a +birth. Yours is better, because it is more human, more poetic. It is +one of the best things in English literature.... This book will make +your world fame.” + +While subscribing to these enthusiastic comments, one may note that +the book, in dealing with the life of young Thyrsis, his earlier self, +shows less of a detached and mature point of view than might have been +expected. He has identified himself, so far as attitudes toward love +and art are concerned, with his young hero, who was, from any mature +point of view, outrageously wrong (or egregiously neurotic) about both +these important matters.[12] The book’s greatness does not in the least +lie in the direction of self-understanding, let alone self-criticism. +It lies rather in its robust immersion in the stream of life. Nothing +appals the writer; everything is told--it matters not that it is +in impassioned self-defense. Its candor is magnificent, shameless, +beautiful. It succeeds as realism. It is a masterpiece, vastly +different from _The Jungle_, not comparable with it in detachment +or breadth, but not inferior to it in truth and power. It must be named +in any list of great American novels. + + +IV. + +It was an unfinished story. It was intended to be followed by another +book[13] dealing with the later life of Thyrsis, and Corydon his wife. +But actual events in their stormy marriage interfered. + +In this ill-matched and ill-fated marriage of theirs, the prime +cause of discord would seem, to an outside observer, to have lain +in the temperament of the husband, with his ignorant poetic fear +of the realities of human love; nor is it strange that this should +have produced in his girl-wife a state of emotional instability and +irresponsibility. Her emotional divagations, though she might undertake +to justify them by modern theories of freedom, would be explained more +truly as her exasperated reactions to his aloof and Olympian nature. +And he, less aloof and Olympian then he seemed, would find himself in +what he later described as “a maelstrom in which a man’s physical, +mental and moral integrity are subtly and bewilderingly tossed and +buffeted and maimed”. They had been involved in this secret and painful +domestic melodrama for eight years. The conclusion of _Love’s +Pilgrimage_ suggests their belief that they had at last achieved a +durable peace and happiness through a frank facing of their problem. +But that hope seems to have been too precarious. Hardly had that book, +with its tender record of their young love, and its high hopes for the +future, been published, than a crisis arrived in their lives, which +ended their marriage. Corydon went away with a lover; and Thyrsis +instituted suit for divorce. + +The divorce, after much painful newspaper publicity, was denied, +on grounds of “collusion”. According to the New York laws, if both +parties appear to desire the divorce, that is a reason for not granting +it. These private affairs were the topic of nation-wide newspaper +discussion, into which we need not go. “I felt in those terrible days”, +Sinclair writes in _The Brass Check_, “like a hunted animal +which seeks refuge in a hole, and is tormented with sharp sticks and +smoke and boiling water.” His earning power had been destroyed by the +newspapers; no one would read his books, or publish what he wrote. His +health seemed permanently undermined; he did not think he was going to +live, and he “did not much care”. + +He did not wish to appeal the case, because the law required that +the evidence in the case must be printed “and remain public property +forever”. But he had received from his friend van Eeden a letter +assuring him that Holland was a civilized country, where divorce was +granted upon reasonable grounds, without publicity. Accordingly he +went to Holland, in 1912. He intended to spend the rest of his life in +Europe. “It seemed to me that I could not bear the sight of America +again.” + + +V. + +In Holland he obtained his divorce quietly and without scandal. “I +wish”, he says in _The Brass Check_, “to pay tribute to the +kindest and most friendly people I have ever met--the Dutch. When +I came to them, sick with grief, they did not probe into my shame; +they invited me to their drawing-rooms for discussions of literature +and art, and with tact and sweetness they let me warm my shivering +heart at their firesides. Their newspapers treated me as a man of +letters--an entirely new experience to me. They sent men of culture and +understanding to ask my opinions, and they published these opinions +correctly and with dignity. When I filed my divorce suit they published +nothing. When the decree was granted, they published three or four +lines about it in the columns given to court proceedings, a bare +statement of the names and dates, as required by law.” + +He goes on to say: “There were many men in Holland, as in England and +Germany and Italy and France, who hated and feared my Socialist ideas. +I made no secret of my ideas; I spoke on public platforms abroad, as +I had spoken at home. When reporters for the great Tory newspapers +of England came to interview me, I told them of the war that was +coming with Germany, and how bitterly England would repent her lack of +education and modern efficiency, and her failure to feed and house her +workers as human beings. These opinions were hateful to the British +Tories, and they attacked me; but they did not attack the author of the +opinions, by making him into a public scarecrow and publishing scandals +about his private life.” + + +VI. + +In the meantime, during his stay in Holland and England, he had written +a novel called _Sylvia_, published in 1913. Its locale is divided +between the aristocratic South and aristocratic Boston; it bears, more +lightly than his New York novels, its inevitable burdens, journalistic +exposition of class-traits, and sociological and moral arguments. Most +unexpectedly, it presents a heroine of authentic charm--a sparkling, +witty, vivacious young Southern girl, whose destiny it is to resist +and at last succumb to the wooing of a young millionaire. It is +unexpectedly tender, also, in its dealings with the South; even the +author’s principles do not blind him to the charm of that environment. +It is the tenderness, perhaps, of nostalgia, of one in exile looking +back across the bitter defeats of adult life to the scenes of his +childhood. It is not, however, a transcript of actual memories; it owes +a good deal to reminiscent tales of the South heard from the friend who +was presently to become his second wife. It is dedicated “To the People +at Home”, and it is the one of all his books which might conceivably +not hurt their feelings. + +The story, however, was obviously unfinished; and a secondary theme of +the book, which was emphasized only on the last page, required another +volume for its presentation. This was the theme at the time being +sensationally presented to American playgoers and readers by Brieux, +in his play, _Damaged Goods_--a novelized version of which, with +the playwright’s grateful consent, was written and published in 1913 by +Sinclair. + +_Sylvia’s Marriage_, accordingly, which appeared in 1914, relates +the consequences to this marriage of her husband’s pre-marital wild +oats, in the form of a blind baby--a result accounted for with +satisfactory realism. The novel, however, rises far above merely +propaganda effects in dealing with the life of his heroine after +she has left her millionaire husband and come back with her blind +baby to live in the Southern home of her childhood. A realistically +disillusioned woman, she is neither pathetic nor embittered, nor has +she lost her charm, her wit, or her brilliance. These qualities, +deepened rather by her tragic experience, are her weapons in the +ensuing struggle with her family and friends and the milieu in general. +For here she observes, in the habits of the young blades and in the +sheltered ignorance of the young belles, the possible origins of other +such tragedies as hers; and with a realistic and reckless candor she +intervenes in more than one engagement, to the bewildered shock of her +family and the malicious amusement of the town. These pages are true +high-comedy, as fine as anything of the sort that English or American +fiction has to offer. The duel between this disillusioned and frank +young matron and the conventional reticences of the polite world is +done with a masterly hand. But fiction of this sort, except from the +most distinguished foreigners, was at the time considered disreputable +in America, because it dealt frankly with sex; and now, by a swing of +the wheel of fashion, it would be considered unduly moralistic. + +Comments have been made in these pages on the cramping effects upon +some of this writer’s fiction by his moral conceptions; and it will +be in place here to note that these moral conceptions have been +complained of, not because they were moral, but because they involved a +distaste for the subject in hand, and led to an undue slighting of its +realities. But in the case of this novel, the moral conceptions lead +rather to a richness of truth in dealing with the subject in hand, and +are consequently not to be complained of by one whose interest is in +the business of getting life into terms of fiction. If some of the more +romantic aspects of sexual adventure are neglected by Sinclair, in his +preoccupation with certain of its realistic consequences, that is to be +expected, and is all the more readily to be forgiven since the aspects +which he neglects are sufficiently celebrated elsewhere. He has taken a +difficult aspect of the sexual theme and, throughout the latter part of +this novel, handles it magnificently. + +Some references have also been made in these pages to the neurotic +attitudes toward sex displayed by its subject in his earlier life; and +the argument might be expected here that his preoccupation with the +frightful physical dangers of sexual adventure is an illustration of a +neurotic fear. There is little doubt that it is the neurotic conflicts +in the minds of all artists which lead them to their particular themes: +the important question is what they then do with those themes. Do +they get truth and beauty out of them? Upton Sinclair’s opinions, as +such, on the whole subject of sex, will be dealt with later on. For +the present, it needs merely to be said that he has, in _Sylvia’s +Marriage_, artistically justified his emotional preoccupation with +the sterner and sadder aspects of a theme which has many aspects. + + +VII. + +He had never expected to return to America. He did return, however, +in 1913, and in the course of the year was married to Mary Craig +Kimbrough. She was of an old Southern family, and at the time of the +wedding, in Virginia, her husband noted that the event was respectfully +treated by the newspapers; which, he remarks in _The Brass Check_, +was explained by the information contained in the news dispatches, to +the effect that the bride’s father was “one of the wealthiest men in +this section, and controls large banking interests.” + +If, however, the newspapers had presumed that the groom was henceforth +to lead a correct and respectable literary life and keep out of radical +politics, they were mistaken. + + + + +XII. KING COAL + + +I. + +Once back in America, Sinclair was inevitably drawn into the field of +agitation. From a winter in Bermuda, where he had written _Sylvia’s +Marriage_, he returned to investigate the coal strike then going on +in Colorado. It was a sufficiently dramatic episode in our industrial +history; eleven thousand miners, with their wives and children, +on strike and evicted from company-owned homes, were living in +tent-colonies that had been raided and shot up by gun-men--and finally +machine-guns had been turned on them, their tent-colony at Ludlow had +been burned, and three women and fourteen children had been suffocated +to death. Yet this news was being published only, with the most rare +and meager exceptions, in the Socialist papers. Sinclair resolved +to break this conspiracy of silence. Being convinced that John D. +Rockefeller, Jr., was personally responsible for the tactics of the +mine-owners, he went to Mr. Rockefeller’s office and asked that he meet +and talk with an eyewitness of the barbarities with which the strike +was being repressed. The interview was denied. Then Sinclair hit on +the idea of inviting a group of people to put bands of crêpe around +their arms and walk in silence up and down in front of 26 Broadway, +the Rockefeller offices, in token of mourning for the dead women and +children of Ludlow. Picketing, except in labor strikes, was then a new +publicity device, though the suffragists afterward made it familiar. +Reporters were informed of the plan, and were on hand next morning when +the demonstration began, together with a great crowd. There were also +policemen, who told the pickets to go away. They replied that what they +were doing was not unlawful, and continued. They were then arrested. +They were followed by reporters to the police station, and Sinclair +was there interviewed. He explained the purpose of the demonstration, +and told the entire story of the Colorado coal strike. Within a few +hours the newspapers were on the street with the story emblazoned on +the front page, with three or four columns of news of the strike, +as contained in the interview. The device had been successful: the +conspiracy of silence was broken. + +The pickets were fined and, on refusing to pay their fines, were locked +up in the Tombs. The newspapers sneered at this “pink-tea martyrdom”, +as one of them described it, and said that the demonstration was +actuated by “no genuine desire to effect a reform”, but only by “a +morbid craving for notoriety”. Nevertheless the papers sent special +correspondents to the coal fields, and the strike news continued to +occupy the front page. + +After Sinclair’s arrest, his wife took up the demonstration. She was +not arrested, but a false report that she had been was sent out by the +Associated Press, which brought her mother in alarm to New York, with +the news that her father had disinherited her after reading the morning +paper. She continued to marshal the demonstration for two weeks, and +her husband reports that her habitual “Southern lady” airs awed the +policemen so much that they kept everybody else off the sidewalk so +that the silent parade she was leading should have room to walk up and +down undisturbed. A Southern lady is accustomed to having her way; and +when she decided that her husband had been in jail long enough, she +serenely interrupted court proceedings to have that matter attended to. +“In the South, you understand,” says Upton Sinclair, “anything from a +court to a fire-engine will stop to pick up a lady’s handkerchief”--and +it appears that the air of expecting such consideration is effective +also in the North. But these public demonstrations, however much she +might approve of them in principle, were so alien to her Southern +tastes that after going calmly through each day’s ordeal she would come +home at night and cry. + +The investigation of the strike now took Sinclair to Colorado, where +he undertook to attack the problem of news-suppression at its source, +and succeeded in putting the Associated Press on its defense before the +world. The whole story is told in _The Brass Check_. Returning +to the East, he found that a group of radicals had been arrested +for holding a street-meeting in Tarrytown, New York, whither Mr. +Rockefeller had retired from the storm of publicity to the seclusion of +his estate. Sinclair then went to Tarrytown on behalf of free speech, +and, being forbidden to hold a street-meeting and unable to rent a +hall, he persuaded a millionaire neighbor of Mr. Rockefeller’s to give +him the use of an open-air theater for a meeting to discuss the “Ludlow +massacre”. In the meantime the Broadway demonstration case had been +appealed; and in due time the higher court had handed down its august +decision, affirming the decision of the police magistrate, on the +ground--highly instructive to a man who had been ridiculed and insulted +for so many years by the newspapers--that “no citizen has a right +to rebuke another citizen by subjecting him to ridicule or insult”. +There was, however, a difference in these cases: Mr. Rockefeller was a +millionaire. + + +II. + +Returning to the literary life for a time, Sinclair edited, that +summer, while living at Croton-on-Hudson, N. Y., _The Cry for +Justice_, “an anthology of social protest: the writings of +philosophers, poets, novelists, social reformers, and others who have +voiced the struggle against social injustice: selected from twenty-five +languages, covering a period of five thousand years”, with an eloquent +introduction by Jack London (1915). And later he put his knowledge +of the Colorado situation into a novel, _King Coal_, which was +published in 1917. + +_King Coal_ is perhaps as fine a labor novel as could be written +under the disability of having a young aristocrat for its hero. The +disability, moreover, is not so great as might be imagined in the +light of _The Metropolis_ and _The Moneychangers_. This young +aristocrat is, happily, different from the young aristocrat in those +books. He is not so naïve, his morality is at least not so oppressively +solemn, he is robust, high-spirited, humorous, and likeable; as the +somewhat rebellious son of a coal-magnate, he gets a job, not in his +father’s mines, for he would be recognized there, but in the mines +belonging to the father of a chum, and not merely sees what is going +on but takes an active part in the highly exciting events that happen, +including the organization of a union, an abortive strike, and a +mine-explosion. The working people in the book are, though minor +figures, real enough to remind us that this book is by the author +of _The Jungle_. The theme is really fictionized, not merely +served up in journalistic hunks. The propaganda is implicit though +all-pervading. There is even a shadowy but real “love-interest”, thus +described by Georg Brandes in his introduction to the book: + +“Most beautifully is this [the author’s poetic attitude] shown in Hal’s +relation to a young Irish girl, Red Mary. She is poor, and her daily +life harsh and joyless, but nevertheless her wonderful grace is one of +the outstanding features of the book. The first impression of Mary is +that of a Celtic Madonna with a tender heart for little children. She +develops into a Valkyrie of the working-class, always ready to fight +for the workers’ right.” + +True and interesting as it is, it leaves considerable to be desired as +fiction. The young aristocrat, even in this likeable guise, impedes +rather than develops the labor theme. The story, told from the point +of view of Red Mary, might not have been so clear an exposition of +all the facts, but it might have been--it could have been--another +_Jungle_. It does credit to the author’s intelligence rather than +to his powers of human feeling. Even the great mine disaster is not, +from the point of view necessitated by the choice of a sympathetic +outsider as the central figure rather than one directly involved, a +tragedy. But, in not attempting a more vital treatment, it does not +fail. It is a minor, and on its own limited plane a brilliant, success. + + + + +XIII. JIMMIE HIGGINS + + +I. + +After a winter in the South, at Gulfport, Miss., Sinclair went to +California in 1915, and made his home at Pasadena, where he continued +to reside. + +In the meantime there was a war going on in Europe, toward which +Sinclair as a Socialist had to orient his views. The international +Socialist movement had been traditionally and on principle +anti-militaristic; but in all the European countries involved, the +conservative elements of the party had found reasons for abandoning +these principles and supporting the war. In America the intellectual +leadership of the party was almost entirely in favor of declaring war +on Germany. Sinclair had written pacifist articles in the past; but +he regarded German militarism as a menace to the Socialist hope of +revolution, and he joined with a group of Socialist intellectuals, +including W. J. Ghent, Charles Edward Russell, J. G. Phelps Stokes, +and William English Walling, in issuing a _Practical Program for +Socialists_, in which it was urged that Socialists should “adjust +themselves to events”, and further recommended a large war budget, +universal military training, and conscription of both male and female +citizens. After the announcement of the resumption of unlimited +submarine warfare by Germany, Sinclair telegraphed to President +Wilson, on February 3, 1917: + + “As one who has devoted his life to a passionate struggle for + Democracy, I cannot remain silent in this hour of Democracy’s + greatest peril. To delay naval action in this crisis is to give + Germany all she wants and to risk the existence of everything for + which a lover of freedom cares to live. On the other hand you + have a chance to take the greatest forward step in history if in + offering the American fleet to keep open the sea lanes to England, + you obtain agreement by allied nations that all territory taken + from Central powers in this war shall be neutralized and made + forever independent under international guarantee.” + +The rank and file of the American Socialist party were, however, still +anti-militarist, and on April 11, five days after the declaration +of war, the party in special convention at St. Louis, adopted by a +three-fourths vote a platform denouncing war and national patriotism +and opposing enlistment by the workers in this war. The familiar +theoretic Socialist position on war was thus reaffirmed: “The only +struggle which would justify the workers in taking up arms is the great +struggle of the working class of the world to free itself from economic +exploitation and political oppression. As against the false doctrine of +national patriotism, we uphold the ideal of international working-class +solidarity. In support of capitalism we will not willingly give a +single life or a single dollar; in support of the struggle of the +workers we pledge our all.... We brand the declaration of war by our +government as a crime against the people of the United States and +against the nations of the world.” + +Such was the majority report. A minority report sponsored by John +Spargo, held it “our Socialist duty” to help “our nation and our allies +to win the war as speedily as possible”, and another minority report +proposed to “recognize the war as a fact” and to promote an early and +democratic peace. The action of the convention was not final, and +the platform as adopted was submitted to a referendum of the whole +membership. Though the party was afterward considerably demoralized by +the defection of so many of its intellectual leaders, their counsels +were in this crisis unhesitatingly rejected, and the anti-war platform +was ratified by a 12 to 1 vote. Sinclair was one of a number of +prominent Socialists who then resigned from the party. He issued an +address to his former comrades, in which he said: + + I cannot but believe, Comrades, that the difference between our + opinions comes from the fact that I have lived in Germany and know + its language and literature, and the spirit and ideals of its + rulers. Having given many years to a study of American capitalism, + as it exists in the domain of the beef trust, the steel trust, + and the coal trust, I am not apt to be blind to the defects of my + own country; but, in spite of these defects, I assert that the + difference between the ruling class of Germany and that of America + is the difference between the seventeenth century and the twentieth. + + I find those with whom I talk here in the West utterly unable + to conceive what the Prussian ruling class is. They cite its + modernness, its use of science; failing to realize that this is + precisely the thing which makes it dangerous--a beast with the + brains of an engineer.... + +“I intend,” he said in conclusion, “to go on working for Socialism as +hard as I can....” + +From April 1918 to February 1919 he published _Upton Sinclair’s_, +a monthly magazine with the subtitle “for a clean peace and the +internation”. It was devoted to what its editor believed to be +President Wilson’s war and peace policies. He took the Wilsonian +idealism at its face value, and not unnaturally believed that the +President had secured the proper pledges from the allied governments. +And so, having identified himself for the time being with this +idealistic and eloquent administration, he was doing his bit, by +propaganda among recalcitrant radicals, to help win the war that was to +make the world safe for democracy. + + +II. + +In 1918 he commenced publication, first in his own magazine, and after +its discontinuance in the _Appeal to Reason_, of a war novel +called _Jimmie Higgins_. + +“Jimmie Higgins” was the name popularly applied to the humbler and +less articulate members of the party--those who carried the soap-box +and set up the gasoline torch at street meetings, not those who made +the speeches. The book was to begin with an affectionate and faithful +picture of the type; and it went on to show Jimmie’s bewilderment in +this war situation, and the arguments by which he was kept out of the +war and urged into it. Presently, however, in accordance with the +author’s pro-war animus, Jimmie succumbs to the example of several good +Socialists, including a German comrade who is anxious to help overthrow +the Kaiser, and enlists in the army. Here the story begins to take on +sweetly fabulous outlines. Being torpedoed on his transport, Jimmie is +waited upon in hospital by the Honorable Beatrice Clendenning, a member +of the British aristocracy, and is genially indulged in Socialist +argument by His Majesty the King of England. + + “We’ve had some terrible poverty,” admitted His Majesty. “We shall + have to find some way of getting rid of it.” + + “There ain’t no way but Socialism!” cried Jimmie.... + +Jimmie then, by single-handed heroism, stops the German army with a +machine-gun, winning the battle of “Chatty Terry” and in fact the war. +“The whole course of the world’s history might have been different”, +it is playfully related, “if one little Socialist machinist from +Leesville, U. S. A., had not chanced ...” etc. Wounded and sent to base +hospital, he there fraternizes across the social chasm with a rich and +formerly sinful young man: one who had actually seduced other men’s +wives, and had got properly punished for it earlier in the story in +the manner of Abelard; the war has made him democratic and thoughtful, +and Jimmie learns from him that even the rich are unhappy.... It was +a piece of fiction calculated to break down the anti-war morale of +Socialist readers. + +There is an important difference, however, to be noted between him and +the other intellectual Socialist leaders who had left the Party. Most +of these became bitter and venomous opponents of the revolutionary +movement, and used every opportunity to denounce it, particularly +in its newest form of Russian Bolshevism, in what they had been +accustomed to call “the capitalist press”. The same opportunities were +offered to him. Here, indeed, was his opportunity, such as more than +one “leader of revolt” has not failed to take advantage of, to endear +himself to those rich and powerful classes whose hatred had driven +him into poverty and neglect. He might have become a fashionable and +prosperous war-time renegade. But when he, too, was offered large sums +of money for speeches or articles to help in defeating certain anti-war +Socialists in important municipal elections, he was astonished and +hurt. “What do they think I am?” he asked. “When this is all over, I +shall be back in the ranks again.” + +And he was presently back in the ranks again. + +It was the intervention of the United States against the Socialist +government of Russia, and the private anti-Soviet war conducted by +the Administration after the armistice with Germany, which ruthlessly +disillusioned him as to President Wilson’s idealism. + +History was kind to him. The intervention of American arms in Siberia +came in time for him to let Jimmie Higgins share in his disillusion. +The final chapters of that novel show Jimmie Higgins sent with the +American forces to Siberia, to fight against the new Socialist +Republic. Jimmie fraternizes with the Bolsheviks, and learns the truth +from them. “He”--like his creator--“had swallowed their propaganda, he +had filled himself up on their patriotism, he had dropped everything +to come and fight for Democracy.... And now they had broken their +bargain with him....” He distributes Bolshevik propaganda among his +fellow soldiers--as happened at Archangel in actuality, when American +regiments mutinied and refused to fight. Jimmie is caught at it, and +tortured to make him betray his comrades. But the thumbscrews and the +water-cure fail to break his spirit. That chapter is called “Jimmie +Higgins Discovers His Soul”. In the next and final chapter--“Jimmie +Higgins Votes for Democracy”--he escapes from his tormentors by going +insane. The effect is to give the previous naïvely pro-war chapters an +effect of fine irony. A sympathetic American critic, Carl Van Doren, +finds that the novel “showed traces of a romantic pulse, settling +down, however, toward the end, to a colder beat”. It was the late and +necessary disillusionment of a too hopeful and generous mind. + + +III. + +In 1920 came _100%: The Story of a Patriot_, published in England +under the title of _The Spy_. Let Mr. Van Doren continue: “It is +the colder beat which throbs in _100%_, with a temperature which +suggests both ice and fire. Hardly since _Jonathan Wild_ has +such irony been maintained in an entire volume, as that which traces +the evolution of Peter Gudge from sharper to patriot through the foul +career of spying and incitement and persecution opened to his kind of +talents by the frenzy of non-combatants during the war. To this has +that patriotism come which on the red fields of Virginia poured itself +out in such unstinting sacrifice; and, though the sacrifice went on +in France and Flanders, was it worth while, Mr. Sinclair implicitly +inquires, when the conflict, at no matter what distance, could breed +such vermin as Peter Gudge? Explicitly he does not answer his question; +his art has gone, at least for the moment, beyond avowed arguments, +merely marshaling the evidence with irresistible ironic skill and +dispensing with the chorus. _100%_ is a document which honest +Americans must remember and point out when orators exclaim, in the +accents of official idealism, over the great days and deeds of the +great war.” + +A less sympathetic critic might find this book somewhat too hard, +somewhat too relentless--might protest that even “such vermin” as a +labor-spy might be credited with an occasional and irrelevant impulse +of kindness, of human decency, or of shame. It might perhaps be said +that in this book the realist has labored to repay to grim truth the +immense debt which the illusioned poet had so splendiferously incurred +during the war.[14] + + + + +XIV. THE BOOK OF LIFE + + +I. + +“Why do you always think of things first?” H. G. Wells wrote to +Sinclair, upon receiving _The Book of Life_. “I should have been +at that in a year or two. I may still do it in spite of you.” + +It was in fact a book of a more or less Wellsian sort, in scope if not +in treatment. It was published in 1921 and 1922. “The writer of this +book”, says the introduction, “has been in this world some forty-two +years. That may not seem long to some, but it is long enough to have +made many painful mistakes, and to have learned much from them. Looking +about him, he sees others making these same mistakes, suffering for +lack of that same knowledge which he has so painfully acquired. This +being the case, it seems a friendly act to offer his knowledge, minus +the pain. + +“There come to the writer literally thousands of letters every year, +asking him questions, some of them of the strangest. A man is dying of +cancer, and do I think it can be cured by a fast? A man is unable to +make his wife happy, and can I tell him what is the matter with women? +A man has invested his savings in mining-stock, and can I tell him what +to do about it? A man works in a sweatshop, and has only a little +time for self-improvement, and will I tell him what books he ought to +read? Many such questions every day make one aware of a vast mass of +people, earnest, hungry for happiness. The things they need to know are +not taught in the schools, nor in the newspapers they read, nor in the +church they attend.” + +He promises that he “will not pretend to know what he merely guesses, +and where it is necessary to guess, he will say so frankly. Finally, +it is a kind book; it is not written for its author’s glory, nor for +his enrichment, but to tell you things that may be useful to you in +the brief span of your life. It will attempt to show you how to live, +how to find health and happiness and success, how to work and how to +play, how to eat and how to sleep, how to love and to marry and to care +for your children, how to deal with your fellow men in business and +politics and social life, how to act and how to think, what religion to +believe, what art to enjoy, what books to read. A large order, as the +books phrase it!” + + +II. + +The prophet, in his most realistic mood, becomes a teacher of +mankind. And the prophet in Upton Sinclair has been considerably +disillusioned and humbled before undertaking this task. There are +here no overweening airs of seership; and though the book seeks to +generalize too much from a specific life experience, it is none the +less valuable on that account. If no one is wise enough to tell all of +us how to live, we can nevertheless learn something from those who +tell the truth about themselves. This is the counsel of a man who has +seen, lived and suffered much, who has kept through trying years his +faith that life has a meaning to be discerned by the human mind, who +believes resolutely that, in large affairs and in small, knowledge +gives us power. If it reveals the limitations of his knowledge, it is +nevertheless an invigorating book, dealing as it does simply, sincerely +and candidly with the fundamental problems of life. “You have written”, +May Sinclair wrote to him, “the best and sanest things about love, and, +it seems to me, the best and sanest things about society.” And it will +be no serious derogation from this praise if we proceed to emphasize, +for our purposes, its inevitable shortcomings. + +The Book of the Mind and the Book of the Body are, on the whole, useful +guides and primers. It is, however, noteworthy that while in the Book +of the Mind there is some awareness of the contributions of modern +psychology to our understanding of life, there is actually no great use +made of such knowledge. The author’s view of life remains, with slight +empirical exceptions, a pre-Freudian view. All life’s difficulties +are apparently to be dealt with by the argumentative method, by +reasonable arguments addressed to presumably reasonable minds. And +such difficulties as are patently not amenable to reform by reasonable +arguments are left entirely out of this purview, or are met with gusts +of moral indignation. That there exists, for instance, among life’s +important problems for young people, such a problem as the successful +establishment of heterosexuality or even the problem of psychic +emancipation from the home, is not at all indicated nor apparently +at all understood. And in default of any useful insight into these +realms of conduct, an undue burden of explanation of human behavior +has to be placed, elsewhere in the book, upon the theory of economic +determinism--which under this severe pressure begins to take on some +mythological characteristics. And this lack of intimate knowledge of +the operations of the mind leaves him with none too adequate defenses +against his own tendency to credulity, in the matter of spiritistic +marvels, where nevertheless he maintains such skepticism as he can +muster. + +The Book of the Body though characterized by an over-emphasis, due +to his own unhappy experiences, upon the Stomach, is nevertheless +interesting and useful. + + +III. + +The Book of Love, on the whole very sensible and enlightening, suffers +inevitably from the lack of a really modern psychological apparatus. +His view of the subject proceeds simply and confidently upon the theory +that the sexual arrangements of mankind can be classified exclusively +with reference to the property-systems upon which they depend. This +conception, though in itself a useful one, provides the author with +the opportunity to indulge his own moral animus in the guise of +economic determinism. Whatever in the way of human sexual habits +he doesn’t approve of, becomes an illustration of “exploitation” by +a ruling class. Moreover, in his presentation of what he regards as +objectionable sexual conduct, the psychic burden of his own repressions +becomes sometimes painfully obvious. In relating what he regards as +sexual scandal, he becomes uncritical, incapable of serene thought, +generosity, taste, or humor. He does not permit himself to realize that +it is largely human nature itself that he is condemning, rather than +merely the aberrations of a property system. In more than one passage +he betrays something of his early emotional bias against sex[15]--an +emotion which he rationalizes, not always successfully, into a +preoccupation with its actual dangers. + +Yet these pages represent, much more significantly, his escape +from the domination of what he calls “the abominable old ideal of +celibacy”, from which he had suffered. It may be said that he has, in +his conception of marriage, achieved a really sane and healthy ideal. +The treatment of love and marriage give the book its claim to serious +consideration as a guide to life’s young adventurers.... Beyond the +realm of marriage as founded upon what might be called complete or +“true” love, his sympathy and understanding do not extend. Sexuality, +in its possibly neurotic but still normal manifestations, all its +merely adventurous, casual, experimental or play expressions, arouses +in him an undue repugnance. (A reference to modern dancing and +“petting parties” evokes the statement that “society is disintegrating, +going back to the howling and fighting and cannibalism of the jungle”!) +But it would be an injustice to the book to trace and further emphasize +these occasional evangelistic outcroppings in a work whose merits are +all in the direction of sexual sanity and health. + +We may, however, pause to disengage one of the author’s characteristic +attitudes for momentary attention, in its relation to his own psychic +development. He believes very strongly in early marriage--at seventeen +or eighteen. He gives many practical reasons for this proposal, but it +is not difficult to perceive the one left unstated, the wish to live +his own life over again and more happily. Indeed, one sometimes feels +that it is to his youthful self that this whole book is addressed: that +he is at forty saying precisely those things which if he had known +them at eighteen would have saved him a world of unhappiness. And the +passage which above all others seems a cry out of the heart, poignant +with infinite regrets, is this advice to married lovers: “Be natural; +be simple and straightforward; and beware of fool notions about sex.” + +But it is perhaps due to the author that one word more be said about +him as a guide. It should occasion no surprise to learn that his +guidance must be taken with the usual discrimination. No guide, whether +Aristotle, or Bacon, or Havelock Ellis, has known all the paths of +life. Upton Sinclair is a guide conspicuously lacking in tolerance. Yet +as guides go I do not hesitate to pronounce him an excellent one, if a +little old-fashioned in his methods. If one must be intolerant--and it +is a common human failing--it is better to be intolerant of drunkenness +and debauchery than of, for example, the aspirations of mankind toward +beauty, wisdom, and order. Puritans, it has been remarked earlier in +these pages, are at the present time unpopular in America, where they +are believed to have inflicted upon helpless populations much meddling +and drastic tyranny in the effort to make us better. It is true that +the agrarian revolt against the financial domination of the city, +after its defeat in the political field in the great campaigns at the +turn of the century, has lately been more or less successful in some +rearguard attacks in the cultural field, including certain attempts +to enforce rigid rural codes of morals and manners. At the same time, +the acquisition of a considerable margin of leisure by a large part of +that native population which had hitherto piously believed in keeping +its nose to the grindstone, has resulted in a violent urban repudiation +of former middle-class standards of decency and respectability; and +lacking other approved channels, a vast amount of social and economic +discontent of all sorts is finding expression at present in the new +popular middle class protest against its own former moral narrowness. A +moral nihilism is the approved note at present among the shell-shocked +intelligentsia, and in this comfortable doctrine the prosperous +middle-class is beginning to find spiritual encouragement for the +diversions which enrich its newly-found leisure. It is impossible in +America at the present moment to have any standards of conduct short +of happy chaos without being regarded by the younger intelligentsia as +a Puritan and hateful blue-nosed reformer. And since Upton Sinclair +shares in this execration, it is only just to point out that he is +actually a moral revolutionary, of the kind if not the quality of +Blake or Nietzsche. One might not like to live in a world constructed +according to the wishes of Upton Sinclair; I confess that I should +not; but it would be a world wildly unlike the dreams of our Puritan +forefathers. + + +IV. + +The Book of Society, which concludes this work, contains an analysis +of capitalist society and an argument for its reconstruction upon +Socialist lines--an analysis and argument considerably but not +fundamentally modified in the light of the Russian revolutionary +experience; he prefers to hope for a peaceful solution of the economic +problem, and makes various proposals to that end, which would obviate +the disorder of an otherwise inevitable and violent revolution. This +peaceful reconstruction, he declares, could begin at once “if we had +sufficient intelligence.... And will anyone maintain,” he asks, “that +it is the part of an intelligent man to advocate a less intelligent +course than he knows?” It is by these views that Sinclair remains, +despite his broad sympathies, identified with the pre-war Socialist +movement, as distinguished from the post-war movement which denominates +itself Communist. + + + + +XV. THE GREAT PAMPHLETS + + +I. + +Modern industrial America has proved a difficult theme for the artists +whose business it is to handle it. There have been two recognized +attitudes of literary approach to this theme. The first, to be found +in the popular magazines, is an attitude of uncritical adulation +and blatant celebration of the advantages which accrue to its +beneficiaries. The other attitude, now found increasingly in fiction +appealing to the intelligentsia, is one of hopeless sentimental protest +against a machine civilization which is conceived as utterly vicious, +spiritually degrading, and altogether too hideous and uninteresting to +be worth picturing in any realistic detail--the space being occupied +instead by accounts of the miseries of the sensitive and artistic +souls who are represented as its chief victims. A welcome from the +American intelligentsia awaits any writer who will picture present +conditions as a confused and hopeless chaos; and on the other hand a +vast popularity, though with no such critical esteem, awaits the writer +who will uncritically celebrate the joys of riding about in expensive +motor cars, eating at expensive restaurants, playing at expensive +sports, indulging in expensive adultery, and exploiting generally +the advantages which accrue to the beneficiaries of the industrial +process. From a literary point of view, the objection to both these +methods is that they fail to come to grips with their subject. + +In so new, vast and confusing a heap of materials as modern industrial +America presents, what is needed first of all is a pattern, an +ideological map of the scene. The old patterns will scarcely do--at +least those patterns which concern themselves narrowly with the +fortunes of individuals, against a background which can be taken for +granted. Here the background is of greater importance, and it is with +masses or groups of men that the story must needs be concerned. Or so +it would seem. The most successful experiment in this kind of fiction +was made by Frank Norris in _The Octopus_; there the canvas was +sufficiently large for the event portrayed, a farmer-railroad war. +But he failed to follow up this method in his succeeding book, _The +Pit_, where attention was concentrated upon a few individuals. A +literary problem is here involved, which has not yet been successfully +solved in fiction. Upton Sinclair’s _Jungle_ did suggest that one +solution lay in putting, as he declared he had attempted, “the content +of Shelley in the form of Zola.” But in his immediately succeeding +books, _The Metropolis_ and _The Moneychangers_, he failed +to make his wealth of reported detail a living part of his story. The +problem might have advanced further toward a solution, but for the +serious discouragements which American literature suffered, for more +than a decade, at the hands of those timid business classes who felt +that their interests were endangered by truthfulness in fiction; and +now that the younger writers in America are in general revolt against +the censorship of respectability, their daring has manifested itself +chiefly so far in venturing to deal frankly with sexual themes, leaving +almost everything else untouched. The problem still remains. But it is +again being attacked, in the field which precedes perhaps by necessity +the fictional one, that is to say in pamphleteering. + +It was pamphleteering--magazine “muck-raking” as it was called--which +preceded and accompanied the great fictional period with which the +names of Frank Norris, Jack London and Upton Sinclair are associated. +That period of pamphleteering had scientific rigor as its goal; a +series of magazine articles on railroad corruption was praised by +saying that it read “like an interstate commerce report”. The new +period of pamphleteering is no less scientifically rigorous in its +factual basis, but it is more human, robust, vigorous, eloquent, +humorous, satirical, personal--and in these respects approaches +and sometimes achieves the effects of imaginative literature. This +pamphleteering at its best has the narrative and dramatic and +psychological excitements of the novel; and it does what the novel has +but seldom succeeded in doing, it comes to grips with the American +theme. It does so by virtue of having patterns which include the +tumultuous and shifting details of this theme--ideological maps of +the landscape, by which the writer can guide us swiftly from point +to point; and most of all, perhaps, it succeeds by reason of having +no such restricted personal scope as the novelist habitually feels +obliged to confine himself to: it deals with the broad panorama of +life. It furnishes perhaps the experimental models of a fiction soon +to be born, able to cope with such a theme as America presents. In any +event, it stands, in its foremost examples, as the latest and greatest +achievement of contemporary American literature. + +And, as might perhaps have been expected, it is one of the surviving +leaders of the gallant fictional campaign of twenty years ago who +has set the pace in this new effort. Baffled, it would seem, by the +difficulty of getting so huge a drama into fiction, Upton Sinclair has +magnificently turned all his powers loose into the generous medium +of pamphleteering--to use that term in the sense not of small but of +controversial books. + +Already, in 1918, there had appeared the first of a series of great +pamphlets which were to get modern America down on paper with a +fullness and a freedom never yet achieved in any other literary form. +This initial work was _The Profits of Religion_, announced as +“a study of supernaturalism from a new point of view--as a source +of income and a shield of privilege”. If the point of view was not +actually new, it had at least not been embodied in so ambitious a +review. Its manner was new, at least since Voltaire. Scarcely since +then had there been such a ruthless showing up of sacred institutions. +It was not a matter of arguing about creeds; it was a revelation of the +facts about the actual function of churches and churchmen in a class +society. It was a more devastating book than can readily be imagined. +A liberal clergyman, the Rev. John Haynes Holmes, wrote of it: “I must +confess that it has fairly made me writhe to read these pages, not +because they are untrue or unfair, but on the contrary, because I know +them to be the real facts. I love the church as I love my home, and +therefore it is no pleasant experience to be made to face such a story +as this which you have told. It had to be done, however, and I am glad +you have done it, for my interest in the church, after all, is more +or less incidental, whereas my interest in religion is a fundamental +thing.... You have done us all a service in the writing of this book.” + +From a certain point of view, however, the importance of the book is +less concerned with its thesis than with the details of contemporary +life through which it leads like a pathway. Indeed, there is a sense +in which an ideological pattern of any sort justifies itself as a +means, whereby the artist leads us into the heart of his subject. +And Sinclair’s pattern is of value precisely where the facts would +otherwise be most confusing or negligible, that is to say in modern +life. In his historical prelude, the pattern seems to introduce too +great a simplification, and its literary value may be doubted; but it +serves as an efficient map through that contemporary American welter +of superstition and exploitation which is his actual theme. Doubtless +there are other important factors involved besides the economic one; +that does not so much matter when the picture is before us--“the Church +of Good Society”, “the Church of the Servant Girls”, “the Church +of the Slavers”, “the Church of the Merchants”, “the Church of the +Quacks”. These are part of our America; and these are the uses to which +a business régime finds these institutions apt and ready. It may be in +part an indictment of human nature rather than of capitalism; but it is +a true picture of a not unimportant aspect of modern industrial America. + + +II. + +It was announced, moreover, that this volume was to be the first of a +series that should “do for Education, Journalism, and Literature” what +had here been done for the Church: “the four volumes making a work of +revolutionary criticism, an Economic Interpretation of Culture under +the general title of _The Dead Hand_”. + +If there were any doubt of the significance of the Church as an +aspect of modern American industrial life, there was none concerning +Journalism and Education. American Journalism was in a peculiar +position: the newspapers, being almost the sole mediums of publicity, +had confidently and arrogantly used their opportunities to sing +their own praises, attributing to themselves all the virtues, and +glorifying in particular their own honesty, truthfulness, fairness, +incorruptibility. Their victims might be aware of the contrary, their +editors might have tales to tell in private, soap-box orators might +denounce them for falsifying and suppressing news of industrial +struggles in the interests of the employers--but who would listen? +They seemed as secure as Gille de Rais in his castle. And at their +back stood the Associated Press, loaded with international honors, +a sacrosanct institution, alert to prosecute for criminal libel any +obscure Socialist publication which dared charge it with partisanship. +It would indeed be difficult to prove a case against them, to expose +the truth which lay behind these gigantic self-advertised reputations +for purity. Yet it was nothing less than this that Upton Sinclair +undertook. + +_The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism_ appeared in +1919. The reference in the title is to the metal counters used in +brothels, according to investigations which had given the phrase +some currency as a polite synonym for prostitution. The book was an +indictment of the corruption of the American press, with facts, names, +dates, proof complete. If the charges were false, they constituted +criminal libel, and the author could have been put in prison. But, +despite repeated challenges by the author, the truth of these +statements was never denied in court. + +_The Brass Check_ is an extraordinary book--not in its daring +alone. Its contents vary from what might be described as dynamite to +the most preposterously farcical matters, which are not, however, +without their strict relevance to the subject under discussion, since +American journalism has its farcical as well as its tragic aspect. +Never in modern times have such widespread charges been made in such +personal terms--personal with reference to the accuser as well as the +accused. For it is, incidentally but first of all, an account of the +dealings of the author himself with the newspapers of America. The +book might for that reason have been ineffective; it was certainly +unconventional. But in this case the story of one man’s relations with +the press, embracing as it does some of the most important episodes in +American newspaper history during our time, is a valuable document. +Not all the personal incidents are important, though they illustrate +the characteristic traits of the American press. But the story of +Sinclair’s efforts to get the news of the Colorado coal strike into +the papers, and his battle with the Associated Press in connection +with the coal strike, is of the greatest importance. And this personal +story is only the beginning of the record; with an immense mass of the +most careful documentation, the whole field is covered in a factual and +convincing way. + +The impression which the book made upon America, the eagerness with +which it was read here, as well as all over the world, revealed the +fact that there was an immense resentment against the pseudo-sanctity +in which these institutions had wrapped themselves; whether or not any +reforms were immediately effected by this exposure, it at least lifted +a cloud of repression from the minds of the American people. It was now +possible to speak disrespectfully of these great institutions without +seeming to be guilty of lèse majesté. It had been done, with impunity! + +Aside, however, from its uncontroverted authenticity in detail, it +was a picture of America which could be recognized by those who knew +their country--a picture which has not before been compassed in our +literature. Here was a real American story: nor, from that point of +view, did it matter that the characters bore names that could be found +in Bradstreet’s. When the persons named in the book are forgotten, when +they are mere characters in the book, the book will still live on as +a picture of its age. Here pamphleteering has reached the heights of +great art. + + +III. + +Upton Sinclair, almost forgotten as a novelist by his countrymen, +became by virtue of this book again a figure in American life and +literature. The post-war disillusionment had begun, people were willing +to listen to the truth--and here was a man capable of telling it. What +would his book on American education be like? + +American education, it had begun to be realized, was largely a fetish. +Was it really education at all, the process so elaborately conducted +in our universities with amphitheatrical football performances in the +foreground and intellectual terrorization in the background? And if +not education, what was it, and why? Upton Sinclair, from the point +of view of those who are interested technically in the problems of +modern education, cannot furnish a final answer to that question. +But, in _The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education_, his +pattern provides us with preliminary guidance through the labyrinth of +astounding and ridiculous facts: it does show us, if not everything +that is the matter with American universities, at least what uses +American business stupidity is making of these huge and lumbering +institutions. There is, indeed, no Machiavellian cunning here, +certainly no far-seeing effort to make higher education in America an +efficient part of the capitalist system; but there is fear everywhere +of truth, fear of intellectual freedom, hysterical fear and stupid +tyranny. It is a tragic farce that is revealed in the book. The tragedy +lies in the wastage of youth, and the frustration of teaching talent. +But comic in the highest degree are the pompous figures that stalk so +solemnly through its pages--the dignified and ridiculous little lords +of the educational world who are hired to run their institutions so as +to please the men who have money to give.... The book was followed in +1924 by _The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools_, in which +the picture becomes both more ridiculous and more tragic, for petty +greed and unscrupulous commercial exploitation, as ruthless and vicious +as has ever been practised upon the helpless and the ignorant, become +part of the scene. These revelations are all of a specifically factual +and utterly convincing sort, and they portray in indelible terms the +species of moral and intellectual serfdom to which the higher and lower +educational institutions of America have been all but universally +reduced by the ignorance and the fears of a business régime. And, +together with their predecessors in this series of great pamphlets, +these books constitute a Contemporary History of American Civilization +by which we are known and judged all over the world, and which must be +read and studied by all Americans who dare to face realities. + +In these books, moreover, a writer who despite two extraordinary +artistic triumphs has so often failed to come to complete and +satisfying fullness of expression in the medium of the novel, reaches +and maintains himself at the height of his powers. In this realm of +facts, as not always in the realm controlled by the imagination, he +is utterly assured and at home--capable, in this large field, of +Aristophanic laughter and epic vision. Across these huge canvases march +the multitudes of living mankind, tricksters and deluded ones, liars +and dupes, thieves and victims, masters and henchmen, the preachers, +editors, railroad presidents, financiers, politicians, soldiers, +gunmen, salesmen, teachers, children: it is a panorama of contemporary +American humanity, candidly, tenderly, relentlessly, magnificently +displayed. + + +IV. + +_Mammonart: An Essay in Economic Interpretation_, published in +1925, the latest in this series of gigantic exposés, is a venture of a +different sort from the others. It does not deal especially with the +American scene; and its interest lies only partly within the field +of fact, being still more significantly within the field of opinion. +It is in one of its aspects a polemic in art criticism, or, more +specifically, literary criticism--an attack upon the theory of art for +art’s sake. It is also, from its own revolutionary point of view, an +“Outline of Literature”--the most spirited, honest, interesting and +informative ever published. But it may perhaps most interestingly be +considered here as a psychological document. + +An American writer who early in this century wished to deal with +themes of social and economic significance found himself hampered by +an academic tradition concerning literature which had grown up since +the Civil War. That vast struggle had left America too spiritually +exhausted to take its due part in the great intellectual battles which +raged through Europe in the latter half of the nineteenth century; +and the literary productions which reflected those conflicts came to +us a little late and with an odor of sanctity which obscured their +controversial quality. The new effort to exploit the vast commercial +possibilities of America absorbed, moreover, for a generation or more, +all its best energies, and literature was left to the professors. By +these it was characteristically conceived as a serene realm high above +the vulgar conflicts of the day, a refuge from immediate interests, +a shelter from passing hopes and fears, a communion with “eternal” +things. This professorial view of literature had preferred to forget +the origin of its most admired productions in that very stress and +sweat of earthly conflict. It was a forgetfulness natural to the +epicene and timid class to whom education itself was no preparation +for the struggle of life but rather a retirement from it. According to +these professorial standards of taste, literature must not come too +dangerously close to reality, or it would incur the damnation of being +dismissed as “propaganda”. It was this attitude which the young Upton +Sinclair encountered when he began his literary career. He wanted to +show the evils of the existing world, and he wanted to help create +the desire for a world fit to live in. Such intentions as these are +no new thing in the history of literature--they have been implicit +and explicit in much of the world’s greatest literature. But he found +himself offending the taste of timid and nervous critics. They thought +it was all right for him to have opinions about the Civil War, because +that happened a long time ago; but he really ought not to have any +opinions about the Class Struggle, because that was possibly going +on right now. To try to make people sympathize with struggling poets +was sufficiently artistic; but to try to make people sympathize with +struggling workingmen was, in the cant phrase of the day, “propaganda”. + +And yet it seemed to him, looking back over the world’s literature, +that it was full of “propaganda”, of one sort and another. If +Aristophanes satirized Athenian democracy, if Virgil concocted an +imitation epic in celebration of the founding of Rome, if Juvenal +muck-raked the high Roman society of his time in the most scandalous +fashion, if Shakespeare mocked and reviled the mobs and their rebel +leaders, if John Milton called on God to avenge the massacre of +Protestants in Piedmont, that wasn’t called propaganda, to be sure; +when the propagandists were dead enough, they were called artists. But +wasn’t all art inevitably concerned with revealing a view of life? +Propaganda in that sense was an intimate part of every work or art. +Mediocre poets like Southey were called artists in their time, because +they said all the approved things; and great poets like Shelley were +dismissed as loud-mouthed ranters because they wanted to change the +world. Keats was told to go back to his pills by the aristocratic +reviewers of his time because he was a radical and a friend of Leigh +Hunt’s.... Apparently, then, esthetic criticism was not as purely +esthetic as it deemed itself, but was involved with the fears of the +ruling class. Those who praise the existing scheme of things will +find their artistic virtues readily enough acclaimed. The rash young +revolutionist who turns his coat and comes out for law and order will +likely enough be made poet laureate. Morals, too, are involved--the +writer who is a rebel in politics will have his moral frailties +emblazoned before a shocked world and will be regarded as a monster; +while the writer whose opinions are correct may, if he is careful, +enjoy his adulteries and perversities and remain the darling of +respectable society. And, when one looks over the world’s literature, +how many first-rate writers are there who have not been social rebels? +How many writers have written anything worth while after they ceased to +be rebels? How many hugely-bolstered reputations of the correct sort +have any validity? And of those writers who were notoriously hostile or +indifferent to the great social rebellions of their time, how much has +their art lost by their blindness to what was going on? + +These questions, fulminating in the mind of the young writer, set +in motion a long historical and critical inquiry of years, of which +_Mammonart_ is the result.... In the meantime, and especially +since the war, it appears that these professorial doctrines have +passed over into the minds of the younger generation of the American +intelligentsia and its writers generally, a natural symptom of +the social helplessness of this period of disillusionment. The +_fin-de-siècle_ art theories of the European ’nineties have been +taken over with much enthusiasm as a means of retaining artistic +self-respect while sitting among the ruins of pre-war hopes. Under +these circumstances, it can easily be understood that Upton Sinclair’s +book should arouse resentment--for it is implicitly a challenge to the +young writers of America to take their place as leaders in what Heine +called the Liberation War of Humanity. + +Such is the content of _Mammonart_; in form it is a handbook +covering in short, vivid chapters a vast part of the world’s +literature, reviewing it against its own political and economic +background, with special attention to the manner in which the social +struggles of the times are reflected in the life and work of the +writers. It describes itself as an inquiry into art from the point of +view of revolutionary economics. It is the first of the kind to be +broadly undertaken, though Bernard Shaw in his essay on Wagner and in +his criticisms in general has furnished some interesting and valuable +examples of the method. It is a kind of criticism that is familiar +in Russia, where it has long been practised. But, though at present +something of a novelty in America, it is not likely to remain so. +The weakness of the various current attempts to deal with art from a +purely esthetic standpoint seem to make it inevitable that this more +revolutionary and realistic method will come into vogue. + +Social revolutionary criticism, as it may be called, takes it for +granted that an artist is an interpreter of life, and judges the +truth and value of his interpretation by the test of how fully he +shows himself aware of what is going on in his world, with special +reference to social change, and whether he helps his audience to +understand and sympathize with such changes. He is recognized as a +discriminator of spiritual values, in some sense a creator of them, +and he is judged by the spiritual values he helps to create in a world +that struggles toward something greater and finer than its past. He +is not asked to be consciously attempting to create such values, and +least of all is he asked to believe in this or that specific program +of change--he is judged as an artist and not as a politician. It is +a frankly partisan criticism, but it represents the genuine esthetic +response of those who feel themselves to be living in a changing world +lighted by the hope of revolutionary improvement. It is a criticism +which attaches no importance to such sacrosanct effects as those of +tragedy. It welcomes cynicism and pessimism in regard to institutions, +but it regards cynicism and pessimism in regard to man’s ultimate +power of conquering his environment as merely morbid. It bases itself +on science, and claims the right to rank various kinds of “beauty” +according to its own scale of values. It is thus seen to be itself a +discriminator and creator of spiritual and esthetic values; it does not +hesitate to hurl gods from their pedestals nor throw outworn beauty +in the dustbin of time. Its weakness is that of all other theories of +art criticism--that it may become a cloak for the personal prejudices +of those who use it, giving them a dignity they do not necessarily +deserve. But it has vitality, and candor, and is more realistic than +any other kind of criticism that has yet appeared. Upton Sinclair’s own +moral preconceptions are occasionally obvious in this book; but he has +triumphantly escaped most of the dangers of this kind of criticism. +His book is so rich in its swiftly painted backgrounds, so moving in +its drama, so profoundly true on the plane in which it moves, and so +thoroughly and simply intelligible in its thesis, as to constitute a +very impressive and valuable example of the new social revolutionary +criticism. + +As an utterance of its author’s point of view, the book arouses a +certain psychological curiosity--his alleged “Puritanism” again comes +under discussion. The erotic themes which constitute so large a part +of the world’s literature receive scant attention here. It might seem +that from his point of view mankind’s erotic problems are too simple to +bother with in literature; but some reflection upon his own writings +(including the unpublished manuscript of _Love’s Progress_) shows +that this is not so. One hazards the explanation that they seem to +him, these erotic problems of mankind, to be too involved with social +problems to be isolated, and indeed too complex to be satisfactorily +solved by mankind except upon terms of profound social change. His +impatience with literary critics would thus be the impatience of a +revolutionary mind, not content with such tawdry or cruel or cowardly +escapes as the world has thus far afforded to its rebels in the sexual +realm. One remembers the boy Thyrsis, who wandered at night seeking +some adventure that would be “not quite shameful to a poet’s fancy”. +So, it would seem, has he wandered through the byways of the world’s +literature, finding no erotic fancies that were not, to a realist and a +poet, tiresome to contemplate--as for example, when he turns away from +Coleridge’s “woman wailing for her demon lover” with the remark that +it is “a savage’s nightmare”. Such a mind would turn naturally to the +world’s future for its ultimate satisfactions, and form the habit of +subsuming under its social hopes its erotic dissatisfactions with the +world of contemporary reality. + +It may be remarked that Upton Sinclair’s own practice has not been +invariably in the direction of slighting the sexual aspects of life; +he notably did not slight them in _Love’s Pilgrimage_--and when +urged by a friendly older novelist to be less frank in certain scenes, +he replied in terms which constitute an interesting defense of the +realistic method: + +“I wish,” he wrote, “to give the inner significance of life, as it +comes to me; but on the other hand, I conceive that there is no way to +give this, except with the materials of the actual world which we have +at our hand. + +“You will readily believe that I did not write the particular passages +in _Love’s Pilgrimage_ which you discuss, without much earnest +thought about the subject. I had certain emotions to portray, and I +knew only one way to do it. For instance, I could not have conceived +of the conveying of the emotions of the man who sees his first child +born, without describing the actual physical things which he saw. I +simply did not know any other way to do it. If you think that there is +any other way, I would be interested to have you tell me. Do you know +of any place in the world’s literature where it has been done? For my +part, I know of only one or two hints at it, and these very inadequate. + +“You must understand that concerning both this subject, and that of the +passion scenes in the novel, I have a very definite conviction that the +attitude of modern civilization toward these subjects is a wholly false +and unnatural one. I believe that these things are part of human life, +and that we should learn to talk about them with the same simplicity +and naturalness that we use about any other of the deep facts of life, +such as, for instance, the problems of death or of religion.” + + + + +XVI. OIL! + + +I. + +One of the difficulties of writing a critical biography of a living +writer is that he changes while he is being written about. When this +book was begun, it was with the idea that Upton Sinclair, in spite of +two fictional masterpieces, had found the novel too narrow a medium +for the expression of his vast and robust interest in the social and +economic tragi-comedy of life, and that he had reached his fullest +self-realization in the series of great pamphlets descriptive of +American culture. But there is now at hand the astonishing new novel, +_Oil!_, upon which he has been at work for the past two years, and +that judgment has to be reversed. + +_Oil!_ stands beside and in many ways above _The Jungle_. It +is a maturer work, and if it does not have the intensity and poignancy +of that early masterpiece it has a greater breadth of vision and a +deeper knowledge of life. Its curiosity and range and ease and power +are Tolstoyan. It is a large book, a great canvas, as great as that +of the great pamphlets, and carrying all their effects easily within +its simple story. It is the story of Oil, in human terms, and in terms +of all classes--the oil magnates and their families, the rich, the +poor, the workers, idlers, the doll-house life of Hollywood, and the +political machinations that have been reverberating through America for +the last four years: it is all here, in the story of an oil magnate’s +son, his father, his sweethearts, and his friends, including the vital +figure of Paul, the young workingman who gives him his first glimpse +into the rebel world beneath his happy paradise. No extended account +of it will be given in these last pages; it suffices to say that it +restores to us Upton Sinclair the novelist, and that it constitutes one +of the great achievements in the literary discovery of contemporary +America. + +It is as though in the great pamphlets Upton Sinclair had found his +stride, and brought back to the medium of fiction the verve and the +reality which he had learned in dealing with life at close quarters. +If he can continue in this masterful way, not even his Socialist +preoccupations can prevent him from being recognized as America’s +greatest novelist. + + +II. + +It remains only to complete the picture with some brief account of +his other activities, carrying the story of his life down to the +present.... Little has been said of him here as a playwright; but he +has written many plays, produced some of them himself under Socialist +auspices, and one of his late plays, _Singing Jailbirds_, +published in 1924, dealing with the ruthless persecution of the I. W. +W. under the California “Criminal Syndicalist” law, is a more poignant +and effective example of the expressionistic drama than any that has +been produced on the American stage. It has been played in England as a +means of raising funds for the striking miners, and last year in Vienna +on the revolutionary anniversary, November 8th and 9th. This remarkable +play is the outcome of the author’s experience in 1923, during the +free speech fight at Los Angeles in connection with the I. W. W. +harbor strike. The rights of free speech being illegally denied by the +police to the members of the I. W. W., he undertook to uphold the law +against those who, sworn to defend it, were engaged in violating it +in the interests of the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association. He +and his associates, assembling in San Pedro on private property with +the consent of the owner, were arrested by the police for the crime of +reading aloud, and hearing read, three sentences from the Constitution +of the United States--those guaranteeing “freedom of speech and of +the press, and the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to +petition the government for the redress of their grievances.” The +act of reminding the people of California of these antique rights as +guaranteed in that venerable document constituted a crime which made +Sinclair, according to the Los Angeles chief of police, “more dangerous +than 4,000 I. W. W.” The complaint on which he was illegally arrested +charged him with “discussing, arguing, orating and debating certain +thoughts and theories, which thoughts and theories ... were detrimental +and in opposition to the orderly conduct of affairs of business, +affecting the rights of private property....” He was accordingly +thrown into jail and held “incommunicado”. While in jail he learned +of an incident which had happened there the day before--fifty men +crowded into a small prison hole without air for singing their I. W. W. +songs--the origin of his play, _Singing Jailbirds_. “I am not”, he +wrote to the chief of police after his release on bail had been at last +effected, “a giant physically; I shrink from pain and filth and vermin +and foul air, like any other man of refinement; also, I freely admit +that when I see a line of a hundred policemen with drawn revolvers +flung across a street to keep anyone from coming on to private property +to hear my feeble voice, I am somewhat disturbed in my nerves. But I +have a conscience and a religious faith, and I know that our liberties +were not won without suffering, and may be lost again through our +cowardice.” + + +III. + +For a number of years Upton Sinclair has occupied a peculiar situation, +as the publisher of his own books. This, as may be remembered, began +with his first novel, which could at first find no publisher. _The +Jungle_, also, when it had been rejected by five publishers, he decided +to publish himself, and had made the plates when a publisher summoned +up the courage to take it over--and made a fortune on it. Ten years +afterward, _The Profits of Religion_ could find no publisher, and he +published it himself; he has sold some sixty thousand copies, and still +sells two thousand copies every year without advertising. He was told +that there were fifty criminal libel suits and one or two thousand +civil suits in _The Brass Check_, so he published that himself. He +printed twenty-three thousand copies, and they were sold in two or +three weeks; orders came in for forty thousand more, but this was at +a time of paper shortage, and he found it hard to get paper--doubly +hard, because in several instances when it was discovered what the +paper was to be used for the orders were canceled; a hundred and +thirty-five thousand copies were sold altogether, in spite of these +difficulties. “Also”, the author remarks, “I have managed to give +away seven or eight thousand copies of _Singing Jailbirds_.” _Jimmie +Higgins_, _100%_, _The Goose-Step_, _The Goslings_, and _Mammonart_ +were similarly published; and the business flourished sufficiently +to enable him to buy the plates and copyrights of books originally +published by other publishers, so that he now owns twenty-six of them, +and has all but three or four in print. He does not, however, recommend +the method to other authors, and tells the story of a man who was in +the business of manufacturing brushes, and whose wife, when he found at +the end of the year that he had been selling the brushes below cost, +said enthusiastically: “But think what an enormous business you do!” +The story sums up, he admits, his own experiences as a publisher. The +method, however, keeps him in touch with his readers. “Never a mail +comes that there is not a letter from some workingman or workingwoman, +some poor student, or teacher, or political prisoner, who has been able +to get my books for one reason and one only--that they are available +at low prices. It is not an unusual thing for me to hear of a single +volume that has been read by scores of people, prisoners in jail, of +workingmen in mines and lumber camps, or teachers in a school, or +professors in a college. I get letters from South Africa and South +America, from Alaska and New Zealand, from India and Russia.” Many of +his books, scarcely heard of in America, are best sellers in Great +Britain and its colonies, in Germany, Italy, Holland, Denmark, the +Scandinavian countries, and the states from Finland down to Serbia, +while hundreds of editions were published in the Union of Socialist +Soviet Republics, where the printing of his books has recently been +made a state monopoly. + + +IV. + +At the age of twenty-three it had been Upton Sinclair’s ambition, as +expressed in the preface to his first novel, to publish a library of +helpful books for “the humble people of our land.” This dream of a +workingmen’s library has recently come true in an indirect way, as one +of the enterprises conducted at his instigation by the “Garland Fund.” +The manner in which the fortune which had been repudiated by a strange +young millionaire named Charles Garland came to be used for this and +other liberal and radical purposes is thus described by Sinclair in +_What’s the Use of Books?_--a pamphlet published by the Vanguard +Press: + +“I am going to tell you a story. It is as strange as any fairy story +you ever read, and with this one difference--it happened exactly as I +tell it, and only three or four years ago. + +“Once upon a time there was a young man who had been born into a home +of luxury. He had everything in life that a young man could desire, +and before he was twenty-one a relative died and left him a million +dollars. Ask most Americans what they would like to have happen to +them, and they will say that to have a relative die and leave them a +million dollars would suit them fine. But for some strange reason it +didn’t suit this rich young man. He was troubled with an uncomfortable +thing called a conscience; he had the crazy notion that before a man +spends money he ought to earn it. He said that he hadn’t earned that +million dollars, and so he wasn’t going to take it. + +“It was none of my business, but I was worried, thinking about that +million dollars, and all the things that could be done with it. Lying +there in a Wall Street bank, piling itself up--according to present-day +customs being loaned out to speculators and big business men, and thus +being used directly contrary to the ideas of the young man! I sat down +and wrote him a letter, pointing this out and begging him to take the +money and use it for spreading his ideas of social justice--or, if +he hadn’t faith enough in his own ideas, then to entrust the money +to a group of the best friends of social justice he could find. Many +others wrote the young man to the same effect, and the upshot was that +he changed his mind, and took the million dollars and established an +endowment called ‘The American Fund for Public Service.’ + +“So there was a group of men and women having this responsibility; and +right away they began getting letters from me. I wanted them to spend +the money for one thing--cheap books for the workers. Books differ +from most other things in that their inner spirit is not dependent on +their outer form. The most important ideas in the world can be printed +and sold for a few cents, and if you get the ideas they are exactly as +useful to you as if they had come out of a costly volume printed on +vellum and bound in silk. Therefore, I argued, _books should come +first_. + +“Others agreed with me, and so there came into being an institution +called the Vanguard Press, having magically in its possession one +hundred thousand dollars of that Wall Street money, and pledged through +its trustees to spend the money in selecting the books most needed by +the every-day people of this country, having them edited and printed, +and offered to the people at the lowest possible prices.” + + +V. + +Throughout his career, with the exception of the brief period during +the war referred to in an earlier chapter, he has been actively +identified with the Socialist Party; he was a Socialist candidate for +Congress in 1906 and 1920, for the Senate in 1922, for governor of +California in 1926. In the present state of the Socialist movement +in America, split as it is between the Socialist and the Workers +(Communist) Party, and with these groups more or less hostile to one +another, he is the one figure, since the death of Debs, who commands +the respect of all branches of the revolutionary movement. + + +VI. + +Most of Upton Sinclair’s personality is expressed in his +social-revolutionary interests and activities. Upton Sinclair, +“the person,” aside from these activities, is a slight, wiry, +graying figure, an early riser and hard worker, keeping one or two +stenographers busy all day; an excellent tennis player, an eager +talker; self-described as “easily bored, naïve and impersonal”; dealing +with “griefs, troubles and failures” by putting his emotions into the +book he is writing; somewhat skeptically interested in spiritistic +phenomena, very hopefully interested in new devices, regarded as +absurd by the medical profession, for curing disease; an occasional +lecturer to women’s clubs, able to mitigate the shock of his opinions +to precisely the amount that such organizations can stand; wearing +the cast-off clothes of a rich young friend, precisely as when he was +seventeen and living on $4.50 a week; always in debt, never hesitating +to borrow money for some project which he regards as for the benefit of +humanity; always hopeful of enormous success in each new project, each +new book; very boyish, impulsive, trustful, stubborn; fondly regarded +as impractical by those who love him ... including a wife who backs +him loyally, and who appears in his writings as “M. C. S.”, and in +_Mammonart_ as “Mrs. Ogi”. + + +VII. + +Upton Sinclair is at this point in his career forty-eight years old; +he intends to live to be as old as Bernard Shaw, and he probably will. +His future literary career may bring surprises; the poet in him may yet +overwhelm the propagandist. It is sufficient, however, to have seen +the development of a raw cub of genius, an ethereal poet, afraid of +real life, into the fearless and robust transcriber of the tragi-comic +welter which is contemporary America. And we may conclude with the +reminder that it is as one of the leaders of a significant American +literary movement that he has here been studied--a movement which will +seem of larger and larger importance to us as we learn and cherish our +own literary history--a movement which was killed twenty years ago +because there was too much troublesome truth in it, and which is only +in these last few years being painfully born again: he is one of the +great pioneers in the fictional discovery and exploitation of modern +America. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +[Books entirely out of print are so marked; editions in print are +marked with a *.] + + Springtime and Harvest. A Romance. [With an introduction by the + author, and photograph of the shack in the woods where the book + was written.] Sinclair Press, 1901. [Out of print.] + + King Midas. A Romance. [A reissue of Springtime and Harvest with a + new title.] Funk & Wagnalls, 1901. [Out of print.] + + The Journal of Arthur Stirling. “The Valley of the Shadow.” + Appleton [anonymous edition], 1903; [with the author’s name, + and an explanatory preface], 1906. Sinclair [with explanatory + postscripts], 1923.* + + Prince Hagen. A Phantasy. L. C. Page, 1903. Kerr, 1910. [Out of + print.] + + Manassas. A Novel of the War. Macmillan, 1904. Sinclair, 1923.* + + A Captain of Industry. [A Tale.] Appeal to Reason, 1906. + Haldeman-Julius [pamphlet], 1924.* + + The Jungle. [A Novel.] Doubleday, 1907. Sinclair, 1920.* Vanguard + Press, 1926.* + + The Industrial Republic. A Study of the America of Ten Years Hence. + Illustrated. Doubleday, 1907. [Out of print.] + + The Overman. [A Tale.] Doubleday, 1907. Haldeman-Julius [pamphlet], + 1924.* + + The Metropolis. [A Novel.] Moffat Yard, 1908. Sinclair, 1923.* + + The Moneychangers. [A Novel.] Dodge, 1910. Sinclair [revised + edition], 1923.* + + Good Health and How We Won It. By Upton Sinclair and Michael + Williams. Stokes, 1909. [Out of print.] + + Samuel the Seeker. [A Novel.] Dodge, 1910. Sinclair, 1923.* + + Plays of Protest. The Naturewoman. The Machine. The Second-Story + Man. Prince Hagen. Kennerley, 1911. Haldeman-Julius [separate + pamphlets], 1924.* + + The Fasting Cure. Kennerley, 1911. Sinclair, 1923.* + + Love’s Pilgrimage. [A Novel.] Kennerley, 1911. Sinclair, 1926.* + + Damaged Goods. [Novelized from Brieux’s play.] Winston, 1913.* + + Sylvia. A Novel. Winston, 1913. Sinclair, 1913.* + + Sylvia’s Marriage. A Novel. Winston, 1914. Sinclair, 1927.* + + The Cry for Justice. An Anthology of the Literature of Social + Protest. With an Introduction by Jack London. Illustrated. + Winston, 1915. Sinclair, 1920.* + + King Coal. A Novel. With an Introduction by Dr. Georg Brandes. + Macmillan, 1917. Sinclair, 1917.* + + The Profits of Religion. An Essay in Economic Interpretation. + Sinclair, 1918.* Vanguard Press, 1927.* + + The Brass Check. A Study of American Journalism. Sinclair, 1919.* + + The Crimes of the “Times”. [Pamphlet.] Sinclair, 1919.* + + 100%. The Story of a Patriot. Sinclair, 1920.* + + The Bock of Life. Macmillan, 1921-22. Sinclair, 1921-22.* + + They Call Me Carpenter. A Tale of the Second Coming. Boni & + Liveright, 1922. Sinclair, 1922.* + + Hell. A Verse Drama and Photo-Play. [Pamphlet.] Sinclair, 1923.* + + The Goose-Step. A Study of American Education. Sinclair, 1923.* + + The Goslings. A Study of American Schools. Sinclair, 1924.* + + Singing Jailbirds. A Drama in Four Acts. Sinclair, 1924.* + + The Millennium. A Comedy of the Year 2000. [A tale based on a + play written in 1907 and subsequently lost.] Haldeman-Julius + [pamphlets], 1924.* + + The Pot-Boiler. A Comedy in Four Acts. [Written in 1912.] + Haldeman-Julius [pamphlet], 1924.* + + Mammonart. An Essay in Economic Interpretation. Sinclair, 1925.* + + Bill Porter. A Drama of O. Henry in Prison. Sinclair, 1925.* + + Letters to Judd, An American Workingman. Sinclair, 1926.* + + The Spokesman’s Secretary, Being the Letters of Mame to Mom. + Sinclair, 1926.* + + Oil! A Novel. A. & C. Boni, 1927.* Sinclair. 1927.* + + + + +INDEX + + + Alcohol, 21, 29 note. + + Annapolis, 22, 47 + + Appeal to Reason, 104, 146 + + Arden, Del., 125 _et seq._ + + _Argosy, The_, 44, 46 + + Asceticism, 29 _et seq._, 60 _et seq._ + + Associated Press, 138, 139, 165, 166 + + + Baltimore, Md., 16, 19 + + Bloor, Ella Reeve, 107 + + _Book of Life, The_, 151 + + Boys’ stories, 46, 47 + + Brandes, Georg, 113, 141 + + _Brass Check, The_, 165, quoted _passim_ + + Brieux, 133 + + Broadway demonstration, 137 + + Budget, 41 + + + Carlyle, 36 + + “Chappie”, 32 + + Chicago, 16, 17 note, 103, 104, 107 + + Church, 38, 39, 162 + + Clothes, 41 note, 186 + + Coal Strike, 137 + + College, 34, 49, 52, 53 + + Colorado, 137 + + Constitution, U. S., 180 + + “Corydon”, 65 + + _Country House Built for Only $156, A_, 79 + + _Cry for Justice, The_, 140 + + + _Damaged Goods_, 133 + + Dead Hand, The, 164 + + Divorce, 130 + + + Eden Musée, 17 note + + Emerson, 36 + + + Farragut, David, 17, 18 + + _Fasting Cure, The_, 128 + + Free-Speech fight at Los Angeles, 180 + + + Galahad, 61 + + Garland, Charles, 183 + + Genius and its claims, 50, 86 + + Genteel tradition in American Literature, 110 + + German Lessons, 68 + + Goethe’s picture, 54 + + _Goose-Step, The_, 167 + + Gorky incident, 111 + + _Goslings, The_, 168 + + Greenwich Village, 30 note + + + Hackwork, 41 + + Hamlet, 33, 39 + + Helicon Hall, 121 + + Herron, George D., 97, 100 + + Holland, 131, 132 + + + _In the days of Decatur_, 46 + + _In the net of the Visconti_, 46 + + Indigestion, 42, 73, 128 + + _Industrial Republic, The_, 118 + + Intercollegiate Socialist Society, 103 + + + Jail, 126, 138, 181 + + Jesus, 27, 33, 39 + + _Jimmie Higgins_, 146, 148 + + Jokes, 44 + + _Journal of Arthur Stirling, The_, 78, 86 + + _Jungle, The_, 84, 104 + + + “Killing Spaniards”, 47 + + _King Coal_, 140 + + _King Midas_, 78 + + + Languages, learning of, 53 + + Lee, Robert E., 20, 37 + + Lewis, Sinclair, 124 + + Lincoln, 37 + + Literary enthusiasms, 27, 36, 37, 39, 43, 52, 53, 54, 58, 61, 63, 93, + 94 + + London, Jack, 102, 106, 114 + + _Love’s Pilgrimage_, 128, 176 quoted _passim_ + + _Love’s Progress_, 129 note, 175 + + Ludlow massacre, 137 + + + _Machine, The_, 116 + + _Mammonart_, 169 + + _Manassas_, 101, 115 + + Marriage, 72; 2d, 136 + + _Metropolis, The_, 113, 114 + + Moir, Rev. William W., 39, 61 + + _Moneychangers, The_, 113, 116 + + “Mourning pickets”, 137 + + Moyer and Haywood, 111 + + “Muck-raking”, 109, 161 + + Music, 26, 28, 29 note, 65, 73 + + _My cause_, 94 + + + New York, 31 + + Nietzsche, 52 + + Norfolk, 17 + + Norris, Frank, 104, 114, 160 + + + _Oil!_, 178 + + _100%: The Story of a Patriot_, 149 + + + Packingtown, 103, 104, 107 + + Perry, Commodore, 17 + + Phillips, David Graham, 105, 109 + + Picketing on Broadway, 137 + + Play, 29, 186 + + Plays, 125, 179 + + Poetic ambitions, 42, 51, 56, 88 + + _Prince Hagen_, 78, 99 + + Professors, 35, 52 + + _Profits of Religion, The_, 162 + + Publisher of his own books, 181 + + Puritanism, 13, 155, 175 + + + Realism, defense of, 176 + + Residence, 16, 31, 55, 72, 79, 84 note, 87, 103, 121, 125, 131, 132, + 136, 137, 139, 140, 143[16] + + Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 137, 139, 140 + + Roosevelt, Theodore, 107, 108 + + Ruskin, 37 + + Russia, 148, 158 + + + Sabbath-breaking, see Arden + + _Samuel the Seeker_, 128 + + San Pedro arrest, 180 + + Scott, Sir Walter, 49 + + Shelley, 39, 53, 94, 160 + + _Singing Jailbirds_, 181 + + Single-tax colony, see Arden + + Socialism, 97, 119, 158, 185 + + Socialists and the war, 143 + + _Springtime and Harvest_, 55, 74, 78 + + _Spy, The_, 149 + + Stockyards, 103, 104, 107 + + Street & Smith, 46 + + _Sylvia_, 132 + + _Sylvia’s Marriage_, 133 + + + Tarrytown, 139 + + Tennis, 29 note, 186 + + Thackeray, 27 + + “Thyrsis”, 69 _et passim_ + + Tolstoyan-Tennysonian idealism, 70 + + Toys, 28 + + + _Upton Sinclair’s_, 146 + + + van Eeden, Frederik, 128, 131 + + + Wells, H. G., 118, 151 + + _What’s the Use of Books?_, 183 + + Wilson, Woodrow, 146, 148, 150 note + + + Zola, 160 + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +[1] He did, however, hear about the Haymarket riot later, when +the family moved to New York. “I remember seeing wax-works of the +anarchists making their bombs, in the Eden Musée, and I believed every +word of it--or shall I say, every wax-work of it. I well remember +the name of Altgeld [the governor of Illinois who later pardoned +the surviving Haymarket anarchists from prison] as a kind of super +bomb-thrower! I swallowed all its ideas complete.” + +[2] “Sinclair, Arthur. Lieutenant, 10 June, 1807. Commander, 2 July, +1812. Captain, 24 July, 1813. Died 7 February, 1837.”--_U. S. Army +and Navy Register._ + +[3] “Sinclair, Arthur. Midshipman, 4 March, 1823. Passed midshipman, 4 +June, 1831. Lieutenant, 3 March, 1835. Commander, 14 September, 1855. +Dismissed 18 April, 1861.”--_U. S. Army and Navy Register._ + +[4] However, Sinclair writes in a private letter: “I am not opposed to +the play aspects of life. The facts are these: As a boy, I did every +kind of playing that boys can do. I played tennis in Central Park, +football and baseball in vacant lots, and was nabbed by the police in +the usual style, built bonfires and roasted stolen potatoes, skated +on ice in winter and played shinny on roller skates the rest of the +year, climbed on the roofs and threw clothes-pins at the people on the +street. I was in every kind of danger. I used to say, playfully, that +fate must be keeping me alive for some purpose, because I had escaped +death by a hair’s breadth a dozen times before I was fourteen. I could +outrun any boys I knew for long distances. I have run all the way +around Central Park, and I have ridden a bicycle from up town in New +York over Brooklyn bridge to Coney Island, gone in swimming in March +with snow on the ground, and then ridden home again; this at the age of +seventeen. At about that age I set out with desperate determination to +learn to play the violin, practicing eight hours a day. It was work, +but done in order that I might be able to play. At the present time, +when my wife is ill and I have to stay at home nearly all the time, I +play an hour or two every day--always sight reading, and I get as much +excitement out of struggling through a Mozart sonata as some people +get out of a horse-race. I get as much fun out of a tennis tournament +as any of the young fellows. I have also been devoted to the theatre, +having never missed seeing a good play except because of poverty. + +“From the age of twenty to twenty-eight or twenty-nine I did no +playing, but this was because I was in a desperate struggle to survive +as a writer; but that was not a matter of philosophy but of practical +necessity. You wouldn’t say that a man was opposed to play because he +didn’t play while he was in a battle. + +“Theoretically I am opposed to play under the following circumstances; +first, when it is cruel and involves wanton suffering to either human +beings or animals. I have always enjoyed hunting and fishing, but the +game or fish were always eaten. Second, when the play is destructive +to health; and that is the basis of my objections to the kind of play +which involves alcohol. I know so many ways to have a good time which +do not involve a headache next morning. Naturally, the condition of my +father’s liver when he died has a good deal to do with this attitude. +Third, play which is not a recreation after work, but a substitute for +work. I saw in Greenwich Village a great many young idlers calling +themselves radicals and doing nothing for the movement, and that made +me tired.... + +“I think you mistake my attitude toward dancing. As a boy at various +‘springs’ in Virginia, I danced a lot and was duly dressed up for fancy +balls. I remember very well being a ‘baker’. I don’t think I was more +than six years old, and I was expected to carry a tray with rolls on +it, but I very soon shed that encumbrance. Later on I never danced, +simply because the dancing I saw was done by the idlers of ‘society’, +wasting time, and it was a matter of expensive clothes, and all that +sort of social frummery: either that, or you had to patronize the +underworld. My objection to modern jazz dancing is that it represents +the taking possession of America by that underworld. I think that jazz +dances are awkward and ugly, being imitations of savage sex dances. Of +course, as time goes on, if they survive, they will be idealized.... + +“My ethical ideals on these questions are very simply stated, and +they seem to me entirely practical. I want grown-up human beings to +have some serious work to do, something constructive, something which +constitutes their main interest. When they have worked at this with +real, full-sized energy and determination, then let them recreate both +minds and bodies by any kind of play whatever which they enjoy, and +which does not interfere with their ability to go back to their work.” + +[5] Detail, from a letter: “Twenty-five cents a week for clean collars +and cuffs, and newspapers. I wore the cuffs up high to keep them from +showing too much and getting soiled too fast. I did not have to buy any +clothes--my cousin H---- used to send me his cast off clothes. My meals +cost $3 a week.” + +[6] Comment from a letter: “No human male could have been more +pitifully ignorant of the female critter, body, mind, and soul, than I +was at the age of 21. It was a tragedy, but I was not to blame. It was +the Victorian age.” + +[7] In the more-or-less autobiographical novel, _Love’s +Pilgrimage_, it is related of Corydon and Thyrsis that they did +carry out this idealistic plan for a time after they were married. That +version is scarcely more than a dramatic heightening of some of the +facts, and the fiction does make clear the underlying neurotic conflict +in the young poet’s mind. + +[8] In 1902 he took the account of this birth-scene to Paul Elmer More, +one of the leaders of the academic school of criticism then in power, +and was told that it could “_never_ be published.” + +[9] To be exact, the $25 study was moved on a wagon to a farm near +by in the fall of 1904, and it was there that _The Jungle_ was +written. + +[10] For instance, Richard Le Gallienne wrote of it as “at once +an authoritative document, a heart-searching appeal, and a tragic +entertainment. I don’t remember to have seen the old case of ‘the Poet +_versus_ the World’ put with more truth, more vehemence, and more +charm.” + +[11] The Intercollegiate Socialist Society was to become the center +of rebellious thought and the forum for free discussion in the +conservative colleges of America. Few students with any spark of +intellectual curiosity but were touched by its liberalizing influences. + +[12] This, however, appears to have been deliberate, because he was +going to show how Thyrsis learned, in the second volume. + +[13] I have read the manuscript of this unpublished novel, and may be +permitted to express the hope that it will eventually be published. + +[14] Sinclair appears, under the name of Sanford Peyton, as a pro-war +Socialist in a novel by the present writer, _An Old Man’s Folly_, +which deals with American pacifists in war-time. Sinclair, in reviewing +the novel, remarks that the war-time opinions attributed to him are +correct, and adds: “I can only tell him that reading them over now +makes me very unhappy, and I find myself with a continual impulse to +get into jail with the rest of his characters! I have had almost ten +years to think the thing over, and what I have to report is that if +at the beginning of 1917 I had known what I know to-day, I would have +opposed the war and gone to jail with the pacifist radicals.” Later in +the review he remarks of the Presidential idealist in whom he believed +at the time: “I cannot forgive him; it is not merely that he made a +fool of himself, but he made a fool of me!” + +[15] However, in a letter, Sinclair defends himself against this +charge, saying: “I have no trace of that early bias left. You may think +I have, but I haven’t. What I have is a repugnance to ‘love-making’ +without love.” + +[16] Since 1926, Long Beach, Cal. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78707 *** diff --git a/78707-h/78707-h.htm b/78707-h/78707-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ffc9cf --- /dev/null +++ b/78707-h/78707-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6944 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no,date=no,address=no,email=no,url=no"> + <title> + Upton Sinclair | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 7%; + margin-right: 7%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +h3 { + page-break-after: avoid + } + +a {text-decoration: none;} +a:hover {text-decoration: underline;} + +p { + text-indent: 1.3em; + margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; +} + +p.noindent, .footnote p { + text-indent: 0; +} + +hr.chap { + border: none; + position: relative; + text-align: center; + margin: 3em 0; + page-break-before: always; + page-break-after: avoid + } +hr.chap::before { + content: "ꕥ"; + position: relative; + padding: 0 1em; + background: white; + color: #777; + z-index: 1 + } +hr.chap::after { + content: ""; + position: absolute; + top: 50%; + left: 0; + width: 100%; + border-top: 2px solid #ddd; + z-index: 0 + } +hr.front { + width: 10%; + margin: 1.5em 45%; + border: 0; + border-top: 1px solid #777; + page-break-after: avoid + } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +table td { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 95%; + font-size: 70%; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; + color: #999; +} + +blockquote { + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 5%; +} + +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +ul.index { list-style-type: none; } +li.ifrst { + margin-top: 1em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} +li.indx { + margin-top: .5em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} + +/* Footnotes */ + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 85.5%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: 0.7em; +} + +/* Poetry */ + +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +/* .poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} */ +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} +img.w100 {width: 100%;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +blockquote.hang p { + padding-left: 0em; + text-indent: -2em; +} + +.smaller {font-size:smaller;} +.xlarge {font-size:x-large;} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} +.poetry .indent1 {text-indent: -2.5em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2.0em;} + + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78707 ***</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter" id="frontispiece" style="max-width: 25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="portrait"> + <figcaption> + <p class="right smaller"><i>Photo by Odiorne</i></p> + <p>UPTON SINCLAIR</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1>UPTON SINCLAIR<br> +<i>A Study in Social Protest</i></h1> +<p class="center"> +<br> +By<br> +<span class="xlarge">FLOYD DELL</span><br> +<br> +<br> +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY<br> +ON MURRAY HILL : NEW YORK +</p> +</div> + +<hr class="front"> + +<p class="center"> +COPYRIGHT, 1927,<br> +BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY<br> +<br> +<br> +UPTON SINCLAIR<br> +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA +</p> + +<hr class="front"> + +<p class="center"> +TO<br> +JOSEPH FREEMAN +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS"> + CONTENTS + </h2> +</div> + +<table> + <tr><td class="tdr">I</td><td class="tdl">PRELIMINARY EXPLANATIONS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_11">11</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">II</td><td class="tdl">SOUTHERN BEGINNINGS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_16">16</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">III</td><td class="tdl">ADOLESCENT DISCOVERIES</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_31">31</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">IV</td><td class="tdl">THE YOUNG HACK</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_41">41</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">V</td><td class="tdl">THE ARTIST IN REVOLT</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_49">49</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">VI</td><td class="tdl">THYRSIS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_59">59</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">VII</td><td class="tdl">THYRSIS AND CORYDON</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_72">72</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">VIII</td><td class="tdl">THE JOURNAL OF ARTHUR STIRLING</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_86">86</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">IX</td><td class="tdl">MANASSAS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_97">97</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">X</td><td class="tdl">THE JUNGLE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_104">104</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">XI</td><td class="tdl">LOVE’S PILGRIMAGE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_121">121</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">XII</td><td class="tdl">KING COAL</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_137">137</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">XIII</td><td class="tdl">JIMMIE HIGGINS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_143">143</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">XIV</td><td class="tdl">THE BOOK OF LIFE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_151">151</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">XV</td><td class="tdl">THE GREAT PAMPHLETS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_159">159</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr">XVI</td><td class="tdl">OIL!</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_178">178</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdl">BIBLIOGRAPHY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_189">189</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdl">INDEX</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#p_193">193</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <p class="nobreak xlarge center" id="UPTON_SINCLAIR"> + UPTON SINCLAIR + <br> + A Study in Social Protest + </p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_11">[11]</span></p> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="I_PRELIMINARY_EXPLANATIONS"> + I. PRELIMINARY EXPLANATIONS + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>Americans generally are truly surprised and +puzzled by Upton Sinclair’s fame abroad—by +the fact that he seems to be regarded throughout +the world as his country’s most distinguished literary +figure.... So great is the discrepancy between +his position in the world at large and his position +in his own country, that a book about him may +as well begin by offering some explanation, to bewildered +American readers, of his world fame.</p> + +<p>The gist of the matter seems to lie in this:</p> + +<p>Modern industrial America is a new portent in +an old world; and the world has looked to American +literature for realistic description and intellectual +interpretation of it—and has found these things +chiefly and best in the writings of Upton Sinclair. +Other American writers of our time may be more +acute psychologists, wiser in the lore of human +nature, more able to analyze and dramatize the traditional +passions of mankind. But in our American +literature generally there is no such account—at +once emotionally and objectively convincing—of +what America is in its most characteristic contemporary +<span class="pagenum" id="p_12">[12]</span>aspects, as may be found in the novels and +pamphlets of Upton Sinclair. And this very simply +explains the fact of Sinclair’s special eminence in +the eyes of the world among American writers of +this period.</p> + +<p>From this point of view, then, it may roughly be +said that, as an expositor of modern industrial America, +Sinclair takes rank with Cooper, who put the +America of the Indian and the pioneer on the literary +map of the world; with Mark Twain and (in +so far as a prose writer may be compared to a poet) +with Walt Whitman—each of whom, in his time, +described and interpreted to the world a significant +epoch of American life.</p> + +<p>These are strictly literary considerations; another +consideration, not purely literary (at least not from +the American point of view) is also involved in the +great respect which Sinclair enjoys abroad. The +Voltairean tradition of the literary man as a fighter +against wrong, a champion of the oppressed, still +survives in Europe. It is not an offense against good +taste (as it would be in our politer American literary +world) for such writers as Zola and Anatole France +to take sides in a Dreyfus case. And when they hear +abroad that the author of <i>The Jungle</i> has been +arrested in New York City for “picketing” the offices +of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as a protest against the +treatment of miners in Colorado, or that he has been +arrested in California for reading the Constitution +of the United States in public in a “free-speech +fight”, they do not regard it as an unliterary eccentricity, +but as a kind of heroism appropriate to a +<span class="pagenum" id="p_13">[13]</span>profession which has not abandoned its pretensions +to courage.</p> + + +<h3 id="II"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>These preliminary pages may also serve to explain, +to readers abroad, some of the reasons for +the failure of America to accord Sinclair the rank +to which it would seem that he is entitled by his +achievements. An obvious reason, of course, is +that he interprets American life in terms of a “class +struggle” which is, as yet, alien to the idealistic conceptions +of the American intelligentsia in general. +More will be said on this point later. But there are, +at the present moment, other psychological obstacles +in the way of a general recognition of Sinclair in +America.</p> + +<p>One of these is his temperamental attitude toward +life. He is recognized as being fundamentally a Puritan; +and Puritanism (for reasons to be gone into at +length later on) is just now very unpopular among +the American intelligentsia. Sinclair has, indeed, by +virtue of his passionate realism, his poetic and epic +vision, and his critical and revolutionary thought, +far transcended in his writings the limitations of the +Puritan point of view. Yet it is perceptible at times, +and to Americans in revolt against Puritanism it +counts heavily against him.</p> + +<p>Again, his attitude toward our machine civilization +is one which Americans find it difficult to +understand—since it is neither the popular one of +uncritical adulation, nor the aristocratic one of reactionary +sentimental protest against the machine age +<span class="pagenum" id="p_14">[14]</span>as such. Both these literary attitudes are well understood +in America; but that a writer may be an +idealist, and yet be a cordial believer in this modern +machine civilization of ours, founding all his hopes +for ultimate justice and beauty and happiness upon +machinery’s essential and revolutionary possibilities, +is still to the American mind a paradox.</p> + + +<h3 id="III"> + III. +</h3> + +<p>Nevertheless, there are unmistakable signs in recent +American criticism of a growing respect for +Upton Sinclair. Time’s perspective has given a new +dignity to the gallant literary movement with which +his name is associated. It is remembered that +Europe’s greatest critic, Georg Brandes, once said: +“I find three present-day American novelists worth +reading—Frank Norris, Jack London, and Upton +Sinclair.” The literary movement of which these +men were the leaders came (for reasons to be recounted +later) upon evil days, and seemed to end in +discouragement and chagrin. But now that it has +very recently been revived in the hands of younger +writers, it is remembered that during that long +interval Sinclair remained its single unfaltering and +powerful voice. He can now be seen as a representative +pioneer figure of an ambitious interpretive +effort of which the culmination is still to come in the +American literature of the future.</p> + +<p>Of so much honor, in his own country, this prophet +is now assured. And it is certain that, as the kind +of literature comes into its own which Frank Norris, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_15">[15]</span>Jack London and Upton Sinclair first showed us how +to write in America, his literary stature will, like +theirs, increase in the eyes of his fellow-countrymen. +We shall know that he was of the race of giants, and +forgive him those faults which we perceive to-day.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, his faults as well as his virtues will +receive due attention in this little book. But it may +as well be said frankly that they will be dealt with +as the faults of a great writer, and analyzed with the +respect due to him as such. It should also be remarked +that the biographical details in these pages +are intended to be subordinate to the critical study +of his development as a certain kind of writer—a +describer, critic and prophet of modern industrial +America.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_16">[16]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="II_SOUTHERN_BEGINNINGS"> + II. SOUTHERN BEGINNINGS + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, +Maryland, September 20th, 1878. His father +was one of the Norfolk Sinclairs, his mother one of +the Baltimore Hardens. That is to say, he was by +ancestry and birth a Southerner. His childhood, +moreover—until his tenth year, when his family +moved to New York City—was spent in the very +Southern atmosphere of Baltimore.... This background +is so alien to the theme of modern American +industrialism as to arouse a wonder and provoke a +question: How did this child of the South ever come +to write <i>The Jungle</i>?</p> + +<p>For the South of his childhood had a history of +its own, sufficiently different from that of the factory-building +North. It is true that Baltimore, an important +seaport in close proximity to coal mines, had +already begun its industrial career; but the relations +of capital and labor presented so far no tragic problems +of which a little boy would hear. And such +vague rumors as might have reached the child in +Baltimore of the “labor troubles” up North—the +strike in Chicago at the McCormick reaper works, +the agitation for an eight-hour day, the Haymarket +riot, and the hanging of the Chicago “Anarchists”—could +<span class="pagenum" id="p_17">[17]</span>have made no deep impression on his young +consciousness.⁠<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> He was living in another world than +that. It was the world of an aristocracy ruined by +the Civil War and struggling to regain its place +in the sun.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_1"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>The Sinclairs of Norfolk had been a navy family. +Before the first Sinclair came to America, there had +been Sinclairs in the British navy. A Sinclair had +commanded a frigate in the American navy in the +War of 1812.⁠<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> His son had followed him into the +navy, and had been in command of one of the ships +of Commodore Perry in the famous expedition of +1852–54 which “opened up” Japan. But in 1861, +this officer had had to make a disastrous choice of +loyalties.... There was a story which was a part +of the Sinclair family tradition, about the two old +sea-dogs who sat up all one April night in Norfolk, +arguing out their duty and their destinies. One was +Lieutenant Commander Arthur Sinclair, the boy +Upton’s grandfather; the other was his old friend +and shipmate, Captain David Farragut. Both were +Southerners, both Virginians—and Virginia had that +day seceded from the Union. They argued all night +<span class="pagenum" id="p_18">[18]</span>in Sinclair’s study and in the morning Farragut went +North to offer his services to President Lincoln—while +Sinclair stayed to fight for the South.⁠<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +History preserves the name of Farragut as the commander +of the victorious squadron which captured +New Orleans and Mobile and sealed the South +within a fatal blockade. Sinclair’s further career is +recorded only in the obscure annals of the defeated +Confederacy. He commanded a blockade-runner +which was sunk in a storm off the coast of England, +carrying him to his death, and his body was buried +in a churchyard at Hull.</p> + +<p>His family’s history was henceforth united with +that of the lost cause. His eldest son had served +four years under his father in the U. S. navy; he +went into the Confederate navy, burned his ship +to prevent its capture by Farragut at Mobile, was +an officer on the blockade-runner <i>Alabama</i> which +was finally sunk in English waters, survived to write +a book about it, and died in poverty in a Soldiers’ +and Sailors’ Home. Another son was also in the +Confederate navy, and, more fortunate, lived to +adorn New York society. Still another, Upton +Beall Sinclair, who was to become the father of +the novelist, was too young to see much of the +fighting, though he took a gun and ran away from +home to help in the final defense of the Confederate +capital, Richmond.... The Sinclairs, along +with all the rest of the South, were ruined, at +<span class="pagenum" id="p_19">[19]</span>least until they could successfully adapt themselves +to new conditions. During the “reconstruction” +period, when Southern affairs were run by “carpetbagger” +politicians from the North with the aid of +the votes of Negro freedmen, they were no longer +members of the ruling class, with a prescriptive right +to places of power and pride. They had to make +their livings as best they could.</p> + +<p>Moreover it would be a long time before the +cotton and tobacco industries adjusted themselves +comfortably to the new wage-labor system. Slavery +was gone, and the old aristocratic ease only a sentimental +memory. But the South loved its memories, +bitter as they were—and drinking, that generous +accompaniment of the old aristocratic ease, became +an important solace of the harassed post-war period. +Even if the proud womenfolk of the South got up +stealthily in the dead of night to wash the doorsteps +and perform other menial tasks, thus honorably +concealing their poverty, there was always money +for the menfolk to spend on good whiskey. The +liquor trade thrived in the ruined South. And so it +was that Upton B. Sinclair became a wholesale liquor +salesman.</p> + +<p>The young salesman’s business took him to Baltimore, +and there he met and married Priscilla +Harden, daughter of the secretary and treasurer +of the Western Maryland railroad. Maryland, violently +Southern in its sympathies—so much so that +the first blood of the Civil War was shed there when +a mob resisted the passage of Northern regiments +on their way to Washington—had nevertheless been +<span class="pagenum" id="p_20">[20]</span>kept within the Union by force of arms. It had not +suffered with the rest of the South the rigors of +blockade; and though it had endured the inconvenience +of military occupation, it had not been devastated +by invasion and battle, and it was able to +share to some considerable extent in the economic +growth and prosperity of the North after the war. +The Hardens were moderately rich; and one of +Priscilla’s sisters had married a Baltimore banker +named Bland, who presently founded the United +States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, and became +a millionaire many times over.</p> + +<p>Priscilla Harden’s marriage with the young salesman +was less fortunate in an economic sense. Mr. +Sinclair was not a sufficiently enterprising salesman, +and was destined never to rise from the ranks. A +gentle little man, the soul of courtesy to women and +of loyalty to his friends, full of proud old Southern +ideals of chivalry, having the knightly Robert E. +Lee as his <i>beau ideal</i>, he was not one to succeed in +business.</p> + +<p>In Upton Sinclair’s autobiographical novel, <i>Love’s +Pilgrimage</i>, there is a portrait of his father. From +his old-fashioned aristocratic point of view he hated +this modern business world in which he struggled. +Those among whom his work took him “never +guessed the depths of his contempt for all they stood +for. They had the dollars, they were on top; but +some day the nemesis of Good-breeding would smite +them—the army of the ghosts of Gentility would +rise, and with ‘Marse Robert’ and ‘Jeb’ Stuart at +<span class="pagenum" id="p_21">[21]</span>their head, would sweep away the hordes of commercialdom.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Sinclair was devoted to his wife and worshipped +his only son. He was bitterly unhappy because +his ineffectual efforts on their behalf left them +still mired in poverty. As he brooded over his +failure, he came more and more to resort to the +solace of his own wares; and of that, too, he was +ashamed. But he could at least teach his son to be +a kind and chivalrous Southern gentleman.</p> + +<p>The boy’s mother was a Southern good woman, +patient and practical. Like other Southern women +who had seen too much of the ravages of drunkenness +among their menfolk, she hated drink with a +fierce hatred born of fear. All her capacity for +unworldly idealism was centered in that emotion. +She brought up her son to fear and hate liquor; +she herself did not even drink tea or coffee, because +they were “stimulants”, and there was in her example +and attitude a continual protest against “self-indulgence”—a +touch of Spartan sternness. But +for the rest, she had an innocent and happy worldliness, +which desired and approved all the respectable +comforts which life had to offer. Except for this +fear of the consequences of “self-indulgence”, a fear +which was emphasized by the family circumstances, +her influence upon her son would be wholly in the +direction of conformity with the respectable world. +And if for a time she hoped to see him go into the +ministry, it was with the somewhat worldly expectation +of seeing him in a bishop’s robes....</p> + +<p>In Grandmother Sinclair’s dining-room there was +<span class="pagenum" id="p_22">[22]</span>a portrait, well remembered, of the old sea-dog, +Commodore Sinclair; and the boy Upton was told +that he had his grandfather’s nose—in the portrait +a fierce, proud eagle-beak. And it was hoped that +in the child’s quiet stubbornness there was evidence +of the ancestral trait of indomitable will. The boy +was to go into the navy, and might become a hero +like his grandfather. At the age of six, that was +his ambition.</p> + +<p>It was no unreasonable ambition. His parents +were poor, but—aside from such influence as might +be exerted by his rich relatives—poverty would not +stand in the way of the appointment to the Naval +Academy of a boy who was of cavalier stock and +whose forefathers had served the State. He might +easily enough get the nomination to Annapolis from +his congressman; it was only necessary for him to +be a bright enough lad to pass his examinations—and +there would be no difficulty about that. Early +in childhood, without having gone to school, he had +taught himself to read, and had already begun to +exhibit a precocious intellectuality. The only possible +question was one of health. A series of infantile +diseases had left him a rather delicate child. +That was dealt with by keeping him out of school +till the age of ten, to give his body, in the homely +phrase, a chance to catch up with his brains. And, +though he pursued his education with more intensity +by himself than he would have done at school, he +did become physically robust. There was, apparently, +every reason to believe that young Upton +Sinclair would become an officer in the U. S. navy.... +<span class="pagenum" id="p_23">[23]</span>One can imagine him thus now, a slight, +straight, grizzled captain, something of a martinet, +unquestionably brave, not very popular, a little aloof, +doing his duty, carrying on the family traditions. +But life had other destinies in store for him.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_1"> + III. +</h3> + +<p>The gentle, chivalrous father, unable to make a +decent living for the wife and son he loved, became +in his discouragement more and more dependent +upon the liquid consolations which he peddled. +Ashamed of his lapses from grace, afraid to go +home and confess himself again conquered by his +weakness, he would stay away, drinking himself +into the stupor of forgetfulness. The family poverty +at times became desperate. There were, to +be sure, when bitter necessity had overcome her +pride, Mrs. Sinclair’s relatives to turn to for help. +And the child was, of course, always welcome at the +homes of “Grandfather Harden” and “Uncle +Bland”. The Bland wealth was gained during the +boy’s childhood and youth, and he grew up amidst +the constantly expanding grandeur of the Bland +family. The contrast between the luxury of these +prosperous Baltimore and country homes and his +own dingy boarding-house background made him +feel more acutely the poverty of which he was the +victim.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the help that was extended to his +family by these more fortunate relatives could +scarcely be given without, in the eyes of a sensitive +<span class="pagenum" id="p_24">[24]</span>child, an appearance of condescension, against which +all his pride was in revolt. It seemed to a child’s +sense of justice that the family needs rightfully +entitled them to a chance for life and happiness; +and it was shameful that this should be granted them +as a favor, that they should have to beg for it. +“To each according to his needs” is the natural +economic code of childhood.... But it was inevitably +with his own needs and their frustration that +he was secretly preoccupied. It seems, to a child, +that all for which he wishes belongs rightfully to +him already; and it is hateful to him that power over +his own life and happiness should be in other hands, +to be granted as a favor, not conceded as a right. +To have to beg for what already belongs to one is, +in the code of childhood, to pay too humiliating a +price for it. One would rather, if one is sufficiently +sensitive, go without.</p> + +<p>His sensitive egotism had thus in childhood +become painfully complicated with the poverty of +his family and the wealth of some of the family +relatives. And, most painfully of all, he felt that +he need not remain, if he chose, the victim of his +parents’ poverty. He was as a child much loved +by these rich relatives; and he understood that he +was always welcome to stay with them. This possibility, +of escape from poverty, never came up for +formal decision, and remained for a long time to +torment him. But at the age of ten it emerged +more definitely into his consciousness, when his +family decided to leave Baltimore. They were +going to New York City, where his father had got +<span class="pagenum" id="p_25">[25]</span>a position as a traveling salesman—his line this +time being hats, instead of whiskey. It would have +been very easy for the boy to stay on in Baltimore +and have his relatives’ assistance in getting an education. +In effect this would mean, when it came to +his choice of a career, that he would have all the +advantages of a rich man’s son. He hated poverty; +and above all he dreaded going on with the endless +and hopeless struggle with drink in which his father +was involved. But loyalty and chivalry had been +among the old-fashioned Southern virtues which his +father had inculcated in him, and he chose to share +his father’s struggle.... Perhaps he remembered +the tale, heard as a child, of his grandfather’s debate +with Captain Farragut. Commodore Sinclair had +done his duty, and his grandson could do no less.</p> + +<p>It was a bitter duty which he had to look forward +to. He was getting old enough now to help his +father in his times of weakness. Soon, when his +father did not come home, it would be the boy’s +task to seek for him in one saloon after another until +he found him. Yes, and give him the reassurance +that he most needed—that they still loved him in +spite of everything;—and so bring him back to the +boarding-house where his wife sat and wept.... +The boy, in choosing, knew what he was in for.</p> + +<p>The emotional relations between the boy and his +father are described in <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>, where the +boy is called Thyrsis. “To others his father was +merely a gross little man, with sordid ideals and low +tastes; but to Thyrsis he was a man with the terror +of the hunted creatures in his soul, and the furies +<span class="pagenum" id="p_26">[26]</span>of madness cracking their whips about his ears.”... +“There were rich relatives, a world of real +luxury up above—the thing that calls itself ‘Society’. +And Thyrsis was a student and a bright lad, and he +was welcome there; he might have spread his wings +and flown away from this sordidness. But duty held +him, and love and memory held him still tighter. For +his father worshipped him, and craved his help; +to the last hour of this dreadful battle he fought to +keep his son’s regard—he prayed for it, with tears +in his eyes and anguish in his voice. And so the +boy had to stand by. And that meant that he grew +up in a torture-house.”</p> + + +<h3 id="IV"> + IV. +</h3> + +<p>A sensitive child who grows up in an ugly and +hateful world becomes something of a poet in self-defense. +He has to shut himself away from all the +world’s ugliness and hatefulness in an imaginative +world of books and dreams. His natural creative +energies, baffled by the obduracy of outward circumstances, +will begin to work upon the more plastic +materials furnished by reverie. Books and dreams +are his natural refuge, and to become an artist his +inevitable secret dream.</p> + +<p>“There was”, it is written of the boy “Thyrsis” +in <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>, “not much of what is called +‘culture’ in his family; no music at all, and no poetry. +But there were novels, and there were libraries +where one could get more of these, so Thyrsis +became a devourer of stories; he would disappear, +and they would find him at meal-times hidden in a +<span class="pagenum" id="p_27">[27]</span>clump of bushes or in a corner behind a sofa—anywhere +out of the world. He read whole libraries +of adventure: Mayne Reid and Henty, and then +Cooper and Stevenson and Scott. And then came +more serious novels—‘Don Quixote’, and ‘Les Miserables’, +George Eliot, whom he loved, and Dickens, +whose social protest thrilled him; and chiefest of all, +Thackeray, who molded his thought. Thackeray +saw to the heart of it; and no high-souled lad who +read him and worshipped him was ever after to be +lured by the glamor of the ‘great’ world—a world +whose greatness was based upon selfishness and +greed.” He needed, it would seem, such help as +Thackeray’s to enable him to resist the very real +temptation to become a part of such a world.</p> + +<p>He needed, moreover, figures with whose heroic +renunciation he could take satisfaction in imaginatively +identifying himself; nor did he fail to find +them in this realm of ideal types. In his childhood +the most significant of these figures was that of +Jesus—who had hated the power of Mammon and +built up a Kingdom of the Spirit. The idea of Jesus +driving the money-changers out of the Temple remained +throughout his childhood a vivid and +consoling fantasy. And this secret Kingdom of the +Spirit, in which he walked in lonely exaltation, gave +him reasons more profound even than those of love +and duty for refusing to live a life of luxury. For +the life of his rich relatives was not the ideal life of +his poetic dreams. It seemed to him that these +riches were wasted. They were not used in achieving +beauty and happiness, but only in acquiring toys.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_28">[28]</span></p> + +<p>“What do I mean by toys?” he wrote later, in +<i>Wilshire’s</i>. “Why, just things. Nothing but things—all +things in this big world except half a dozen useful +things. The uses of bread and bacon, of a stove +and a wood-pile, I recognize with all my heart; and +also of beautiful books in an occasional rare instance; +and always, of course, of prayer and music, of joy +and love, of wisdom and high resolve. Those things—that +are as free as air and sky and the flowers—are +serious things; and all things else that this +spreading earth has to show, all the infinite unthinkability +that is shut up in a thousand mighty cities +and is fought and cried for” by adult children “are +<i>toys</i>—just <i>toys!</i>” It is a cry out of his own childhood, +when, forced by unhappiness to take life +seriously, he realized that these grown-up people had +by no means put away childish things. Toy-lovers +still, preoccupied with acquiring and displaying their +toy-titles, toy-learning, toy-houses, toy-food and toy-clothes, +they were unable even to wish for the real +beauties and joys that life had to offer. His path, +then, surely, was different from theirs....</p> + +<p>Yet, in so sternly and resolutely refusing to be +tempted aside from his own secret goal, he must have +felt deep and aching regrets at the good things which +he was incidentally but necessarily giving up. There +had been a time in his childhood when he was naïvely +fond of luxury; there were relatives on his father’s +side who were poor and whom he did not care to +visit because of a “snobbery of the palate”, preferring +the excellent table of his wealthier relatives. +His mother would scarcely have condemned that as +<span class="pagenum" id="p_29">[29]</span>“self-indulgence”; but it was a worldly tendency +which he learned to resist with Spartan asceticism. +In inwardly deciding to give up these luxuries, he +must unconsciously have felt it necessary to despise +them; and among the luxuries which he thus came +to despise were such simple and innocent things as +good food, idleness, and play. His hard choice +would seem to have confirmed him in a too stern and +ascetic attitude toward life. Some of the simple, +natural, happy, playful aspects of living were unconsciously +classed in his mind as temptations, and +came to be regarded with the emotional hostility⁠<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="p_30">[30]</span>he had already been taught to feel for drinking, +as things to be feared and hated.... Nor, under +the circumstances, was that exaggerated emotion +quite absurd. These things <i>were</i> temptations to +him; and it was the effort to save his poet’s soul +alive that he became a Puritan.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_31">[31]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="III_ADOLESCENT_DISCOVERIES"> + III. ADOLESCENT DISCOVERIES + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>When the Sinclairs came to New York in 1888, +they had not quite left the South—for they +stayed, at first, for a year or two, in a “Southern” +hotel on West 19th Street. It is described in <i>Love’s +Pilgrimage</i> as inhabited by musty phantoms of the +dead Southern past—“old ladies who were proud +and prim, and old gentlemen who were quixotic and +humorous, young ladies who were ‘belles’ and young +gentlemen who aspired to be ‘blades’. It was a +world that would have made happy the soul of any +writer of romances; but to Thyrsis ... this dead +Aristocracy cried aloud for burial. There was an +incredible amount of drunkenness, and of debauchery +scarcely hidden; there was pretense strutting like +a peacock, and avarice skulking like a hound; there +were jealousy, and base snobbery, and raging spite, +and a breath of suspicion and scandal hanging like +a poisonous cloud over everything. These people +came and went, an endless procession of them; they +laughed and danced and gossipped their way through +the boy’s life, and unconsciously he judged them, and +hated them, and feared them.... Most of them +were poor; not an honest poverty, but a sham and +artificial poverty—the inability to dress as others +<span class="pagenum" id="p_32">[32]</span>did, and to lose money at ‘bridge’ and ‘poker’, and +pay the costs of their self-indulgences. As for +Thyrsis and his parents, they always paid what they +owed; but they were not always able to pay it when +they owed it, and they suffered all the agonies and +humiliations of those who did not pay at all. There +was scarcely over a week when this canker of want +did not gnaw at them; their life was one endless +and sordid struggle to make last year’s clothing look +like new, and to find some boarding-house that was +cheaper and yet respectable. There was endless +wrangling and strife and worry over money; and +every year the task was harder, the standards lower, +the case more hopeless.”</p> + +<p>And now the boy went formally to school for the +first time, an East Side school, and played rowdily +about the streets of New York with his schoolmates, +to whom he was familiarly known as “Chappie”. +He was able to do two years’ work in one, and at +the age of twelve had finished grammar school; but +because he was too young to enter college, he had +nothing better to do in the meantime than take the +last year of grammar school over again. “The fates +took pity on him,” he says of himself in <i>The Goose-Step</i>, +“and gave him as teacher for that year a jolly +Irish gentleman, so full of interest in his boys that +he did not keep the rules. If you wanted to ask him +questions, you asked and without first raising your +hand; you might even get into an argument with +him, as with any boy, and if he caught you whispering +to your neighbor his method of correcting you +was novel, but highly effective—he would let fly a +<span class="pagenum" id="p_33">[33]</span>piece of chalk at your head, and you would grin, +and the class would howl with delight.” A collection +of one or two hundred books, given him by +aunts and uncles and cousins on Christmases and +birthdays, he left with the school, where it became +the foundation of a class library, to the delight of +the boys and the Irish teacher, so that he left school +in a blaze of glory. His school-life, though he was +found a sufficiently apt pupil, was not all so satisfying +nor by any means so unconventional as in these +instances. But it was too late for him to be really +amenable to the social pressure of the school-room +and the school-yard; he was an individual, cherishing +his own secret dreams. Though he played +with other boys, he had no chums, no real friends. +“Where,” as he asks, in <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i> of +Thyrsis, “should he meet people who knew what +he knew about life? Where in all the world should +he meet them, save in the books of great men in +times past?”</p> + +<p>Books were still his companions. In the summer +of his thirteenth year, when visiting his uncle in +Baltimore, he discovered sets of Milton and Shakespeare +in expensive bindings, unread to that day and +perhaps since; he went straight through them in +rapture, and found in Hamlet a figure to shine in +his imagination beside that earlier heroic and beautiful +figure of Jesus. For Hamlet was, like himself, +a prince of the spirit, cheated by the world out of +his inheritance—the poet’s natural inheritance of +beauty and happiness. And Hamlet’s world seemed +to him like the world he had known all his life, in +<span class="pagenum" id="p_34">[34]</span>Baltimore and New York. His predicament had +made him think a great deal about the world. It +wasn’t, he knew, his father that was to blame for +his misery; at first he had thought the corner saloon-keeper +was to blame—but behind him he had seen +first the brewer, then Tammany Hall, and finally +rich and respectable society, involved in a cruel and +unscrupulous plot to make money out of his own and +others’ miseries. Yes, Hamlet, like himself, was an +idealist in revolt against the world.</p> + +<p>He had vague plans of wringing from this brutal +world his chance for life. He needed knowledge +first of all. And so, still nominally too young, and +obliged to tell a lie about his age, he began in 1892 +the five-years’ course at the College of the City of +New York, from which he was to receive his A.B. +at the age of eighteen. This institution, then located +in an old brick building at Twenty-third Street and +Lexington Avenue, is described in <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i> +as a poor-boy’s college, “where the students all +lived at home, and had nothing to do but study; +and so Thyrsis missed all that beneficent illumination +known as ‘student-life’. He never hurrahed at +football contests, nor did he dress himself in honorific +garments, nor stupefy himself at ‘smokers’. +Being democratic, and without thought of setting +himself up over others, he was unaware of his greatest +opportunity, and when they invited him into a +fraternity, he declined. Once or twice he found +himself roaming the streets at night with a crowd +of students, emitting barbaric screechings; but this +made him feel silly, so he lagged behind and went +<span class="pagenum" id="p_35">[35]</span>home.” For he had gone to this institution with a +purpose of his own; he was to use it, not let it use +or shape him.</p> + +<p>The college did, indeed, serve to introduce him +to the world of knowledge; “but that did not take +long, and afterwards it was all in his way. The +mathematics were a discipline, and in them he rejoiced +as a strong man to run a race; and this was +true also of the sciences, and of history—the only +trouble was that he would finish the text-books in +the first few weeks, and after that there was nothing +to do save to compose verses in class, and to make +sketches of the professors. But as for the ‘languages’ +and the ‘literatures’ they taught him—in the +end Thyrsis came to forgive them, because he saw +that they did not know what languages and literatures +were.” “I marvel,” he says in <i>The Goose-Step</i>, +“when I realize that it was possible for me to +read <i>The Acharnians</i> of Aristophanes, line by line, +and hardly once get a smile out of it, nor have it +occur to me that there was any resemblance between +what happened in that play, and the fight against +Tammany Hall and the Hearst newspapers which +was going on in the world about me.” Of the Latin +professor he writes: “I can see this old gentleman’s +knitted brows and hear his angry tones as he exclaims: +‘Mr. Sinclair, it is so because I say it is so!’ +Five hours a week for five years I studied with that +old gentleman, or his subordinates, and I read a +great deal of Latin literature, but I never got so +that I could read a paragraph of the simplest Latin +prose without a dictionary. The professor of English +<span class="pagenum" id="p_36">[36]</span>literature chanced to be a propagandist—but +not, of course, of radical ideas of any sort; that +would scarcely have been tolerated. He was an +ardent and argumentative Catholic, and his idea of +conducting a class in literature was to find out if +there was anything in the subject which could in any +way be connected with Catholic doctrine and history, +and if so, to bring out that aspect of the subject.” +Finally, as his time in this college was nearing its +end he got a leave of absence on the ground that he +had to earn his living, and spent two months sitting +on the bed in his eight-by-ten bedroom in a lodging-house, +spending his days and nights learning for +himself.</p> + +<p>He made the great discovery of cheaply-printed +prose classics—English poetry he already knew by +heart. The Spartan plainness, the lack of outward +beauty, in these little paper-bound volumes did not +offend him. “One could get so much for so little, +in this wonderful world of mind! For eight cents +he picked up a paper volume of Emerson’s <i>Essays</i>; +and in this shrewd and practical nobility was so +much that he was seeking in life! And then he +stumbled upon a fifteen-cent <i>Sartor Resartus</i>, and +took that home and read it. It was like the clash +of trumpets and cymbals to him. Hour after hour +he read, breathless, like a man bewitched, the whole +night through. He would cry aloud with delight, +or drop the book and pound his knee over the demoniac +power of it. The next day he began the +<i>French Revolution</i>; and after that, alas, he found +there was no more—for Carlyle had turned his back +<span class="pagenum" id="p_37">[37]</span>upon democracy, and so Thyrsis turned his back +upon Carlyle.”</p> + +<p>For, in the New York public schools, he had +begun for the first time to learn, as he could scarcely +have learned in the South, the history of his country +as an experiment in democracy. His hatred of the +sham aristocracy of the South had made him thrill +to the lessons of democracy. He had read ten large +volumes about Lincoln. And because the great historic +idea of democracy was something new to this +young rebellious Southerner, he could understand +and respond to all its revolutionary implications. +These implications might be smugly covered up in +the school histories, but they were plain enough for +him in nineteenth century literature. “Wordsworth +and Tennyson, Browning and Swinburne—he followed +each one as far as their revolutionary impulse +lasted. Even Ruskin, who taught him the possibilities +of English prose, and opened his eyes to the +form and color of the world of nature—even Ruskin +he gave up, because he was a philanthropist and not +a democrat.”</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, his own ideals were fundamentally +more aristocratic than he realized. It was from his +father’s aristocratic point of view that he had first +in childhood learned to hate commercialism; and his +father’s notion of Gentility arising under the leadership +of Robert E. Lee to drive out the hordes of +commercialdom had found its spiritually aristocratic +analogue in his childhood vision of Jesus driving the +money-changers from the Temple. It was as an +aristocrat that he had turned against plutocracy; +<span class="pagenum" id="p_38">[38]</span>but sensitive and energetic members of a defeated +aristocracy sometimes make common cause with the +democracy against their common enemy, the rich. +So far his democracy was a little like Byron’s. And +his hatred of a sham Aristocracy was not the least +aristocratic thing about him. He was conscious of +superiority to those against whom he measured himself +and his desire was for a Kingdom of the Spirit +where he should take his true rank among the peers +of that realm.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_2"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>His family belonged to the Episcopalian church. +He had been taught the Christian virtues in his +childhood, but theology had not been emphasized. +Church-going was more important than orthodoxy. +It pleased his mother to be escorted to church on +Sunday by husband and son, these correctly attired +for the occasion in kid gloves and derby hat. +Though the family always lived in poor neighborhoods, +it was to a fashionable Fifth Avenue church +that they went, to be taken by the polite usher with +padded shoes into the half-occupied pew of some +more or less hospitable church member. Coming +out, they would look at the costumes of the churchgoers, +marvel at the Vanderbilt palaces they passed +by on their way home, and talk about how much +everything must cost. The boy’s mother, who had +little enough of comfort and leisure in her life, enjoyed +these occasions innocently, and the father +appreciated the opportunity to dress up in his Sunday +best and wear his tight and “dressy” patent-leather +<span class="pagenum" id="p_39">[39]</span>shoes. But the boy, because he had a really +religious nature and took religion seriously, began +to revolt against this practice. It, too, he declared, +was a sham.... From the age of fourteen he had +been the protégé and friend of a clergyman, the +Reverend William W. Moir, of the Church of the +Holy Communion, in New York. This warm-hearted +clergyman had gathered about him a whole +flock of boys, rich and poor, and young Sinclair +was one of his favorites. To him the boy took his +first theological difficulties, and was given volumes +of Christian apologetics to read. These completed +his downfall, for they revealed how feeble were the +intellectual defenses of the church against its critics. +His clergyman friend was not, however, seriously +troubled about the boy’s agnosticism, declaring that +he would come back.... Nor were his family +seriously troubled over his apostasy. They were +not interested in theological matters. But his refusal +to go to church was a different matter. That +made his mother very unhappy. And it shattered, +moreover, her dream of seeing him a bishop....</p> + +<p>At the same time he was beginning to pain his +father by speaking disrespectfully of the Democratic +party. And when he presently went on to utter disrespectful +opinions concerning the Vanderbilts, and +respectability in general, he passed out of the range +of parental comprehension.</p> + +<p>And now, beside Jesus and Hamlet, a third great +ideal figure came into the world of his imagination—Shelley.... +The course in English literature at +college had somehow failed to conceal that poet’s +<span class="pagenum" id="p_40">[40]</span>existence. It was in his senior year, reading <i>The +Skylark</i> in class, that he abruptly realized that +what he was going through in college was a “ghastly +farce.” And accordingly he went home, to conduct +his own education for a time. His education had +been all along an attempt to discover the values of +life, so that he might choose for himself what his +own life should be. His secret wish was to be a +poet; and now this wish was given its largest and +noblest interpretation by his worship of the great +poet who had declared poets to be “the unacknowledged +legislators of mankind”.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_41">[41]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="IV_THE_YOUNG_HACK"> + IV. THE YOUNG HACK + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>He was, in a humble and practical way, already +a writer. He had found that he had the +“curious knack” of doing trivial little things—verses, +jokes, poems—that pleased others. “They +came from some little corner of his consciousness, +he scarcely knew how.” And, most incredibly, they +sold! He had been doing these things since he was +fifteen. He was soon making as much as four or +five dollars a week doing these things in odd +moments....</p> + +<p>The family fortunes being for the time improved, +he was free to spend these princely sums upon himself. +And since what he most desired was freedom, +he was somewhat reluctantly permitted to have a +room of his own, away from his parents, paying his +rent and buying his own food out of his literary +earnings.</p> + +<p>The room, a top-floor hall bedroom, cost $1.25 +a week.⁠<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> That did not leave much for food; but +he scorned the worldly demands of appetite, and +negligently fried his own meals, or thought his high +thoughts while he ate the cheapest dishes in the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_42">[42]</span>cheapest restaurants—thereby laying up for himself +in years to come a case of chronic indigestion. He +would stay in his unheated room until he got too +severe a cold, and then pay a precious dollar more +to move into a room with a radiator in it.... And +meantime there was an “Uncle Terry”, an elder +brother of his father’s, sporting it in New York +society. And occasionally the rich Baltimore relatives +would come to New York and invite the young +student to a dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria and a +musical comedy afterward and then perhaps a late +supper. Doubtless they meant well; but their guest +would bitterly reflect, after an evening empty of +beauty or meaning, that upon what had been wasted +in those few hours he could have lived for months!</p> + +<p>From his fifteenth to his sixteenth year he went +on in this fashion. He spoke of becoming a lawyer; +but this was more than anything else a mask to hide, +even from himself, his rash and beautiful dream of +becoming a poet.... And then, one winter midnight, +when he was sixteen, there came to him his +first visitation of poetic ecstasy.</p> + +<p>He was walking at the time alone in a beautiful +garden, for it was during a holiday visit to those +“upper regions” of luxury which were his for the +asking. The experience came suddenly and abruptly. +“He could not have told whether he walked or sat +down, whether he spoke or was silent—his consciousness +was given up to the people of his dreams, +the companions and lovers of his fancy. The cold +and snow were gone, and there was a moonlit glade +in a forest; and thither they came, one by one, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_43">[43]</span>friendly and human, yet in the full panoply of their +splendor and grace. There were Shelley and Milton, +and the gentle and troubled Hamlet, and the +sorrowful knight of la Mancha, with the irrepressible +Falstaff to hearten them all; a strangely assorted +company, yet royal spirits all of them, and +no strangers to each other in their own world. And +here they gathered and conversed, each in his own +vein and from his own impulse, with gracious fancy +and lofty vision and heart-easing mirth.”</p> + +<p>That was the first of what he came to recognize +as a poet’s ecstasies, to wait for and welcome, and +to remember as authentic signs of his own election +to a poetic career. For these visions were more +real than reality; and they summed up in some vivid +form all that he felt, and more than he was aware +he knew, about life. They seemed to come from +unknown deeps of his soul; they were what the dull +professors of English literature were unwittingly +referring to when they spoke so glibly of a poet’s +“inspiration”.</p> + +<p>He was at first so awed by these visions as to be +disinclined to grapple with them and attempt to fix +them in words. It seemed to him that a whole lifetime +must needs be dedicated to realizing them in +verse. Yet “he soon discovered that these visions +of wonder came but once, and that when they were +gone they were gone forever. And he must learn +to grapple with them as they fled, to labor with +them and hold them fast, at the cost of whatever +heartbreaking strain. Thus alone could men have +even the feeblest reflection of their beauty....”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_44">[44]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="II_3"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>But, meanwhile, he was under the practical necessity +of supporting himself. His “curious knack” of +writing things that sold must be cultivated. And +also, as his father’s earning capacity became more +uncertain and undependable, it was necessary for +him to contribute to the support of his mother. If +he could make enough money by writing, he need not +quit his studies. And so, still holding fast to his +secret hope of becoming a poet, he threw the reserve +of an immense stock of youthful energy into the task +of making a living by hackwork. He knew well +enough what sort of things he could write that +would sell, and he wrote them. Boys’ stories, tales +of adventure, full of his own earlier boyish dreams +of adventure, flowed easily from his pen.</p> + +<p>There were also jokes to be manufactured at odd +moments and sold to the comic papers, or to artists +who drew for the comic papers. A dollar apiece +was the established price. In an <i>Argosy</i> serial written +at the age of nineteen, when he was commencing +to break under the strain of hackwork, he introduced +a poet, come to New York with an epic poem +in his pocket, poor fool! but fortunately falling in +with a smart lad who supports himself by writing +these jokes; and the process is thus described by +this latter character:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“I have a regular list of joke subjects—there is the +tramp joke, the mother-in-law joke, the boarding-house +joke, the small boy brother joke, the life-insurance agent +<span class="pagenum" id="p_45">[45]</span>joke, the cannibal and missionary joke, and so on. I +have counted them up, and I am sure there are fifty +subjects....</p> + +<p>“Then, to take the tramp idea, for instance; there +are a dozen things available in connection with tramps. +There is the fact that tramps don’t like to saw wood, +that they are afraid of water, and bull-dogs, and tough +apple pies. You see, when you get the thing reduced +down like that it is very easy to take any one of the +ideas and build a joke up around it.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Shall we have, by way of illustration, from the +scrap-book fondly kept by Upton Sinclair’s mother +during this period, a joke thus manufactured?</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Old Lady—You look as if you never washed, sir.</p> + +<p>Weary Will—Yes, ma’am; I prefer godliness.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="noindent">Not a very good joke? Well, the editor liked it, +and that sufficed. Another on the same theme:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Peregrinating Peter—Look dere at dat sign!</p> + +<p>Emigrating Edward—‘Cleaning and dyeing establishment.’ +What about it?</p> + +<p>Peregrinating Peter—Didn’t I tell you them two +allus went tergidder?</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="noindent">And here is one that harks back to the days of the +“Raines law” hotels, when beer could legally be +served in New York on Sunday only with a meal—the +meal being, in practice, a sandwich, endlessly reserved +to each customer in turn:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“The complaint reads,” began the justice, “that the +plaintiff entered your hotel on Sunday and ordered a +sandwich and a glass of beer. That he was peaceably +enjoying the same when you, the proprietor, assaulted +him violently. Guilty or not guilty?”</p> + +<p>“Guilty, your honor.”</p> + +<p>“And why did you do it?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_46">[46]</span></p> + +<p>“Your honor, the feller did me out of a whole Sunday’s +trade.”</p> + +<p>“How, pray?”</p> + +<p>“Why, he ate the sandwich!”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Thus the “joke-factory”. And when Upton Sinclair +is accused, as he has been, of having no sense of +humor, he is perhaps entitled to the defense that +he had to manufacture too many jokes at a dollar +apiece....</p> + +<p>Later came stories and serials in the <i>Argosy</i>, a +cheap popular magazine of adventure fiction. They +had the first place in the magazine, and doubtless +his mother was proud of her boy’s achievement.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>It was early in the month of February, in the year +1804, along the northern coast of Africa.</p> + +<p>A small vessel of Moorish rig was speeding over the +Mediterranean waves, urged onward by a fierce gale. +The little craft was close-reefed, and her decks were +swept by the flying spray.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Thus begins <i>In the Days of Decatur</i>, a novel complete +in one issue. And <i>In the Net of the Visconti</i>, +a serial:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>In the month of June of the year 1402 two horsemen +were riding through a deep forest in central Italy. +Their horses were spattered with foam....</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>These youthful literary talents did not fail to +attract the attention of Street & Smith, publishers +of five-cent novels, and presently he was given a +regular job producing this kind of fiction for adolescents. +Under military and naval pseudonyms, he +wrote a weekly series about life at West Point and +<span class="pagenum" id="p_47">[47]</span>another about life at Annapolis. The Spanish-American +war came on, and he sent both his young +heroes to Cuba. “Killing Spaniards” became a profitable +literary occupation. Each week he wrote a +number of the Army weekly (15,000 words) and of +the Navy weekly (15,000 words), and every other +week a complete volume (over 50,000 words) for +some cheap “library” series—accomplishing during +this period the almost incredible number of 56,000 +words a week. He kept two stenographers going +all the time. One came one day, the other the next +day; he would start dictating at 8 o’clock in the +morning and dictate until noon, about 2,000 words +an hour or 8,000 a day, Sundays not excluded. In +the afternoon he would revise the typed matter +brought in from the previous day’s dictation, and in +the evening he would take a long walk in the park +and think up the next day’s story. This was while +he was still nominally a college student, and actually +undertaking to keep up his intellectual life. These +hack labors occupied some eight hours a day, leaving +eight more for intellectual pursuits, for he was operating +on a sixteen-hour work-day, leaving eight +hours for the necessary business of eating and sleeping. +For these hack labors he received $70 a week, +at the rate of an eighth of a cent a word. At the +age of twenty, he was turning out more than two +million words a year.</p> + +<p>He had shown that he was capable of coping with +the world on its own terms. But he had not given +up his secret dream of becoming a poet. Sometimes, +when the ecstasy came, he would turn aside from +<span class="pagenum" id="p_48">[48]</span>these necessitous labors, and try to capture its magic +in a net of words. He would try, and hope that he +had succeeded, and know that he had failed. Poetry +is a jealous mistress. But he could not take time off +to court her properly. Street & Smith would not +pay him a weekly salary while he was learning to be +a poet. The world did not want poetry enough to +pay for it. The best that was in him was worthless +in the eyes of the world. The world valued only +this “curious knack” of turning out adventure stories +for adolescent minds. Be a hack, then, or starve! +There lay his choice.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_49">[49]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="V_THE_ARTIST_IN_REVOLT"> + V. THE ARTIST IN REVOLT + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>In this manner he earned his living and helped +support his mother, until he was twenty. He +had finished college at the age of eighteen, “passing +comfortably near the bottom of his class”, and had +entered Columbia University as a graduate student. +During these years, he had written millions of words +of hackwork—a total bulk, he had estimated it, +equal to the complete works of Sir Walter Scott! +The psychology of the period that immediately follows +could not well be understood without taking +that fact into consideration. It is obscured in his +own autobiographical novel, <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>, and +does not at all enter into the quasi-autobiographical +<i>Journal of Arthur Stirling</i>. Both of these books tell +of the frantic and frenzied struggles of a young +writer for self-realization in the midst of poverty. +In neither of these books will the young writer solve +the problem of poverty by doing any other kind of +work except writing: and this “no compromise” attitude, +when carried to such extreme lengths as it is +in these books, alienates a good deal of the sympathies +of the reader. One is better able to understand +such reckless and wilful intransigence when +one realizes that this is the maddened rebellion of +<span class="pagenum" id="p_50">[50]</span>an over-driven hack. All work and no play may +make Jack a dull boy, when Jack is an ordinary citizen; +but if Jack feels himself to be an artist, too +much hackwork and no opportunity for creative self-expression +makes him go berserk. It is the artist’s +revolt against slavery; and like any slave-revolt it is +likely to be marked by “red ruin and the breaking +up of homes”. It is these years of successful literary +drudgery, these millions of meaningless and merely +saleable words, that explain the ruthless singleness +of artistic purpose in the face of every obstacle and +in defiance of common sense. It is this situation +which explains the extraordinary combination of +abnormal personal sensitiveness with an inhuman indifference +to all opposing human claims, whether +in himself or in others who are dear to him; and +it not merely explains but, more than anything else, +serves to excuse the belief, on the part of the young +man himself, that the frightful excesses of his morbid +egotism are symptoms of “genius”.</p> + +<p>The onset of this period of revolt was necessarily +delayed at first and then intensified by a sense of +his responsibilities toward his mother. The burden +of her support had lately been borne much more by +him than by his father. It may seem obvious enough +to us that, in these circumstances, she should turn to +her relatives for assistance, leaving the boy free to +struggle with his career; but perhaps this was not +so obvious to the relatives—and it was an idea which +could grow in the boy’s mind only in the most painful +fashion, and with the assistance of an immense +amount of quasi-impersonal idealism.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_51">[51]</span></p> + +<p>He had to believe that his poetic career was of +the utmost importance to humanity—perhaps never +a difficult thing for a young poet to believe. And +since being a poet meant necessarily being poor, his +poverty had to have a quasi-divine sanction and justification, +which his ascetically-religious tendencies +made it easy for him to feel. Poetry was to be not +a career so much as a Mission. The Muse might +have spoken to him in such words as those of Jesus, +saying: “If any man come to Me, and hate not his +father, and mother, and wife, and children, and +brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he +cannot be My disciple”. Indeed, the struggle +through which he went was in the nature of a religious +conversion, such as has led more than one +zealot to break the bonds of filial affection and +devote his life to poverty and danger. Yet his +repudiation of his mother—for such it must have +seemed to him—was a hard matter. And the partial +transformation of his earlier ambition from that +of becoming a poet in the pure and restricted sense +to that of becoming a poetic novelist was perhaps not +merely due to the influence of years of story-writing, +but was a compromise with his sense of obligation +to her. For he conceived of himself as ultimately +and brilliantly successful. Such success would +enable him to resume his obligations to her, without +endangering his own ambitions. But this was the +utmost compromise of which his tormented mind +was capable. And in the meantime he had to repudiate +all human obligations that stood in his way. He +had to hate the Christianity he had already intellectually +<span class="pagenum" id="p_52">[52]</span>outgrown, and, with some help from +Nietzsche, whom he had read in the German, to +scorn its teaching of Obedience, as a slave-morality +unfit for free men.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_4"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>This, in his twentieth and twenty-first years, was +his secret life, and his preparation for the struggle +soon to come. Ostensibly, he was at the university +in preparation for a career as a lawyer. “His +mother had given up all hope of seeing him a bishop, +and they had compromised on a judgeship.” But +he easily found reasons for repudiating that career: +“Here at the university there was a law-school, and +he met the students, and saw that this, too, could +not be. These ‘lawyers’ were not seeking knowledge +for the love of it—they were studying a trade, by +which they could rise in the world. They were not +going out to do battle for justice—they were perfecting +themselves in cunning, so that they might be +of help in money-disputes.” Besides, “they were a +coarse and roystering crew, and he shrank from +them in repugnance”.</p> + +<p>Being secretly dedicated to a literary career, he +was particularly sensitive to the deficiencies of the +courses in English literature. An eminent professor +and critic assigned him a “theme” on College Athletics. +He decided to quit the course, and the following +conversation ensued, as reported in <i>Love’s +Pilgrimage</i>:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_53">[53]</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The professor gazed over his spectacles at him. +“Why?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I’m getting any good out of it.”</p> + +<p>“But how can you tell what good you are getting?”</p> + +<p>“... I don’t seem to feel that I am.”</p> + +<p>“It’s not to be supposed that you would feel it—not +at this early stage. You must wait.”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t like the method, sir.”</p> + +<p>“What’s wrong with the method?”</p> + +<p>He was not sure, he said; but he did not think that +writing could be taught. Anyway, one first had to have +something worth saying——</p> + +<p>“Are you laboring under the delusion that you know +anything about writing?... Because if you are, let +me disabuse your mind at once. There is no one in the +class who knows less about writing than yourself.... +It is my business to teach students to write. I’ve given +my life to it, and I think I know something about it. +But you think you know more than I do. That’s all.”</p> + +<p>And so they parted.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In a similar course under an even more eminent +professor and critic, a grammatical error was discovered +in a poem. “You will find such things occasionally,” +said the professor, as the story is told in +<i>The Goose-Step</i>. “There is a line in Byron—‘There +let him lay’—and I have an impression that I once +came upon a similar error in Shelley. Some day +before long I plan to read Shelley through and see +if I can find it.” Shelley was the boy’s dearest +friend; and he quit that course also.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, while at the university, he discovered +for himself how to master a foreign language. +He familiarized himself in a few days with the main +features of its grammar and syntax, and then read—looking +up each word once for all time, and impressing +its meaning so firmly in his mind that he +<span class="pagenum" id="p_54">[54]</span>would never have to waste time looking in the dictionary +again. On the side he thus taught himself +German, French, and Italian and read immensely in +all those languages. In German he made enthusiastically +the acquaintance of Goethe, a picture of +whom as a young poet he carried about in his pocket +“like a lover”—perhaps, unwittingly to himself, as +a secret promise of the coming true of his own rash +poetic ambitions.</p> + +<p>His only friends were still in the world of imagination. +He had no time to make friends; and, +if he had wished to do so, he was too much of an +oddity at the university; “there was a certain facetious +senior who had caught him hurrying through +the corridors one day, declaring in excitement that—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Banners yellow, glorious, golden,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On its roof did float and flow!’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">But he had long ago ceased to hope for a friend, or +to care what anybody thought about him; it was +clear to him by this time that he had made himself +into a poet, and was doomed to be unhappy.”</p> + +<p>The time came when he could withhold himself +no longer from his own creative work. “There were +many signs by which this state might have been +known. He went quite alone, and spoke to no man; +he was self-absorbed, and walked about with his +eyes fixed on vacancy; he was savage when disturbed, +and guarded his time unscrupulously. He +had given up the last formalities of life—he no +longer attended any lectures, or wore cuffs, and he +would not talk at meal-times. He took long walks +<span class="pagenum" id="p_55">[55]</span>at impossible hours, and he was fond of a certain +high hill where the storms blew. These things had +been going on for a year; and now the book that +had been coming to ripeness in his mind was ready +to be born.”</p> + +<p>The projected book was a novel, to be called +<i>Springtime and Harvest</i>. He was so full of this +novel that he could not think about anything else; +“the professors at the university, and all his relatives +and acquaintances had given him up as a hopeless +case”. But he had a hundred dollars saved up; +and he would spend the summer in the country doing +his book.</p> + +<p>In the early spring he went to Quebec, found a +lonely shack in the woods, had provisions brought to +him twice a week, and wrote madly.</p> + +<p>It was his break for freedom.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_2"> + III. +</h3> + +<p>That was in the spring of 1900, when he was not +yet twenty-two years old. The previous years, ever +since he had grown conscious of his poetic destiny, +had been years of struggle and preparation to fit +and free himself for his chosen creative task. It +doubtless seemed to him that the preparation was +complete, and that there remained but the actual +struggle of accomplishment, under the mere handicap +of poverty.</p> + +<p>The truth would perhaps have been too discouraging +to face.</p> + +<p>Though he had formally decided to seek fame as +<span class="pagenum" id="p_56">[56]</span>a writer of prose, he had not really renounced his +poetic ambitions; and we are obliged to consider, as +gently as possible, his claims to distinction as a poet. +His conceptions were truly poetic, and Shelleyan in +their nature; it is not strange that his verse should +have been thinly intellectual and of a rarefied emotional +quality; it is natural enough that it should +have dealt with life not directly but through the +medium of vague images from some ideal fairyland; +its lack of original music, its lack of observation of +the natural world, its lack of any striking verbal +qualities—all these are faults which might be overcome +in time by a young poet of great energy and +high ambitions. The early poems of great poets are +sometimes terribly bad, and it would be rash to conclude +from the mere feebleness and unoriginality of +a young poet’s verse that he has no future. Yet in +the fragments submitted for our examination in +<i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i> it is impossible to find any positive +evidences of any sort indicating a poetic +vocation.</p> + +<p>The same faults, indeed, are apparent in his early +prose; but miracles are more to be expected in the +realm of prose achievement. Yet it was with but +a scanty equipment that this young writer faced the +world so confidently. This first novel of his, produced +with his heart’s blood, was a shadowy affair; +for his heart had no blood in it yet, only morals, +ideas, and egotism. The terrible defect of this first +creative effort was his lack of knowledge of life. +Such knowledge as he had assimilated came from +books. But of first-hand acquaintance with life he +<span class="pagenum" id="p_57">[57]</span>gave no indication. His actual experience of twenty-one +years of existence in this troubled planet had +been, it would seem, too painful for realization in +concrete form; it had been refined by some psychic +process into moral lessons, and it was in this dry +form that it reached his imagination, to emerge in +earnest but jejune fables that had but the remotest +relation to reality. His imagination was securely +barricaded against actual life. Of actual life he was +afraid, however ardently he might live in his airy +refuge of dreams and thoughts. Such, indeed, was +his conception of the poet’s life. It was by deliberate +intention that he turned his back upon the +welter of experience. Filled as he was with moral +earnestness, he no doubt despised the late nineteenth-century +ideal of the “Ivory Tower”. Yet he lived in +an equally remote and cloudy refuge of his own—it +might be called a Tower of Clouds.</p> + +<p>So long as he continued to live shut away from +life behind those cloudy battlements, ambition and +moral earnestness would scarcely avail him to become +one of the Shelleyan “legislators of mankind”. +He would have remained, for all his excellent intentions, +utterly ineffective, forever unable to gain a +hearing. His “genius” had to be informed by +human experience before it could give him power to +communicate his emotions to mankind. And since +his ascetic fear of life made him incapable of learning +joyously, he had to learn by pain. Life had to +batter down the walls of his refuge, force itself +upon him, pry open his eyes, pierce into his ears, +overwhelm the defenses of his mind, before it could +<span class="pagenum" id="p_58">[58]</span>reach his heart.... The education of the artist is +sometimes a complex business. A poem of Elizabeth +Barrett Browning’s, well-conned by him at the time, +tells of the pain involved in “making a poet out of +a man”. He was prepared to suffer that pain. But +he was unprepared to suffer the further pain, which +was to complicate his life for several years, of making +a man out of a half-grown artist-boy. It would +take a woman to do that for him.</p> + +<p>But he was inured to pain, already an adept in +those sufferings which come from resisting the claims +of life; and life, even in the shape of woman, would +find him a worthy and resourceful antagonist. It +promised to be an epic conflict.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_59">[59]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="VI_THYRSIS"> + VI. THYRSIS + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>The young poet’s struggle with human nature is +told at length in <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>. With the +information there given, and with inferences of our +own, we may draw this brief outline of the origins +of that struggle in his mind.</p> + +<p>A pattern of fear—fear of the outside world—had +existed in his mind since early childhood. Specifically +it concerned drinking. “In his earliest childhood +he had known that his father was preyed upon, +just as certainly as any wild thing in the forest. At +first the enemies had been saloon-keepers, and wicked +men who tempted him to drink with them. The +names of these men were household words to him, +portents of terror; they peopled his imagination as +epic figures, such as Black Douglas must have been +to the children of the Northern Border. But then, +with widening intelligence, it became certain social +forces, at first dimly apprehended. It was the god +of ‘business’—before which all things fair and noble +went down.” And as this conception of the vast network +and conspiracy of worldly evil was widening in +the intellectual realm into an intelligent and useful +theoretical understanding of the nature of capitalist +society, in the meanwhile—or so we may conclude—it +<span class="pagenum" id="p_60">[60]</span>was broadening in the untutored realm of the unconscious +mind into a more or less morbid fear of +woman, as the other great “temptation” of life. +And what is said in <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i> specifically of +his fear of the one temptation can be read as covering +the other: “Outwardly he was like other boys, +eager and cheerful, even boisterous; but ... life +had made him into an ascetic. He must be stern, +even merciless, with himself—because of the fear +that was in him.... The fear that self-indulgence +might lay its grisly paws upon him!” “So it was +that the soul of this lad had grown somber, and +taken to brooding upon the mysteries of fate. Life +was no jest and no holiday, it was no place for shams +and self-deceptions. It was a place where cruel enemies +set traps for the unwary; a field where blind +and merciless forces ranged, unhindered by man or +God.”</p> + +<p>It would not be strange if love itself were to come +to seem to this boy one of these “traps”. But at first +it was only the simpler forms of the sexual temptation +that he feared. Not, indeed, in its grosser +form, as in prostitution; to one with his fastidiousness +of temperament this was no temptation; “the +thought of a woman who sold herself for money”—he +had first heard of this strange transaction at college—“could +never bring him anything but shuddering.” +Yet there were real temptations. “All +about his lodging-house lived the daughters of the +poor, and these were a snare for his feet.” At +recurrent intervals a restlessness would interrupt his +serenity of work and study “and he would go out +<span class="pagenum" id="p_61">[61]</span>into the night and wander about the streets for +hours, impelled by a futile yearning for he knew not +what—the hope of something clean in the midst of +uncleanness, of some adventure that would be not +quite shameful to a poet’s fancy”—only to steal +home unsatisfied, “baffled and sick at heart”. He +took, with some embarrassment, these troubles to +his clergyman friend, who told him of his own youthful +struggle—“which had resulted in victory, for he +had never known a woman”. He emphasized the +importance of the boy’s choice: “On the one hand +was slavery and degradation and disease; and on the +other were all the heights of the human spirit.” He +was eloquently recommended to “save and store” his +sexual energy, so that this base metal might become +“transmuted to the gold of intellectual and emotional +power”. Such, he was assured, was the “universal +testimony of the masters of the higher life”. +Tennyson’s Galahad was referred to, whose strength +was as the strength of ten because his heart was +pure.... Nor was this to be a denial of love, +but on the contrary its consecration. Some day he +would meet the woman he was to cleave to, whom +of course he would expect to be a virgin; and he +must do her as much honor—“he must save the +fire and fervor of his young desire for his life’s +great consummation”. And a “compact” was made, +according to which the youth was to write to the +man every month and tell him of his “success or +failure”. In times of trial, the thought of having +to confess the truth to his friend was “like a sword +hanging over him”, and this alone was, on such occasions, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_62">[62]</span>what kept him to his vow. Ordinarily, in a +life so dominated by fear of sex, the temptations are +of a merely imaginative sort, since there is lacking +the courage to undergo those preliminaries of approach +to the opposite sex which must occur before +the temptation can be of a very realistic nature. But +this youth’s masculine enterprise was not so wholly +chained up as that, it would appear, for <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i> +recounts one such hour of trial, in which a +spirited girl at a summering-place yields to his fiery +importunities and makes a date with him, only to be +met by an ashamed youth who has in the meantime +conquered these impulses of his baser nature and +now offers her his agonized apology for his caddishness, +together with some moral generalizations +on the subject. “Preaching won’t help it any,” she +says; “I don’t want to hear it. Good-bye.” For +this, and other such vergings upon surrender, he +would punish himself by “months of toil and penance +and of savage self-immolation.... For several +months at a time he would go without those +kinds of food that he liked; and instead of going +to bed at one o’clock he would read the New Testament +in Greek for an hour.” These moral struggles +are reminiscent of Tolstoy’s, early and late in life; +except that Tolstoy was reproaching and punishing +himself for sins actually, rather than almost, committed. +Like Tolstoy, he kept self-reminding diaries +and wrote exhortations to himself. And, being an +agnostic and unable to use the ordinary theological +forms of prayer, “he fashioned new invocations for +himself: prayers to the unknown sources of his +<span class="pagenum" id="p_63">[63]</span>vision, to the new powers of his own soul—‘the +undiscovered gods’, as he called them.” And “above +all he prayed to his vision of the maiden who waited +the issue of this battle and held the crown of victory +in her keeping....”</p> + +<p>This ideal of a future sweetheart began to take +shape in his mind. Some lines by the English bachelor-schoolmaster, +Cory, were like a refrain to his +thoughts on this subject:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Somewhere beneath the sun,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">These quivering heart-strings prove it,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Somewhere there must be one</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Made for this soul to move it; ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Some one whom I could court</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>With no great change of manner,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Still holding reason’s fort,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Though waving fancy’s banner.</i>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>First of all, that is to say, she should be one who +would take him as she found him; an inspiration to +him (of course), she should inspire him to go on +doing precisely what he wanted to do; hers was to +be the surrender, not his in any degree. A sufficiently +unlikely young creature, yet one for which +the young poet is inevitably bound to wish. For +the rest, she should be of an angelic purity and +goodness.⁠<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + + +<h3 id="II_5"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>The vision of a distant wedded bliss, the reward +of abstinence as promised him by his clergyman +<span class="pagenum" id="p_64">[64]</span>friend, sufficed for a time; but his poetic ambitions +came presently to trouble and disturb that hope. As +a poet, doomed to poverty, he would be economically +unable to accept those conventions of marriage +under which a husband is required to support his +wife.... These material limitations may have +served to halt the development of his love-ideals in +a boyish stage. Nor is that to be wondered at. A +poet, in a society in which poetry is ordinarily a +neglected and unrewarded art, is faced by the painful +choice of renouncing either his art or the normal +masculine satisfactions involved in giving protection—a +home, food, clothes—to his beloved. He, then, +was obliged to conceive their companionship in other +than terms of ordinary marriage. To take a wife, +in the conventional sense, would be to chain himself +for life and give up all hope of achievement in his +art. And this very real danger to himself as an +artist could but reinforce his morbid fear of the +actualities of sex, and confirm him in his reluctance +to assume an adult masculine rôle.</p> + +<p>Under these not unfamiliar circumstances, the +artist as a young man sometimes accepts the compromise +of casual, temporary and irresponsible relationships; +but to an ascetic young artist of high +ideals these were impossible. He was able to conquer +his merely physical instincts; but what would +happen when he actually fell in love? Would he fall +blindly into the “trap” set by nature? If not, how +would he seek to avoid it?... In the meantime, +at nineteen and twenty, he cultivated the art of +music, as a means of sublimating these troublesome +<span class="pagenum" id="p_65">[65]</span>emotions, attended concerts, worshipped the hero-soul +of Beethoven, and practised till his fingers were +raw and his back aching, on the violin. In summer, +in the country with his mother, he would take his +violin into the fields and play all day to the squirrels. +A musician, arriving at that summer resort, +driving over in the hotel bus, heard an Italian +woman in the street singing the ‘Tannhaüser March’. +He asked the woman where she learned it; and she +explained: “Dey ees a crazy feller in de woods—he +play it all day for t’ree weeks!”</p> + +<p>At the age of twenty-one, it seemed to him that +with the help of music he had “beaten his devils”, +and come to be “master of himself”.</p> + +<p>Then he went to the country to write his book.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_3"> + III. +</h3> + +<p>The first fury of his creative impulse had barely +spent itself when his mother and another woman, +her oldest friend, arrived to spend the summer in a +boarding-house in a village near Quebec, and with +them the other woman’s daughter, a dark-eyed girl +of twenty. The girl brought his lunches to the negligent +young poet at work in his cabin in the woods, +and a companionship was begun, with emotional +consequences that made it difficult enough for him +to concentrate on his work as a young poet should. +They were, in fact, before the summer was over, +involved in the torments and problems of first love.</p> + +<p>She was a girl whom he had admired for her +beauty, but scorned for her submissiveness, and +<span class="pagenum" id="p_66">[66]</span>never for a moment in his imagination cast in the +heroic rôle of a poet’s mate. Not was she, apparently, +at all suited to such a rôle. From the worldly +point of view, a poet’s mate should doubtless be an +eminently practical and capable person; and from +the poet’s own point of view she should be by temperament +and education able to understand and +sympathize with his ambitions. None of these things +was true of this dark-eyed girl of twenty. She was +spoiled and wilful, fond of leisure and comfort, fond +of play, with a deep capacity for the pagan enjoyment +of life. And perhaps it was these very qualities, +the dramatic complement of his own impersonal, +fanatic, Puritanical qualities, which attracted +him to her.... That can be understood; and it +can be understood that he should fool himself into +thinking that he was going to educate and train her +to be like himself I But what perversity of feminine +nature could have so laid open her young girl’s heart +to the worship of this scornful youth, and made her, +not merely fall in love with him as a summer’s idle +diversion, but be ready to go with him upon his own +harsh terms into a life of poverty and struggle? +Perhaps it was the charm of his distinction, for he +was certainly like no other man she had ever known: +though she might have considered him as a well-brought-up +young girl should, merely “queer”.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was something authoritarian and quasi-parental +in his attitude toward her; for he began +his wooing by scolding her for the kind of life she +lived—for being an idle butterfly.</p> + +<p>Then this conversation:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_67">[67]</span></p> + +<p>She: “But people aren’t to blame for the lives +they live!”</p> + +<p>He: “Why not?”</p> + +<p>She: “Because—they can’t help them. They are +bound fast.”</p> + +<p>He: “They should break loose.”</p> + +<p>She: “That is easy for you to say. You have no +ties.”</p> + +<p>He: “I did have them—I might have them still. +But I broke them.”</p> + +<p>She: “Ah, but you are a man!”</p> + +<p>He: “What difference does that make?”</p> + +<p>She: “It makes all the difference in the world. +You can earn money, you can go away by yourself. +But suppose you were a girl—shut up in a home, and +told that was your ‘sphere’?”</p> + +<p>He: “I’d fight—I’d break my way out somehow, +never fear. If one doesn’t break out, it simply +means that his desire isn’t strong enough.”</p> + +<p>So it begins. It might be a Russian wooing of +the Nihilist period. It seems that the butterfly has +a soul, and truly desires freedom. The young Nihilist +tells her sternly that she must work for her salvation. +She begs humbly for instructions, for tasks—and +he sets them. He lectures her on Christianity, +on marriage, on the wrongness of the world as it +is; and she listens with glowing eyes. Of course the +master reads his unfinished masterpiece to his pupil; +she thinks it wonderful.... Kisses begin to mingle +with these lectures; boy and girl kisses, cool as the +touch of a flower. Yet even kisses such as these +awaken in his mind the reverberations of an old +<span class="pagenum" id="p_68">[68]</span>alarm; and he commences to explain to her the +essential loneliness of his destiny as a poet. “And +do you expect to have no human relationships as long +as you live?” she asks in awe. They discuss that. +There is, it seems, a possible mate for him. But +she would have to endure every privation. He +would not turn aside one step for her sake. No, +rather he would drive her as mercilessly as he drove +himself, up the steep hill toward perfection. Not, +one would think, an alluring prospect for a joy-loving +young girl! Yet it fails to frighten her. He +quotes in warning:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Maiden! a nameless life I lead,</div> + <div class="verse indent1">A nameless death I’ll die;</div> + <div class="verse indent1">The fiend whose lantern lights the mead</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Were better mate than I!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>And now, in a month or two of companionship, +she has had good reason to know how realistically +true that warning is. She knows how much more important +his book is to him than her mere company. +He sets her to learning German. He scolds her for +not learning it instantly. A sufficiently quaint courtship! +But he is her master; she takes gladly what +he gives, the lectures, the scoldings, and, more infrequently, +the kisses. He is ashamed of kissing, as an +unworthy weakness—and doubtless also a waste of +good time that might have been devoted to further +counsels of perfection. And presently it is understood +that she is his mate; by no means his perfect +mate as yet, but presumably to be perfected by further +lectures, scoldings, and German lessons. Of +course, it is made clear, they are not sweethearts in +<span class="pagenum" id="p_69">[69]</span>any ordinary sense. There has been already too +much of kissing and petting; she is to get down to +her German, and grind away at that, so that some +day she may be his intellectual equal....</p> + +<p>In <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>, where this courtship is described +in detail, the girl is called Corydon and the +boy Thyrsis. The choice of those names, Thyrsis +and Corydon, for the principals in this boy-and-girl +romance, is relevant to the boyish and poetic ideal +which the young lover so gallantly and absurdly +attempted to impose upon the recalcitrant facts of +their human nature. The original Thyrsis and Corydon, +in Greek and Roman pastoral poetry, were +shepherd-boys and dear friends; and it was such an +idyllic and quasi-boyish companionship in thought +and work, without any of the disturbing influences +of sex, that this young lover had in mind. He was +spiritually unprepared for any surrender to the tempestuous +waves of man-and-woman love; and if he +was so harsh and graceless in his treatment of his +young sweetheart, it was out of fear. And he may +well have been afraid. He seemed to be the master +in this relationship, the dictator of hard terms which +she meekly accepted. Yet was he truly in control +of the situation? Or did this girl submit with such +proud humility because her heart knew a secret which +he had yet to learn?</p> + +<p>His learning of it proceeded slowly. Their talk +and their studies lasted late into the night at the +lonely cabin in the woods. The gossip of a summer +resort community can be imagined, and the alarm +of the two mothers. The young people, conscious +<span class="pagenum" id="p_70">[70]</span>of their purity, could only despise a world which +thought that love necessarily meant “obscenity”. +“Everybody is thinking obscenity about us!” he said +to her indignantly. They stubbornly persisted in +their companionship until the girl was taken away +to New York.... Now the young poet had time +to write on his book in peace; yet his thoughts of +her gave him no peace, and he spent the precious +hours of his hard-bought freedom in writing long +letters to her. Not love-letters, precisely; they were +scoldings on paper, because the thought of her kept +him from his work; exhortations, warnings. He +was trying to escape from her. Yet it was not she, +after all, who held him fast caught in that net; it +was something within himself, battling against his +fears—the rash desire for life. Then furiously he +threw himself into the task of writing, to escape +the problem which confronted him.</p> + +<p>The fact seemed to be that he had taken this girl’s +destinies into his own hands; she was his. But upon +what terms? He had preached his quaint Tolstoyan-Tennysonian +idealism to her, and she had accepted +it; she was ready to live with him as a sister in one +room in New York that winter. This plan was +reluctantly renounced on medical advice; apparently +it was not so easy to live an ideal life in defiance of +the conventional world.⁠<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> What choice then was +<span class="pagenum" id="p_71">[71]</span>left except abandonment of a spiritual responsibility +he had undertaken—or ordinary marriage? That +autumn he came to New York knowing dazedly that +he was going to marry her.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_72">[72]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="VII_THYRSIS_AND_CORYDON"> + VII. THYRSIS AND CORYDON + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>Thyrsis and Corydon, as we may for a while +continue to call them, were married in New +York City one day in October of that year, 1900. +They had no money with which to set up housekeeping, +and so they lived with his parents, while +waiting for the book, which had been finished somehow +amidst all this storm and stress, to be accepted.</p> + +<p>The book wasn’t immediately accepted; it was, to +the young writer’s astonishment, rejected—the first +of many rejections.... Now that he had so rashly +taken unto himself a wife, it was agreed by everyone +that he should get a job and support her properly. +But he refused to do so. Behind him lay the +meaningless slavery of hackwork from which he had +barely escaped with his poet’s soul alive; back into +that slavery he was not going. And was it not fully +understood that it was his mate’s privilege to share +the hardships of a poet’s life?</p> + +<p>In a world of relatives and friends who kept wondering +why her husband didn’t get a job, who pitied +her for what seemed to them her strange and humiliating +position, the girl did not, as she might easily +have done, lose faith in her artist-husband. But she +began to lose faith in herself—feeling herself to be +<span class="pagenum" id="p_73">[73]</span>a weak and inferior and merely human person mated +with a relentless, inexorable and inhuman will. +Sometimes the shock of some new frustration in his +career, some disappointment at the hands of an +editor or publisher, left him a hurt boy to be comforted +in her arms. But these moments were brief; +ashamed of his weakness, he would lash himself to +some new task, and send her to her corner to attend +to what seemed to be her wifely duty of studying +German. She could not get on with German, and +that made her feel more abysmally inferior. It +seemed that they had no time to be together, now +that they were married. They did sometimes play +Bach together, in his savage and determined and +utterly unsentimental fashion. She liked to be read +to, but he was too impatient for that—he ravaged +the newspaper of its contents in three minutes and +tossed it gutted aside, and dealt with books in a +similarly purposeful and efficient way. If he spared +time for a walk, he fretted at the frightful waste +of time required for her dressing and primping. +They ate, then and later, haphazardly, and lived for +periods on cold food, bringing on in him a chronic +case of indigestion and increasing his querulousness. +It was small wonder that she in turn developed a +case of nerves; and her capacity for thus giving pain +brought her what all her capacity for giving joy +had never brought, the reward of her husband’s serious +attention. He would sit up with her all night +and discuss and analyze her morbid fears, in the light +of the latest therapeutic knowledge from abroad. It +seems to have become, under those conditions, something +<span class="pagenum" id="p_74">[74]</span>of a habit for her to indulge in what were +nicknamed “soul-mates”, as a means of securing +some attention from her husband.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_6"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>It was his fierce determination to fight it out as +a writer if he starved. His novel, <i>Springtime and +Harvest</i>, was at last privately published, in the +spring of 1901, with money borrowed from a relative. +It contained a preface telling about himself +and his hopes; this book was to be the first of a +library which he intended to found, “for the purpose +of increasing helpful reading among the humble people +of our land.” He added: “<i>Springtime and Harvest</i> +may fail, and subsequent books may fail; but +that library is quite certain to come. The writer is +a man who gives all his time to his art, and some +day or other, he will have money; it is by this use +of it that he hopes to keep clean his artist’s conscience.” +<i>Springtime and Harvest</i> sold two hundred +copies, enough to pay back the relative. This same +relative, impressed with his energies and abilities, +had already offered him a very good job in the financial +world. But he did not want a job, he wanted +a chance to develop his genius. He became shameless, +and wrote begging letters to rich men famed +as philanthropists, asking for a subsidy. Impersonal +subsidies, not given out of friendship but for +the encouragement of young talent, do now to a limited +extent exist; perhaps Upton Sinclair’s later propaganda +on behalf of that idea had something to do +<span class="pagenum" id="p_75">[75]</span>with its realization; but there was no such kindly +custom then. His letters, when not thrown in the +wastebasket by the rich men’s secretaries, were +answered with the information that if he were truly +a young man of genius he would find in poverty and +struggle the best encouragement to achievement. +Young poets must not, by rash generosity, be prevented +from learning in suffering what they are to +teach in song! In his case there was some truth in +that smug and cruel notion; at least, it was to take +more suffering than he had yet known to make him +understand life....</p> + +<p>He was still self-imprisoned in his tower of clouds. +His idealism could not yet accept the human terms +of marriage. The medical advice upon which the +chaste earlier plans of the lovers had been abandoned +had been accompanied with the information +(which was news to Thyrsis) that actual marriage +need not result in children. The advice, upsetting +enough to the whole universe which the poet had +erected upon his neurotic fear of life, had been only +with much misgiving on his part acted upon. Marriage +had opened a new world to him; but it was a +too disturbing world, too alien to that cloudy realm +of ideas and moralities, of disciplines and duties, in +which he was accustomed to move; his generalizations +had no meaning in this new pagan world of +delight—and he presently, from high motives drawn +from his own habitual realm, felt that it was his +duty to renounce it. He had thoughtfully and earnestly +concluded that it could not be right to enjoy +the raptures of the marriage bed unless those raptures +<span class="pagenum" id="p_76">[76]</span>were consecrated to an unselfish purpose, +namely that of creating new life. That purpose was +not at all a part of his plans; it was totally in +conflict with the much more important purpose of +fulfilling his consecrated literary ambitions. Nevertheless, +the idea of renunciation had come too late; +it appeared that these connubial raptures had after +all not been mere ignoble and unfruitful self-indulgence, +but had been, however unintentionally, dedicated +to their proper biologic purpose, after all.</p> + +<p>And now the chagrined poet could in secret mock +bitterly at himself as a deluded victim of Nature, +and trace in memory the steps by which he had been +led into that very trap of human responsibility which +he had thought himself wise enough to avoid.... +Yet there was a possible way of escape, even now, +from the trap. And these bitter soliloquies were +interrupted by a practical discussion of the question +whether this new life, so inimical to the poetic career, +should be permitted to be. It was discussed upon +high moral grounds, pro and con. And it was in the +nature of an astonishing revelation to the young +poet of a hitherto unguessed secret of the feminine +heart when, while they were trying to make up their +minds, he observed Corydon’s profound interest and +delight in a sufficiently ordinary baby halted in its +carriage before the park bench where they sat talking. +Was it, then, possible that this girl, who had +come to him as a poet’s mate, and was presumed to +be interested in nothing but inspiring and assisting +his career—was it possible that she <i>wanted</i> a baby? +That, he concluded, was actually true; and, in the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_77">[77]</span>irreconcilable conflict of moral duties which the situation +otherwise presented, that merely emotional +factor was giving the deciding vote. Thyrsis was +becoming more human.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_4"> + III. +</h3> + +<p>The birth, in December 1901, of his child, an +event of which he was a startled witness, was almost +too appalling a glimpse into that realm of human +experience from which he had tried to escape. Yet +not long afterward he was able to confront his +memories of that event with a sufficiently fearless +mind and build them up into one of the most remarkable +scenes in the whole of modern realistic fiction—the +scene being later incorporated into his novel, +<i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>The child, a son named David, was a personage +of sufficient importance to affect even such an inflexible +determination as that of this young poet. He +did not get a job, but he did hackwork. His pen +had lost its old fluency in that sort of writing, it +was no longer a knack but an agony; but he did it +in desperation, together with book-reviews and every +sort of literary odd-job by which he could make a +dollar. He raised a laugh in an editorial office by +offering, as an expert, to review a book on the care +and feeding of infants; he was willing enough to be +laughed at if he could thus get a much needed book +without having to pay for it. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_78">[78]</span><i>Springtime and Harvest</i> was republished by a +regular publishing house late in 1901 under the +title <i>King Midas</i>, without diminishing either his +poverty or his obscurity.... A new literary project +needed for its accomplishment more peace than +a new baby permitted, and he had to go elsewhere +to work for some weeks; in the meantime his wife +and her child were taken away by indignant relatives, +and when he returned he was forbidden to see +either of them until he should have “come to his +senses” and agreed to behave like a proper husband—that +is, get a job. By letter between the parted +parents it was arranged that the nurse should bring +the baby on a certain day and hour to a certain place +in the park, so that he might see his son. A nurse +did come to the spot at that hour, wheeling a baby +much less beautiful than he remembered his own as +being; and he was miserable until his telegram, asking +if the baby had red hair, was answered by one +explaining that the nurse had been ill and not able +to go to the park that day!... But even this +pressure failed to bring the stubborn young poet to +terms, and his wife and child were presently allowed +to go and share his poverty.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_1"> + IV. +</h3> + +<p>His second novel, <i>Prince Hagen</i>, though not published +until 1903, was written in 1901. In 1902 he +wrote <i>The Journal of Arthur Stirling</i>, a book which +made a considerable sensation in the literary world, +and which will be dealt with in the next chapter. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_79">[79]</span>Still poor, and unknown to the great public, he +moved in the spring of 1903 to the outskirts of +Princeton, N.J., where he lived with his wife and +child in a shack in the woods, and wrote two more +novels, the second of which was to bring him worldwide +fame. His intellectual and artistic development +during this period will be considered at length +in the following chapters; but, as a significant detail +revealing the progress and suggesting the limits of +his emotional development, we may fix our attention +on that shack in the woods near Princeton.</p> + +<p>In the back pages of <i>Country Life in America</i> for +June 1904, following the accounts and pictures of +expensive and luxurious summer residences for the +rich, there appeared a brief article entitled <i>A Country +House Built and Furnished for Only $156</i> +(Photograph by the author). It began:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The writer of this article is pursuing the occupation +of unpopular novelist, and is attempting what few even +of the popular novelists attempt—to live on his royalties.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>One does not need to turn to the signature to know +that it was written by Upton Sinclair. Yet for purposes +of comparison we may, before going on, interpolate +here some fragrants of a manifesto composed +the previous spring, just before moving to this tiny +house in the country:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>... born to sing and to worship, as I was +born to sing and to worship ...</p> + +<p>... stewed and mashed in misery for a +lifetime, as I for seven long years ...</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_80">[80]</span></p> + +<p>... I could not greet my Muse until +I had flung my banner wide ...</p> + +<p>... You laugh at me, no doubt, but +some day you will heed me ...</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Unquestionably there is power in these phrases; +but unquestionably also they are boyish.... And +now we return to the article in <i>Country Life</i>:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Prior to the discovery herein to be set forth, I lived, +as most city-bred and non-wealthy people live, in a flat +or a boarding-house in winter and in a summer hotel +in the warm months.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>To be sure, it is scarcely true that “most city-bred +and non-wealthy people” in America go to summer +hotels for the “warm months”; he was perhaps +thinking of the class he was addressing in that publication: +workingmen do not read <i>Country Life in +America</i>.... But this prose, in comparison with +the fragments of last year’s manifesto quoted above, +has in it the quality of civilized conversation; the +shrill boyish note is gone; it is a man speaking. The +boy has grown up. And he has grown up, somewhat +in spite of himself, through the influence of human +experience in its most inescapable domestic terms. +He has been living, not in a poetic Shelleyan grotto, +but in what despite some unusual features is nevertheless +unmistakably a home. He has been a husband +and father,—doubtless not a very good +husband, for a preoccupied artist may easily fail, +and a puritanical idealist is pretty certain to fail, +to be that—yet the head of a household, a breadwinner, +a man responsible to wife and child; he +has almost if not quite ceased to dramatize himself +<span class="pagenum" id="p_81">[81]</span>in the grandiose rôle of a solitary and unique figure +bearing the burden of a poetic doom. He has +become considerably humanized, and as it happens +through suffering—for domesticity is not the least +of those miseries in which, as he complained in his +manifesto the previous year, he had been stewed +and mashed. Corydon does not seem to have been +a very efficient housewife or very capable mother; +and she probably seemed to an impecunious young +poet dreadfully extravagant. They were both terribly +overworked. Yet domesticity, to the young +poet a monster of such frightful mien that to be +hated need but to be seen, when endured sufficiently +was found to have human values of its own; and +though he might never be said to have been thoroughly +domesticated, though the close and warm +intimacies of family life remained something to shy +away from as much as possible, yet he had gained +something from his experience which now led him +to show other young people the way to these life-values, +at a price within their meager means!</p> + +<p>And so to continue with the article; the next few +paragraphs are introductory to his theme, but interesting +for their realistic information:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>So overwhelming was the force of custom that for +many years I never dreamed there was any other way +to live. At last, however, the truth dawned upon me +that I was foolish to pay for the use of a hotel in the +country when what I wanted was only the country and +not the hotel. I chanced one day to be walking in the +woods when I came upon a little cabin which had been +built for picnicking purposes by a lady who had immediately +afterward been providentially smitten with a +<span class="pagenum" id="p_82">[82]</span>rheumatic knee. This house I hired for $25 for the +season, and then I began to discover what things there +were in life. This house had cost about $400; and +from force of custom I rented it without inquiring +further.</p> + +<p>Meantime, also, I went back to the city in winter, +though there was nothing I wanted in the city except +books.... I am writing this article because I know +that there are in New York many thousands of poets, +painters, musicians, and other would-be dwellers in the +land of the spirit, living in just exactly that way, and +never dreaming that there is any other way for them +to do it; that there is any sort of shelter save a hall +bedroom at $2 a week, or any sort of food save what +is shoved at them over a restaurant table at twenty +or thirty cents a dish! Figure up the cost of a hall +bedroom at $2 a week for a lifetime ...</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="noindent">Thus far, to be sure, this is simply a country studio +for artists that is being suggested; but it abruptly +becomes a home in the same sentence:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>and then consider that houses suitable for the occupancy +of poets and lovers may be built at a cost of from $50 +to $150, and dwelt in all the year round at a cost of +$6 a week for two and $2 more for the baby.</p> + +<p>Five years ago, the writer met a charming young +couple one summer, engaged, and painfully in love. +With the naïveté of lovers, they told me all about the +problem—which was that he was only twenty-six, and +was earning only a poor $1800 a year; and they had +waited two years already—they expected to wait one +more, and then he would receive $2,200, and upon +that they were heroically going to try to get along. +The writer has not seen them for three years, but just +the other day he made inquiry. Whether the increase +was delayed or their courage gave out, he does not know—but +they are still engaged!</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>It may seem a little unfair for this young writer, +of all persons, to taunt these cowardly lovers; but +<span class="pagenum" id="p_83">[83]</span>that he can do so means that he has at last accepted +that impulse which in spite of so many qualms carried +him into marriage as, not a weakness nor a +folly, but a thing to be proud of—not a mere falling +into a “trap of Nature”, but a responsible action +of his own; that is to say, his sexual impulse is at +last acknowledged to be a part of himself, and not +a “devil” nor an “enemy”. But to proceed:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The house shown in this illustration cost $156. This +figure is larger in two respects than necessary—mistakes +were made in its construction, and it was built +in a place where lumber is very high in price. As +described in this article, it can be built for about $125.</p> + +<p>It stands about three miles outside of Princeton, +New Jersey, which was chosen because it is a beautiful +town with a library. The house is built upon a long +strip of land bordering a dense woods; this strip has a +score of great trees upon it, and no less than a dozen +springs, of various degrees of coldness. It was of no +use to the farmer who owns it, and he rented it for +$10 a year.</p> + +<p>The house is 16×18 feet. It has three rooms—a +kitchen, a bedroom, and a living-room—respectively +6×7, 9×7, and 11×16 feet. Six by seven sounds small +for a room, but every part of it was calculated beforehand, +and there is plenty of space....</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>He continues with details of its construction and +cost. There is a piazza, to be used as a dining-room +in summer. “A good deal of the furniture +is home-made, of plain white pine; it can be varnished +or covered with pretty stuffs, though the +present house is in the Spartan style.” The house +took six days to build. “Enough crockery and +kitchen utensils—agate-ware and unbreakable—can +be bought for $5 or $10, and then the house is +<span class="pagenum" id="p_84">[84]</span>inhabitable—for poets and lovers!” Near-by in the +woods is a study, costing $25. “It is 8×10, and +sounds small; but it holds a table, a book-case, a +stove, a trunk, two chairs, and an unpopular novelist”—who +presently was to write there a book that +would be read all over the world.⁠<a id="FNanchor_9_9" href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>It is a brave description; but certain reflections +present themselves. This “Spartan” simplicity, one +feels sure, is not dictated entirely by poverty, but by +a Spartan temperament; and one is equally sure that +the Corydon of whom one has read in <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>, +however delighted she might be at having +a house of her own to be mistress of at last, would +have preferred something less bleak. She was not +Spartan: she was Corinthian, rather; and her tastes +have not been consulted, or have been sternly overruled, +in the planning of this home. One looks at +the photograph so proudly furnished; a neat, bleak, +Quakerish place, for whose drabness poverty does +not wholly account—the home of an ascetic, a despiser +of soft living, of comfort, of ease; the home +of one who recognizes the uses “of bread and bacon, +of a stove and a woodpile”, and scorns all beauty +except that “of prayer and music, of joy and love, +of wisdom and high resolve”, and perhaps of “beautiful +books in an occasional rare instance”—a +moralist still! And one remembers, in one of Corydon’s +letters in <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>, the wistful cry: +“Oh, but how I want a poor taste of joy!” One +might guess that a girl of her temperament would +<span class="pagenum" id="p_85">[85]</span>be exasperated into rebellion by a husband who was +afraid of beauty and joy in its most innocent forms, +afraid even of his love of her; and that this rebellion +would take forms calculated to torment and +madden even him out of his Olympian austerity. Not +a happy prospect for this marriage! But even if it +should ultimately prove too great a strain for either +of them to endure, it was meanwhile breaking down, +apparently as far as human experience was capable +of doing so, his imaginative resistance to reality; +and its robust influences, combined with those of a +new philosophy of life, to be discussed later, served +to make, out of a conceited boy-poet, a man and a +writer.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_86">[86]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII_THE_JOURNAL_OF_ARTHUR_STIRLING"> + VIII. THE JOURNAL OF ARTHUR STIRLING + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>In 1903 there appeared a book entitled <i>The +Journal of Arthur Stirling</i>, purporting to be the +real diary of a young poet who had, after a bitter +and unsuccessful struggle, committed suicide. An +editorial introduction, signed “S.”, gave a sketch of +the poet, and quoted from a New York newspaper +a notice of his death “by suicide in the Hudson +River”.</p> + +<p>The book was something of a sensation among +that small class of American readers who cared +enough about their country or its literature to be +moved by the thought of a poet being driven to +suicide by neglect in the midst of one of the richest +cities in the world. The book was widely reviewed, +and though it was generally felt that Arthur Stirling +was a “difficult” young man, abnormally sensitive in +his attitude toward life and overstrained in his attitude +toward his art, the book was praised by those +who knew artists as a true picture of young genius.⁠<a id="FNanchor_10_10" href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>The book incidentally related certain rebuffs and +indignities at the hands of editors and publishers. +And these publishers, recognizing themselves in the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_87">[87]</span>story, did not fail to recognize the young poet as +Upton Sinclair—and so the truth came out. The +critics, especially those who had compared the +journal of Arthur Stirling with the diary of Marie +Bashkirtseff, resented being hoaxed, and discussion +of the book ceased. It was treasured, however, +among discerning readers as being, despite the fact +that its author was still alive and kicking, a +sufficiently authentic account of the exasperated +psychology of the young artist in his struggle with +poverty and neglect.</p> + +<p>Time has confirmed that judgment; the book +remains a permanently valuable and interesting contribution +to our knowledge of what may without +prejudice be called youthful genius, and—more than +that—a moving plea on its behalf.</p> + +<p>But it is further interesting to us as a stage in its +author’s development. It was the second book after +his marriage, and it deals directly with his own most +acute problems—not only the problems of poverty +and neglect, but with the psychic problem involved +in his own conception of himself, his destiny, and his +duties.... The book was written feverishly, day +and night, during six weeks in the spring of 1902, +on an island in the St. Lawrence River. His son had +been born in the previous December. The birth of +his child had necessarily altered the course of his +life; it had bound him to reality. And it was with +the inescapable necessity of such an alteration in +the course of his life, the necessity of making terms +with reality, that he was now in violent inward +struggle. He had, by rebellion, just previously, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_88">[88]</span>established himself as a poet and a free soul; as such +he had no chains; even his marriage had by prescriptive +arrangement involved no human obligations +whatever; he stood alone, and compromised with +nothing. And he had hardly had time to enjoy this +freedom when it was snatched away from him, not +by a world that he could defy and resist, but by +Nature—including his own newly discovered Human +Nature. If it was an evil and ugly world that kept +him in poverty, it was something in himself which +could scarcely be dismissed as ugly or evil that bound +him to his wife and child. And it was at the behest, +not of the world, but of this something in himself, +that he had to compromise, and give up his freedom. +In giving it up, he gave up necessarily what had been +his fundamental conception of himself, as a Poet, +consecrated only to his career, free from every other +duty. A painful renunciation, and one which he +would be slow to make. In leaving, then, his wife +and child, to go away and write this book, he was +not merely attempting desperately to make some +money, he was taking this occasion to deal in terms +of art with the internal conflict which obsessed him.</p> + +<p>The Arthur Stirling of the book was based in +part upon Sinclair’s imaginings concerning the life +of an actual young poet whom he had met once or +twice—a waiter and a snow-shoveller, who had +sought a publisher in vain, yet of whom it had been +said by an eminent poet in Sinclair’s hearing that +“he had written lines not surpassed by one of his +years since Keats”. But it was chiefly, of course, +based upon his own experience as a neglected writer. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_89">[89]</span>It begins, however, with the young poet writing his +book—and this part of the story goes back to, and +might be an actual diary of, his life two years before, +when he had made his great break for freedom—when, +with a hundred dollars in his pocket he had +left the world behind and gone to a shack in the +country to write his great book.... That is to +say, he had gone back to the days when he was free, +to the days when he had a right to think of himself +as a poet. No girl casts her shadow over these +pages. The tragedy must be blamed upon the world, +not upon her.... And now, once more a poet, +he savors again in memory the beauty and the pain +of the poetic doom:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>It is not merely the vision, the hour of exultation; +that is but the setting of the task. Now you will take +that ecstasy, and hold on to it, hold on with soul and +body; you will keep yourself at that height, you will +hold that flaming glory before your eyes, and you will +hammer it into words. Yes, that is the terror—into +words—into words that leap the hilltops, that bring the +ends of existence together in a lightning flash. You +will take them as they come, white-hot, in wild tumult, +and you will forge them, and force them. You will +seize them in your naked hands and wrestle with them, +and bend them to your will—all that is in the making +of a poem. And last and worst of all, you will +hold them in your memory, the long, long surge of +them; the torrent of whirling thought—you will hold +it in your memory! You are dazed with excitement, +exhausted with your toil, trembling with pain; but +you have built a tower out of cards, and you have +mounted to the clouds upon it, and there you are poised. +And anything that happens—anything!—ah, God, why +can the poet not escape from his senses?—a sound, a +touch—and it is gone!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_90">[90]</span></p> + +<p>These things drive you mad.—</p> + +<p>But meanwhile it is not gone yet. You have still +a whole scene in your consciousness—as if you were +a juggler, tossing a score of golden balls. And all the +time, while you work, you learn it—you learn it! It +is endless, but you learn it. In the midst of it, perhaps, +you come down of sheer exhaustion; and you lie there, +panting, shuddering, your hands moist; you dare not +think, you wait. And then by and by you begin again—if +it will not come, you <i>make</i> it come, you lash yourself +like a dumb beast—up, up, to the mountain-tops +again. And then once more the thing comes back—you +live the scene again, as an actor does, and you +shape it and you master it. And now in the midst of +it, you find this highest of all moments is gone! It is +gone, and you cannot find it! Those words that came +as a trumpet-clash, burning your very flesh—that +melody that melted your whole being to tears—they +are gone—you cannot find them! You search and you +search—but you cannot find them. And so you stumble +on, in despair and agony; and still you dare not rest. +You dare not ever rest in this until the thing is done—done +and over—until you have <i>nailed</i> it fast. So you +go back again, though perhaps you are so tired that +you are fainting; but you fight yourself like a madman, +you struggle until you feel a thing at your heart like a +wild beast; and you keep on, you hold it fast and learn +it, clinch it tight, and make it yours forever. I have +done that same thing five times to-day without a rest; +and toiled for five hours in that frenzy; and then lain +down upon the ground, with my head on fire.</p> + +<p>Afterward when you have recovered you sit down, +and for two or three hours you write; you have it whole +in your memory now—you have but to put it down. +And this forlorn, wet, bedraggled thing—this miserable, +stammering, cringing thing—<i>this</i> is your poem!</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Every moment of this lost poetic life is dear to +him, infinitely precious, worthy to be recorded: the +egotism, the querulousness, the hysteria—these, too, +are part of the poet’s doom, and beautiful as such.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_91">[91]</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p>I am wild to-day. Oh, how can I bear this—why +should I have to contend with such things as this! Is +it not hard enough—the agony that I have to bear, the +task that takes all my strength and more? And must +I be torn to pieces by such hideous degradation as this? +Oh, my God, if my life is not soon clear of these +things I shall die!</p> + +<p>Oh, it is funny—yes, funny—Let us laugh at it. +The dance-hall musician has brought home his ’cello! +I heard him come bumping up the stairs with it—God +damn his soul! And there he sits, sawing away at some +loathsome jig tunes! And he has two friends in there—I +listen to their wit between the tunes.</p> + +<p>Here I sit like a wild beast in a cage. I tell you +I can bear any work in the world, but I can not bear +such things as this. That I, who am seeking a new +faith for men—who am writing, or trying to write, +what will mean new faith to millions—should have my +soul ripped into pieces by such loathsome, insulting +indignities!</p> + +<p>Oh, laugh!—but <i>I</i> can’t laugh—I sit here foaming +at the lips, and crying! And suppose he’s lost his +position, and does this every day!</p> + +<p>Now every day I must lay aside what I am doing +and sit and shudder when I hear him coming up the +steps—and wait for him to begin this! I tell you, I +demand to be free—I <i>demand</i> it! I want nothing in +this world but to be let alone. I don’t want anybody +to wait on me.—<i>I don’t want anything from this hellish +world but to be let alone!</i></p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="noindent">And, in another mood:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>To get the mastery of your soul, to hold it here, +in your hands, at your bidding, to consecrate your +life to that, to watch and pray and toil for that, to +rouse yourself and goad yourself day and night for +that; to thrill with the memory of great consecrations, +of heroic sufferings and aspirations; to have in your +heart the power of the stars, of nature, of history and +the soul of man ...</p> +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_92">[92]</span></p> + +<p>It is a lingering farewell to a beautiful past. For +the Poet must die. There is no place for him in such +a world. When he has suffered enough, he will +take himself out of it. He endures his last indignity, +and faces tranquilly the death toward which +he goes. “Do I believe that I shall ever live again? +I know that I shall not.... He has given me an +hour.... My life was beautiful.... There are +no thoughts in Oblivion.”... “No one will find +my body, and no one will ever care about it.”</p> + +<p>Three years later Upton Sinclair wrote, in the +preface to a new edition: “No truer book than <i>The +Journal of Arthur Stirling</i> has ever been written; it +is the book of all my boyhood’s hopes and dreams, +and it is as dear to me as the memory of a dead +child.”</p> + +<p>It does preserve, with infinite love, the memory +of a dead child—a dead poet, tenderly and regretfully +put to death by his own hand.</p> + +<p>It foreshadows the end of an epoch, and the beginning +of a new life.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_7"> + II. +</h3> + +<p><i>The Journal of Arthur Stirling</i> contained, incidentally, +a message. With the giving up of his +own poetic career, he had become conscious of the +needs of others—a class-consciousness in the artistic +realm.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>You let every man go his way—you let him starve, +you let him die in any hole that he can find. The +poet—tenderest and most sensitive of all men! the poet—the +master of the arts of suffering! Exposed on every +<span class="pagenum" id="p_93">[93]</span>side, nervous, haunted, unused to the world, knowing +how to feel and knowing that alone! Is not his life +an agony under any conditions,—is he not tortured for +you—the world? And you leave him helpless, despairing!</p> + +<p>What is the matter with you?—How can you be so +blind? There are some of you who really love books—look +and see the story of genius—if it be not a thing +to make you shudder and turn sick. It has been so +through all the ages, and it will be through all the ages +to come until society has a conscience and a soul. +Tell me if there is anything in this world more frightful +than the lot of poets who have been born poor—of +Marlowe and Chatterton and Goldsmith, Johnson +and Burns and Keats! And who can tell how many +more choked before even their first utterance?</p> + +<p>I can not talk of that, for it makes me sick; but +I will talk of the poets who were born rich. Is it not +singular—is it not terrible—how many of the great +stalwart ones were rich? To be educated, to own +books, to hear music, to dwell in the country, to be free +from men and men’s judgments! Oh, the words break +my heart!</p> + +<p>—But was not Goethe rich, and did he not have +these things? And was not Hugo rich? And Milton? +When he left college he spent five years at his father’s +country place and wrote four poems that have done +more to make men happy than if they had cost many +millions of dollars.</p> + +<p>But let me come to what I spoke of before, the seven +poets of this century in England.</p> + +<p>I name Wordsworth and Byron, Tennyson, Browning +and Swinburne, Shelley and Keats. I said that six +of them were independent, and that the other—the +greatest—died like a dog.</p> + +<p>Wordsworth came first; he was young and poor and +struggling, and a friend left him just such an independence +as I have cried for; and he consecrated +himself to art, and he revolutionized English poetry, +he breathed truth into a whole nation again.... Think +that the world owes its possession of Wordsworth’s +<span class="pagenum" id="p_94">[94]</span>poetry to the accident that a friend died and left him +some money!</p> + +<p>I name Byron; he was a rich man. I name Tennyson; +he had a little competence, and gave up the idea +of marriage, and for ten years devoted himself to art; +and when he was thirty-two he published his work—and +then they gave him a pension!</p> + +<p>I name Browning; Browning went his own way, +heeding no man; and he never had to think about +money. I name Swinburne; and the same was true of +him.</p> + +<p>I name Shelley; and Shelley was wealthy. They +kept him poor for a time, but his poems do not date +from then. When he wrote the poetry that has been +the spiritual food of the high souls of this century, he +lived in a beautiful villa in Italy, and wandered about +the forest with his books....</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>This state of affairs and its remedy were set forth, +a few months after the publication of the book, in an +article entitled <i>My Cause</i>, in the <i>Independent</i>. This +is the “manifesto” referred to and fragmentarily +quoted on a previous page; it begins:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>I, Upton Sinclair, would-be singer and penniless rat, +having for seven years waged day and night with +society a life-and-death struggle for the existence of my +soul; and having now definitely and irrevocably consummated +a victory—having routed my last foe and +shattered my last chain and made myself master of my +own life: being in body very weak and in heart very +weary, but in will infinitely determined, have set myself +down to compose this letter to the world, before taking +my departure for a long sojourn in the blessed regions +of my own Spirit.</p> + +<p>I should not write a letter to the world for the purpose +of setting myself right; being “lord of a thousand +dollars,” the world no longer exists for me. What +people think of me is not whispered in the forests that +I love, and I have read my last review, and waited +<span class="pagenum" id="p_95">[95]</span>upon my last publisher, and cringed before my last rejection. +The sole reason for my writing is that in +that world there are surely others, born to sing and +to worship, as I was born to sing and to worship, but +born less capable than I in the world’s low way—less +willing to fight the world with its own weapons—less +cunning, less unprincipled, than I. For such there +being in the place from which I have escaped no salvation, +and no prospect, save to be stewed and mashed +in misery for a lifetime, as I for seven long years, I +could not greet my Muse until I had flung my banner +wide and declared myself to men.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The remedy which was set forth in equally eloquent +terms was an institution to be supported by +rich men for the purpose of endowing young authors +of talent—an “American University of Literature”, +with a Board of Trustees “consisting of the noblest +and truest and most reverent literary men of the +time”, employing “a corps of carefully selected and +trained readers” to consider and pass on manuscripts +offered in evidence of the possession of talent +worth encouraging: the standard of judgment being +“not what the Public Wants, but what American +Literature wants, and what God wants, and what +beauty and truth and righteousness want....”</p> + +<p>Only three years later, judgment upon this scheme +was passed by the author himself in somewhat brutally +realistic terms. “I look back upon it now”, +he wrote in the preface to the new edition of the +<i>Journal</i>, “as an amusing illustration of the guilelessness +of my attitude toward the world. If any such +plan were to be proposed to-day, I should say that it +was a device to emasculate literature, as the newspaper +and the college and the church have all been +<span class="pagenum" id="p_96">[96]</span>emasculated; and I should argue that it were better +for the young author to starve all his life than to +compromise with the powers that are in control of +the wealth of the world to-day. My error lay in +supposing that it is literature that makes life, instead +of life that makes literature.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_97">[97]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="IX_MANASSAS"> + IX. MANASSAS + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p><i>The Journal of Arthur Stirling</i> had been the +death-cry of his boyhood’s ideals; and it was +heard by a Socialist editor and lecturer named +George D. Herron—a gentle ex-clergyman, a man +much lied about at the time in the newspapers, which +chose to represent a divorce and re-marriage of his +as a “free-love” arrangement, so that he was a notorious +figure and in public esteem a monster of iniquity. +It was he who subsidized the young author +during the period of his hardest struggles, and it was +his influence which led him to read Socialist books +and listen to Socialist arguments. There ensued a +swift conversion; for the young man badly needed a +new ideal to live by, in the place of the one which life +had so rudely shattered; and the Socialist philosophy +was peculiarly suited to his needs. His scientific +interests, his acceptance of the Darwinian ideas of +evolution, his repudiation of the church and of mysticism, +his interest in history and belief in the +democratic ideal, his sense of justice and abhorrence +of a class society, his Utopian tendencies, his conception +of himself as a rebel and revolutionist, had half +prepared him for the new philosophy of Socialism; +nothing, indeed, had stood in its way except the doctrine, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_98">[98]</span>centering about his own personal ambitions, +of literature as the determining influence in human +progress: and once he had given up his poetic ambitions, +it would not prove difficult for him to dethrone +literature from the supreme place he had assigned +it, in favor of humbler material factors, as required +by the Marxian theory. It was not, he now perceived, +literature that made life, but life that made +literature; it was, on the whole, the way men made +their living that determined their thought, including +their sense of right and wrong. What, then, he +had found wrong with the world was due fundamentally +to its economic arrangements; and these +economic arrangements were in their very nature, +according to the Marxian reading of history, temporary; +this present period of capitalism was a passing +phase in mankind’s conquest of its environment. +It would be destroyed by its own machinery; for the +machine method of production brought into existence +a larger and larger class of wage-workers, +whose interests were necessarily inimical to those of +the class which lived on profits and dividends; and +when these workers had learned the lesson that they +had nothing to lose but their chains and a world to +gain, in the words of the <i>Communist Manifesto</i>, +they would unite for revolutionary purposes, destroy +capitalism, and create a workers’ commonwealth +all over the world. He conceived this, in accordance +with the somewhat mild Socialist ideas of that +period, as an essentially peaceful process, to be +brought about by voting the Socialist ticket; the +votes being influenced by “agitation”, in which a +<span class="pagenum" id="p_99">[99]</span>writer who had the good of the world at heart could +find an honorable and useful and sufficiently important +field for the exercise of his talents.... But, +truly more important than all this, so far as his +development as a writer is concerned, was that aspect +of the Socialist philosophy which gave, to one who +had always feared and hated the world, some realistic +means of discriminating among its values, so +that he could more freely and fearlessly enter into +an imaginative intimacy with it in all its crude +detail. His old ethico-artistic theory of life, which +had held him in imagination at as great a distance +as possible from raw life, and had permitted him +imaginatively to entertain life’s welter only in the +highly sublimated form of precept and principle, had +thereby played him false both in love and in art, had +fooled and cheated him on every hand. This new +theory of life, finding order in the very midst of what +had been an unintelligible chaos, made him braver +and bolder in his imaginative approach to human +experience; it enabled him to see beauty where before +there had been only ugliness, and it is ultimately to +the bracing influences of this new philosophy that +we owe his development into a great realistic +novelist.</p> + +<p>His nearness to the Socialist philosophy is apparent +in <i>Prince Hagen</i>, written in 1901—a spirited and +amusing though too obviously didactic satirical +fable, in which a Nibelung out of Wagnerian opera +comes to New York and pursues an instructive +career in Democratic and Republican politics, high +society, and finance, and then proposes to take back +<span class="pagenum" id="p_100">[100]</span>to the Nibelungs the benefits, already set forth in +somewhat Shavian terms, of Christianity and capitalism. +It was published in 1903, and dedicated to +his Socialist friend, Dr. Herron. But its criticism of +the world was his own—not Marx’s.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_8"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>He had planned a novel of the Civil War—a +trilogy, in fact—to be called <i>The American</i>. It was +announced under that title in the <i>Independent</i> article, +where he spoke of the Civil War as “to me the +greatest art-theme now unpre-empted”, “one of the +most tremendous efforts of the human spirit in all +history”, and declared that he hoped to give “the +next four or five years” to the task. This projected +work had also been described in <i>The Journal of +Arthur Stirling</i>:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>The world is filled with historical fiction; it is the +cant and sham of the hour.—Bah!</p> + +<p>—This is what I long to do; to take the agony of +that struggle and live it and forge it into an artwork; +to put upon a canvas the soul of it....</p> + +<p>I saw some of it to-day, and it made my blood go!</p> + +<p>I saw a poet, young, sensitive, throbbing at the old, +old wrong, at the black shame of our history; I saw +him drawn into that fearful whirlpool of blood and +passion, driven mad with the pain and the horror of it; +and I saw him drilled and hammered to a grim savageness, +saw him fighting, day by day, with his spirit, +forging it into an iron sword of war. He was haggard +and hollow-eyed, hard, ruthless, desperate.... I saw +a man, wild and war-frenzied, riding a war-frenzied +horse; he rode at the head of a squadron, bare-headed, +sword in hand, demon-like—thundering down-hill upon +<span class="pagenum" id="p_101">[101]</span>a mass of men, stabbing, slashing, trampling, scattering! +Above the roar of it all I heard his cry: “Finish it! +Finish it!”</p> + +<p>And afterward he staggered from his horse and knelt +by the men he had killed, and wept.</p> + +<p>—I saw him again. It was when the man of the +hour had come at last; when the monster had met his +master; when, day by day, they hammered it ...; +when they closed with it in death-grapple in a tangled +wilderness, where armies fought like demons in the +dark, and the wounded were burned by the thousands. +I saw companies of fainting, starving, agonized men +retreating, still battling, day by day; and I saw the wild +horseman galloping on their track, slashing, trampling—and +still with the battle-yell: “Finish it! Finish +it!”</p> + +<p>I saw him yet a third time. It was done, it was +finished; and he lay wounded in a dark room, listening. +Outside in the streets of Washington a great endless +army marched by, the army of victory, of salvation; +and the old war-flags waved, and the old war-songs +echoed, and he heard the trampling of ten thousand +feet....</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The first volume of this projected trilogy appeared +in 1904, under the title <i>Manassas: A Novel +of the War</i>. As written, under the sobering influence +of the new philosophy that had intervened in +the meantime, it is by no means so rhetorical a +work as might have been expected from these announcements. +It is, in fact, his first realistic novel. +It is at the same time beautiful. Its many-cadenced +and never negligent prose bends tenderly or humorously +over the most minute details of everyday life, +and rises with a mature magnificence to the height +of the most chaotic battle-scenes, never once losing +its grip on reality. It impresses one, re-reading it +<span class="pagenum" id="p_102">[102]</span>after many years, as a great war-novel. It has its +special limitation, sufficiently characteristic of the +author in this transition phase: sex does not exist +for its hero; but that limitation, ridiculous enough +in afterthought, does not count against it as much +as might be supposed. Politics fill that foreground +of emotional interest usually occupied in fiction by +women, and so profoundly passionate are these political +emotions that one scarcely notices, and does not +resent, the substitution. The hero is a Southern +youth who goes to visit relatives up North, becomes +interested in the Abolition agitation, becomes gradually +a convert and an enthusiast, and, when the war +begins, enlists in a Boston regiment that is mobbed +in passing through Baltimore on its way to Washington, +and takes part in the great defeat of +Northern arms at Manassas, where the book ends. +Its historical background is marvelously sketched +in; and, though it may be a heretical taste, it is possible +to prefer its battle-scenes to those of <i>The Red +Badge of Courage</i>, or, indeed, to anything short of +Byron’s in <i>Don Juan</i> and Tolstoy’s in <i>War and +Peace</i>. Jack London, it may be remarked, called it +“the best Civil War book I’ve read”.</p> + +<p>But it is interesting not only as a novel, but as a +memorial of a private struggle of his own. It is not +for merely literary reasons that a child of the South +goes over to the traditional enemy. The aristocratic +South, the old South, was still alive in him; it was +the South in him that, in spite of all his efforts to be +modern and scientific and democratic, still gave him +that unconsciously lordly attitude toward life. He +<span class="pagenum" id="p_103">[103]</span>had only changed its terminology and not its essence +when, as a Prince of the Kingdom of the Spirit, +as a poet-aristocrat, he had demanded of the world +his rightful place in the seats of spiritual rulership +of mankind. When he hated the South, as he had +done since boyhood, it was something in himself that +he hated. And now, when he had cast off these +lordly pretensions that had only gained him mockeries +and injuries, and sunk his own aspirations +toward freedom and happiness in those of the masses +of workingmen, now more than ever he needed to +free himself from his Southern heritage. It was +for that reason that he fought the Civil War over +again in his imagination. In the person of his hero +he had to make war on the South; the slavery of +black men was his pretext—it was himself that must +be set free, before he could go on to write the new +books that called to him....</p> + +<p>The rest of the trilogy was never written. In +the fall of 1904, he went to Chicago to get material +for a book about Packingtown. He worked there +seven weeks, came back with his imagination aflame, +and—pausing in 1905 to found the Intercollegiate +Socialist Society⁠<a id="FNanchor_11_11" href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>—wrote a book that changed his +whole literary career.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_104">[104]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="X_THE_JUNGLE"> + X. THE JUNGLE + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>In 1905 there began to appear, in a Socialist +weekly, the <i>Appeal to Reason</i>, published in +Girard, Kansas, a novel of the Chicago stockyards, +by an almost altogether unknown writer: <i>The +Jungle</i>, by Upton Sinclair. I can remember, as a +boy of eighteen, reading in my <i>Appeal</i> that first +chapter describing the wedding party of Jurgis and +Ona, and my delight in the rich, full-blooded humanity +of that scene. It was the happy prelude to +what was to be, as week after week the story unrolled +itself, a tragic panorama of working-class life, +true, terrible, and magnificent....</p> + +<p>The story was simple enough; it related the fortunes +of a group of immigrants who lived and +worked in the stockyards district—their struggle to +get ahead, to own a home, to bring up their children +decently, while all the time they are brutally exploited, +preyed upon, robbed, outraged, by the +unscrupulous forces which find in their poverty and +ignorance and helplessness mere opportunities for +enrichment. The group is crushed, one by one, in +the struggle; the old men are thrown on the scrapheap +to starve, the women are drawn into prostitution +to keep body and soul together, the children die; +<span class="pagenum" id="p_105">[105]</span>Jurgis himself goes to prison for smashing the face +of a brutal boss, and when he comes out his little +world had been destroyed as if by an earthquake—and +he is left to wander, getting wisdom as he wanders, +and coming at last to believe in a Socialist +reconstruction of this hideous world. At every point +the story is enriched by the most vivid and relentless +realistic detail; one is immersed in the filth and +stench and cruelty of the stockyards, and one feels +the sublime human aspirations which even there burn +unquenchably in humble hearts.</p> + +<p>For a while the knowledge that a great new novelist +had appeared in America was almost confined to +the readers of that Socialist weekly—no small audience, +however, for the “<i>Appeal</i> army” of enthusiastic +subscription-getters had drummed up half +a million readers for that publication. The first +public, therefore, of this astonishing novel, was of +farmers resting in stocking feet beside the stove of +winter evenings, and of discontented workingmen in +a thousand cities and towns—an audience which, +whether rural or urban, understood the truths of +human suffering which it so vividly portrayed. That +was its first success—its recognition and acclaim by a +proletarian audience. Then came recognition by +fellow-writers, who heard of this strange and powerful +novel being published in a Socialist weekly, +and sent for back numbers. David Graham Phillips +wrote to the author: “I never expected to read a +serial. I am reading <i>The Jungle</i> and I should be +afraid to trust myself to tell you how it affects me. +It is a great work. I have a feeling that you yourself +<span class="pagenum" id="p_106">[106]</span>will be dazed some day by the excitement about it. +It is impossible that such a power should not be felt. +It is so simple, so true, so tragic, and so human. It +is so eloquent, and yet so exact.” And, of course, +Jack London, his comrade in the Socialist movement, +did not fail to acclaim this achievement. “The +<i>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</i> of wage slavery”, he called it; +and with that legend on the jacket and in the +advertisements it was brought before the general +American public in book form in 1906. It was an +immediate and enormous success. It became a “bestseller” +in America, England and the British colonies. +It was translated into seventeen languages, and the +world became aware that industrial America in its +toil, its misery and its hope had found a voice.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_9"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>But the literary sensation in America had already +become secondary to the shock of its readers in +learning of the conditions under which their meats +were prepared in Packingtown, not as affecting the +workers but as affecting their own health—for the +story dealt incidentally with the use of condemned +meat. The author later remarked that he had aimed +at the public’s heart and by accident had hit it in the +stomach. His deepest concern had been with the +fate of the workers, and he realized with bitterness +that he had become a celebrity not because the public +cared anything about the workers, but because it +did not want to eat diseased meat.</p> + +<p>The public was more or less prepared for such +<span class="pagenum" id="p_107">[107]</span>charges against the packers, on account of the “embalmed +beef” scandal during the Spanish-American +war. President Roosevelt, responding to a widespread +popular demand, sent a commission to +Chicago to make an investigation of conditions in +Packingtown. This commission was assisted, at +Sinclair’s expense, by Ella Reeve Bloor, who had +been familiar with conditions there and had helped +him in his seven weeks’ investigation preliminary +to the writing of the novel; and the researches of +this commission appear to have confirmed the chief +charges made in the book.</p> + +<p>The young novelist accepted, as a Socialist, the +opportunity which this situation provided for agitation. +But the packers, and large business interests +in general, were aroused, and all their power and +influence was used to keep this agitation from +reaching the public, and to represent the young +agitator as an irresponsible sensation-monger. He +set up a publicity bureau, worked twenty hours a +day, wrote articles, sent telegrams, and gave interviews +to roomfuls of reporters; but so thoroughly +had the newspapers been mobilized by the business +interests as a medium of defense that the publicity +he actually achieved for the workers’ cause was +slight; and on the other hand, his own reputation, +in genteel literary and critical circles, and among +the public at large, was seriously damaged. In the +course of these efforts, President Roosevelt said to +him: “Mr. Sinclair, I have been in public life longer +than you, and I will give you this bit of advice; if +you pay any attention to what the newspapers say +<span class="pagenum" id="p_108">[108]</span>about you, you will have an unhappy time.” He +might have taken this as a warning that his temperament +was not suited to public life, for he could not +get used to being lied about in the newspapers; but +he persisted in his efforts, and he did have a very +“unhappy time”.</p> + +<p>Nothing in particular was done about the workers’ +conditions. Even the President’s meat-inspection +law, as finally passed, had, in the opinion of those +behind it, all its teeth drawn first. Sinclair continued +his attempt to agitate the question, but the +public had been reassured, and the effort was futile. +In <i>The Brass Check</i>, where the complete story of +this period is told vividly, he says: “I look back upon +this campaign, to which I gave three years of brain +and soul sweat, and ask what I really accomplished.” +He had taken, he says, a few million dollars away +from the Chicago packers, “giving them to the +Junkers of East Prussia, and to the Paris bankers +who were backing enterprises to pack meat in the +Argentine”. He had also added a hundred thousand +readers to the circulation of a popular magazine, +which speedily repudiated its early muck-raking +habits and became a defender of big business; and +he had made a fortune for his publishers, who immediately +became conservative and devoted their profits +from <i>The Jungle</i> to promote a kind of writing hostile +to everything in which he believed....</p> + + +<h3 id="III_5"> + III. +</h3> + +<p><i>The Jungle</i> was in fact the climax of a literary +movement in America which had aroused the fear +<span class="pagenum" id="p_109">[109]</span>and anger of large business interests. The great +middle-class reform movement, marked in the political +field by the careers of Bryan, Roosevelt and the +earlier Wilson, had produced an audience sympathetic +to the telling of unpleasant truths about +American political and business conditions. In the +magazine field this was called “muck-raking”; there +were sensational revelations of the inside workings +of Wall Street by Tom Lawson, of municipal corruption +by Lincoln Steffens, of Standard Oil history +by Ida M. Tarbell, of Beef Trust finance by Ray +Stannard Baker. In the fictional field there was a +corresponding literature, written by such men as +Robert Herrick, Frank Norris and David Graham +Phillips. This literature had its social revolutionary +fringe: Jack London was an avowed revolutionist, +and such Socialist critics of society as W. J. Ghent, +John Spargo, Robert Hunter, Charles Edward +Russell and William English Walling, had a wide +hearing. A professor named Thorstein Veblen had +written a devastating book called <i>The Theory of the +Leisure Class</i>, and phrases from it passed into general +intellectual currency. These conditions were +sufficiently alarming, in a country where every year, +in one great industry or another, there was a bitter +struggle between employers and men, in which bullets +were the decisive factor. And now a young man, by +writing a book, had put a great industry on the +defensive before the whole public. It was necessary +to tighten the grip of business upon the intellectual +world. The newspapers were already well in hand; +but there was a group of free magazines which were +<span class="pagenum" id="p_110">[110]</span>making money out of “muck-raking”—the very +center of the intellectual rebellion. Big business +struck at this group of free magazines, effectively, +through the medium of advertising. The magazine +policies were changed. Writers were called off from +investigations of industrial conditions. An immense +campaign of optimism was begun, and a cheerful +outlook upon American industrial conditions was +preached and made synonymous with patriotism. +The writers for the most part changed with the +times, and adapted their views to the new editorial +demand; the others were silenced or discouraged. +A few prominent radical journalists, unable to tell +the truth any longer in the magazines, bought one +of their own; but they, too, presently succumbed +to the spirit of the times.... Sinclair quotes, in +<i>The Brass Check</i>, the titles of some representative +articles from a recent issue of that once-daring magazine: +“How We Decide When to Raise a Man’s +Salary”, “The Comic Side of Trouble”, “Interesting +People: A Wonderful Young Private Secretary”, +“From Prize-Fighter to Parson”....</p> + +<p>The public, deprived of the intellectual stimulant +of unpleasant truth before it had quite got used to +it, was easily trained in more cheerful tastes. Those +writers who sought to revive the art of muck-raking +found themselves with an indifferent audience. +“People aren’t interested in that sort of thing any +more.” While as for fiction, the old genteel +tradition reasserted itself, the standard of non-controversiality +became identical with the standard of +decency, and any author who dared to violate this +<span class="pagenum" id="p_111">[111]</span>standard ran the risk of finding himself removed in +critical esteem beyond the pale of literary respectability.</p> + +<p>The measure of the wrath of the masters of +America and the docility of its intellectual class +during this period may be taken from the Gorky +incident, which happened in the spring of 1906, +coincident with the <i>Jungle</i> agitation. The great +Russian novelist, Maxim Gorky, had come to America +to raise funds for the cause of Russian freedom—a +cause long since made popular among even the +respectable American intelligentsia by the writings +of the American journalist, George Kennan. A +great welcome was prepared for him. But it happened +that two radical union leaders, Moyer and +Haywood, were on trial for their lives in a Western +state in the course of an industrial war between the +miners and the coal-barons. Their cause had been +espoused by the Socialists, who now asked Gorky +to sign a telegram of sympathy to Moyer and Haywood. +He did so. A White House reception to +Gorky was immediately canceled. And then the +American papers, at the instance of the Czarist embassy, +began to denounce Gorky, on the pretext +that he had “insulted” the American people by +bringing with him as his wife a woman to whom he +was not married. It was known to those who made +the charge that Russian revolutionists married +without the churchly processes which alone were +“legal” in Russia, and that Madame Andreieva was +his wife according to the revolutionary code; they +had known that all along, and had not made use +<span class="pagenum" id="p_112">[112]</span>of the fact. Now they unloosed upon him the +furies of a hypocritical moralistic journalism. He +was hounded out of New York hotels, denounced in +pulpit and newspaper throughout the country; his +mission was destroyed. And the American men of +letters who had been proud to be invited to dine +with this Russian giant, were afraid to brave that +storm: one and all, the respectable writers turned +tail and fled, not daring to call their souls their own—a +black day in the calendar of American letters. +Great reputations fell that day, Mark Twain’s +among them, in the minds of boys and girls, now +grown up, who saw that humiliating and cowardly +action with the clear eyes of youth and were ashamed +for their country. If American literature is now +less timid about sex, that young indignation may +have something to do with it. But those boys and +girls did not know why America and American men +of letters had suddenly become so prudish: they +did not know that Maxim Gorky’s influence had been +destroyed in that sudden journalistic whirlwind, not +because of the lack of churchly blessings upon his +union with Madame Andreieva, but because he had +rashly intruded into an American economic struggle +on the unfashionable side. He, and the writers of +America, must be taught a lesson, and made to +realize who was running this country and what +happened to anybody who tried to interfere with +them.</p> + +<p>The stage of Upton Sinclair’s literary career, immediately +ensuing upon his immense celebrity as the +author of <i>The Jungle</i>, falls within this period when +<span class="pagenum" id="p_113">[113]</span>“muck-raking” was being outlawed and editors and +writers taught a lesson by those in control of American +business. He was one of the few who dared +to brave this Thermidorian reaction, and he was +chief of those to suffer from it. It is his temerity +which explains the fact that his reputation in America +as a novelist fell during that period to zero, or +lower. He missed, by remaining a “muck-raker”, +his chance of regaining literary respectability. His +next novel, <i>The Metropolis</i>, published in 1907, was +an attack on New York society; and <i>The Moneychangers</i>, +published in 1908, was an exposé of Wall +Street. Nor is this explanation to be discounted by +the fact that <i>The Metropolis</i> and The <i>Moneychangers</i> +were not very good novels.</p> + +<p>The point is worth laboring. Novels far inferior +to those two would, in that period, have maintained +Upton Sinclair in American critical esteem, if they +had been of a different tendency; not to realize that +is to be ignorant of American criticism and its +fashions. It was the fashion to sneer at Upton +Sinclair, and to accept the yellow-journal pictures of +him, in which he was represented as a mere sensation-monger +and fool to boot. Georg Brandes, +generally accounted the world’s greatest modern +critic, was astonished at this American neglect of one +of its greatest writers; on visiting this country in +1914, he took pains to say to the reporters who met +him at the steamer that there were three American +novelists whom he found worth reading, among +these being Upton Sinclair. The statement, as it +generally appeared in the press, referred only to +<span class="pagenum" id="p_114">[114]</span>Frank Norris and Jack London, omitting Upton +Sinclair’s name altogether. Doubtless it was naïvely +regarded as incredible that anyone should really take +this disreputable “muck-raker” seriously.... And +it was not until a new rebellious literature and criticism +emerged after the war, under the leadership +of Sinclair Lewis and H. L. Mencken, that Upton +Sinclair was again mentioned among American +writers by any reputable native critic who was not +a Socialist.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_2"> + IV. +</h3> + +<p><i>The Metropolis</i> and <i>The Moneychangers</i>, though +better as propaganda than as art, are nevertheless +of interest to us for what they reveal of their +author’s psychology at this period. The former +novel grew out of his observations of the life of +the idle rich during his fame as the author of <i>The +Jungle</i>. His celebrity made him naturally an object +of curiosity and interest to these rich people; and +its secrets, such as they were, were readily exposed +to him. It happened to be within his power, if so he +chose, to remain in such a life. A group of capitalists +had come to him, as he relates in <i>The Brass +Check</i>, “with a proposition to found a model meatpacking +establishment; they had offered me three +hundred thousand dollars worth of stock for the +use of my name”; and he adds: “if I had accepted +that offer and become the head of one of the city’s +commercial show-places, lavishing full-page advertisements +upon the newspapers, I might have ... +been invited to be the chief orator at banquets of the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_115">[115]</span>Chamber of Commerce and the National Civic Federation, +and my eloquence would have been printed +to the extent of columns; I might have joined the +Union League Club and the Century Club, and my +name would have gone upon the list of people about +whom no uncomplimentary news may be published +under any circumstances. At the same time I might +have kept one or more apartments on Riverside +Drive, with just as many beautiful women in them +as I wished, and no one would have criticized me, +no newspaper would have dropped hints about ‘love-nests’.” +This opportunity, no temptation in reality, +appears nevertheless to have intrigued his imagination +sufficiently to make such a “temptation” the +theme of his new novel. Its hero comes to New +York and undergoes the temptation of wealth and +luxury. It is a kind of ironic sequel to the unfinished +trilogy of the Civil War; its hero is the son of the +man who fought in <i>Manassas</i> to save the Union +from destruction. The Union had, by that epic +agony, been saved—for what? For this, says the +disillusioned author, pointing to the waste and vulgarity +and triviality of the life of the “Four Hundred”.... +It will be seen that the theme psychologically +precedes that of <i>The Jungle</i>; and it is not +surprising to find the book revelatory of an actually +less mature point of view than is shown in that +masterpiece. Its emotional effects are of a juicelessly +ethical character. The young hero turns his +back upon these temptations, and resolves to earn +an honest living! One remembers Jurgis in <i>The +Jungle</i>; he could not turn his back on Packingtown—he +<span class="pagenum" id="p_116">[116]</span>had to live its life; and only thus are we enabled +to know what Packingtown was. Yet, through some +identification of himself with his young aristocrat in +this later book, the author is unable to imagine his +surrender to metropolitan luxury, even for a +moment; so that we never learn, in any emotional +sense, in any sense but that of factual detail, what +metropolitan luxury means. The <i>dégringolade</i> of +a high-souled young man under such influences—and +possibly his eventual revolt under other influences—was +the story called for by the theme. It was never +written; only the surface details are presented. So +meager a use of the vast powers displayed in <i>The +Jungle</i> suggests some internal conflict in connection +with this theme, and we may perhaps be permitted to +look there for the answer to this literary riddle—if +it is permissible at all to inquire why a writer does +not always remain at his best.</p> + +<p><i>The Moneychangers</i>, a sequel to <i>The Metropolis</i>, +had the same central character. The book was +based upon the panic of 1907, of which it undertook +to give the “inside story”. It might have been +treated as an epic theme; but it was viewed in too +narrow and factual a way, through the eyes of this +aristocratic young moralist-hero, who, as the total +upshot of these events, is merely surprised and +shocked that people can be so bad—and refuses to +dine at the house of one of the scoundrels. There +was to have been a third volume; it was written as +a play, <i>The Machine</i>, and in it the hero falls in love +with the scoundrel’s daughter, who has in the meantime +taken up settlement work and renounced her +<span class="pagenum" id="p_117">[117]</span>father’s riches. It was, then, toward this grand +event that that creation moved!</p> + +<p>Jack London had written of <i>The Jungle</i>: “It is +alive and warm. It is brutal with life.” No one +would say that of <i>The Metropolis</i> or <i>The Moneychangers</i>. +They are emotionally thin performances. +Ill-health, and poverty after the Helicon Hall experiment +(see next chapter), doubtless partly account +for this inadequacy. In both novels the hero remains +essentially untouched by all that goes on about him, +scarcely more than an observer—a disembodied +ghost, as it were, of the author himself, looking on +and taking note of all that happens with an admirable +journalistic faculty, but capable of no depth +of human emotions. In <i>The Brass Check</i> the author +remarks that the critics were cross with his hero, +saying that he was “a prig”, and that he “ought to +have been really tempted by the charms of the +lovely ‘Mrs. Winnie Duval’,” and he goes on to say: +“It has happened to me, not once, but several times, +to meet with an experience such as I have portrayed +in the ‘Mrs. Winnie’ scene, and I never found it +any particular temptation. The real temptation of +the Metropolis is not the exquisite ladies with unsatisfied +emotions; it is that if you refuse to bow the +knee to the Mammon of Unrighteousness you become +an outcast in the public mind. You are +excluded from all influence and power, you are +denied all opportunity to express yourself, to exercise +your talents, to bring your gifts to fruition. One +of the reasons <i>The Metropolis</i> had a small sale was +because I refused to do the conventional thing—to +<span class="pagenum" id="p_118">[118]</span>show a noble young hero struggling in the net of an +elegant siren. The temptation I showed was that +of the man’s world, not of the woman’s; the temptation +of Wall Street offices, not of Fifth Avenue +boudoirs. It was a kind of temptation of which +the critics were ignorant, and in which the public, +alas, was uninterested.” Indeed, an interesting +theme. And a pity it is that these novels did not +actually deal with it. But we are now perhaps in a +position to make at least a guess at the psychic +conflict which held the author’s emotions so tight-locked +during the composition of those two books: +it might well have been, no vulgar conflict of worldly +ambition with his high ideals, but a conflict involving +his old aristocratic emotions—for he had been +offered, Tantalus-like, the opportunities of public +leadership, only to have them snatched out of his +grasp—a conflict between the poet-prophet, the Shelleyan +“unacknowledged legislator of mankind”, and +the newer humbler rôle of the imaginative novelist +who identifies himself with weak, suffering, stumbling, +pitiful humanity itself. For a moment he had +taken the latter rôle, and produced a masterpiece of +prose fiction. But the poet in him demanded another +destiny; and in that conflict he became neither poet +nor quite novelist, but journalist-agitator.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, in 1907, he had published a book +entitled <i>The Industrial Republic</i>. Its dedication, +“To H. G. Wells, ‘the next most hopeful’,” is an +allusion to an inscription written by Wells in a book +presented to him: “To the most hopeful of Socialists, +from the next most hopeful!” The Wells book was +<span class="pagenum" id="p_119">[119]</span><i>A Modern Utopia</i>; and in this book Sinclair goes +him one better. It is sub-titled: “A Study of the +America of Ten Years Hence”. It is a Socialist +America that is thus described, though its Socialism +is of so mild a sort that even the American Socialists +of those days must have found it a somewhat watery +potion. “If Mr. Bryan would only procure and read +a really authoritative treatise upon modern scientific +Socialism (say Vandervelde’s <i>Collectivism and Industrial +Evolution</i>) he would understand that his +programme is so close to that of the Socialists that +the difference would require a microscope to discern.” +And this Bryanesque government-ownership +Socialism was to be brought about by the election, in +1912, of a radical Democratic President, probably +William Randolph Hearst. “It may be, of course, +that some one else will get the Democratic nomination +in 1912; that matters not at all in my thesis—the +one thing certain is that it will be some man who +stands pledged to put an end to class-government. +Following it there will be a campaign of an intensity +of fury such as this country has never before witnessed +in its history.” This is a remarkably accurate, +if somewhat exaggerated, foreshadowing of the +Wilson-Roosevelt-Taft campaign of 1912, which +was fought out fiercely on social issues. But he goes +on to predict an industrial crisis, a new “Coxey’s +Army” marching on Washington, a panic, and then +the Revolution: needless to say a peaceful one. The +captains of industry will have been told by the President +that, “since they can no longer run their +business, they must allow the Government to take +<span class="pagenum" id="p_120">[120]</span>possession and run it—the price to be paid for their +stock being a matter for future negotiation, and a +matter of no great importance to them in any case, +because of the income and inheritance laws just then +being rushed through Congress.” The revolution, +thus defined, was to take place “within one year after +the Presidential election of 1912”. It was a youthful +guess that one need not be ashamed of having made, +though one may smile at the youthful rashness of +putting it on record in print; it was based on some +quite widespread Social Revolutionary expectations +of the period, and its immediacy seemed natural +enough to a young Utopian in a great hurry.</p> + +<p>But, with a revolution coming in six years, there +might have seemed the less reason for him to discipline +his imagination to the novelist’s difficult and +humble task of representing human nature. If this +young writer was to be henceforth of distinguished +use to American literature, he had to suffer more +hurts and disillusionments.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_121">[121]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="XI_LOVES_PILGRIMAGE"> + XI. LOVE’S PILGRIMAGE + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>The success of <i>The Jungle</i> in 1906 had put the +young author immediately in possession of some +thirty thousand dollars; and with this money he +founded, that fall, at Englewood, New Jersey, a +co-operative undertaking called the Helicon Home +Colony. This project had been outlined in an article +that summer in the <i>Independent</i>, in which he +said:</p> + +<p>“Here am I on my little farm, living as my ancestors +lived—like a cave man or a feudal baron. I +have my little castle and my retainers and dependents +to attend me, and we practise a hundred different +trades: the trade of serving meals, and the trade +of cleaning dishes, the trade of washing and ironing +clothes, of killing and dressing meat, of churning +butter, of baking bread, of grinding meal, of raising +chickens, of cutting wood, of preserving fruit, of +heating a house, of training children, and of writing +books! And all these crowded into one establishment, +in close proximity, and all jarring and clashing +with each other! And all carried on in the most +primitive and barbarous fashion, upon a small scale, +and by unskilled hand labor.” The coöperative +argument, as developed by Charlotte Perkins +<span class="pagenum" id="p_122">[122]</span>Gilman, follows: “It takes a hundred cooks to prepare +a hundred meals badly, while twenty cooks +could prepare one meal for a hundred families and +do it perfectly.... It takes a hundred ignorant +nursemaids to take care of the children of a hundred +families, and develop every kind of ugliness and +badness in them; it would take only twenty or thirty +trained nurses and kindergarten teachers to take care +of them coöperatively, and bring them up according +to the teachings of science.” He goes on to say +that “there must be, in and near New York, thousands +of men and women of liberal sympathies, who +understand this situation clearly, and are handicapped +by its miseries in their own lives—authors, +artists and musicians, editors and teachers and professional +men, who abhor boarding-houses and +apartment hotels, and yet shrink from managing +servants, who have lonely and peevish children like +my own, and are no fonder of eating poisons or of +wasting their time and strength than I am. There +must be a few who, like myself, have realized that +it is a question of dragging through life a constantly +increasing burden of care, or making an intelligent +effort and solving the problem once for all. To such +I offer my coöperation. I am not a business man, +but circumstances have forced me to take up this +problem, and I am not accustomed to failing in what +I undertake.”</p> + +<p>Many answers were received to this announcement, +and the plan was experimentally carried out +by fifty or sixty people, including ten children. The +colonists bought nine and a half acres of land sloping +<span class="pagenum" id="p_123">[123]</span>down from the Palisades on the Hudson, within an +hour of New York City. There was a large three-story +building, formerly a boys’ school, equipped +with a pipe organ, a swimming pool, a bowling +alley, a theater, a billiard room, thirty-five bedrooms, +a children’s dormitory, dining-room and +play-room, a heating system, etc. Lodging cost $3 +a week, meals $5 a week, “or $4 if we only eat two +meals”; and the children were taken care of at a +cost of $4 a week apiece.</p> + +<p>“I look back on Helicon Hall to-day,” says Upton +Sinclair in <i>The Brass Check</i>, “and this is the way I +feel about it. I have lived in the future; I have +known those wider freedoms and opportunities that +the future will grant to all men and women. Now +by harsh fate I have been dragged back into a lower +order of existence, and commanded to spend the rest +of my days therein. I know that the command is +irrevocable, and I make the best of my fate—I +manage to keep cheerful, and to do my appointed +task; but nothing can alter the fact in my own mind—I +have lived in the future, and all things about +me seem drab and sordid by comparison. I feel +as you would feel if you were suddenly taken back to +the days when there was no plumbing and when +people used perfume instead of soap.”</p> + +<p>This colony of middle-class intellectuals was not +a very radical experiment; but it furnished the newspapers +an opportunity for sensational stories none +the less. Reporters were always snooping about, +spying in the nursery and eavesdropping in the +pantry, and going back to write stories about +<span class="pagenum" id="p_124">[124]</span>“Upton Sinclair’s love-nest”. When William James +and John Dewey came to visit the colony and talked +of current affairs beside the fireplace, that was not +news; but when, at the weekly dance, according to +the democratic traditions of the place, the resident +professor of philosophy danced with the two pretty +Irish girls who waited on the table, that was something +to be spread before a shocked America. +Among the reporters was a young Yale College +student named Sinclair Lewis, afterward the famous +author of <i>Main Street</i>; he tended furnace at Helicon +Hall and afterward wrote it up for a New York +paper. What he wrote was playful, and the colonists +would have enjoyed the fun except that some +of them had their livings to think about. Subsequently +an American newspaper was sued for libel +by Upton Sinclair for scandalous lies concerning the +Helicon Home Colony; a retraction and apology +were printed, but the American public continued to +believe the worst.</p> + +<p>This eminently conservative and, within its own +limitations, entirely successful economic and social +experiment came abruptly to an end after six months. +One night in March, 1907, a fire, possibly of incendiary +origin, burned Helicon Hall to the ground, +destroying among the total contents of the house +all of the young agitator’s manuscripts and documents, +including certain documents concerning +defective armor plate furnished to American battleships. +The Helicon Home Colony was wiped out.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_125">[125]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="II_10"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>Upton Sinclair had been for a young author, rich, +and thus he had spent and lost his riches. Now he +was a poor man; and for a number of years he was +to be tormented by indigestion and by domestic +unhappiness. He commenced a wandering life, +spending the summer of 1907 at Point Pleasant, +New Jersey, the winter at Bermuda, the next summer +in the Adirondacks, meanwhile writing <i>The Metropolis</i> +and <i>The Moneychangers</i>. During a winter’s +“rest” in California in 1908–9 he organized a traveling +theatrical company to produce Socialist +drama, and put on three of his own plays. He then +went with his family to live at the single-tax colony +at Arden, Delaware, where he remained for three +years. During all this time he was the butt and +victim of newspaper mockery and sensationalism. +But in 1910 there occurred at Arden a preposterous +incident which relieved the newspapers of the +trouble of making up lies to print about him. The +truth, for once, was amusing enough. Sinclair tells +the story in <i>The Brass Check</i>.</p> + +<p>“Close upon the edge of Arden there dwelt an +Anarchist philosopher, a shoemaker hermit, whose +greatest pleasure in life was to rise in public meetings +and in the presence of young girls explain his +ideas on the physiology of sex. The little Economic +Club of Arden invited him to shut up, and when +he claimed the privileges of ‘free speech’ the club +excluded him from its meetings and when he persisted +<span class="pagenum" id="p_126">[126]</span>in coming, had him arrested. It happened +that the members of this Economic Club were also +members of the baseball team, and they played a +game on Sunday morning; so the Anarchist shoemaker +repaired to Wilmington and swore out +warrants, on the ground of their having violated an +ancient statute, dating back to 1793, forbidding +‘gaming’ on the Sabbath. It happened that I did +not belong to the Economic Club, and had nothing +to do with the trouble; but I had played tennis that +Sabbath morning, so the Anarchist shoemaker included +me in his warrants.</p> + +<p>“So behold us, eleven young men summoned to +the office of a Wilmington Justice of the Peace one +evening, and finding the street packed solid for a +block, and people even climbing up telegraph poles +and lamp-posts to look in at the window and watch +the proceedings.”</p> + +<p>They were fined, but refused to pay their fines; +and so they were all sent to jail for eighteen hours. +“When we came out from the jail we were met by +twenty-two newspaper reporters and three cameramen, +and everything we had to say took the front +page, top of column. Incidentally, I got a curious +revelation. For years I had written poetry, and +had never been able to get it published; but now I +found that by the simple device of writing it in jail, +I could get it on the front page of every newspaper +in Philadelphia and New York!” He quotes two +lines:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">‘And then in sudden stillness mark the sound—</div> + <div class="verse indent1">Some beast that rasps his vermin-haunted hide.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_127">[127]</span></p> + +<p>“When my cell-mate, Berkeley Tobey, read those +lines, he remarked: ‘That’s me!’ To which I +answered: ‘Tobey, that’s you’.”</p> + +<p>The cells in which they had spent the night had +been characteristic of the American jail system, +filthy and swarming with vermin; they had been +given food unfit for animals. Men were serving +life-sentences in this jail, working in a clothing factory +under a sweatshop contractor, without a spot +where they could get a glimpse of sunlight or a +breath of fresh air. What these released members +of the Economic Club told the reporters about conditions +in that jail “made an uproar in Delaware”.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, they served notice that they were +going to have the Attorney General of the state and +the Chief Justice of the supreme court arrested for +playing golf on Sunday, so that they might find out +what it was like in jail. It was decided by the authorities +that no more arrests would be made for +“gaming on the Sabbath”, and the prison commissioners +decided to add an exercise court to the +prison.</p> + +<p>“I look back,” says Upton Sinclair, “upon my life +of nearly twenty years of muck-raking, and am able +to put my finger on exactly one concrete benefit that +I have brought to mankind. Twenty or more men +who are serving life sentences in the Newcastle +County Workhouse owe it to me that they get every +now and then a glimpse of the sunlight and a +breath of fresh air!...</p> + +<p>“Can you blame me,” he asks, “if I stored away +in my mind for future reference the fact that when +<span class="pagenum" id="p_128">[128]</span>it is necessary to get some important news into the +papers, I can manage it by getting myself sent to +jail? This”, he adds, “is a discovery which is made, +sooner or later, by all social reformers; and so +going to jail becomes a popular diversion and an +honorable public service.”</p> + + +<h3 id="III_6"> + III. +</h3> + +<p><i>Samuel the Seeker</i>, in 1910, had marked the lowest +ebb of its author’s powers. Indigestion seems to +have been largely to blame: “my poor tummy”, he +says, “simply wouldn’t let me feel any emotions.” +Accordingly <i>The Fasting Cure</i>, in 1911, an account +of the means by which he had finally restored himself +to health, has a closer relation than it might seem to +have to the literary life. Novelists, like armies in +the Napoleonic maxim, get ahead on their stomachs. +And thus there appears, in the same year, another +great novel—<i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>.</p> + +<p>It is the story of his own life, or rather, of the +earlier part of it, up to the year 1904. So many +references have already been made to it in these +pages, and it has been drawn upon so often for +biographical material, that it will be dealt with here +briefly. But a letter from the Dutch novelist, +Frederik van Eeden, may be quoted:</p> + +<p>“It is surely your greatest book, and very nearly +one of the great books of the world.... You give +wooing, marriage, pregnancy, birth, in great classic +lines.... Of course you have read Zola’s description +of a birth. Yours is better, because it is more +<span class="pagenum" id="p_129">[129]</span>human, more poetic. It is one of the best things in +English literature.... This book will make your +world fame.”</p> + +<p>While subscribing to these enthusiastic comments, +one may note that the book, in dealing with the life +of young Thyrsis, his earlier self, shows less of a +detached and mature point of view than might have +been expected. He has identified himself, so far as +attitudes toward love and art are concerned, with his +young hero, who was, from any mature point of +view, outrageously wrong (or egregiously neurotic) +about both these important matters.⁠<a id="FNanchor_12_12" href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> The book’s +greatness does not in the least lie in the direction of +self-understanding, let alone self-criticism. It lies +rather in its robust immersion in the stream of life. +Nothing appals the writer; everything is told—it +matters not that it is in impassioned self-defense. +Its candor is magnificent, shameless, beautiful. It +succeeds as realism. It is a masterpiece, vastly different +from <i>The Jungle</i>, not comparable with it in +detachment or breadth, but not inferior to it in +truth and power. It must be named in any list of +great American novels.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_3"> + IV. +</h3> + +<p>It was an unfinished story. It was intended to +be followed by another book⁠<a id="FNanchor_13_13" href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> dealing with the later +life of Thyrsis, and Corydon his wife. But actual +events in their stormy marriage interfered.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_130">[130]</span></p> + +<p>In this ill-matched and ill-fated marriage of theirs, +the prime cause of discord would seem, to an outside +observer, to have lain in the temperament of +the husband, with his ignorant poetic fear of the +realities of human love; nor is it strange that this +should have produced in his girl-wife a state of +emotional instability and irresponsibility. Her emotional +divagations, though she might undertake to +justify them by modern theories of freedom, would +be explained more truly as her exasperated reactions +to his aloof and Olympian nature. And he, less +aloof and Olympian then he seemed, would find +himself in what he later described as “a maelstrom in +which a man’s physical, mental and moral integrity +are subtly and bewilderingly tossed and buffeted and +maimed”. They had been involved in this secret +and painful domestic melodrama for eight years. +The conclusion of <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i> suggests their +belief that they had at last achieved a durable peace +and happiness through a frank facing of their problem. +But that hope seems to have been too +precarious. Hardly had that book, with its tender +record of their young love, and its high hopes for +the future, been published, than a crisis arrived in +their lives, which ended their marriage. Corydon +went away with a lover; and Thyrsis instituted suit +for divorce.</p> + +<p>The divorce, after much painful newspaper publicity, +was denied, on grounds of “collusion”. +According to the New York laws, if both parties +appear to desire the divorce, that is a reason for +not granting it. These private affairs were the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_131">[131]</span>topic of nation-wide newspaper discussion, into +which we need not go. “I felt in those terrible +days”, Sinclair writes in <i>The Brass Check</i>, “like a +hunted animal which seeks refuge in a hole, and +is tormented with sharp sticks and smoke and boiling +water.” His earning power had been destroyed by +the newspapers; no one would read his books, or +publish what he wrote. His health seemed permanently +undermined; he did not think he was going +to live, and he “did not much care”.</p> + +<p>He did not wish to appeal the case, because the +law required that the evidence in the case must be +printed “and remain public property forever”. But +he had received from his friend van Eeden a letter +assuring him that Holland was a civilized country, +where divorce was granted upon reasonable grounds, +without publicity. Accordingly he went to Holland, +in 1912. He intended to spend the rest of his life +in Europe. “It seemed to me that I could not bear +the sight of America again.”</p> + + +<h3 id="V"> + V. +</h3> + +<p>In Holland he obtained his divorce quietly and +without scandal. “I wish”, he says in <i>The Brass +Check</i>, “to pay tribute to the kindest and most +friendly people I have ever met—the Dutch. When +I came to them, sick with grief, they did not probe +into my shame; they invited me to their drawing-rooms +for discussions of literature and art, and with +tact and sweetness they let me warm my shivering +heart at their firesides. Their newspapers treated +<span class="pagenum" id="p_132">[132]</span>me as a man of letters—an entirely new experience +to me. They sent men of culture and understanding +to ask my opinions, and they published these opinions +correctly and with dignity. When I filed my divorce +suit they published nothing. When the decree was +granted, they published three or four lines about it +in the columns given to court proceedings, a bare +statement of the names and dates, as required by +law.”</p> + +<p>He goes on to say: “There were many men in +Holland, as in England and Germany and Italy and +France, who hated and feared my Socialist ideas. I +made no secret of my ideas; I spoke on public platforms +abroad, as I had spoken at home. When +reporters for the great Tory newspapers of England +came to interview me, I told them of the war that +was coming with Germany, and how bitterly England +would repent her lack of education and modern efficiency, +and her failure to feed and house her workers +as human beings. These opinions were hateful to +the British Tories, and they attacked me; but they +did not attack the author of the opinions, by making +him into a public scarecrow and publishing scandals +about his private life.”</p> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<p>In the meantime, during his stay in Holland and +England, he had written a novel called <i>Sylvia</i>, published +in 1913. Its locale is divided between the +aristocratic South and aristocratic Boston; it bears, +more lightly than his New York novels, its inevitable +<span class="pagenum" id="p_133">[133]</span>burdens, journalistic exposition of class-traits, and +sociological and moral arguments. Most unexpectedly, +it presents a heroine of authentic charm—a +sparkling, witty, vivacious young Southern girl, +whose destiny it is to resist and at last succumb to +the wooing of a young millionaire. It is unexpectedly +tender, also, in its dealings with the South; even +the author’s principles do not blind him to the +charm of that environment. It is the tenderness, +perhaps, of nostalgia, of one in exile looking back +across the bitter defeats of adult life to the scenes +of his childhood. It is not, however, a transcript +of actual memories; it owes a good deal to reminiscent +tales of the South heard from the friend who +was presently to become his second wife. It is dedicated +“To the People at Home”, and it is the one +of all his books which might conceivably not hurt +their feelings.</p> + +<p>The story, however, was obviously unfinished; +and a secondary theme of the book, which was +emphasized only on the last page, required another +volume for its presentation. This was the theme +at the time being sensationally presented to American +playgoers and readers by Brieux, in his play, +<i>Damaged Goods</i>—a novelized version of which, with +the playwright’s grateful consent, was written and +published in 1913 by Sinclair.</p> + +<p><i>Sylvia’s Marriage</i>, accordingly, which appeared in +1914, relates the consequences to this marriage of +her husband’s pre-marital wild oats, in the form of a +blind baby—a result accounted for with satisfactory +realism. The novel, however, rises far above merely +<span class="pagenum" id="p_134">[134]</span>propaganda effects in dealing with the life of his +heroine after she has left her millionaire husband +and come back with her blind baby to live in the +Southern home of her childhood. A realistically +disillusioned woman, she is neither pathetic nor embittered, +nor has she lost her charm, her wit, or her +brilliance. These qualities, deepened rather by her +tragic experience, are her weapons in the ensuing +struggle with her family and friends and the milieu +in general. For here she observes, in the habits of +the young blades and in the sheltered ignorance of +the young belles, the possible origins of other such +tragedies as hers; and with a realistic and reckless +candor she intervenes in more than one engagement, +to the bewildered shock of her family and the +malicious amusement of the town. These pages are +true high-comedy, as fine as anything of the sort +that English or American fiction has to offer. The +duel between this disillusioned and frank young +matron and the conventional reticences of the polite +world is done with a masterly hand. But fiction of +this sort, except from the most distinguished foreigners, +was at the time considered disreputable in +America, because it dealt frankly with sex; and now, +by a swing of the wheel of fashion, it would be +considered unduly moralistic.</p> + +<p>Comments have been made in these pages on +the cramping effects upon some of this writer’s +fiction by his moral conceptions; and it will be in +place here to note that these moral conceptions have +been complained of, not because they were moral, +but because they involved a distaste for the subject +<span class="pagenum" id="p_135">[135]</span>in hand, and led to an undue slighting of its realities. +But in the case of this novel, the moral conceptions +lead rather to a richness of truth in dealing with +the subject in hand, and are consequently not to be +complained of by one whose interest is in the business +of getting life into terms of fiction. If some +of the more romantic aspects of sexual adventure +are neglected by Sinclair, in his preoccupation with +certain of its realistic consequences, that is to be +expected, and is all the more readily to be forgiven +since the aspects which he neglects are sufficiently +celebrated elsewhere. He has taken a difficult +aspect of the sexual theme and, throughout the +latter part of this novel, handles it magnificently.</p> + +<p>Some references have also been made in these +pages to the neurotic attitudes toward sex displayed +by its subject in his earlier life; and the argument +might be expected here that his preoccupation with +the frightful physical dangers of sexual adventure is +an illustration of a neurotic fear. There is little +doubt that it is the neurotic conflicts in the minds of +all artists which lead them to their particular +themes: the important question is what they then +do with those themes. Do they get truth and beauty +out of them? Upton Sinclair’s opinions, as such, on +the whole subject of sex, will be dealt with later +on. For the present, it needs merely to be said that +he has, in <i>Sylvia’s Marriage</i>, artistically justified his +emotional preoccupation with the sterner and sadder +aspects of a theme which has many aspects.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_136">[136]</span></p> + + +<h3 id="VII"> + VII. +</h3> + +<p>He had never expected to return to America. He +did return, however, in 1913, and in the course of +the year was married to Mary Craig Kimbrough. +She was of an old Southern family, and at the time +of the wedding, in Virginia, her husband noted +that the event was respectfully treated by the newspapers; +which, he remarks in <i>The Brass Check</i>, was +explained by the information contained in the news +dispatches, to the effect that the bride’s father was +“one of the wealthiest men in this section, and controls +large banking interests.”</p> + +<p>If, however, the newspapers had presumed that +the groom was henceforth to lead a correct and +respectable literary life and keep out of radical politics, +they were mistaken.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_137">[137]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="XII_KING_COAL"> + XII. KING COAL + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>Once back in America, Sinclair was inevitably +drawn into the field of agitation. From a +winter in Bermuda, where he had written <i>Sylvia’s +Marriage</i>, he returned to investigate the coal strike +then going on in Colorado. It was a sufficiently +dramatic episode in our industrial history; eleven +thousand miners, with their wives and children, on +strike and evicted from company-owned homes, were +living in tent-colonies that had been raided and shot +up by gun-men—and finally machine-guns had been +turned on them, their tent-colony at Ludlow had +been burned, and three women and fourteen children +had been suffocated to death. Yet this news +was being published only, with the most rare and +meager exceptions, in the Socialist papers. Sinclair +resolved to break this conspiracy of silence. Being +convinced that John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was personally +responsible for the tactics of the mine-owners, +he went to Mr. Rockefeller’s office and asked that +he meet and talk with an eyewitness of the barbarities +with which the strike was being repressed. The +interview was denied. Then Sinclair hit on the idea +of inviting a group of people to put bands of crêpe +around their arms and walk in silence up and down +<span class="pagenum" id="p_138">[138]</span>in front of 26 Broadway, the Rockefeller offices, in +token of mourning for the dead women and children +of Ludlow. Picketing, except in labor strikes, was +then a new publicity device, though the suffragists +afterward made it familiar. Reporters were informed +of the plan, and were on hand next morning +when the demonstration began, together with a great +crowd. There were also policemen, who told the +pickets to go away. They replied that what they +were doing was not unlawful, and continued. They +were then arrested. They were followed by reporters +to the police station, and Sinclair was there +interviewed. He explained the purpose of the demonstration, +and told the entire story of the Colorado +coal strike. Within a few hours the newspapers +were on the street with the story emblazoned on the +front page, with three or four columns of news of +the strike, as contained in the interview. The device +had been successful: the conspiracy of silence was +broken.</p> + +<p>The pickets were fined and, on refusing to pay +their fines, were locked up in the Tombs. The newspapers +sneered at this “pink-tea martyrdom”, as one +of them described it, and said that the demonstration +was actuated by “no genuine desire to effect a +reform”, but only by “a morbid craving for notoriety”. +Nevertheless the papers sent special correspondents +to the coal fields, and the strike news continued +to occupy the front page.</p> + +<p>After Sinclair’s arrest, his wife took up the demonstration. +She was not arrested, but a false report +that she had been was sent out by the Associated +<span class="pagenum" id="p_139">[139]</span>Press, which brought her mother in alarm to New +York, with the news that her father had disinherited +her after reading the morning paper. She continued +to marshal the demonstration for two weeks, and +her husband reports that her habitual “Southern +lady” airs awed the policemen so much that they +kept everybody else off the sidewalk so that the silent +parade she was leading should have room to walk +up and down undisturbed. A Southern lady is accustomed +to having her way; and when she decided +that her husband had been in jail long enough, she +serenely interrupted court proceedings to have that +matter attended to. “In the South, you understand,” +says Upton Sinclair, “anything from a court +to a fire-engine will stop to pick up a lady’s handkerchief”—and +it appears that the air of expecting +such consideration is effective also in the North. +But these public demonstrations, however much she +might approve of them in principle, were so alien to +her Southern tastes that after going calmly through +each day’s ordeal she would come home at night +and cry.</p> + +<p>The investigation of the strike now took Sinclair +to Colorado, where he undertook to attack the problem +of news-suppression at its source, and succeeded +in putting the Associated Press on its defense before +the world. The whole story is told in <i>The Brass +Check</i>. Returning to the East, he found that a +group of radicals had been arrested for holding a +street-meeting in Tarrytown, New York, whither +Mr. Rockefeller had retired from the storm of publicity +to the seclusion of his estate. Sinclair then +<span class="pagenum" id="p_140">[140]</span>went to Tarrytown on behalf of free speech, and, +being forbidden to hold a street-meeting and unable +to rent a hall, he persuaded a millionaire neighbor +of Mr. Rockefeller’s to give him the use of an open-air +theater for a meeting to discuss the “Ludlow +massacre”. In the meantime the Broadway demonstration +case had been appealed; and in due time the +higher court had handed down its august decision, +affirming the decision of the police magistrate, on +the ground—highly instructive to a man who had +been ridiculed and insulted for so many years by the +newspapers—that “no citizen has a right to rebuke +another citizen by subjecting him to ridicule or insult”. +There was, however, a difference in these +cases: Mr. Rockefeller was a millionaire.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_11"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>Returning to the literary life for a time, Sinclair +edited, that summer, while living at Croton-on-Hudson, +N. Y., <i>The Cry for Justice</i>, “an anthology of +social protest: the writings of philosophers, poets, +novelists, social reformers, and others who have +voiced the struggle against social injustice: selected +from twenty-five languages, covering a period of +five thousand years”, with an eloquent introduction +by Jack London (1915). And later he put his +knowledge of the Colorado situation into a novel, +<i>King Coal</i>, which was published in 1917.</p> + +<p><i>King Coal</i> is perhaps as fine a labor novel as could +be written under the disability of having a young +aristocrat for its hero. The disability, moreover, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_141">[141]</span>is not so great as might be imagined in the light of +<i>The Metropolis</i> and <i>The Moneychangers</i>. This +young aristocrat is, happily, different from the young +aristocrat in those books. He is not so naïve, his +morality is at least not so oppressively solemn, he +is robust, high-spirited, humorous, and likeable; as +the somewhat rebellious son of a coal-magnate, he +gets a job, not in his father’s mines, for he would be +recognized there, but in the mines belonging to the +father of a chum, and not merely sees what is going +on but takes an active part in the highly exciting +events that happen, including the organization of a +union, an abortive strike, and a mine-explosion. +The working people in the book are, though minor +figures, real enough to remind us that this book is +by the author of <i>The Jungle</i>. The theme is really +fictionized, not merely served up in journalistic +hunks. The propaganda is implicit though all-pervading. +There is even a shadowy but real “love-interest”, +thus described by Georg Brandes in his +introduction to the book:</p> + +<p>“Most beautifully is this [the author’s poetic attitude] +shown in Hal’s relation to a young Irish girl, +Red Mary. She is poor, and her daily life harsh +and joyless, but nevertheless her wonderful grace is +one of the outstanding features of the book. The +first impression of Mary is that of a Celtic Madonna +with a tender heart for little children. She develops +into a Valkyrie of the working-class, always ready +to fight for the workers’ right.”</p> + +<p>True and interesting as it is, it leaves considerable +to be desired as fiction. The young aristocrat, even +<span class="pagenum" id="p_142">[142]</span>in this likeable guise, impedes rather than develops +the labor theme. The story, told from the point +of view of Red Mary, might not have been so clear +an exposition of all the facts, but it might have been—it +could have been—another <i>Jungle</i>. It does +credit to the author’s intelligence rather than to his +powers of human feeling. Even the great mine disaster +is not, from the point of view necessitated by +the choice of a sympathetic outsider as the central +figure rather than one directly involved, a tragedy. +But, in not attempting a more vital treatment, it +does not fail. It is a minor, and on its own limited +plane a brilliant, success.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_143">[143]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="XIII_JIMMIE_HIGGINS"> + XIII. JIMMIE HIGGINS + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>After a winter in the South, at Gulfport, Miss., +Sinclair went to California in 1915, and made +his home at Pasadena, where he continued to reside.</p> + +<p>In the meantime there was a war going on in +Europe, toward which Sinclair as a Socialist had +to orient his views. The international Socialist +movement had been traditionally and on principle +anti-militaristic; but in all the European countries +involved, the conservative elements of the party had +found reasons for abandoning these principles and +supporting the war. In America the intellectual +leadership of the party was almost entirely in favor +of declaring war on Germany. Sinclair had written +pacifist articles in the past; but he regarded German +militarism as a menace to the Socialist hope of revolution, +and he joined with a group of Socialist intellectuals, +including W. J. Ghent, Charles Edward +Russell, J. G. Phelps Stokes, and William English +Walling, in issuing a <i>Practical Program for Socialists</i>, +in which it was urged that Socialists should +“adjust themselves to events”, and further recommended +a large war budget, universal military training, +and conscription of both male and female +citizens. After the announcement of the resumption +of unlimited submarine warfare by Germany, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_144">[144]</span>Sinclair telegraphed to President Wilson, on February +3, 1917:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“As one who has devoted his life to a passionate +struggle for Democracy, I cannot remain silent in this +hour of Democracy’s greatest peril. To delay naval +action in this crisis is to give Germany all she wants and +to risk the existence of everything for which a lover of +freedom cares to live. On the other hand you have a +chance to take the greatest forward step in history if in +offering the American fleet to keep open the sea lanes +to England, you obtain agreement by allied nations that +all territory taken from Central powers in this war shall +be neutralized and made forever independent under international +guarantee.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The rank and file of the American Socialist party +were, however, still anti-militarist, and on April 11, +five days after the declaration of war, the party in +special convention at St. Louis, adopted by a three-fourths +vote a platform denouncing war and national +patriotism and opposing enlistment by the +workers in this war. The familiar theoretic Socialist +position on war was thus reaffirmed: “The only +struggle which would justify the workers in taking +up arms is the great struggle of the working class +of the world to free itself from economic exploitation +and political oppression. As against the false +doctrine of national patriotism, we uphold the ideal +of international working-class solidarity. In support +of capitalism we will not willingly give a single +life or a single dollar; in support of the struggle of +the workers we pledge our all.... We brand the +declaration of war by our government as a crime +against the people of the United States and against +the nations of the world.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_145">[145]</span></p> + +<p>Such was the majority report. A minority report +sponsored by John Spargo, held it “our Socialist +duty” to help “our nation and our allies to win the +war as speedily as possible”, and another minority +report proposed to “recognize the war as a fact” +and to promote an early and democratic peace. The +action of the convention was not final, and the platform +as adopted was submitted to a referendum of +the whole membership. Though the party was +afterward considerably demoralized by the defection +of so many of its intellectual leaders, their counsels +were in this crisis unhesitatingly rejected, and +the anti-war platform was ratified by a 12 to 1 vote. +Sinclair was one of a number of prominent Socialists +who then resigned from the party. He issued +an address to his former comrades, in which he said:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>I cannot but believe, Comrades, that the difference +between our opinions comes from the fact that I have +lived in Germany and know its language and literature, +and the spirit and ideals of its rulers. Having given +many years to a study of American capitalism, as it +exists in the domain of the beef trust, the steel trust, +and the coal trust, I am not apt to be blind to the +defects of my own country; but, in spite of these defects, +I assert that the difference between the ruling class of +Germany and that of America is the difference between +the seventeenth century and the twentieth.</p> + +<p>I find those with whom I talk here in the West +utterly unable to conceive what the Prussian ruling +class is. They cite its modernness, its use of science; +failing to realize that this is precisely the thing which +makes it dangerous—a beast with the brains of an +engineer....</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>“I intend,” he said in conclusion, “to go on working +for Socialism as hard as I can....”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_146">[146]</span></p> + +<p>From April 1918 to February 1919 he published +<i>Upton Sinclair’s</i>, a monthly magazine with the subtitle +“for a clean peace and the internation”. It +was devoted to what its editor believed to be President +Wilson’s war and peace policies. He took the +Wilsonian idealism at its face value, and not unnaturally +believed that the President had secured the +proper pledges from the allied governments. And +so, having identified himself for the time being with +this idealistic and eloquent administration, he was +doing his bit, by propaganda among recalcitrant +radicals, to help win the war that was to make the +world safe for democracy.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_12"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>In 1918 he commenced publication, first in his own +magazine, and after its discontinuance in the <i>Appeal +to Reason</i>, of a war novel called <i>Jimmie Higgins</i>.</p> + +<p>“Jimmie Higgins” was the name popularly applied +to the humbler and less articulate members of +the party—those who carried the soap-box and set +up the gasoline torch at street meetings, not those +who made the speeches. The book was to begin +with an affectionate and faithful picture of the type; +and it went on to show Jimmie’s bewilderment in +this war situation, and the arguments by which he +was kept out of the war and urged into it. Presently, +however, in accordance with the author’s pro-war +animus, Jimmie succumbs to the example of several +good Socialists, including a German comrade +who is anxious to help overthrow the Kaiser, and +<span class="pagenum" id="p_147">[147]</span>enlists in the army. Here the story begins to take on +sweetly fabulous outlines. Being torpedoed on his +transport, Jimmie is waited upon in hospital by the +Honorable Beatrice Clendenning, a member of the +British aristocracy, and is genially indulged in +Socialist argument by His Majesty the King of +England.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>“We’ve had some terrible poverty,” admitted His +Majesty. “We shall have to find some way of getting +rid of it.”</p> + +<p>“There ain’t no way but Socialism!” cried Jimmie....</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Jimmie then, by single-handed heroism, stops the +German army with a machine-gun, winning the battle +of “Chatty Terry” and in fact the war. “The +whole course of the world’s history might have +been different”, it is playfully related, “if one little +Socialist machinist from Leesville, U. S. A., had not +chanced ...” etc. Wounded and sent to base hospital, +he there fraternizes across the social chasm +with a rich and formerly sinful young man: one who +had actually seduced other men’s wives, and had got +properly punished for it earlier in the story in the +manner of Abelard; the war has made him democratic +and thoughtful, and Jimmie learns from him +that even the rich are unhappy.... It was a piece +of fiction calculated to break down the anti-war +morale of Socialist readers.</p> + +<p>There is an important difference, however, to be +noted between him and the other intellectual Socialist +leaders who had left the Party. Most of +these became bitter and venomous opponents of the +revolutionary movement, and used every opportunity +<span class="pagenum" id="p_148">[148]</span>to denounce it, particularly in its newest form +of Russian Bolshevism, in what they had been accustomed +to call “the capitalist press”. The same +opportunities were offered to him. Here, indeed, +was his opportunity, such as more than one “leader +of revolt” has not failed to take advantage of, to +endear himself to those rich and powerful classes +whose hatred had driven him into poverty and neglect. +He might have become a fashionable and prosperous +war-time renegade. But when he, too, was +offered large sums of money for speeches or articles +to help in defeating certain anti-war Socialists in +important municipal elections, he was astonished and +hurt. “What do they think I am?” he asked. +“When this is all over, I shall be back in the ranks +again.”</p> + +<p>And he was presently back in the ranks again.</p> + +<p>It was the intervention of the United States +against the Socialist government of Russia, and the +private anti-Soviet war conducted by the Administration +after the armistice with Germany, which +ruthlessly disillusioned him as to President Wilson’s +idealism.</p> + +<p>History was kind to him. The intervention of +American arms in Siberia came in time for him to +let Jimmie Higgins share in his disillusion. The +final chapters of that novel show Jimmie Higgins +sent with the American forces to Siberia, to fight +against the new Socialist Republic. Jimmie fraternizes +with the Bolsheviks, and learns the truth from +them. “He”—like his creator—“had swallowed +their propaganda, he had filled himself up on their +<span class="pagenum" id="p_149">[149]</span>patriotism, he had dropped everything to come and +fight for Democracy.... And now they had +broken their bargain with him....” He distributes +Bolshevik propaganda among his fellow soldiers—as +happened at Archangel in actuality, when +American regiments mutinied and refused to fight. +Jimmie is caught at it, and tortured to make him +betray his comrades. But the thumbscrews and the +water-cure fail to break his spirit. That chapter is +called “Jimmie Higgins Discovers His Soul”. In +the next and final chapter—“Jimmie Higgins Votes +for Democracy”—he escapes from his tormentors +by going insane. The effect is to give the previous +naïvely pro-war chapters an effect of fine irony. A +sympathetic American critic, Carl Van Doren, finds +that the novel “showed traces of a romantic pulse, +settling down, however, toward the end, to a colder +beat”. It was the late and necessary disillusionment +of a too hopeful and generous mind.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_7"> + III. +</h3> + +<p>In 1920 came <i>100%: The Story of a Patriot</i>, +published in England under the title of <i>The Spy</i>. +Let Mr. Van Doren continue: “It is the colder beat +which throbs in <i>100%</i>, with a temperature which +suggests both ice and fire. Hardly since <i>Jonathan +Wild</i> has such irony been maintained in an entire +volume, as that which traces the evolution of Peter +Gudge from sharper to patriot through the foul +career of spying and incitement and persecution +opened to his kind of talents by the frenzy of non-combatants +<span class="pagenum" id="p_150">[150]</span>during the war. To this has that patriotism +come which on the red fields of Virginia +poured itself out in such unstinting sacrifice; and, +though the sacrifice went on in France and Flanders, +was it worth while, Mr. Sinclair implicitly inquires, +when the conflict, at no matter what distance, could +breed such vermin as Peter Gudge? Explicitly he +does not answer his question; his art has gone, at +least for the moment, beyond avowed arguments, +merely marshaling the evidence with irresistible +ironic skill and dispensing with the chorus. <i>100%</i> +is a document which honest Americans must remember +and point out when orators exclaim, in the +accents of official idealism, over the great days and +deeds of the great war.”</p> + +<p>A less sympathetic critic might find this book +somewhat too hard, somewhat too relentless—might +protest that even “such vermin” as a labor-spy +might be credited with an occasional and irrelevant +impulse of kindness, of human decency, or of +shame. It might perhaps be said that in this book +the realist has labored to repay to grim truth the +immense debt which the illusioned poet had so splendiferously +incurred during the war.⁠<a id="FNanchor_14_14" href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_151">[151]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="XIV_THE_BOOK_OF_LIFE"> + XIV. THE BOOK OF LIFE + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>“Why do you always think of things first?” +H. G. Wells wrote to Sinclair, upon receiving +<i>The Book of Life</i>. “I should have been at that +in a year or two. I may still do it in spite of you.”</p> + +<p>It was in fact a book of a more or less Wellsian +sort, in scope if not in treatment. It was published +in 1921 and 1922. “The writer of this book”, says +the introduction, “has been in this world some forty-two +years. That may not seem long to some, but +it is long enough to have made many painful mistakes, +and to have learned much from them. Looking +about him, he sees others making these same +mistakes, suffering for lack of that same knowledge +which he has so painfully acquired. This being the +case, it seems a friendly act to offer his knowledge, +minus the pain.</p> + +<p>“There come to the writer literally thousands of +letters every year, asking him questions, some of +them of the strangest. A man is dying of cancer, +and do I think it can be cured by a fast? A man is +unable to make his wife happy, and can I tell him +what is the matter with women? A man has invested +his savings in mining-stock, and can I tell him +what to do about it? A man works in a sweatshop, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_152">[152]</span>and has only a little time for self-improvement, and +will I tell him what books he ought to read? Many +such questions every day make one aware of a vast +mass of people, earnest, hungry for happiness. The +things they need to know are not taught in the +schools, nor in the newspapers they read, nor in +the church they attend.”</p> + +<p>He promises that he “will not pretend to know +what he merely guesses, and where it is necessary to +guess, he will say so frankly. Finally, it is a kind +book; it is not written for its author’s glory, nor +for his enrichment, but to tell you things that may +be useful to you in the brief span of your life. It +will attempt to show you how to live, how to find +health and happiness and success, how to work and +how to play, how to eat and how to sleep, how to +love and to marry and to care for your children, +how to deal with your fellow men in business and +politics and social life, how to act and how to think, +what religion to believe, what art to enjoy, what +books to read. A large order, as the books phrase +it!”</p> + + +<h3 id="II_13"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>The prophet, in his most realistic mood, becomes +a teacher of mankind. And the prophet in Upton +Sinclair has been considerably disillusioned and humbled +before undertaking this task. There are here +no overweening airs of seership; and though the +book seeks to generalize too much from a specific +life experience, it is none the less valuable on that +account. If no one is wise enough to tell all of us +<span class="pagenum" id="p_153">[153]</span>how to live, we can nevertheless learn something +from those who tell the truth about themselves. +This is the counsel of a man who has seen, lived and +suffered much, who has kept through trying years +his faith that life has a meaning to be discerned by +the human mind, who believes resolutely that, in +large affairs and in small, knowledge gives us power. +If it reveals the limitations of his knowledge, it is +nevertheless an invigorating book, dealing as it does +simply, sincerely and candidly with the fundamental +problems of life. “You have written”, May Sinclair +wrote to him, “the best and sanest things about love, +and, it seems to me, the best and sanest things about +society.” And it will be no serious derogation from +this praise if we proceed to emphasize, for our purposes, +its inevitable shortcomings.</p> + +<p>The Book of the Mind and the Book of the Body +are, on the whole, useful guides and primers. It is, +however, noteworthy that while in the Book of the +Mind there is some awareness of the contributions +of modern psychology to our understanding of life, +there is actually no great use made of such knowledge. +The author’s view of life remains, with slight +empirical exceptions, a pre-Freudian view. All +life’s difficulties are apparently to be dealt with by +the argumentative method, by reasonable arguments +addressed to presumably reasonable minds. And +such difficulties as are patently not amenable to +reform by reasonable arguments are left entirely +out of this purview, or are met with gusts of moral +indignation. That there exists, for instance, among +<span class="pagenum" id="p_154">[154]</span>life’s important problems for young people, such a +problem as the successful establishment of heterosexuality +or even the problem of psychic emancipation +from the home, is not at all indicated nor apparently +at all understood. And in default of any +useful insight into these realms of conduct, an undue +burden of explanation of human behavior has to be +placed, elsewhere in the book, upon the theory of +economic determinism—which under this severe +pressure begins to take on some mythological characteristics. +And this lack of intimate knowledge of +the operations of the mind leaves him with none +too adequate defenses against his own tendency to +credulity, in the matter of spiritistic marvels, where +nevertheless he maintains such skepticism as he can +muster.</p> + +<p>The Book of the Body though characterized by +an over-emphasis, due to his own unhappy experiences, +upon the Stomach, is nevertheless interesting +and useful.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_8"> + III. +</h3> + +<p>The Book of Love, on the whole very sensible +and enlightening, suffers inevitably from the lack +of a really modern psychological apparatus. His +view of the subject proceeds simply and confidently +upon the theory that the sexual arrangements of +mankind can be classified exclusively with reference +to the property-systems upon which they depend. +This conception, though in itself a useful one, provides +the author with the opportunity to indulge his +own moral animus in the guise of economic determinism. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_155">[155]</span>Whatever in the way of human sexual +habits he doesn’t approve of, becomes an illustration +of “exploitation” by a ruling class. Moreover, in +his presentation of what he regards as objectionable +sexual conduct, the psychic burden of his own repressions +becomes sometimes painfully obvious. In relating +what he regards as sexual scandal, he becomes +uncritical, incapable of serene thought, generosity, +taste, or humor. He does not permit himself to +realize that it is largely human nature itself that he +is condemning, rather than merely the aberrations of +a property system. In more than one passage he +betrays something of his early emotional bias against +sex⁠<a id="FNanchor_15_15" href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>—an emotion which he rationalizes, not always +successfully, into a preoccupation with its actual +dangers.</p> + +<p>Yet these pages represent, much more significantly, +his escape from the domination of what he +calls “the abominable old ideal of celibacy”, from +which he had suffered. It may be said that he has, +in his conception of marriage, achieved a really sane +and healthy ideal. The treatment of love and marriage +give the book its claim to serious consideration +as a guide to life’s young adventurers.... Beyond +the realm of marriage as founded upon what +might be called complete or “true” love, his sympathy +and understanding do not extend. Sexuality, in +its possibly neurotic but still normal manifestations, +all its merely adventurous, casual, experimental or +play expressions, arouses in him an undue repugnance. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_156">[156]</span>(A reference to modern dancing and “petting +parties” evokes the statement that “society is +disintegrating, going back to the howling and fighting +and cannibalism of the jungle”!) But it would +be an injustice to the book to trace and further emphasize +these occasional evangelistic outcroppings in +a work whose merits are all in the direction of sexual +sanity and health.</p> + +<p>We may, however, pause to disengage one of the +author’s characteristic attitudes for momentary attention, +in its relation to his own psychic development. +He believes very strongly in early marriage—at +seventeen or eighteen. He gives many practical +reasons for this proposal, but it is not difficult to perceive +the one left unstated, the wish to live his own +life over again and more happily. Indeed, one sometimes +feels that it is to his youthful self that this +whole book is addressed: that he is at forty saying +precisely those things which if he had known them +at eighteen would have saved him a world of unhappiness. +And the passage which above all others +seems a cry out of the heart, poignant with infinite +regrets, is this advice to married lovers: “Be natural; +be simple and straightforward; and beware of +fool notions about sex.”</p> + +<p>But it is perhaps due to the author that one word +more be said about him as a guide. It should occasion +no surprise to learn that his guidance must be +taken with the usual discrimination. No guide, +whether Aristotle, or Bacon, or Havelock Ellis, has +known all the paths of life. Upton Sinclair is a +guide conspicuously lacking in tolerance. Yet as +<span class="pagenum" id="p_157">[157]</span>guides go I do not hesitate to pronounce him an +excellent one, if a little old-fashioned in his methods. +If one must be intolerant—and it is a common +human failing—it is better to be intolerant of +drunkenness and debauchery than of, for example, +the aspirations of mankind toward beauty, wisdom, +and order. Puritans, it has been remarked earlier +in these pages, are at the present time unpopular in +America, where they are believed to have inflicted +upon helpless populations much meddling and drastic +tyranny in the effort to make us better. It is true +that the agrarian revolt against the financial domination +of the city, after its defeat in the political field +in the great campaigns at the turn of the century, +has lately been more or less successful in some rearguard +attacks in the cultural field, including certain +attempts to enforce rigid rural codes of morals and +manners. At the same time, the acquisition of a +considerable margin of leisure by a large part of +that native population which had hitherto piously +believed in keeping its nose to the grindstone, has +resulted in a violent urban repudiation of former +middle-class standards of decency and respectability; +and lacking other approved channels, a vast amount +of social and economic discontent of all sorts is +finding expression at present in the new popular middle +class protest against its own former moral narrowness. +A moral nihilism is the approved note at +present among the shell-shocked intelligentsia, and +in this comfortable doctrine the prosperous middle-class +is beginning to find spiritual encouragement for +the diversions which enrich its newly-found leisure. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_158">[158]</span>It is impossible in America at the present moment +to have any standards of conduct short of happy +chaos without being regarded by the younger intelligentsia +as a Puritan and hateful blue-nosed reformer. +And since Upton Sinclair shares in this execration, +it is only just to point out that he is actually a moral +revolutionary, of the kind if not the quality of Blake +or Nietzsche. One might not like to live in a world +constructed according to the wishes of Upton Sinclair; +I confess that I should not; but it would be a +world wildly unlike the dreams of our Puritan forefathers.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_4"> + IV. +</h3> + +<p>The Book of Society, which concludes this work, +contains an analysis of capitalist society and an argument +for its reconstruction upon Socialist lines—an +analysis and argument considerably but not fundamentally +modified in the light of the Russian revolutionary +experience; he prefers to hope for a peaceful +solution of the economic problem, and makes various +proposals to that end, which would obviate the disorder +of an otherwise inevitable and violent revolution. +This peaceful reconstruction, he declares, +could begin at once “if we had sufficient intelligence.... +And will anyone maintain,” he asks, “that it +is the part of an intelligent man to advocate a less +intelligent course than he knows?” It is by these +views that Sinclair remains, despite his broad sympathies, +identified with the pre-war Socialist movement, +as distinguished from the post-war movement which +denominates itself Communist.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_159">[159]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="XV_THE_GREAT_PAMPHLETS"> + XV. THE GREAT PAMPHLETS + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>Modern industrial America has proved a difficult +theme for the artists whose business it is +to handle it. There have been two recognized attitudes +of literary approach to this theme. The first, +to be found in the popular magazines, is an attitude +of uncritical adulation and blatant celebration of the +advantages which accrue to its beneficiaries. The +other attitude, now found increasingly in fiction appealing +to the intelligentsia, is one of hopeless sentimental +protest against a machine civilization which +is conceived as utterly vicious, spiritually degrading, +and altogether too hideous and uninteresting to be +worth picturing in any realistic detail—the space +being occupied instead by accounts of the miseries +of the sensitive and artistic souls who are represented +as its chief victims. A welcome from the +American intelligentsia awaits any writer who will +picture present conditions as a confused and hopeless +chaos; and on the other hand a vast popularity, +though with no such critical esteem, awaits the writer +who will uncritically celebrate the joys of riding +about in expensive motor cars, eating at expensive +restaurants, playing at expensive sports, indulging in +expensive adultery, and exploiting generally the advantages +<span class="pagenum" id="p_160">[160]</span>which accrue to the beneficiaries of the +industrial process. From a literary point of view, +the objection to both these methods is that they fail +to come to grips with their subject.</p> + +<p>In so new, vast and confusing a heap of materials +as modern industrial America presents, what is +needed first of all is a pattern, an ideological map of +the scene. The old patterns will scarcely do—at +least those patterns which concern themselves narrowly +with the fortunes of individuals, against a +background which can be taken for granted. Here +the background is of greater importance, and it is +with masses or groups of men that the story must +needs be concerned. Or so it would seem. The +most successful experiment in this kind of fiction +was made by Frank Norris in <i>The Octopus</i>; there +the canvas was sufficiently large for the event portrayed, +a farmer-railroad war. But he failed to follow +up this method in his succeeding book, <i>The Pit</i>, +where attention was concentrated upon a few individuals. +A literary problem is here involved, which +has not yet been successfully solved in fiction. +Upton Sinclair’s <i>Jungle</i> did suggest that one solution +lay in putting, as he declared he had attempted, +“the content of Shelley in the form of Zola.” But +in his immediately succeeding books, <i>The Metropolis</i> +and <i>The Moneychangers</i>, he failed to make his +wealth of reported detail a living part of his story. +The problem might have advanced further toward +a solution, but for the serious discouragements which +American literature suffered, for more than a +decade, at the hands of those timid business classes +<span class="pagenum" id="p_161">[161]</span>who felt that their interests were endangered by +truthfulness in fiction; and now that the younger +writers in America are in general revolt against the +censorship of respectability, their daring has manifested +itself chiefly so far in venturing to deal +frankly with sexual themes, leaving almost everything +else untouched. The problem still remains. +But it is again being attacked, in the field which +precedes perhaps by necessity the fictional one, that +is to say in pamphleteering.</p> + +<p>It was pamphleteering—magazine “muck-raking” +as it was called—which preceded and accompanied +the great fictional period with which the names of +Frank Norris, Jack London and Upton Sinclair are +associated. That period of pamphleteering had scientific +rigor as its goal; a series of magazine articles +on railroad corruption was praised by saying that +it read “like an interstate commerce report”. The +new period of pamphleteering is no less scientifically +rigorous in its factual basis, but it is more human, +robust, vigorous, eloquent, humorous, satirical, personal—and +in these respects approaches and sometimes +achieves the effects of imaginative literature. +This pamphleteering at its best has the narrative +and dramatic and psychological excitements of the +novel; and it does what the novel has but seldom +succeeded in doing, it comes to grips with the American +theme. It does so by virtue of having patterns +which include the tumultuous and shifting details of +this theme—ideological maps of the landscape, by +which the writer can guide us swiftly from point to +point; and most of all, perhaps, it succeeds by reason +<span class="pagenum" id="p_162">[162]</span>of having no such restricted personal scope as the +novelist habitually feels obliged to confine himself +to: it deals with the broad panorama of life. It furnishes +perhaps the experimental models of a fiction +soon to be born, able to cope with such a theme +as America presents. In any event, it stands, in +its foremost examples, as the latest and greatest +achievement of contemporary American literature.</p> + +<p>And, as might perhaps have been expected, it is +one of the surviving leaders of the gallant fictional +campaign of twenty years ago who has set the pace +in this new effort. Baffled, it would seem, by the difficulty +of getting so huge a drama into fiction, Upton +Sinclair has magnificently turned all his powers loose +into the generous medium of pamphleteering—to +use that term in the sense not of small but of controversial +books.</p> + +<p>Already, in 1918, there had appeared the first of +a series of great pamphlets which were to get modern +America down on paper with a fullness and a +freedom never yet achieved in any other literary +form. This initial work was <i>The Profits of Religion</i>, +announced as “a study of supernaturalism from +a new point of view—as a source of income and a +shield of privilege”. If the point of view was not +actually new, it had at least not been embodied in +so ambitious a review. Its manner was new, at least +since Voltaire. Scarcely since then had there been +such a ruthless showing up of sacred institutions. +It was not a matter of arguing about creeds; it was +a revelation of the facts about the actual function +of churches and churchmen in a class society. It +<span class="pagenum" id="p_163">[163]</span>was a more devastating book than can readily be +imagined. A liberal clergyman, the Rev. John +Haynes Holmes, wrote of it: “I must confess that +it has fairly made me writhe to read these pages, +not because they are untrue or unfair, but on the +contrary, because I know them to be the real facts. +I love the church as I love my home, and therefore +it is no pleasant experience to be made to face such +a story as this which you have told. It had to be +done, however, and I am glad you have done it, for +my interest in the church, after all, is more or less +incidental, whereas my interest in religion is a fundamental +thing.... You have done us all a service +in the writing of this book.”</p> + +<p>From a certain point of view, however, the importance +of the book is less concerned with its +thesis than with the details of contemporary life +through which it leads like a pathway. Indeed, +there is a sense in which an ideological pattern of +any sort justifies itself as a means, whereby the artist +leads us into the heart of his subject. And Sinclair’s +pattern is of value precisely where the facts would +otherwise be most confusing or negligible, that is +to say in modern life. In his historical prelude, the +pattern seems to introduce too great a simplification, +and its literary value may be doubted; but it +serves as an efficient map through that contemporary +American welter of superstition and exploitation +which is his actual theme. Doubtless there are other +important factors involved besides the economic one; +that does not so much matter when the picture is +before us—“the Church of Good Society”, “the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_164">[164]</span>Church of the Servant Girls”, “the Church of the +Slavers”, “the Church of the Merchants”, “the +Church of the Quacks”. These are part of our +America; and these are the uses to which a business +régime finds these institutions apt and ready. It may +be in part an indictment of human nature rather +than of capitalism; but it is a true picture of a not +unimportant aspect of modern industrial America.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_14"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>It was announced, moreover, that this volume was +to be the first of a series that should “do for Education, +Journalism, and Literature” what had here +been done for the Church: “the four volumes making +a work of revolutionary criticism, an Economic +Interpretation of Culture under the general title of +<i>The Dead Hand</i>”.</p> + +<p>If there were any doubt of the significance of the +Church as an aspect of modern American industrial +life, there was none concerning Journalism and +Education. American Journalism was in a peculiar +position: the newspapers, being almost the sole mediums +of publicity, had confidently and arrogantly +used their opportunities to sing their own praises, +attributing to themselves all the virtues, and glorifying +in particular their own honesty, truthfulness, +fairness, incorruptibility. Their victims might be +aware of the contrary, their editors might have tales +to tell in private, soap-box orators might denounce +them for falsifying and suppressing news of industrial +struggles in the interests of the employers—but +<span class="pagenum" id="p_165">[165]</span>who would listen? They seemed as secure as +Gille de Rais in his castle. And at their back stood +the Associated Press, loaded with international +honors, a sacrosanct institution, alert to prosecute +for criminal libel any obscure Socialist publication +which dared charge it with partisanship. It would +indeed be difficult to prove a case against them, to +expose the truth which lay behind these gigantic self-advertised +reputations for purity. Yet it was nothing +less than this that Upton Sinclair undertook.</p> + +<p><i>The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism</i> +appeared in 1919. The reference in the title +is to the metal counters used in brothels, according +to investigations which had given the phrase some +currency as a polite synonym for prostitution. The +book was an indictment of the corruption of the +American press, with facts, names, dates, proof complete. +If the charges were false, they constituted +criminal libel, and the author could have been put in +prison. But, despite repeated challenges by the +author, the truth of these statements was never +denied in court.</p> + +<p><i>The Brass Check</i> is an extraordinary book—not +in its daring alone. Its contents vary from what +might be described as dynamite to the most preposterously +farcical matters, which are not, however, +without their strict relevance to the subject under +discussion, since American journalism has its farcical +as well as its tragic aspect. Never in modern times +have such widespread charges been made in such +personal terms—personal with reference to the +accuser as well as the accused. For it is, incidentally +<span class="pagenum" id="p_166">[166]</span>but first of all, an account of the dealings +of the author himself with the newspapers of America. +The book might for that reason have been +ineffective; it was certainly unconventional. But in +this case the story of one man’s relations with the +press, embracing as it does some of the most important +episodes in American newspaper history +during our time, is a valuable document. Not all +the personal incidents are important, though they +illustrate the characteristic traits of the American +press. But the story of Sinclair’s efforts to get the +news of the Colorado coal strike into the papers, and +his battle with the Associated Press in connection +with the coal strike, is of the greatest importance. +And this personal story is only the beginning of the +record; with an immense mass of the most careful +documentation, the whole field is covered in a factual +and convincing way.</p> + +<p>The impression which the book made upon America, +the eagerness with which it was read here, as +well as all over the world, revealed the fact that +there was an immense resentment against the pseudo-sanctity +in which these institutions had wrapped +themselves; whether or not any reforms were immediately +effected by this exposure, it at least lifted a +cloud of repression from the minds of the American +people. It was now possible to speak disrespectfully +of these great institutions without seeming to be +guilty of lèse majesté. It had been done, with +impunity!</p> + +<p>Aside, however, from its uncontroverted authenticity +in detail, it was a picture of America which +<span class="pagenum" id="p_167">[167]</span>could be recognized by those who knew their country—a +picture which has not before been compassed +in our literature. Here was a real American story: +nor, from that point of view, did it matter that the +characters bore names that could be found in Bradstreet’s. +When the persons named in the book are +forgotten, when they are mere characters in the +book, the book will still live on as a picture of its +age. Here pamphleteering has reached the heights +of great art.</p> + + +<h3 id="III_9"> + III. +</h3> + +<p>Upton Sinclair, almost forgotten as a novelist by +his countrymen, became by virtue of this book again +a figure in American life and literature. The post-war +disillusionment had begun, people were willing +to listen to the truth—and here was a man capable +of telling it. What would his book on American +education be like?</p> + +<p>American education, it had begun to be realized, +was largely a fetish. Was it really education at all, +the process so elaborately conducted in our universities +with amphitheatrical football performances in +the foreground and intellectual terrorization in the +background? And if not education, what was it, +and why? Upton Sinclair, from the point of view +of those who are interested technically in the problems +of modern education, cannot furnish a final +answer to that question. But, in <i>The Goose-Step: +A Study of American Education</i>, his pattern provides +us with preliminary guidance through the labyrinth +of astounding and ridiculous facts: it does +<span class="pagenum" id="p_168">[168]</span>show us, if not everything that is the matter with +American universities, at least what uses American +business stupidity is making of these huge and lumbering +institutions. There is, indeed, no Machiavellian +cunning here, certainly no far-seeing effort to +make higher education in America an efficient part +of the capitalist system; but there is fear everywhere +of truth, fear of intellectual freedom, hysterical fear +and stupid tyranny. It is a tragic farce that is +revealed in the book. The tragedy lies in the wastage +of youth, and the frustration of teaching talent. +But comic in the highest degree are the pompous +figures that stalk so solemnly through its pages—the +dignified and ridiculous little lords of the educational +world who are hired to run their institutions so as +to please the men who have money to give.... The +book was followed in 1924 by <i>The Goslings: A +Study of the American Schools</i>, in which the picture +becomes both more ridiculous and more tragic, for +petty greed and unscrupulous commercial exploitation, +as ruthless and vicious as has ever been practised +upon the helpless and the ignorant, become +part of the scene. These revelations are all of a +specifically factual and utterly convincing sort, and +they portray in indelible terms the species of moral +and intellectual serfdom to which the higher and +lower educational institutions of America have been +all but universally reduced by the ignorance and the +fears of a business régime. And, together with +their predecessors in this series of great pamphlets, +these books constitute a Contemporary History of +American Civilization by which we are known and +<span class="pagenum" id="p_169">[169]</span>judged all over the world, and which must be read +and studied by all Americans who dare to face +realities.</p> + +<p>In these books, moreover, a writer who despite +two extraordinary artistic triumphs has so often +failed to come to complete and satisfying fullness of +expression in the medium of the novel, reaches and +maintains himself at the height of his powers. In +this realm of facts, as not always in the realm controlled +by the imagination, he is utterly assured and +at home—capable, in this large field, of Aristophanic +laughter and epic vision. Across these huge canvases +march the multitudes of living mankind, tricksters +and deluded ones, liars and dupes, thieves and +victims, masters and henchmen, the preachers, editors, +railroad presidents, financiers, politicians, soldiers, +gunmen, salesmen, teachers, children: it is a +panorama of contemporary American humanity, candidly, +tenderly, relentlessly, magnificently displayed.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_5"> + IV. +</h3> + +<p><i>Mammonart: An Essay in Economic Interpretation</i>, +published in 1925, the latest in this series of +gigantic exposés, is a venture of a different sort +from the others. It does not deal especially with +the American scene; and its interest lies only partly +within the field of fact, being still more significantly +within the field of opinion. It is in one of its aspects +a polemic in art criticism, or, more specifically, literary +criticism—an attack upon the theory of art for +art’s sake. It is also, from its own revolutionary +<span class="pagenum" id="p_170">[170]</span>point of view, an “Outline of Literature”—the most +spirited, honest, interesting and informative ever +published. But it may perhaps most interestingly +be considered here as a psychological document.</p> + +<p>An American writer who early in this century +wished to deal with themes of social and economic +significance found himself hampered by an academic +tradition concerning literature which had grown up +since the Civil War. That vast struggle had left +America too spiritually exhausted to take its due +part in the great intellectual battles which raged +through Europe in the latter half of the nineteenth +century; and the literary productions which reflected +those conflicts came to us a little late and with an +odor of sanctity which obscured their controversial +quality. The new effort to exploit the vast commercial +possibilities of America absorbed, moreover, for +a generation or more, all its best energies, and literature +was left to the professors. By these it was +characteristically conceived as a serene realm high +above the vulgar conflicts of the day, a refuge from +immediate interests, a shelter from passing hopes +and fears, a communion with “eternal” things. This +professorial view of literature had preferred to forget +the origin of its most admired productions in +that very stress and sweat of earthly conflict. It +was a forgetfulness natural to the epicene and timid +class to whom education itself was no preparation +for the struggle of life but rather a retirement from +it. According to these professorial standards of +taste, literature must not come too dangerously close +to reality, or it would incur the damnation of being +<span class="pagenum" id="p_171">[171]</span>dismissed as “propaganda”. It was this attitude +which the young Upton Sinclair encountered when +he began his literary career. He wanted to show +the evils of the existing world, and he wanted to +help create the desire for a world fit to live in. +Such intentions as these are no new thing in the history +of literature—they have been implicit and explicit +in much of the world’s greatest literature. But +he found himself offending the taste of timid and +nervous critics. They thought it was all right for +him to have opinions about the Civil War, because +that happened a long time ago; but he really ought +not to have any opinions about the Class Struggle, +because that was possibly going on right now. To +try to make people sympathize with struggling poets +was sufficiently artistic; but to try to make people +sympathize with struggling workingmen was, in the +cant phrase of the day, “propaganda”.</p> + +<p>And yet it seemed to him, looking back over the +world’s literature, that it was full of “propaganda”, +of one sort and another. If Aristophanes satirized +Athenian democracy, if Virgil concocted an imitation +epic in celebration of the founding of Rome, if +Juvenal muck-raked the high Roman society of his +time in the most scandalous fashion, if Shakespeare +mocked and reviled the mobs and their rebel leaders, +if John Milton called on God to avenge the massacre +of Protestants in Piedmont, that wasn’t called +propaganda, to be sure; when the propagandists +were dead enough, they were called artists. But +wasn’t all art inevitably concerned with revealing a +view of life? Propaganda in that sense was an +<span class="pagenum" id="p_172">[172]</span>intimate part of every work or art. Mediocre poets +like Southey were called artists in their time, because +they said all the approved things; and great poets +like Shelley were dismissed as loud-mouthed ranters +because they wanted to change the world. Keats +was told to go back to his pills by the aristocratic +reviewers of his time because he was a radical and +a friend of Leigh Hunt’s.... Apparently, then, +esthetic criticism was not as purely esthetic as it +deemed itself, but was involved with the fears of the +ruling class. Those who praise the existing scheme +of things will find their artistic virtues readily +enough acclaimed. The rash young revolutionist +who turns his coat and comes out for law and order +will likely enough be made poet laureate. Morals, +too, are involved—the writer who is a rebel in politics +will have his moral frailties emblazoned before +a shocked world and will be regarded as a monster; +while the writer whose opinions are correct may, if +he is careful, enjoy his adulteries and perversities +and remain the darling of respectable society. And, +when one looks over the world’s literature, how +many first-rate writers are there who have not been +social rebels? How many writers have written anything +worth while after they ceased to be rebels? +How many hugely-bolstered reputations of the correct +sort have any validity? And of those writers +who were notoriously hostile or indifferent to the +great social rebellions of their time, how much has +their art lost by their blindness to what was +going on?</p> + +<p>These questions, fulminating in the mind of the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_173">[173]</span>young writer, set in motion a long historical and +critical inquiry of years, of which <i>Mammonart</i> is +the result.... In the meantime, and especially +since the war, it appears that these professorial doctrines +have passed over into the minds of the +younger generation of the American intelligentsia +and its writers generally, a natural symptom of the +social helplessness of this period of disillusionment. +The <i>fin-de-siècle</i> art theories of the European ’nineties +have been taken over with much enthusiasm as a +means of retaining artistic self-respect while sitting +among the ruins of pre-war hopes. Under these circumstances, +it can easily be understood that Upton +Sinclair’s book should arouse resentment—for it is +implicitly a challenge to the young writers of +America to take their place as leaders in what Heine +called the Liberation War of Humanity.</p> + +<p>Such is the content of <i>Mammonart</i>; in form it is +a handbook covering in short, vivid chapters a vast +part of the world’s literature, reviewing it against +its own political and economic background, with +special attention to the manner in which the social +struggles of the times are reflected in the life and +work of the writers. It describes itself as an inquiry +into art from the point of view of revolutionary +economics. It is the first of the kind to be broadly +undertaken, though Bernard Shaw in his essay on +Wagner and in his criticisms in general has furnished +some interesting and valuable examples of the +method. It is a kind of criticism that is familiar in +Russia, where it has long been practised. But, +though at present something of a novelty in America, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_174">[174]</span>it is not likely to remain so. The weakness of +the various current attempts to deal with art from a +purely esthetic standpoint seem to make it inevitable +that this more revolutionary and realistic method +will come into vogue.</p> + +<p>Social revolutionary criticism, as it may be called, +takes it for granted that an artist is an interpreter +of life, and judges the truth and value of his +interpretation by the test of how fully he shows +himself aware of what is going on in his world, with +special reference to social change, and whether he +helps his audience to understand and sympathize +with such changes. He is recognized as a discriminator +of spiritual values, in some sense a creator of +them, and he is judged by the spiritual values he +helps to create in a world that struggles toward +something greater and finer than its past. He is +not asked to be consciously attempting to create such +values, and least of all is he asked to believe in this +or that specific program of change—he is judged as +an artist and not as a politician. It is a frankly +partisan criticism, but it represents the genuine +esthetic response of those who feel themselves to +be living in a changing world lighted by the hope +of revolutionary improvement. It is a criticism +which attaches no importance to such sacrosanct +effects as those of tragedy. It welcomes cynicism +and pessimism in regard to institutions, but it regards +cynicism and pessimism in regard to man’s +ultimate power of conquering his environment as +merely morbid. It bases itself on science, and claims +the right to rank various kinds of “beauty” according +<span class="pagenum" id="p_175">[175]</span>to its own scale of values. It is thus seen to be +itself a discriminator and creator of spiritual and +esthetic values; it does not hesitate to hurl gods +from their pedestals nor throw outworn beauty in +the dustbin of time. Its weakness is that of all other +theories of art criticism—that it may become a cloak +for the personal prejudices of those who use it, giving +them a dignity they do not necessarily deserve. +But it has vitality, and candor, and is more realistic +than any other kind of criticism that has yet appeared. +Upton Sinclair’s own moral preconceptions +are occasionally obvious in this book; but he has triumphantly +escaped most of the dangers of this kind +of criticism. His book is so rich in its swiftly +painted backgrounds, so moving in its drama, so +profoundly true on the plane in which it moves, and +so thoroughly and simply intelligible in its thesis, as +to constitute a very impressive and valuable example +of the new social revolutionary criticism.</p> + +<p>As an utterance of its author’s point of view, the +book arouses a certain psychological curiosity—his +alleged “Puritanism” again comes under discussion. +The erotic themes which constitute so large a part +of the world’s literature receive scant attention here. +It might seem that from his point of view mankind’s +erotic problems are too simple to bother with +in literature; but some reflection upon his own writings +(including the unpublished manuscript of <i>Love’s +Progress</i>) shows that this is not so. One hazards +the explanation that they seem to him, these erotic +problems of mankind, to be too involved with social +problems to be isolated, and indeed too complex to +<span class="pagenum" id="p_176">[176]</span>be satisfactorily solved by mankind except upon +terms of profound social change. His impatience +with literary critics would thus be the impatience of +a revolutionary mind, not content with such tawdry +or cruel or cowardly escapes as the world has thus +far afforded to its rebels in the sexual realm. One +remembers the boy Thyrsis, who wandered at night +seeking some adventure that would be “not quite +shameful to a poet’s fancy”. So, it would seem, +has he wandered through the byways of the world’s +literature, finding no erotic fancies that were not, to +a realist and a poet, tiresome to contemplate—as +for example, when he turns away from Coleridge’s +“woman wailing for her demon lover” with the remark +that it is “a savage’s nightmare”. Such a +mind would turn naturally to the world’s future for +its ultimate satisfactions, and form the habit of subsuming +under its social hopes its erotic dissatisfactions +with the world of contemporary reality.</p> + +<p>It may be remarked that Upton Sinclair’s own +practice has not been invariably in the direction of +slighting the sexual aspects of life; he notably did +not slight them in <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>—and when +urged by a friendly older novelist to be less frank +in certain scenes, he replied in terms which constitute +an interesting defense of the realistic method:</p> + +<p>“I wish,” he wrote, “to give the inner significance +of life, as it comes to me; but on the other hand, I +conceive that there is no way to give this, except +with the materials of the actual world which we +have at our hand.</p> + +<p>“You will readily believe that I did not write the +<span class="pagenum" id="p_177">[177]</span>particular passages in <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i> which you +discuss, without much earnest thought about the subject. +I had certain emotions to portray, and I knew +only one way to do it. For instance, I could not +have conceived of the conveying of the emotions of +the man who sees his first child born, without describing +the actual physical things which he saw. I +simply did not know any other way to do it. If you +think that there is any other way, I would be interested +to have you tell me. Do you know of any +place in the world’s literature where it has been +done? For my part, I know of only one or two +hints at it, and these very inadequate.</p> + +<p>“You must understand that concerning both this +subject, and that of the passion scenes in the novel, +I have a very definite conviction that the attitude of +modern civilization toward these subjects is a wholly +false and unnatural one. I believe that these things +are part of human life, and that we should learn to +talk about them with the same simplicity and naturalness +that we use about any other of the deep +facts of life, such as, for instance, the problems of +death or of religion.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_178">[178]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="XVI_OIL"> + XVI. OIL! + </h2> +</div> + + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>One of the difficulties of writing a critical biography +of a living writer is that he changes +while he is being written about. When this book +was begun, it was with the idea that Upton Sinclair, +in spite of two fictional masterpieces, had found +the novel too narrow a medium for the expression +of his vast and robust interest in the social and +economic tragi-comedy of life, and that he had +reached his fullest self-realization in the series of +great pamphlets descriptive of American culture. +But there is now at hand the astonishing new novel, +<i>Oil!</i>, upon which he has been at work for the past +two years, and that judgment has to be reversed.</p> + +<p><i>Oil!</i> stands beside and in many ways above <i>The +Jungle</i>. It is a maturer work, and if it does not +have the intensity and poignancy of that early masterpiece +it has a greater breadth of vision and a +deeper knowledge of life. Its curiosity and range +and ease and power are Tolstoyan. It is a large +book, a great canvas, as great as that of the great +pamphlets, and carrying all their effects easily within +its simple story. It is the story of Oil, in human +terms, and in terms of all classes—the oil magnates +and their families, the rich, the poor, the workers, +<span class="pagenum" id="p_179">[179]</span>idlers, the doll-house life of Hollywood, and the +political machinations that have been reverberating +through America for the last four years: it is all +here, in the story of an oil magnate’s son, his father, +his sweethearts, and his friends, including the vital +figure of Paul, the young workingman who gives him +his first glimpse into the rebel world beneath his +happy paradise. No extended account of it will be +given in these last pages; it suffices to say that it +restores to us Upton Sinclair the novelist, and that +it constitutes one of the great achievements in the +literary discovery of contemporary America.</p> + +<p>It is as though in the great pamphlets Upton Sinclair +had found his stride, and brought back to the +medium of fiction the verve and the reality which he +had learned in dealing with life at close quarters. +If he can continue in this masterful way, not even his +Socialist preoccupations can prevent him from being +recognized as America’s greatest novelist.</p> + + +<h3 id="II_15"> + II. +</h3> + +<p>It remains only to complete the picture with some +brief account of his other activities, carrying the +story of his life down to the present.... Little has +been said of him here as a playwright; but he has +written many plays, produced some of them himself +under Socialist auspices, and one of his late plays, +<i>Singing Jailbirds</i>, published in 1924, dealing with +the ruthless persecution of the I. W. W. under the +California “Criminal Syndicalist” law, is a more +poignant and effective example of the expressionistic +<span class="pagenum" id="p_180">[180]</span>drama than any that has been produced on the American +stage. It has been played in England as a +means of raising funds for the striking miners, +and last year in Vienna on the revolutionary anniversary, +November 8th and 9th. This remarkable play +is the outcome of the author’s experience in 1923, +during the free speech fight at Los Angeles in connection +with the I. W. W. harbor strike. The rights +of free speech being illegally denied by the police to +the members of the I. W. W., he undertook to uphold +the law against those who, sworn to defend it, +were engaged in violating it in the interests of the +Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association. He +and his associates, assembling in San Pedro on private +property with the consent of the owner, were arrested +by the police for the crime of reading aloud, +and hearing read, three sentences from the Constitution +of the United States—those guaranteeing “freedom +of speech and of the press, and the right of the +people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the +government for the redress of their grievances.” +The act of reminding the people of California of +these antique rights as guaranteed in that venerable +document constituted a crime which made Sinclair, +according to the Los Angeles chief of police, “more +dangerous than 4,000 I. W. W.” The complaint +on which he was illegally arrested charged him with +“discussing, arguing, orating and debating certain +thoughts and theories, which thoughts and theories +... were detrimental and in opposition to the +orderly conduct of affairs of business, affecting the +rights of private property....” He was accordingly +<span class="pagenum" id="p_181">[181]</span>thrown into jail and held “incommunicado”. +While in jail he learned of an incident which had +happened there the day before—fifty men crowded +into a small prison hole without air for singing their +I. W. W. songs—the origin of his play, <i>Singing Jailbirds</i>. +“I am not”, he wrote to the chief of police +after his release on bail had been at last effected, +“a giant physically; I shrink from pain and filth and +vermin and foul air, like any other man of refinement; +also, I freely admit that when I see a line of +a hundred policemen with drawn revolvers flung +across a street to keep anyone from coming on to +private property to hear my feeble voice, I am somewhat +disturbed in my nerves. But I have a conscience +and a religious faith, and I know that our +liberties were not won without suffering, and may +be lost again through our cowardice.”</p> + + +<h3 id="III_10"> + III. +</h3> + +<p>For a number of years Upton Sinclair has occupied +a peculiar situation, as the publisher of his own +books. This, as may be remembered, began with +his first novel, which could at first find no publisher. +<i>The Jungle</i>, also, when it had been rejected by five +publishers, he decided to publish himself, and had +made the plates when a publisher summoned up the +courage to take it over—and made a fortune on it. +Ten years afterward, <i>The Profits of Religion</i> could +find no publisher, and he published it himself; he +has sold some sixty thousand copies, and still sells +two thousand copies every year without advertising. +<span class="pagenum" id="p_182">[182]</span>He was told that there were fifty criminal libel suits +and one or two thousand civil suits in <i>The Brass +Check</i>, so he published that himself. He printed +twenty-three thousand copies, and they were sold in +two or three weeks; orders came in for forty thousand +more, but this was at a time of paper shortage, +and he found it hard to get paper—doubly hard, +because in several instances when it was discovered +what the paper was to be used for the orders were +canceled; a hundred and thirty-five thousand copies +were sold altogether, in spite of these difficulties. +“Also”, the author remarks, “I have managed to +give away seven or eight thousand copies of <i>Singing +Jailbirds</i>.” <i>Jimmie Higgins</i>, <i>100%</i>, <i>The Goose-Step</i>, +<i>The Goslings</i>, and <i>Mammonart</i> were similarly +published; and the business flourished sufficiently to +enable him to buy the plates and copyrights of books +originally published by other publishers, so that he +now owns twenty-six of them, and has all but three +or four in print. He does not, however, recommend +the method to other authors, and tells the +story of a man who was in the business of manufacturing +brushes, and whose wife, when he found at +the end of the year that he had been selling the +brushes below cost, said enthusiastically: “But think +what an enormous business you do!” The story +sums up, he admits, his own experiences as a publisher. +The method, however, keeps him in touch +with his readers. “Never a mail comes that there +is not a letter from some workingman or workingwoman, +some poor student, or teacher, or political +prisoner, who has been able to get my books for one +<span class="pagenum" id="p_183">[183]</span>reason and one only—that they are available at low +prices. It is not an unusual thing for me to hear +of a single volume that has been read by scores of +people, prisoners in jail, of workingmen in mines +and lumber camps, or teachers in a school, or professors +in a college. I get letters from South Africa +and South America, from Alaska and New Zealand, +from India and Russia.” Many of his books, +scarcely heard of in America, are best sellers in +Great Britain and its colonies, in Germany, Italy, +Holland, Denmark, the Scandinavian countries, and +the states from Finland down to Serbia, while hundreds +of editions were published in the Union of +Socialist Soviet Republics, where the printing of his +books has recently been made a state monopoly.</p> + + +<h3 id="IV_6"> + IV. +</h3> + +<p>At the age of twenty-three it had been Upton Sinclair’s +ambition, as expressed in the preface to his +first novel, to publish a library of helpful books for +“the humble people of our land.” This dream of a +workingmen’s library has recently come true in an +indirect way, as one of the enterprises conducted at +his instigation by the “Garland Fund.” The manner +in which the fortune which had been repudiated +by a strange young millionaire named Charles Garland +came to be used for this and other liberal and +radical purposes is thus described by Sinclair in +<i>What’s the Use of Books?</i>—a pamphlet published +by the Vanguard Press:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_184">[184]</span></p> + +<p>“I am going to tell you a story. It is as strange +as any fairy story you ever read, and with this one +difference—it happened exactly as I tell it, and only +three or four years ago.</p> + +<p>“Once upon a time there was a young man who +had been born into a home of luxury. He had +everything in life that a young man could desire, +and before he was twenty-one a relative died and +left him a million dollars. Ask most Americans +what they would like to have happen to them, and +they will say that to have a relative die and leave +them a million dollars would suit them fine. But +for some strange reason it didn’t suit this rich +young man. He was troubled with an uncomfortable +thing called a conscience; he had the crazy notion +that before a man spends money he ought to +earn it. He said that he hadn’t earned that million +dollars, and so he wasn’t going to take it.</p> + +<p>“It was none of my business, but I was worried, +thinking about that million dollars, and all the +things that could be done with it. Lying there in +a Wall Street bank, piling itself up—according to +present-day customs being loaned out to speculators +and big business men, and thus being used directly +contrary to the ideas of the young man! I +sat down and wrote him a letter, pointing this out +and begging him to take the money and use it for +spreading his ideas of social justice—or, if he +hadn’t faith enough in his own ideas, then to entrust +the money to a group of the best friends of social +justice he could find. Many others wrote the young +man to the same effect, and the upshot was that +<span class="pagenum" id="p_185">[185]</span>he changed his mind, and took the million dollars +and established an endowment called ‘The American +Fund for Public Service.’</p> + +<p>“So there was a group of men and women having +this responsibility; and right away they began getting +letters from me. I wanted them to spend the +money for one thing—cheap books for the workers. +Books differ from most other things in that their +inner spirit is not dependent on their outer form. +The most important ideas in the world can be +printed and sold for a few cents, and if you get the +ideas they are exactly as useful to you as if they +had come out of a costly volume printed on vellum +and bound in silk. Therefore, I argued, <i>books +should come first</i>.</p> + +<p>“Others agreed with me, and so there came into +being an institution called the Vanguard Press, having +magically in its possession one hundred thousand +dollars of that Wall Street money, and pledged +through its trustees to spend the money in selecting +the books most needed by the every-day people of +this country, having them edited and printed, and +offered to the people at the lowest possible prices.”</p> + + +<h3 id="V_1"> + V. +</h3> + +<p>Throughout his career, with the exception of the +brief period during the war referred to in an earlier +chapter, he has been actively identified with the +Socialist Party; he was a Socialist candidate for +Congress in 1906 and 1920, for the Senate in 1922, +for governor of California in 1926. In the present +<span class="pagenum" id="p_186">[186]</span>state of the Socialist movement in America, split as +it is between the Socialist and the Workers (Communist) +Party, and with these groups more or less +hostile to one another, he is the one figure, since the +death of Debs, who commands the respect of all +branches of the revolutionary movement.</p> + + +<h3 id="VI"> + VI. +</h3> + +<p>Most of Upton Sinclair’s personality is expressed +in his social-revolutionary interests and activities. +Upton Sinclair, “the person,” aside from these +activities, is a slight, wiry, graying figure, an early +riser and hard worker, keeping one or two stenographers +busy all day; an excellent tennis player, an +eager talker; self-described as “easily bored, naïve +and impersonal”; dealing with “griefs, troubles and +failures” by putting his emotions into the book he +is writing; somewhat skeptically interested in spiritistic +phenomena, very hopefully interested in new +devices, regarded as absurd by the medical profession, +for curing disease; an occasional lecturer to +women’s clubs, able to mitigate the shock of his +opinions to precisely the amount that such organizations +can stand; wearing the cast-off clothes of a rich +young friend, precisely as when he was seventeen +and living on $4.50 a week; always in debt, never +hesitating to borrow money for some project which +he regards as for the benefit of humanity; always +hopeful of enormous success in each new project, +each new book; very boyish, impulsive, trustful, stubborn; +fondly regarded as impractical by those who +<span class="pagenum" id="p_187">[187]</span>love him ... including a wife who backs him loyally, +and who appears in his writings as “M. C. S.”, +and in <i>Mammonart</i> as “Mrs. Ogi”.</p> + + +<h3 id="VII_1"> + VII. +</h3> + +<p>Upton Sinclair is at this point in his career forty-eight +years old; he intends to live to be as old as +Bernard Shaw, and he probably will. His future +literary career may bring surprises; the poet in him +may yet overwhelm the propagandist. It is sufficient, +however, to have seen the development of a +raw cub of genius, an ethereal poet, afraid of real +life, into the fearless and robust transcriber of the +tragi-comic welter which is contemporary America. +And we may conclude with the reminder that it is as +one of the leaders of a significant American literary +movement that he has here been studied—a movement +which will seem of larger and larger importance +to us as we learn and cherish our own literary +history—a movement which was killed twenty years +ago because there was too much troublesome truth in +it, and which is only in these last few years being +painfully born again: he is one of the great pioneers +in the fictional discovery and exploitation of modern +America.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="p_188"></a><a id="p_189"></a>[189]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="BIBLIOGRAPHY"> + BIBLIOGRAPHY + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>[Books entirely out of print are so marked; editions +in print are marked with a *.]</p> + +<blockquote class="hang"> +<p>Springtime and Harvest. A Romance. [With an +introduction by the author, and photograph of +the shack in the woods where the book was +written.] Sinclair Press, 1901. [Out of +print.]</p> + +<p>King Midas. A Romance. [A reissue of Springtime +and Harvest with a new title.] Funk & +Wagnalls, 1901. [Out of print.]</p> + +<p>The Journal of Arthur Stirling. “The Valley of +the Shadow.” Appleton [anonymous edition], +1903; [with the author’s name, and an explanatory +preface], 1906. Sinclair [with explanatory +postscripts], 1923.*</p> + +<p>Prince Hagen. A Phantasy. L. C. Page, 1903. +Kerr, 1910. [Out of print.]</p> + +<p>Manassas. A Novel of the War. Macmillan, +1904. Sinclair, 1923.*</p> + +<p>A Captain of Industry. [A Tale.] Appeal to Reason, +1906. Haldeman-Julius [pamphlet], +1924.*</p> + +<p>The Jungle. [A Novel.] Doubleday, 1907. Sinclair, +1920.* Vanguard Press, 1926.*</p> + +<p>The Industrial Republic. A Study of the America +of Ten Years Hence. Illustrated. Doubleday, +1907. [Out of print.]</p> + +<p>The Overman. [A Tale.] Doubleday, 1907. Haldeman-Julius +[pamphlet], 1924.*</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_190">[190]</span></p> + +<p>The Metropolis. [A Novel.] Moffat Yard, 1908. +Sinclair, 1923.*</p> + +<p>The Moneychangers. [A Novel.] Dodge, 1910. +Sinclair [revised edition], 1923.*</p> + +<p>Good Health and How We Won It. By Upton Sinclair +and Michael Williams. Stokes, 1909. +[Out of print.]</p> + +<p>Samuel the Seeker. [A Novel.] Dodge, 1910. +Sinclair, 1923.*</p> + +<p>Plays of Protest. The Naturewoman. The Machine. +The Second-Story Man. Prince Hagen. +Kennerley, 1911. Haldeman-Julius [separate +pamphlets], 1924.*</p> + +<p>The Fasting Cure. Kennerley, 1911. Sinclair, +1923.*</p> + +<p>Love’s Pilgrimage. [A Novel.] Kennerley, 1911. +Sinclair, 1926.*</p> + +<p>Damaged Goods. [Novelized from Brieux’s play.] +Winston, 1913.*</p> + +<p>Sylvia. A Novel. Winston, 1913. Sinclair, 1913.*</p> + +<p>Sylvia’s Marriage. A Novel. Winston, 1914. Sinclair, +1927.*</p> + +<p>The Cry for Justice. An Anthology of the Literature +of Social Protest. With an Introduction +by Jack London. Illustrated. Winston, 1915. +Sinclair, 1920.*</p> + +<p>King Coal. A Novel. With an Introduction by +Dr. Georg Brandes. Macmillan, 1917. Sinclair, +1917.*</p> + +<p>The Profits of Religion. An Essay in Economic +Interpretation. Sinclair, 1918.* Vanguard +Press, 1927.*</p> + +<p>The Brass Check. A Study of American Journalism. +Sinclair, 1919.*</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="p_191">[191]</span></p> + +<p>The Crimes of the “Times”. [Pamphlet.] Sinclair, +1919.*</p> + +<p>100%. The Story of a Patriot. Sinclair, 1920.*</p> + +<p>The Bock of Life. Macmillan, 1921–22. Sinclair, +1921–22.*</p> + +<p>They Call Me Carpenter. A Tale of the Second +Coming. Boni & Liveright, 1922. Sinclair, +1922.*</p> + +<p>Hell. A Verse Drama and Photo-Play. [Pamphlet.] +Sinclair, 1923.*</p> + +<p>The Goose-Step. A Study of American Education. +Sinclair, 1923.*</p> + +<p>The Goslings. A Study of American Schools. Sinclair, +1924.*</p> + +<p>Singing Jailbirds. A Drama in Four Acts. Sinclair, +1924.*</p> + +<p>The Millennium. A Comedy of the Year 2000. [A +tale based on a play written in 1907 and subsequently +lost.] Haldeman-Julius [pamphlets], +1924.*</p> + +<p>The Pot-Boiler. A Comedy in Four Acts. [Written +in 1912.] Haldeman-Julius [pamphlet], +1924.*</p> + +<p>Mammonart. An Essay in Economic Interpretation. +Sinclair, 1925.*</p> + +<p>Bill Porter. A Drama of O. Henry in Prison. Sinclair, +1925.*</p> + +<p>Letters to Judd, An American Workingman. Sinclair, +1926.*</p> + +<p>The Spokesman’s Secretary, Being the Letters of +Mame to Mom. Sinclair, 1926.*</p> + +<p>Oil! A Novel. A. & C. Boni, 1927.* Sinclair. +1927.*</p> +</blockquote> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="p_192"></a><a id="p_193"></a>[193]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX"> + INDEX + </h2> +</div> + + +<ul class="index"> + <li class="ifrst">Alcohol, <a href="#p_21">21</a>, <a href="#p_29">29</a> note.</li> + + <li class="indx">Annapolis, <a href="#p_22">22</a>, <a href="#p_47">47</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Appeal to Reason, <a href="#p_104">104</a>, <a href="#p_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Arden, Del., <a href="#p_125">125</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Argosy, The</i>, <a href="#p_44">44</a>, <a href="#p_46">46</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Asceticism, <a href="#p_29">29</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#p_60">60</a> <i>et seq.</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Associated Press, <a href="#p_138">138</a>, <a href="#p_139">139</a>, <a href="#p_165">165</a>, <a href="#p_166">166</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Baltimore, Md., <a href="#p_16">16</a>, <a href="#p_19">19</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bloor, Ella Reeve, <a href="#p_107">107</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Book of Life, The</i>, <a href="#p_151">151</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Boys’ stories, <a href="#p_46">46</a>, <a href="#p_47">47</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Brandes, Georg, <a href="#p_113">113</a>, <a href="#p_141">141</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Brass Check, The</i>, <a href="#p_165">165</a>, quoted <i>passim</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Brieux, <a href="#p_133">133</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Broadway demonstration, <a href="#p_137">137</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Budget, <a href="#p_41">41</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Carlyle, <a href="#p_36">36</a></li> + + <li class="indx">“Chappie”, <a href="#p_32">32</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Chicago, <a href="#p_16">16</a>, <a href="#p_17">17</a> note, <a href="#p_103">103</a>, <a href="#p_104">104</a>, <a href="#p_107">107</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Church, <a href="#p_38">38</a>, <a href="#p_39">39</a>, <a href="#p_162">162</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Clothes, <a href="#p_41">41</a> note, <a href="#p_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Coal Strike, <a href="#p_137">137</a></li> + + <li class="indx">College, <a href="#p_34">34</a>, <a href="#p_49">49</a>, <a href="#p_52">52</a>, <a href="#p_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Colorado, <a href="#p_137">137</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Constitution, U. S., <a href="#p_180">180</a></li> + + <li class="indx">“Corydon”, <a href="#p_65">65</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Country House Built for Only $156, A</i>, <a href="#p_79">79</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Cry for Justice, The</i>, <a href="#p_140">140</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Damaged Goods</i>, <a href="#p_133">133</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Dead Hand, The, <a href="#p_164">164</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Divorce, <a href="#p_130">130</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Eden Musée, <a href="#p_17">17</a> note</li> + + <li class="indx">Emerson, <a href="#p_36">36</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Farragut, David, <a href="#p_17">17</a>, <a href="#p_18">18</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Fasting Cure, The</i>, <a href="#p_128">128</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Free-Speech fight at Los Angeles, <a href="#p_180">180</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Galahad, <a href="#p_61">61</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Garland, Charles, <a href="#p_183">183</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Genius and its claims, <a href="#p_50">50</a>, <a href="#p_86">86</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Genteel tradition in American Literature, <a href="#p_110">110</a></li> + + <li class="indx">German Lessons, <a href="#p_68">68</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Goethe’s picture, <a href="#p_54">54</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Goose-Step, The</i>, <a href="#p_167">167</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gorky incident, <a href="#p_111">111</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Goslings, The</i>, <a href="#p_168">168</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Greenwich Village, <a href="#p_30">30</a> note</li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Hackwork, <a href="#p_41">41</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hamlet, <a href="#p_33">33</a>, <a href="#p_39">39</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Helicon Hall, <a href="#p_121">121</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Herron, George D., <a href="#p_97">97</a>, <a href="#p_100">100</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Holland, <a href="#p_131">131</a>, <a href="#p_132">132</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>In the days of Decatur</i>, <a href="#p_46">46</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>In the net of the Visconti</i>, <a href="#p_46">46</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Indigestion, <a href="#p_42">42</a>, <a href="#p_73">73</a>, <a href="#p_128">128</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Industrial Republic, The</i>, <a href="#p_118">118</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Intercollegiate Socialist Society, <a href="#p_103">103</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Jail, <a href="#p_126">126</a>, <a href="#p_138">138</a>, <a href="#p_181">181</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jesus, <a href="#p_27">27</a>, <a href="#p_33">33</a>, <a href="#p_39">39</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Jimmie Higgins</i>, <a href="#p_146">146</a>, <a href="#p_148">148</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Jokes, <a href="#p_44">44</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Journal of Arthur Stirling, The</i>, <a href="#p_78">78</a>, <a href="#p_86">86</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Jungle, The</i>, <a href="#p_84">84</a>, <a href="#p_104">104</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">“Killing Spaniards”, <a href="#p_47">47</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>King Coal</i>, <a href="#p_140">140</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>King Midas</i>, <a href="#p_78">78</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><span class="pagenum" id="p_194">[194]</span>Languages, learning of, <a href="#p_53">53</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lee, Robert E., <a href="#p_20">20</a>, <a href="#p_37">37</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lewis, Sinclair, <a href="#p_124">124</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lincoln, <a href="#p_37">37</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Literary enthusiasms, <a href="#p_27">27</a>, <a href="#p_36">36</a>, <a href="#p_37">37</a>, <a href="#p_39">39</a>, <a href="#p_43">43</a>, <a href="#p_52">52</a>, + <a href="#p_53">53</a>, <a href="#p_54">54</a>, <a href="#p_58">58</a>, <a href="#p_61">61</a>, <a href="#p_63">63</a>, <a href="#p_93">93</a>, <a href="#p_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx">London, Jack, <a href="#p_102">102</a>, <a href="#p_106">106</a>, <a href="#p_114">114</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>, <a href="#p_128">128</a>, <a href="#p_176">176</a> quoted <i>passim</i></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Love’s Progress</i>, <a href="#p_129">129</a> note, <a href="#p_175">175</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ludlow massacre, <a href="#p_137">137</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Machine, The</i>, <a href="#p_116">116</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Mammonart</i>, <a href="#p_169">169</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Manassas</i>, <a href="#p_101">101</a>, <a href="#p_115">115</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Marriage, <a href="#p_72">72</a>; 2d, <a href="#p_136">136</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Metropolis, The</i>, <a href="#p_113">113</a>, <a href="#p_114">114</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Moir, Rev. William W., <a href="#p_39">39</a>, <a href="#p_61">61</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Moneychangers, The</i>, <a href="#p_113">113</a>, <a href="#p_116">116</a></li> + + <li class="indx">“Mourning pickets”, <a href="#p_137">137</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Moyer and Haywood, <a href="#p_111">111</a></li> + + <li class="indx">“Muck-raking”, <a href="#p_109">109</a>, <a href="#p_161">161</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Music, <a href="#p_26">26</a>, <a href="#p_28">28</a>, <a href="#p_29">29</a> note, <a href="#p_65">65</a>, <a href="#p_73">73</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>My cause</i>, <a href="#p_94">94</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">New York, <a href="#p_31">31</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Nietzsche, <a href="#p_52">52</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Norfolk, <a href="#p_17">17</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Norris, Frank, <a href="#p_104">104</a>, <a href="#p_114">114</a>, <a href="#p_160">160</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Oil!</i>, <a href="#p_178">178</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>100%: The Story of a Patriot</i>, <a href="#p_149">149</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Packingtown, <a href="#p_103">103</a>, <a href="#p_104">104</a>, <a href="#p_107">107</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Perry, Commodore, <a href="#p_17">17</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Phillips, David Graham, <a href="#p_105">105</a>, <a href="#p_109">109</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Picketing on Broadway, <a href="#p_137">137</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Play, <a href="#p_29">29</a>, <a href="#p_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Plays, <a href="#p_125">125</a>, <a href="#p_179">179</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Poetic ambitions, <a href="#p_42">42</a>, <a href="#p_51">51</a>, <a href="#p_56">56</a>, <a href="#p_88">88</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Prince Hagen</i>, <a href="#p_78">78</a>, <a href="#p_99">99</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Professors, <a href="#p_35">35</a>, <a href="#p_52">52</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Profits of Religion, The</i>, <a href="#p_162">162</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Publisher of his own books, <a href="#p_181">181</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Puritanism, <a href="#p_13">13</a>, <a href="#p_155">155</a>, <a href="#p_175">175</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Realism, defense of, <a href="#p_176">176</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Residence, <a href="#p_16">16</a>, <a href="#p_31">31</a>, <a href="#p_55">55</a>, <a href="#p_72">72</a>, <a href="#p_79">79</a>, <a href="#p_84">84</a> + note, <a href="#p_87">87</a>, <a href="#p_103">103</a>, <a href="#p_121">121</a>, <a href="#p_125">125</a>, <a href="#p_131">131</a>, <a href="#p_132">132</a>, + <a href="#p_136">136</a>, <a href="#p_137">137</a>, <a href="#p_139">139</a>, <a href="#p_140">140</a>, + <a href="#p_143">143</a>⁠<a id="FNanchor_16_16" href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rockefeller, John D., Jr., <a href="#p_137">137</a>, <a href="#p_139">139</a>, <a href="#p_140">140</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Roosevelt, Theodore, <a href="#p_107">107</a>, <a href="#p_108">108</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ruskin, <a href="#p_37">37</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Russia, <a href="#p_148">148</a>, <a href="#p_158">158</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Sabbath-breaking, see Arden</li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Samuel the Seeker</i>, <a href="#p_128">128</a></li> + + <li class="indx">San Pedro arrest, <a href="#p_180">180</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#p_49">49</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Shelley, <a href="#p_39">39</a>, <a href="#p_53">53</a>, <a href="#p_94">94</a>, <a href="#p_160">160</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Singing Jailbirds</i>, <a href="#p_181">181</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Single-tax colony, see Arden</li> + + <li class="indx">Socialism, <a href="#p_97">97</a>, <a href="#p_119">119</a>, <a href="#p_158">158</a>, <a href="#p_185">185</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Socialists and the war, <a href="#p_143">143</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Springtime and Harvest</i>, <a href="#p_55">55</a>, <a href="#p_74">74</a>, <a href="#p_78">78</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Spy, The</i>, <a href="#p_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Stockyards, <a href="#p_103">103</a>, <a href="#p_104">104</a>, <a href="#p_107">107</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Street & Smith, <a href="#p_46">46</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sylvia</i>, <a href="#p_132">132</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>Sylvia’s Marriage</i>, <a href="#p_133">133</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Tarrytown, <a href="#p_139">139</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Tennis, <a href="#p_29">29</a> note, <a href="#p_186">186</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Thackeray, <a href="#p_27">27</a></li> + + <li class="indx">“Thyrsis”, <a href="#p_69">69</a> <i>et passim</i></li> + + <li class="indx">Tolstoyan-Tennysonian idealism, <a href="#p_70">70</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Toys, <a href="#p_28">28</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst"><i>Upton Sinclair’s</i>, <a href="#p_146">146</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">van Eeden, Frederik, <a href="#p_128">128</a>, <a href="#p_131">131</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Wells, H. G., <a href="#p_118">118</a>, <a href="#p_151">151</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><i>What’s the Use of Books?</i>, <a href="#p_183">183</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Wilson, Woodrow, <a href="#p_146">146</a>, <a href="#p_148">148</a>, <a href="#p_150">150</a> note</li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Zola, <a href="#p_160">160</a></li> +</ul> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES"> + FOOTNOTES + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> He did, however, hear about the Haymarket riot later, when the +family moved to New York. “I remember seeing wax-works of the anarchists +making their bombs, in the Eden Musée, and I believed every +word of it—or shall I say, every wax-work of it. I well remember the +name of Altgeld [the governor of Illinois who later pardoned the surviving +Haymarket anarchists from prison] as a kind of super bomb-thrower! +I swallowed all its ideas complete.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> “Sinclair, Arthur. Lieutenant, 10 June, 1807. Commander, 2 July, +1812. Captain, 24 July, 1813. Died 7 February, 1837.”—<i>U. S. Army +and Navy Register.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> “Sinclair, Arthur. Midshipman, 4 March, 1823. Passed midshipman, +4 June, 1831. Lieutenant, 3 March, 1835. Commander, 14 September, +1855. Dismissed 18 April, 1861.”—<i>U. S. Army and Navy +Register.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> However, Sinclair writes in a private letter: “I am not opposed to +the play aspects of life. The facts are these: As a boy, I did every kind +of playing that boys can do. I played tennis in Central Park, football +and baseball in vacant lots, and was nabbed by the police in the usual +style, built bonfires and roasted stolen potatoes, skated on ice in winter +and played shinny on roller skates the rest of the year, climbed on the +roofs and threw clothes-pins at the people on the street. I was in every +kind of danger. I used to say, playfully, that fate must be keeping me +alive for some purpose, because I had escaped death by a hair’s breadth +a dozen times before I was fourteen. I could outrun any boys I knew +for long distances. I have run all the way around Central Park, and +I have ridden a bicycle from up town in New York over Brooklyn +bridge to Coney Island, gone in swimming in March with snow on the +ground, and then ridden home again; this at the age of seventeen. At +about that age I set out with desperate determination to learn to play +the violin, practicing eight hours a day. It was work, but done in order +that I might be able to play. At the present time, when my wife is ill +and I have to stay at home nearly all the time, I play an hour or two +every day—always sight reading, and I get as much excitement out of +struggling through a Mozart sonata as some people get out of a horse-race. +I get as much fun out of a tennis tournament as any of the +young fellows. I have also been devoted to the theatre, having never +missed seeing a good play except because of poverty.</p> + +<p>“From the age of twenty to twenty-eight or twenty-nine I did no +playing, but this was because I was in a desperate struggle to survive +as a writer; but that was not a matter of philosophy but of practical +necessity. You wouldn’t say that a man was opposed to play because +he didn’t play while he was in a battle.</p> + +<p>“Theoretically I am opposed to play under the following circumstances; +first, when it is cruel and involves wanton suffering to either +human beings or animals. I have always enjoyed hunting and fishing, +but the game or fish were always eaten. Second, when the play is destructive +to health; and that is the basis of my objections to the kind of +play which involves alcohol. I know so many ways to have a good time +which do not involve a headache next morning. Naturally, the condition +of my father’s liver when he died has a good deal to do with this +attitude. Third, play which is not a recreation after work, but a substitute +for work. I saw in Greenwich Village a great many young +idlers calling themselves radicals and doing nothing for the movement, +and that made me tired....</p> + +<p>“I think you mistake my attitude toward dancing. As a boy at various +‘springs’ in Virginia, I danced a lot and was duly dressed up for fancy +balls. I remember very well being a ‘baker’. I don’t think I was more +than six years old, and I was expected to carry a tray with rolls on it, +but I very soon shed that encumbrance. Later on I never danced, simply +because the dancing I saw was done by the idlers of ‘society’, wasting +time, and it was a matter of expensive clothes, and all that sort of +social frummery: either that, or you had to patronize the underworld. +My objection to modern jazz dancing is that it represents the taking +possession of America by that underworld. I think that jazz dances are +awkward and ugly, being imitations of savage sex dances. Of course, +as time goes on, if they survive, they will be idealized....</p> + +<p>“My ethical ideals on these questions are very simply stated, and they +seem to me entirely practical. I want grown-up human beings to have +some serious work to do, something constructive, something which constitutes +their main interest. When they have worked at this with real, +full-sized energy and determination, then let them recreate both minds +and bodies by any kind of play whatever which they enjoy, and which +does not interfere with their ability to go back to their work.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a> Detail, from a letter: “Twenty-five cents a week for clean collars +and cuffs, and newspapers. I wore the cuffs up high to keep them +from showing too much and getting soiled too fast. I did not have to +buy any clothes—my cousin H—— used to send me his cast off clothes. +My meals cost $3 a week.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a> Comment from a letter: “No human male could have been more +pitifully ignorant of the female critter, body, mind, and soul, than I was +at the age of 21. It was a tragedy, but I was not to blame. It was the +Victorian age.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a> In the more-or-less autobiographical novel, <i>Love’s Pilgrimage</i>, it is +related of Corydon and Thyrsis that they did carry out this idealistic +plan for a time after they were married. That version is scarcely more +than a dramatic heightening of some of the facts, and the fiction does +make clear the underlying neurotic conflict in the young poet’s mind.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a> In 1902 he took the account of this birth-scene to Paul Elmer +More, one of the leaders of the academic school of criticism then in +power, and was told that it could “<i>never</i> be published.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9" href="#FNanchor_9_9" class="label">[9]</a> To be exact, the $25 study was moved on a wagon to a farm near by +in the fall of 1904, and it was there that <i>The Jungle</i> was written.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10_10" href="#FNanchor_10_10" class="label">[10]</a> For instance, Richard Le Gallienne wrote of it as “at once an authoritative +document, a heart-searching appeal, and a tragic entertainment. +I don’t remember to have seen the old case of ‘the Poet <i>versus</i> +the World’ put with more truth, more vehemence, and more charm.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11_11" href="#FNanchor_11_11" class="label">[11]</a> The Intercollegiate Socialist Society was to become the center of +rebellious thought and the forum for free discussion in the conservative +colleges of America. Few students with any spark of intellectual +curiosity but were touched by its liberalizing influences.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12_12" href="#FNanchor_12_12" class="label">[12]</a> This, however, appears to have been deliberate, because he was +going to show how Thyrsis learned, in the second volume.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13_13" href="#FNanchor_13_13" class="label">[13]</a> I have read the manuscript of this unpublished novel, and may be +permitted to express the hope that it will eventually be published.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14_14" href="#FNanchor_14_14" class="label">[14]</a> Sinclair appears, under the name of Sanford Peyton, as a pro-war +Socialist in a novel by the present writer, <i>An Old Man’s Folly</i>, which +deals with American pacifists in war-time. Sinclair, in reviewing the +novel, remarks that the war-time opinions attributed to him are correct, +and adds: “I can only tell him that reading them over now makes me +very unhappy, and I find myself with a continual impulse to get into +jail with the rest of his characters! I have had almost ten years to +think the thing over, and what I have to report is that if at the beginning +of 1917 I had known what I know to-day, I would have opposed +the war and gone to jail with the pacifist radicals.” Later in the review +he remarks of the Presidential idealist in whom he believed at the time: +“I cannot forgive him; it is not merely that he made a fool of himself, +but he made a fool of me!”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15_15" href="#FNanchor_15_15" class="label">[15]</a> However, in a letter, Sinclair defends himself against this charge, +saying: “I have no trace of that early bias left. You may think I +have, but I haven’t. What I have is a repugnance to ‘love-making’ +without love.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16_16" href="#FNanchor_16_16" class="label">[16]</a> Since 1926, Long Beach, Cal.</p></div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78707 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78707-h/images/cover.jpg b/78707-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..84ed794 --- /dev/null +++ b/78707-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/78707-h/images/frontispiece.jpg b/78707-h/images/frontispiece.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2ead6b --- /dev/null +++ b/78707-h/images/frontispiece.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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