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SCRIBNER 5 
MAGAZINE 

PUBLISHED MONTHIY 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



VOLUME LXXI 
JANUARY-JUNE 




CHARLES SCREBNERS SONS NEW 

7 BEAK STREET, LONDON, W. I. 



7 



COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 




CONTENTS 



O V 



SCRiBNER s MAGAZINE 

VOLUME LXXI JANUARY-JUNE, 1922 



ADVERTISING. See Living Up to His Advertising. 

AFTER THE BALL. (A STORY), .... .... SIR GILBERT PARKER, . . 565 

ALBERT, ALLEN D. The Social Influence of the Automobile .......... 685 

ALPINE HIGHROADS. See New Alpine Highroads. 

AMERICA AND I ............. ANZIA YEZIERSKA . . . 157 

ANGELA. (A STORY) ............ EDWARD C. VENABLB . . 714 



ARNOLD. WILLIAM HARRIS { jg 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY. See Leaves from My Autobiography. 

AUTOMOBILE. See The Social Influence of the Automobile. 

BACH, RICHARD F. Museums and the Factory, ............ 763 

BAIN S HOLE. (A STORY) ........... ALEXANDER HULL, . . . 418 

Illustrations (frontispiece) by William Fletcher White. 

BEDOUINS. See Tunisian Types. 

BIGGS, JOHN, JR. The Wind Witch ................ 343 

BLANK VERSE IN EVERY-DAY LIFE. Point of View .......... 121 

BOSTON REVISITED ............ KATHARINE FULLEHTON 

GEROULD, ..... 100 

BRONZES. See On the Making of Bronzes. 

BROWN, WARREN WILMER. Rare Sketches by a Famous 

French Artist ...................... 635 

BRUBACHER, A. R. The Mother Tongue in School ............ 115 

BUELL, LLEWELLYN M. Eilean Earraid : The Beloved 

Isle of Robert Louis Stevenson, ................ 184 

BURNHAM, JOHN B. On the Track of an Unknown Sheep .......... 389 

BYRNE, NORMAN T. James Gibbons Huneker ............. 300 

CALKINS, EARNEST ELMO. Lining Up to His Advertising .......... 105 

CAN THE BLIND SEE? Point of View ........... . . . . 506 

CANDOR OF AUGUSTA CLAIRE, THE. (A STOHY), . CAMILLA KENYON, ... 741 
Illustrations by Everett Shinn. 

CANTACUZENE, PRINCESS. The Still Small Voice of 

Russia ........................ 

CHANGING IDEALS OF THE ART MUSEUM. Field of 

Art, ............... ROSSITER HOWARD . . . 125 

CHINA. See Miss China. 

CHUBB, 8. HARMSTED. A Family of City-Bred Hawks ........... 622 

CLARK, BADGER. The Gumbo Lily ............. .... 309 

CLASSIC PATTERN, THE. (A STORY) ...... OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR, 218 

Illustrations by Arthur Litle. 

CODE, GRANT HYDE. Diving the Bridge ............... 731 

COLLEGES AND RELIGION .......... "AN INSTRUCTOR" ... 573 

COLLINS, JOSEPH. What is the Matter with Your Golf Game? ......... 602 

COMMUTING FROM MONT ESTORIL TO LISBON, . NORVAL RICHARDSON, . . 547 

Illustrations from photographs. 

CONTINUITY. (A STORY) ........... CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, . 753 

Illustration by W. .1. Enright. 

DANGERS OF GOODNESS, THE. Point of View ............ 759 

DAVIS, CHARLES BELMONT. The Ethics of Nelson Cole .......... 23 

DAY WITH A NAVAHO SHEPHERD, A ..... , W. R. LEIOH ..... 334 

Illustrations from drawings by the Author. 



iv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

DAY WITH A RANCHWOMAN, A L. M. WESTON 447 

DEPEW, CHAUNCEY M. Leaves from My Autobiography 35, 145, 259, 433 

See also Vol. LXX. 
DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE, THE GEORGE ELLERY HALE, . 689 

Illustrations from photographs. 

DESMOND, SHAW. The Gallows-Tree 481 

DIVING THE BRIDGE. (A STORY) GRANT HYDE CODE, . . 731 

Illustrations by George Wright. 
DRUDGE, THE. (A STORY) . THANE MILLER JONES, . 614 

Illustrations by Arthur G. Dove. 

DUNBAR, OLIVIA HOWARD. {^ffSjLKSS^. . . ! I ! . . ! ! ! 218 

EARLY MEMORIES OF NEW ENGLAND JAMES L. FORD, ... 491 

EBERLE, LOUISE. On the Making of Bronzes 251 

EILEAN EARRAID: THE BELOVED ISLE OF ROBERT 

LOUIS STEVENSON LLEWELLYN M. BUELL, . 184 

Illustrations from photographs by the Author and a 

painting by N. C. Wyeth. 
EMPTY BOTTLES. (A STORY) T. WALTER GILKYSON, . 234 

TTXT^T TQTT T ATMr-TTAri? 9/>/> / Poking Fun at Grammar. 
ENGLISH LANGUAGE. See \TheMotherTongueinSchool. 

ETCHINGS. See Seven Etchings of Paris, Amiens, and 

Chartres. 

ETHICS OF NELSON COLE, THE. (A STORY), . . . CHARLES BELMONT DAVIS, 23 
Illustrations by T. K. Hanna. 

EUROPE AT WORK WHITING WILLIAMS. 

Illustrations from photographs by the Author. 

I. France at Work 131 

II. France Yesterday s Habit To-day s Hope 320 

III. Germany, The Saar, and The League 451 

FAMILY OF CITY-BRED HAWKS, A, . ." . . . . S. HARMSTED CHUBB, . . 622 
Illustrations from photographs by the Author. 

FIELD OF ART, THE. Illustrated. 

Changing Ideals of the Art Museum. (Rossi ter Howard) 125 

Modern Views of Greek Art. (Mary MacAlister), 507 

Museums and the Factory. (Richard F. Bach) 763 

On the Making of Bronzes. (Louise Eberlej 251 

Rare Sketches by a Famous French Artist. (Warren Wil- 

mer Brown), 635 

Sargent s New Mural Decorations. (Preserved Smith) 379 

FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BELGIANS. (A STORY), REBECCA N. PORTER, . . 705 
Illustrations by Lester Ralph. 

FRANCE AT WORK. See Europe at Work. 

FREESTON, CHARLES LINCOLN. New Alpine Highroads 643 

FORD, JAMES L. Early Memories of New England 491 

GALLOWS-TREE, THE. (A STORY) SHAW DESMOND, ... 481 

GERMANY AFTER THE WAR As SEEN BY A FRENCH 
MAN, RAYMOND RECOULY, . . 293 

GERMANY, THE SAAR, AND THE LEAGUE. See 
Europe at Work. 

GEROULD, GORDON HALL. Ghosts and Devils: New 

Style 428 

GEROULD, KATHARINE FULLERTON. Boston Revis 
ited, 100 

GHOSTS AND DEVILS: NEW STYLE GORDON HALL GEROULD, . 428 

GILKYSON, T. WALTER. Empty Bottles 234 

GOLF. See What s the Matter with Your Golf Ganio? 

GOODLOE, ABBIE CARTER. Palmore 576 

GRAMMAR. See Poking Fun at Grammar. 
GREEK ART. See Modern Views of Greek Art. 

GUMBO LILY, THE. (A STORY) BADGER CLARK 309 

Illustrations by Clarence Rowe. 

HADJI HAMID AND THE BRIGAND. (A STORY), . . HERBERT E. WINLOCK, 287 

Illustration by H. R. Shurtleff. 



CONTENTS v 

PAGE 

HALE, GEORGE ELLERY. The Depths of the Universe 689 

HAMMOND, JOHN HAYS. Russia of Yesterday and To- 

Morrow 515 

XT AVWTVTWVTTT? T OTTTsjTTSTF W I The Suffrage Torch 528 

HAVEMEY H.K, IjUUlbllNJl, W. < Th p,,-,. nn ,SnP/-i7 RRi 



Prison Special, 
HAWKS. See A Family of City-Bred Hawks. 
HERRICK, ELIZABETH. The Matter with Peter 465 

HOME OF HER OWN. (A STORY) OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR, 89 

Illustrations by Arthur Litle. 

HORSE PRIDE. (A STORY) LOUISE TOWNSEND NICHOLL, 607 

Illustrations by Alice Harvey. 

HOWARD, ROSSITER. Changing Ideals of the Art Museum 125 

HULL, ALEXANDER. Bom s Hole 418 

HUMOR OF ONE NEWSPAPER WOMAN S LIFE, THE. 

Point of View 504 

HUNEKER, JAMES GIBBONS NOHMAN T. BYRNE, . . 300 

HUNEKER, ON LIVING NEXT TO JAMES LAURA SPENCER PORTOR, . 303 

I GO A-WARBLING. Point of View 631 

IN AN APPLE ORCHARD. Point of View, 503 

IN DEFENSE OF THE COAL GRATE. Point of View 122 

IN DEFENSE OF SPINSTERS. Point of View 760 

INCORRIGIBLE OPTIMIST, THE, JAMES HENDRIE LLOYD, . 487 

INSTRUCTOR", "AN. Colleges and Religion 573 

JACQUE, CHARLES. See Rare Sketches by a Famous 
French Artist. 

JONES, THANE MILLER. The Drudge 614 

KEMBLE, E. W. William 497 

KEN YON, CAMILLA. The Candor of Augusta Claire 741 

KIRKWOOD. ELIZABETH T. Life and the Librarian 737 

KNIGHT, CHARLES R. Mural Paintings of Prehistoric 

Men and Animals 279 

LABOR. See The Peril of Labor. 

LAUGHLIN, J. LAURENCE. The Peril of Labor 195 

LAUGHTER. See Why Do We Laugh? 

LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY CHAUNCKY M. DEPEW. 

The United States Senate Ambassadors and Ministers. 

Third Paper 35 

Fifty-Six Years with the New York Central Railroad. 

Fourth Paper, 

Recollections from Abroad. Fifth Paper 259 

Illustrated from portraits and with facsimiles. 

Societies and Public Banquets. Sixth Paper 433 

See also Vol. LXX. 

LEIGH, W. R. A Day with a Navaho Shepherd 334 

LIBRARIAN. See Life and the Librarian. 

LIFE AND THE LIBRARIAN ELIZABETH T. KIHKWOOD, . 737 

LISBON. See Commuting from Mont Estoril to Lisbon. 

LIVING UP TO HIS ADVERTISING EARNEST ELMO CALKINS, . 105 

LIVINGSTON, DOROTHY. The Love-Vine 209 

LLOYD, JAMES HENDRIE. The Incorrigible Optimist 487 

LOGAN, ROBERT F. Seven Etchings of Paris, Amiens, and 

Chartres 54 

LOVE-VINE, THE. (A STORY) DOROTHY LIVINGSTON, . . 209 

Illustrations by W. M. Berger. 
MAcALISTER, MARY. Modern Views of Greek Art, 507 

MAcGILL, CAROLINE E. The Problem of the Superfluous 

Woman, ^ 5o 

MAN WITH THE IRONIC MASK, THE. (A STORY), . JOHN D. WILLIAMS . . 556 

Illustrations (frontispiece) by W. J. Duncan. 
MATTER WITH PETER, THE. (A STORY) ELIZABETH HERRICK. . . 465 

Illustrations by C. F. Peters. 

MATTHEWS, BRANDER. Old Plays and New Playgoers 475 

McDOUGALL, WILLIAM. Why Do We Laugh? 359 



vi CONTENTS 

PAQE 

MEMORIES OF A MILITANT. . . . LOUISINE W. HAVEMETER, 

Illustrations from photographs. 
The Suffrage Torch. First Paper ................. 

The Prison Special. Second Paper ............. 

MISS CHINA ........ EMMA SAREPTA YULE, . . 66 

Illustrations from photographs. 

MODERN VIEWS OF GREEK ART. Field of Art, . . MARY MACALISTER, . . 507 
MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER. Continuity, ...... 753 

MOTHER TONGUE IN SCHOOL, THE ...... A. R. BRUBACHER, ... 115 

MR ROSE, OF BARNES. Point of View .............. 247 

F ^HISTORIC _ MEN AND CHARLS R KmGHT> . . 279 

Illustrations from paintings by the Author. 

MUSEUMS AND THE FACTORY. Field of Art, . . . RICHARD F. BACH, . . 763 

MY STEVENSONS, . . ........ WILLIAM HARRIS ARNOLD, 53 

With facsimiles from Mr. Arnold s collection. 
MY TENNYSONS ............. WILLIAM HARRIS ARNOLD, 589 

With portraits and facsimiles from Mr. Arnold s collec 

tion. 
NAVAHO SHEPHERDS. See A Day with a Navaho Shepherd. 

NEWALPINE HIGHROADS A SUMMARY OF RECENT DE 

VELOPMENTS IN THE DOLOMITES AND ELSEWHERE, CHARLES LINCOLN b REE- 

BASED ON A JOURNEY OVER NEARLY SIXTY PASSES, STON ....... 

Illustrations (frontispiece) from photographs by the 

Author. 

NEW ENGLAND. See Early Memories of New England. 
NEW POWER IN UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS, A. ... WILFRED SHAW, ... 677 

NICHOLL. LOUISE TOWNSEND. Horse Pride ............. 607 

NICHOLSON. MEREDITH. Note of Replu to C. H. Ward. 

See Poking Fun at Grammar. 
NO FALSE MOTIONS, NO DELAYS. Point of View, .......... 376 

OLD COMEDIES AND THE NEW COMEDIANS, THE .......... 121 

Point of View. 
OLD PLAYS AND NEW PLAYGOERS ....... BHANDER MATTHEWS, . . 475 

ON KEEPING ONE S FIGURE. Point of View ............. 375 

ON LIVING NEXT TO JAMES HUNEKER .... LAURA SPENCER PORTOR, . 303 

ON PUBLIC STATUES. Point of View ................ 762 

ON THE MAKING OF BRONZES. Field of Art, . . . LOUISE EBEHLE, ... 251 
ON THE TRACK OF AN UNKNOWN SHEEP, . . . JOHN B. BURNHAM, . . 389 

Illustrations from photographs by the Author. 
OPTIMIST. See The Incorrigible Optimist. 
OUR PET SUPERSTITIONS. Point of View, ............. 248 

I ALMORE. (A STORY) ............ ABBIE CARTER GOODLOE, . 576 

Illustrations by A. H. Henkel. 

PARIS ETCHINGS. See Seven Etchings of Paris, Amiens, 
and Chartres. 

PARKER, SIR GILBERT. After the Dal! ............... 565 

/ Some Spanish Gardens .............. 720 

\ The Town of Don Pablo the Crafty ......... 174 

PERIL OF LABOR, THE ........... J. LAURENCE LAUGHLIN. . 195 



PI \v <z ! Old Plays and New Playgoers. 

\ The Old Comedies and the New Comedians. 

POINT OF VIEW, THE. 

Blank Verso in Every-day Life, 121. Mr. Rose, of Barnes, 247. 

Can the Blind See?, f>06. No False Motions, No Delays, 376. 

Dangers of Goodness, The, 7.~>9. Old Comedies and the New Comedians, The, 121 

Humor of One Newspaper Woman s Life, On Keeping One s Figure, 377. 

The, 504. On p UD ii c statues, 762. 

I Go A-Warbling, 631. Our Pet superstitions, 248. 

In an Apple Orchard, 503. Pursuit of Happiness, The, 249. 

In Defense of Spinsters, 760. Shadows 375 

In Defense of the Coal Grate, 122. Wood-Thrushes in a Factory, 632. 



CONTENTS vii 



PAGE 

POKING FUN AT GRAMMAR C. H. WARD, ... 228 

With an introduction by Horace D. Taft and a note of 
reply by Meredith Nicholson. 

PORTER, REBECCA N. For the Benefit of the Belgians 705 

PORTOR, LAURA SPENCER. On Living Next to James 

Huneker 393 

PREHISTORIC MEN AND ANIMALS. See Mural Paint 
ings of Prehistoric Men and Animals. 

PRISON SPECIAL, THE. MEMORIES OF A MILITANT. 

Second Paper LOUISINE W. HAVEMEYER, 661 

Illustrations from photographs. 

PROBLEM OF THE SUPERFLUOUS WOMAN, THE, . CAROLINE E. MACGILL, . 355 

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, THE. Point of View, 247 

RANCHWOMAN. See A Day with a Ranchwoman. 
RARE SKETCHES BY A FAMOUS FRENCH ARTIST. 

Illustrations from the unpublished sketch-books of 

Charles Jacque. Field of Art WARREN WILMER BROWN, 635 

RECOULY, RAYMOND. Germany after the War As Seen 

by a Frenchman, 293 

RELIGION. See Colleges and Religion. 

REVEREND JAMES E. MARKISON, THE. (A STORY), EDWARD C. VENABLE, . . 81 
Illustrations by James Calvert Smith. 

RICHARDSON, NORVAL. Commuting from Mont Estoril to 

Lisbon, 547 

RIPE PEACH, THE. (A STORY) RAYMOND S. SPEARS, . . 163 

Illustrations (frontispiece) by Perry Barlow. 

ROBERTS. ISABEL J. The Ship o Dreams 363 

WTT<SQTA f} aa ! Russia of Yesterday and To-Morrow. 
\ The Still Small Voice of Russia. 

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW, . . . JOHN HAYS HAMMOND, . 515 
SARGENT S NEW MURAL DECORATIONS. Field of Art, PRESERVED SMITH ... 379 

SEVEN ETCHINGS OF PARIS, AMIENS, AND 

CHARTRES ROBERT F. LOGAN, ... 540 

SHADOWS. Point of View, 375 

SHAW, WILFRED. A New Power in University Affairs 677 

SHEEP. See On the Track of an Unknown Sheep. 

SHIP O DREAMS, THE. (A STORY) ISABEL J. ROBERTS, . . 363 

Illustrations by Wallace Morgan. 

SKETCHES OF VISITING STATESMEN WALTER TITTLE, ... 403 

Pencil drawings from life, made at special sittings given 
the Artist. 

SLADE, C. A. Tunisian Types : Eight Paintings 16 

SMITH, PRESERVED. Sargent s New Mural Decorations 379 

SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF THE AUTOMOBILE, THE, . ALLEN D. ALBERT, ... 685 

SOME SPANISH GARDENS ERNEST PEIXOTTO, ... 720 

Illustrations by the Author. 
SPANISH GARDENS. See Some Spanish Gardens. 

SPAULDING. EDWARD G. { g g&f { 

SPEARS, RAYMOND 8. The Ripe Peach, 163 

STARS. See The Depths of the Universe. 

I Eilean Earraid : The 
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS. See ^Touil^tevenson. 

[ My Stevensons. 
STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA, THE PRINCESS CANTACUZENE, . 3 

SUFFRAGE TORCH. THE. MEMORIES or A MILITANT. 

First Paper, LOUISINE W. HAVEMEYER, 528 

Illustrations from photographs. 

SUPERFLUOUS WOMAN. See The Problem of the Super 
fluous Woman. 

SUPERSTITIONS. See Our Pet Superstitions. 
TAFT. HORACE D. Introduction to Article by C. H. Ward. 
See Poking Fun at Grammar. 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

TENNYSON. See My Tennysons, 

TITTLE. WALTER. Sketches of Visiting Statesmen 403 

TOWN OF DON PABLO THE CRAFTY, THE, . . . ERNEST PEIXOTTO . . . 174 

Illustrations from drawings by the Author. 

TUNISIAN TYPES: EIGHT PAINTINGS O. A. SLADE 16 

UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS. See A New Power in University 

Affairs. 

[Angela 714 

VENABLE, EDWARD CARRINGTON, { The Reverend James 

{ E. Markison, 81 

WARD, C. H. Poking Fun at Grammar, 228 

WESTON, L. M. A Day with a Ranchwoman 447 

WHAT AM I? EDWARD G. SPAULDINQ, . 45 

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOUR GOLF GAME? . JOSEPH COLLINS, ... 602 

WHAT SHALL I BELIEVE? EDWAHD G. SPAULDING, . 201 

WHY DO WE LAUGH? WILLIAM MCDOUQALL, . 359 

WILLIAM. (A STORY) E. W. KEMBLE, . . . 497 

Illustrations from drawings by the Author. 

WILLIAMS. JOHN D. The Man with the Ironic Afask 556 

WILLIAMS, WHITING. Europe at Work. 

I. France at Work 131 

II. France Yesterday s Habit To-Day s Hope 320 

III. Germany, the Saar, and the League 451 

WIND WITCH. THE. (A STORY) JOHN BIGGS, JR., . . . 343 

Illustration by Stanley M. Arthurs. 

WINLOCK. HERBERT E. Hadji Hamid and the Brigand 287 

WOOD-THRUSHES IN A FACTORY. Point of View 632 

YEZIERSKA, ANZIA. America and 1 157 

YULE, EMMA SAREPTA. Mm China 66 



POETRY 

PAGE 

AMERICAN INDIAN MYTH POEMS HARTLEY ALEXANDER, . . 112 

ANTIQUE SHOP, THE ARTHUR JOHNSON, ... 374 

Drawings by John Wolcott Adams. 

BURIAL BITTERNESS GERARD WALLOP, . . . 342 

CARDINAL MERCIER MARY R. S. ANDREWS, . 299 

COMES GREAT-HEART, WILLIAM HERVEY WOODS, 80 

Decorations by Beatrice Stevens. 

COUNTRY-BRED WILLIAM HERVEY WOODS, 676 

GRANDFATHER, THE, JOHN JAY CHAPMAN, . . 630 

I WOULD NOT GROW OLD CATHERINE ISABEL HACK- 

ETT, 539 

LEGEND JOHN HALL WHEELOCK, . 99 

PRESENT HOUR. THE MARGARET SHERWOOD, . 246 

PULLMAN PORTRAITS RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL, 416 

Illustrations by W. M. Berger. 

RIVER. THE. MAXWELL STRUTHERS BUHT, 387 

"TO EVERY MAN A PENNY," ISABEL WESTCOTT HARPER, 183 

TRAILS MARTHA HASKBLL CLARK . 34 

YOUTH AND I MRS. SCHUYLER VAN RENS- 

SELAGR, 502 




From a painting by C. A. Slade. 



A BEDOUIN. 



(One of a series of Tunisian Types painted by C. A. Slade.) 

The Bedouin is the real toiler of the race, for on him falls the work of cultivating wheat, caring for the herds in the 
mountains, and making charcoal for fuel. The French drafted many of these during the war ; it was, in most cases, their 
first opportunity to see other countries. The Bedouin is very different from the town Arab and easy to pick out when he 
mingles with his brothers who weave or make jewelry or shoes in the souks." 

" Tunisian Types," page 16. 



ScRiBNER s MAGAZINE 

-. - } . 

VOL. LXXI JANUARY, 1922 ,VO. 1 

The Still Small Voice of Russia 

BY JULIA CANTACUZENE SPERANSKY (NEE GRANT) 



A 



T this time there are still try to keep alive in the Hades where 

Red propagandists they live. 

paid to shout on the The martyrs generally do not know to 
housetops of a false whom they may address their stories. 
Utopia, in that land They are not seeking notoriety, but are 
where their compan- merely stretching a hand out of the dark- 
ions in crime are grind- ness which envelops them, into our civ- 
ing a nation under ilized world beyond. They grope for a 
heel, while they lie about it to us, talking little sympathy, a little understanding, 
of idealism misunderstood. There are of their woes. Some of these tales have 
speculators, with little or nothing to lose, come to me either directly, in letters from 
who cynically seek the money of vague men or women whom I knew in olden 
investors with which to fish in troubled days, or have been passed to me by recip- 
waters for their own ends, and who talk ients of letters, when it was thought the 
of concessions, gains, and practicability of descriptions were interesting or held a 
trade. There are those who in ignorance message for me. 

hold up a mirror to the pink paradise de- The following story is a composite of a 

scribed to them, and who reflect this cam- number of these communications. Be- 

ouflage in loud enthusiasm. cause of the dire danger to the senders I 

Whether it is Trotzky-Bronstein from have changed all names, all indications of 

New York, or Vanderlip from California, exact surroundings and time, which might 

or France from Maryland, the noise is lead to the discovery of identities, and I 

great as they speak of Russia, and our have been content to offer only the facts. 

American public reads or listens and For the truth of these I vouch, 
grows ever more mystified. Why, with Most of the correspondents are still at 

all they have, do the Russian people the mercy of the Soviet authorities. They 

starve, and why does the benign Bolshe- are marvellously patient and uncom- 

vist government not prosperously ad- plaining, while their resignation is only 

minister the natural riches they have in equalled by their faith, their hope, their 

their hands ? courage, and their gentle charity to one 

From Russia has come to me direct a another. 

still small voice with no press-agent in By way of introduction let me add one 

attendance. It tells the truth, and noth- more detail, so that the pro-Bolshevik 

ing but the truth. Perhaps hardly all the may not claim my news comes from some 

truth, however, for there is too much to one group, whose view-point I espouse in 

tell, and it is all too horrid ! Besides, ter- prejudice. The material of these inci- 

rible punishment is waiting for those who dents and descriptions which I have knit 

report the misery and cruel acts they see together was gathered from sources 

about them not only punishment to ranging wide. I count peasants, clerks, 

men themselves who speak, but to women professionals, officers, soldiers, servants, 

and children they love, and whom they and landowners among my suppliers of 

Copyrighted in 1921 in United States, Canada, and Great Britain, by Charles Scribner s Sons. Printed in 

New York. All rights reserved. 



4 THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 

details, and when Red terrorism in Rus- and bribery. But all my letters have 
sia shall have passed away I am convinced gone; time and time again I ve tried writ- 
all my assertions will be proved correct, ing, first to one, then to another, and no 

reply has ever come back to me in three 

At Petrograd, late in September of long years." 

1920, as dusk fell one afternoon, with a " It is hard," was the sympathetic com 
mixture of drizzle and snow in the air, ment of the younger man. 
and the thermometer lowering to the Boris continued: " I m always thinking 
point of man s discomfort, two figures they are worrying about me, as I do over 
emerged from a building which in old them. I know nothing of their circum- 
days had been a scientific institution of stances, or whether they found shelter 
the imperial government. Now the fine abroad and a welcome from our allied 
walls held a Soviet government office, friends with means of livelihood; so they 
and, work hours being over, the officials may believe that I am dead three years 
and the clerks were free for the evening is a long time ! " 
and came wandering out in groups. A silence, and he added with a gentle 

These two in whom I was interested smile :" How nice it would be to go to bed 
stood aside, to let the crowd pass them; some night in a warm room, with the 
then they, with slow, lagging steps, turned open fire burning as in old days, and 
into the narrow, slippery street. They dream of all one s books and little trea- 
held on to one another and moved with sures round one again. It would be so 
caution, as do those who know they are agreeable if just once, after the hideous 
being watched; yet their drawn white misery of these winters that are passed, 
faces bore no trace of fear, and their two this could happen and if one s soul might 
pairs of eyes looked calmly out upon the drift away before morning, and one 
world. One was a man of fifty-five and needn t wake up again to all this." And 
the other was considerably older, but both he waved his arm about, including all the 
looked ten years more than their years, and scene which lay before them as they 
worn-out health showed in their parch- emerged into the Palace Square, 
ment skins and shrunken features, their Bound by the once magnificent build- 
meagre bodies and drooping shoulders, on ings of the Winter Palace and the General 
which shabby clothes hung loosely. Staff Building, the Ministry of Foreign 

The older man had snow-white hair and Affairs and the Admiralty, the noble 

delicate high-bred features, and when he square, even in the waning light, had an 

spoke twas with a soft and cultivated air of shame and tragedy. It had not 

voice. The other, tall and of a coarser been cleaned for three years, and here and 

build, showed more strength and vitality; there grass, now dried and rotted, had 

one felt him sturdier to face the slow tor- grown or large holes stood open, while 

ture of his life, in spite of lack of food and refuse lay wherever chance or carelessness 

constant strain of worry. had left it. The disfiguring stains and 

"Are you not weary, Boris?" he said, cracks caused by cold weather and ma- 

"I ve not been ill like you, and for to-day chine-guns were barely discernible on the 

you d better take my arm and let me help facades in the dimness, but there was a 

you. This icy rain has made the stones consciousness of these in the two men s 

slippery, and the dull twilight prevents minds as they looked about, as of the 

our seeing well where the paving-blocks windows with their glass lacking, or of 

are up." the architectural ornaments torn off the 

Boris, the elder, straightened himself stucco walls. Disintegration and decay 

with a movement of pride, and answered: were everywhere. 

"I m no longer ill, only somewhat de- Both men shivered, and the younger 
pressed with never hearing knowing one spoke with force and bitterness: 
nothing. Of course, we all lack nourish- "Perhaps you are right, Boris, and that 
ment, and perhaps tis but that which would be the easiest way out. I some- 
weighs down our spirits. The waiting is times envy those who, having fought in 
so long, and one can never be sure of any- our good cause, first against the Boche, 
thing in this hideous system of suffering then in the volunteer armies against these 



THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 5 

criminals, were killed in battle, or even ex- They went down the Millionaia slowly, 
ecuted by the Soviet s murderous orders, past the Ermitage and the other shabby 
At least they seem heroic; whereas we palaces, then turned into a side street, 
merely face slow death by famine here. In the once crowded thoroughfares almost 
Yet for my part I have not given up hope no one passed. Only occasionally some 
that by great care and circumspection I woman, with rags held close about her 
may live to strike a blow for freedom yet, meagreness, against the wind and damp, 
and to kill some of these swine in a grand drew into the wall s shadow with fear in 
uprising. ^ I would even now join Wran- her wide eyes; or now and then a man, 
gel, were it not for the wife and children, in shabby clothes grown much too loose, 
I cannot leave them here as hostages in slunk by in haste, his head down and his 
such foul hands, and the long trip across gait uncertain. Once a noisy motor-truck, 
Russia on foot, to their delicate bodies, is tooting its horn, went by, carrying a party 
impossible. We would all be recognized, of armed soldiers who were singing and 
caught, and punished. Also we have no shouting. In their midst were prisoners, 
money to move about. That held me in some women, who swayed and lurched 
the beginning; then it was too late, so I about as the huge car jerked over the 
worked and waited, plotted and hoped broken asphalt street. They were pushed 
for the uprising which must surely come, roughly into place by the Bolshevists, 
When Youdenitch was at our doors up amid ribald insults and laughter. Our 
here, I thought we were all saved. But two men looked up from their place on 
he was too poor in ammunition, and we the sidewalk, and Boris s gentle eyes were 
had long since been disarmed. When our full of tears. "Poor things," he said; 
plot to aid him from inside was discovered " God help them ! " 
there were the usual shootings. Once "The Bolsheviki tumbrils!" muttered 
more we wait, now without knowing at the younger man, and clinched his fists, 
what hour will be our call to vengeance; "Some day, please God, I ll see the Apfel- 
but when that call comes I personally baums and Bronsteins, and all the others 
mean to shed the blood of several tyrants, of their ilk, ride in them to a finish worthy 
There are those whose deaths I saw and of their crimes ! My friend, have courage, 
must revenge. So I stay now, and will for you and I must live to carry out our 
not run away. I wait in patience. Mean- later duties; while those prisoners, men 
time I work, and, because I m strong of and women, will sleep in paradise to- 
brain and body still, I get some extra night. Their work is done, their martyr- 
rations and can just keep the wife and dom nearly complete ! God rest their 
children all alive. I m not a maker of souls!" 

history nor a martyr, Boris, like those Once also, after the noise of the motor 
who have died, but I am a Christian and had quieted, a woman approached and 
a Russian; and till I ve proved both, touched Boris on the arm. He turned 
against these aliens of race and creed and looked at her with suspicion at first, 
who hold the power, I mean to live. . . . then with pity, but without recognition 
Let me see you home now, for we have in his eyes. She, after gazing at him for 
stood talking here and if we are noticed a few moments, said: "Do you not re- 
we may be arrested by some bloodhound member me? I am Mary B." 
of a Bolshevik." Whereupon the elderly man s face 

The older man, after a slight protest lighted up, and he exclaimed with plea- 
that he was taking his companion s time, sure: "But I thought you were dead, you 
consented to being accompanied, because disappeared so many months ago." 
the latter said: "No, that part doesn t She sighed and answered : "Yes when 
matter. Mania will feed the children they set my husband free from prison and 
first; and it is better thus, there is so he fled across the frontier they seized me, 
little food. When I m late I can say I ve and as a hostage shut me in the fortress, 
had some, and I take less from their small where I have been for eighteen months; 
stores. Besides, the walk will do me good and months that counted double ! " 
after the long day in our close workroom. "I see," said Boris, "your hair is white 
I m glad to have the air." and you have grown so thin there is no 



THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 



possibility of recognition. Have you 
shelter and food?" 

" Yes," answered Mary. " I have both 
in sufficient quantity to give me strength 

to wait. I am with , who kindly took 

me in, but I am still watched and I have 
no, news from my husband. I have been 
wondering what is happening abroad over 
the frontier, and if the wars are over, and 
if I might escape ? Should my husband 
see me he would not know me now, with 
my white hair. Even you, who know the 
circumstances of life here, and are used 
to seeing rapid changes, showed no recog 
nition when I spoke to you. But one 
must have patience ! Perhaps the Bolshe- 
viki may fall? There are many plots 
against them. If I were not still being 
spied upon and regarded as a hostage, I 
would throw myself into whatever plot 
ting against them there is going on; but 
I would be a hindrance more than an aid, 
just now, to any group I seemed to be in 
contact with. So I avoid such friends as 
I have, and only speak to them as I did 
with you to-night, on a dark street or in 
the line of those who wait for food at the 
distribution points." 

"Will you not come on with my friend 
and me, and share my evening meal?" 
asked Boris, with hospitality still un 
touched by his lack of supplies .in these 
days of hardship. But Mary shook her 
head and answered: "Thank you, I had 
better not. It would be much worse for 
you, were you seen with me, or were it 
rumored that I went to your home, than 
if you received almost any one else from 
among your old friends, because I am 
fresh from the prison; and, while I was 
put there for nothing I had done, the mere 
fact of the long confinement and of my 
old traditions would throw suspicion on 
you. It would be ingratitude for your 
generosity if I went, but I am glad to have 
seen you, and to know that you are still 
alive; and it has been a real pleasure to 
speak with you for a moment, and to hear 
your friendly voice answering me. If you 
write to those who are beyond the fron 
tier, give them my warm remembrance." 
They shook hands and she turned and 
disappeared into the night, a ghost of her 
old brilliant self. 

Talking, Boris and his companions had 
arrived in front of a shabby house with a 



well-barricaded gateway to its courtyard. 
One panel opened to his knock and pass 
word. He and the younger man stepped 
inside, and helped a lodger on duty to 
fasten down the iron bars again and 
make their home safe for the night. In 
these wild times each house was guarded 
as much as possible against surprises, 
whether from the Red soldiers sent on 
official errands by the commissars (to 
search, arrest, and confiscate) or from 
the casual criminal, who, in the absence of 
all law and order, harvested when and 
where he could either provisions to stay 
his hunger or valuables to satisfy his 
greed. Turn and turn about, one member 
of the population in these houses served 
as a sentinel, and this watcher gave a 
safer feeling to the others who slept, 
though he could do but little except give 
an alarm or waste a few minutes in open 
ing the door if ordered. Arms had long 
ago been confiscated, and there was no 
resistance possible therefore to depreda 
tions. 

Across the dirty courtyard the pair of 
friends went, waded through cesspools, 
and scrambled over piles of half-frozen 
rubbish to a back-stairs entrance. The 
older and more fragile man slipped and 
missed his footing frequently, but the 
other s ready hand steadied him and he 
did not fall. At the first landing of the 
stairs they stopped, knocked gently, and 
the door, after a question, was thrown 
open. Boris turned to his companion. 
" Will you not come in and share my soup 
to-night?" 

The other said: "No, Boris, you will 
need it all, for you look cold and tired, 
my friend, and I must get some exercise 
and then go home, or the wife will be anx 
ious. She will think one of those motor 
trucks has carried me away. I ll see you 
though, as usual, to-morrow. Good night 
and God protect you !" 

u The same to you and yours. Good 
night, my son ! " And Boris turned in the 
door and locked it. 

It was a fairly large apartment he en 
tered in the entresol of a small palace of 
ancient days, well built, with solid walls; 
and now it had been used to harbor a 
number of the friends of its erstwhile 
owners. Boris turned into a small room, 
which was his share of the apartment s 



THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 7 

space, and as he did so he spoke to his is good, as are, thank God, also our walls 

middle-aged woman servant, who had and windows against this storm. Now 

opened the door for him. "Good eve- the lamp is lighted, the fire may be al- 

ning, Katia; have you something to eat?" lowed to go out, for that real kerosene 

" Surely, barin,* there is soup from the will heat enough, and I can put the blanket 

bones of that duck Vera Mihailovna sent across your knees, barin, as you write." 

us up from the village two or three days "Thanks, Katia; you are a good woman 

ago a full cup of it, and there might have to save our small provisions as you do. 

been two had I not given one cupful to Now have your soup also, and your half 

the poor woman who is so ill next door, potato with it, so it won t seem too dry; 

whom they say is even dying. In her de- and then go get your work or cards, and 

lirium she asked for some broth, which sit here also near the lamp to keep warm." 

would be of old days. Of course, this Katia returned soon with a cup full of 

isn t anything like old-days soup, but tis water. "I boiled and passed it through 

real bones and strained water boiled, and a cloth, barin, at the same time I made 

it has a pinch of salt a rare treat surely, our soup ; so it is safe, should you be 

When I took it in her daughter wept with thirsty." Then she sat down and drew 

gratitude, and I knew you would be glad, from a basket some small bits of material, 

barin ! " from which she unravelled threads, wind- 

"Yes, of course, you did right, Katia. ing these on an old empty spool. "I 
If there is need we can always spare half found these pieces of cloth on the Palace 
our provisions, and we will divide the Place to-day, blowing from a pile of rub- 
other half between us and be content." bish, and I caught them and brought 

Katia bustled about, first taking the them home. When I shall unravel them, 

old man s worn boots, which he had re- I shall have threads to mend with," she 

moved at once to save their soles. After said with a shade of triumph in her voice; 

wiping them she opened a panel in the and then, with the gentle friendly famili- 

wall and hid them as far behind the arity of the devoted Russian servant: 

woodwork as she could reach; then she "What shall you write to-night, barin 

gave him his slippers of old carpet, prob- the book?". 

ably of her own making. "The barin "No, to-night I m weary, and besides 

must not wear his boots more than he can I heard to-day from a friendly clerk in 

possibly help. It is the last pair, and win- our office that there is a chance to smug- 

ter is on us soon," she said under her gle another letter out into the live world 

breath. beyond our frontiers; so I thought I 

His room was neat, crowded with the would try again to reach our people the 

few modest belongings of an elderly sisters and their little children the other 

bachelor, things left him after numerous men too, who have gone out into Europe, 

raids. A small deal table had upon it the I know they worry, and are as hungry for 

cheapest of utensils for writing purposes, my news as I for theirs; yet I have sent 

but in sufficient quantity to show their many letters and doubtless so have they, 

owner spent much time working there. Nothing has ever come into my hands in 

Left alone, he removed his outside spite of all the trouble. . . . One almost 

clothing and got into a dressing-gown gives up hope !" 

patched and darned in many places, the "Nay, barin, the priest says we must 

mending evidently faithful Katia s work, never give up hope, and indeed I haven t 

She returned. "Barin has drunk his done so; though the times are very hard, 

soup ? Then here is half a big potato. I But God is good, and one must pray to 

used the extra-big one to-night, for the him and have great faith. Who knows ? 

cold sleet I thought would make you Tis when we least expect it the miracle 

hungrier than usual, and you came late, occurs. I well remember how in old days, 

Also I warmed both this room and my for a long month once before Christmas, 

own, barin, and it took three of our I was looking daily as I went to market 

precious little boards, although the stove into a window of the Gostinii-Dwor Ba 
zaar at a beautiful red shawl with flowers 

th* En g a iiih"- t s ^,, equivalent of the Fiench " seigneur - on it and white fringe all around its edges. 



8 THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 

And I never hoped to own it; but all the letter. Should we lean over his shoulder 

same I thought I d say a prayer and put we would see the cultivated handwriting 

a taper for it in front of the Madonna s which had been quite famous for its 

icon at the bazaar shrine. I was late from beauty, just as its owner had been famous 

waiting in the crowd to get my taper for his talents before the revolution. He 

that day, and when I came back home wrote: 

with the provisions for dinner old Mascha " My friend dear dear friend so far 

scolded me, and accused me of talking too away " But he got no further then, for 

long with Ivan the butcher boy. So then at the outside hall door there was a knock, 

I told her of the shawl, and how I prayed the gentle knock of a habitual visitor, 

for it to the Madonna, and she then still not of the rough inquisitors who came to 

scolded me, but more gently, for my van- requisition and to arrest, 

ity, and said the icon would not care if I Katia, prudent from much experience, 

had finery or not. But I knew this was however, looked about to make certain 

not so; and when Christmas came twas everything they prized was hidden away 

proved that I was right, for you, the shoes, clothes, etc., and as she moved 

barin, had chosen from all the presents in to the door the telltale sheet of foolscap 

the whole world for me that very shawl I was also put out of sight by the hand 

craved. I could scarcely believe it; and which had dared to write "so far away." 

next day the Madonna received from me Such words might mean sure death if this 

another taper, put before her shrine. So night visitor were a spy. 

now I always believe and hope the end of It wasn t. Katia reported that a man 

our troubles will come, if we only pray, in soldier clothes, a Russian, "one of our 

barin, and hope." own race and a Christian," had put a 

"That is right, Katia and where is finger on his lips when she opened, and 

your shawl now is it nationalized?" said: " Give this to Boris Michailovitch - 

"Oh, no, I have it; and it is so well hid- he will be glad. And say, to-morrow I 

den that, in spite of all the raids which we will call at night in case of a reply you 

have suffered here, the villains have not understand?" "So I took the packet, 

guessed my hiding-place for that dear barin; possibly some one has sent you a 

shawl nor for my earrings. These were piece of chocolate to eat. Only be care- 

my mother s, and when the storm of mad- ful it isn t poisoned ! " 

ness passes here, and we may go again in Boris took the package, removed the 

peace to hear our mass in proper clothes, outside covering of dirty newspaper, and 

I will wear them all. Meanwhile I save found in it a flat, thick envelope with 

them. I would not walk with these Chi- merely his initials on it. Evidently di- 

nese or other foreign soldiers, anyhow, rections to the mysterious bearer were 

Dirty crew !" verbal, for nowhere did the three missives 

Boris Michailovitch smiled kindly, inside carry his family name, nor his 

: You are a good girl, Katia ! You go on father s Christian name. There was noth- 

hoping and praying, believing and work- ing, should the package be lost, to in- 

ing, and I too will have faith that some criminate him, nor rouse suspicions; but 

day you shall go to mass wearing all your there was no mistaking the writings. 

finery again. I am grateful to you that Boris s eyes filled with tears, and then 

you make me so comfortable since old his trembling hands failed him and .the 

Mascha died, and that you stay with me. letters dropped on the table near the 

We are neither of us young, but your de- lamp. Seating himself, he tried again to 

votion makes the misery of these days unfold their sheets. But suddenly his 

much easier to bear, and if the few pro- head went down on the pages, and sobs 

visions I get help you to keep alive, it is shook the thin shoulders for a while, as 

but a fair exchange for all you do to aid his tears flowed over these first messages 

me - from civilization after nearly three long 

Then silence fell, and Katia went on years. Soon, with calm regained, and a 

pulling and winding threads, while the tender smile playing on his pale face, Boris 

ancient "Excellency" drew his chair up was able to read the long epistles. Twice 

to the work-table and began to write a he read them, then he called to Katia. 



THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 



"Letters," he told her, "wonderful let 
ters the family are all alive and well, 
and say they are able to live out there; 
and that the war is over, the Great War 
against Germany. And they want me to 
go to them, but that of course I can t do 
now. . . . Stay, Katia, fill the lamp; for 
I must answer these to-night, even if I 
use up the kerosene supply of two eve 
nings. My reply must be ready when the 
stranger comes to-morrow. They say he 
is trustworthy and will surely take my 
letters back." 

Feverishly he drew the sheet he had 
begun to write on, from out its hiding- 
place, and following that first line written 
earlier and with such different feelings, 
he scribbled rapidly : 

"This evening, in a letter from your 
wife from G, which came to me smuggled, 
I had the great ;joy of knowing that you 
were both still alive. Having news of 
you, of her and of our other sister and her 
children who are in France, is wonderful 
indeed ! At last I know something of you 
all, of whose fate I was completely ig 
norant since more than two years past. 
I feel consequently younger by twenty at 
least, and again I m full of hope and 
gratitude. Even at the risk that this 
letter should never reach you, I would 
try to give you the pleasure of receiving 
it, and some knowledge of what is around 
me here. 

"Perhaps you are living in a land, or 
city, where I was when thirty years ago 
I went to America? For certain it has 
not changed there like this city has from 
which I write you. Thank God that by 
some extraordinary chance the efforts 
which I have been making since two years 
to enter into relations with you and 
our sister in France have finally been 
crowned with success. For I have also 
a letter now from her, and one from the 
children, brought in by the same person 
who smuggled yours. They are not only 
well, but seem to be getting on better than 
I had hoped or thought possible. The 
only thing now that is lacking is a direct 
word from you, from America. This 
news comes through your wife, and it 
would make me very happy to see your 
handwriting soon again. I do not despair 
of this happening if you will send a letter 
to now. If that should ever arrive 



I will have all the correspondence that 
can make me most happy. Even if my 
letters do not reach you, however, you 
will hear from your wife that we are alive 
and fairly well, going on better perhaps 
than most others about us, because my 
special scientific work brought me a posi 
tion which gives me sufficient food. 

"Considering the general situation 
here and other people s plight, I should 
not complain, especially now when it is 
still fairly warm ; but the past winter was 
a nightmare, my lodging thermometer 
marked two degrees below freezing! I 
lived alone with the little old maid, who 
has remained so faithful. We were in our 
great house, which had emptied itself of 
tenants long ago; and we did without 
any water. Everything here is broken 
down. I finally gave up the idea of try 
ing to remain in our old home. I cleared 
out our house as far as my furniture went, 
sold what I could and hid a few things 
which belonged to the family or which I 
love, and installed myself for this winter 
in one room of another house in the ex- 
room of an old friend of mine. His whole 
apartment is now inhabited by various 
other acquaintances, some of whom are 
working in the same institution where I 
am. At least by this arrangement I may 
manage to keep warm through the com 
ing winter. You know how I suffer from 
the cold. That is really the only thing 
which frightens me, for I can get on while 
eating very little. 

"As far as the rest is concerned I have 
no right to complain, I suppose. Since 
the month of April, thanks to my scien 
tific work, I have received a special ration 
which consists of a portion once a week 
of ten pounds of bread, a few potatoes, 
some cereals, with sometimes a little her 
ring, or a little butter or other grease, a 
small portion of salt, and from time to time 
far removed, a little bit of sugar or even 
a little bit of chocolate. This is enough 
to keep one alive, which other people do 
not have around us, and none of these 
things can be bought in shops. They are 
difficult to find in any way, though some 
few manage to get them on the side 
through smugglers. Every kind of shop, 
except - - are closed. People simply 
get cards, and have to go and stand for 
hours on the chance of getting food, which 



10 



THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 



frequently they do not get; whereas we 
get our ration regularly once a week. It 
is a great satisfaction not actually to have 
to think of where each meal is to come 
from, and my devoted old woman-servant 
tries to take care of me; we divide my 
provisions. The distance we have to go 
for them is not great. I also get a some 
what vague lunch, which is given me and 
my comrades at a public table not far 
distant from where I work. 

" Consequently, my life is more or less 
organized, and with such historical writ 
ing as I can do outside (but when it will 
be published, God only knows), I manage 
to make time pass, without counting it 
too much, or thinking much^ of all that is 
happening around us. My health seems 
to hold out against this regime, the sci 
atica and the rheumatism notwithstand 
ing. I have regained my thin figure of 
schoolboy days, and though sometimes I 
notice my strength is not the same, I try 
to feel it is my fifty-seven years that 
count and not the conditions in which we 
live. My age, however, did not prevent 
me the other day from walking from here 
to the canal at the other end of town and 
back from there again, and also during 
the summer did not prevent me from tak 
ing part in the unloading of a boat where 
we could get some boards and a little fire 
wood for our own use. 

"With the proceeds from the sale of 
my collections, I have been able to sup 
plement the rations by a few cigarettes at 
20 roubles apiece. We live as if this were 
Portugal, where everything is counted in 
milreis (thousands of reis). So much for 
me ! 

" I can t imagine you alone in America. 
I would have had misgivings if I did not 
know that you are of those who realized 
what you were doing when you went 
there, and that you are also of those who 
generally manage to handle yourself and 
the situation, wherever you are. There is 
another thing which is a comfort to me, 
and it is that that old friend of ours who 
is really the friend of her friends, both 
good and charming, is on the same con 
tinent with you, and you probably see 
her. Give her my best and warmest re 
gards, and all of their family, and tell her 
that I never pass before their little yellow 
palace without thinking of her; and I 



often pass there ! Hearts are heavy here 
mine among them and life for all of 
us has made its weight felt. Happy are 
those who remember this world as it was 
in other days, or have died in time. One 
must be grateful for them and yet in 
spite of this, our poor dear N., I cannot 
think of him without deep sorrow at his 
death, for he escaped nothing in his mar 
tyrdom here lately. . The rest of his family 
we have no knowledge of, whether they 
escaped or not, and we live in a dark 
cloud of mystery and persecution. 

"Dear friend, if we met how much I 
would have to tell you; but at present, 
since I have found you, at least I am be 
ginning again to hope a little. A day will 
come when we may meet, and perhaps 
some time I may be able to leave this 
land ? I would not do that now, however, 
leaving the sister still in our village, where 
she is very helpless. Besides I could 
never reach the far land where you are. 
You are not on this same continent with 
me, I know now. 

"God be with you always and every 
where. What shall I tell you of our old 
friends who are still here? O. I see from 
time to time. D. and his wife have be 
come completely demented, and are so 
vague in their minds that they live al 
most like animals in one cellar room in 
the courtyard of their great house. They 
sell little by little everything that was 
theirs, and when the end of that comes, I 
don t know what will happen. I know 
nothing of O s. Olga is well, lives 
somehow, doing as everybody else does. 
She is about the only one who has man 
aged to stay in her own apartment, but 
all her family is scattered, and she has no 
news of them. Another friend and his 
wife are hidden away in two rooms of 
their cellar, without any help from out 
side, and she does everything, all their 
heavy work, but they have not been mo 
lested a single time so far. 

"As a curious experience, S. was ar 
rested for a short time, by chance or a 
misunderstanding. Fell into an ambush, 
was held for five days without food, ex 
cept such as the companions of his misery 
in the same room gave him of their small 
shares. Theirs was smuggled in to them 
from outside. Then S. was freed, prob 
ably also by misunderstanding or thanks 



THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 



11 



to his lucky star, instead of being sent as 
a hostage to - - or killed, like so many 
others who have disappeared or died of 
late. 

"Dear friend, did we ever think what 
a struggle for life was reserved for us, 
without any preparation to face it, and 
that we should have to prove by our 
selves the truth of Darwin s theory? 
However, we will prove it to the end, and 
will be among the strongest, I think at 
least those of us who survive. I even hope 
that we may meet some day. So work 
out the problem of your life and fight 
your battle without flinching or weak 
ness. If this letter reaches you it will be 
one step forward if I have your answer 
it will be another. God keep you mean 
while. 

" I am adding a postscript to say that 
for a month I have carried this around, 
having no opportunity to send it. The 
messenger did not come back and prob 
ably he was arrested and executed for 
carrying papers. 

" Do not be anxious, for I will not make 
any effort to run away or risk the danger 
of being caught at the frontier and shot, 
unless I know that you have come back 
to Europe and that I might have the 
chance of meeting you somewhere, where 
we could make our life together. 

"I regret you have not found work in 
France or England, but are making such 
a hard living in far America. Have you 
heard from any one of your old corre 
spondents in the days when you did in 
tellectual work here? Some of them 
might be of use to you now in foreign 
countries. 

"I met M. who talked to me about the 
old life, as we stood with our baskets 
waiting for rations during two and a half 
hours the other day. The more I think 
of you the more I feel happy that you are 
safe and abroad, even alone. At least 
you have a normal life in more or less 
normal surroundings, and the more one 
sees here of things, the more one realizes 
that very little is really of importance or 
necessary to live. Tell me if you can 
some details of your present occupations 
also what plans you make, if any, for 
the future?" 

This first letter finally sent in Novem 



ber was followed by another from the 
same source, and I give it without other 
changes than the one above has suffered, 
this as before to protect the writer and 
his people from the fierce danger of Bol 
shevik anger at having real life under their 
rule exposed to view. 

It must be remembered that our corre 
spondent was in particularly favorable 
circumstances, better fed, housed, and 
cared for than those about him, since he 
had accepted work at the Soviet s govern 
ment offices, either to keep from starva 
tion or for other reasons which can be 
read between his lines, or perhaps because 
he was forcibly mobilized to serve his 
turn of the general slow martyrdom. 
This letter is of midwinter. It said: 

"My DEAR GOOD FRIEND: 

"A few days ago a messenger who was 
unknown to me brought me a little 
packet from beyond the frontier, with 
these words written on it: This is the 
equivalent of $100, which your people, 
refugees in America, have sent you in 
case I could smuggle the money through. 
In an unsealed envelope were 38,500 
marks, and at the present rate of ex 
change here (40 marks to 1,000 roubles) 
it makes nearly the sum of one million 
roubles, which I could immediately real 
ize. If I wait it will become more ad 
vantageous, however, as the exchange 
for outside money sends our worthless 
currency down daily. These figures, 
which are those of this actual moment, 
give you an idea what you have done for 
me, and make expressions of enthusiastic 
gratitude seem superfluous ! Naturally I 
will not change this money, nor touch 
it, without an absolute necessity arising. 
That might come any time, for always 
here one must count with the unex 
pected. 

"I would like to escape and join you 
refugees, if the possibility of making my 
flight a success offered. One reason, 
though, for remaining is the fact that 
some of the family are still on the estate 
our sister and the child. I have not been 
able to see her for two years, because such 
as we are have no permission to travel 
with the knowledge of our rulers, and 
neither she nor I are allowed to move 
about freely. But I can be useful to her in 



12 THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 

small things occasionally, and to know I self from, and be resigned to their sale or 

am here seems to give her some vague their loss. 

moral support. I have been able once or "What makes me anxious is to think 
twice to send her a little money, the sav- you have given up this $100 for me. It 
ings of my salary, and I hold some money is a large sum of which I have deprived 
of hers here hidden in safety, the result of you, and I know how terrible was the 
pawning and selling her jewels early in cost of living in America even in old days, 
the time of this regime, when she fancied I imagine the sacrifice made by you, to 
(alas mistakenly) the money to have more supply me with what seems a fortune 
value than her ornaments. In the trans- here ! I try to console myself with faith 
action, she had to sacrifice at least half in your strength. You always knew what 
her jewels value, but she needed money you were doing, and what I have written 
to live at home, as she pays the peasants above proves that your goal is attained, 
for everything they sell her from her own for we are now definitely protected from 
estate, grain, vegetables, etc. However, any eventuality that one can foresee in 
life there among the peasants is safer and these times through which we are living, 
much cheaper than here, also more com- "This is the third letter which I have 
fortable, I make out from her messages written to you since I know you are in 
so I could desire nothing better for her, America. It will go by the same mes- 
and have not encouraged her to move as senger who brought me your packet- 
long as I had no hope of further flight for consequently a reliable man. The other 
any of us. She would not think of going two letters left by different ways I had 
abroad you know how devoted she has considered certain, and I hoped you may 
always been to the old place and the have received them too ? I have nothing 
people there. I feel I ought not to think in the way of letters from you as yet, and 
of abandoning her to go abroad myself, do not know whether yours are lost or 
With what you have sent us we can now whether you have feared to write. Per- 
wait quietly for what fate may have in haps you could write to me through Vera. 
store for us all. I wrote to her about various details of 

"You have no idea what it means to the tragi-comedy of our existence here, 

have a reserve like this you have sent, and I will try and send her a letter by 

One hundred dollars gives one a tranquil the same messenger who carries this, ask- 

spirit to face the future, and I will cer- ing her to forward it on to you. I am 

tainly keep the foreign marks intact and also telling her how she may by chance be 

unexchanged as long as that is possible, able to communicate with me from time 

There is much talk of abolishing money to time. Please be kind and write her as 

completely in Russia, and you can imag- many details as you can on your life, the 

ine in case of such a measure by the work you are doing and what your proj- 

Soviet government, roubles from their ects are for the future; especially about 

present low value would go to zero. So your health, how your respiration is after 

far my salary, plus little by little the pro- your heavy wounds. In one little mes- 

ceeds from selling my things, have en- sage, which I got from her your health 

abled me to keep alive. All those we was not mentioned, so I am hoping that 

know live this same way, unless they are you are no worse than you were, 

in prison or starving. Many had every- "It seems extraordinary that three 

thing burned or looted or requisitioned at years have passed since I saw you ; that 

once, and they have rarely survived. is longer than your whole trip into 

"I have had better luck, and have even when you went exploring. What would 

managed not to touch the things we were I not do, or give, or risk, to join you, if 

most fond of. The ancient family por- I thought we were free from all duties 

traits are safe, hidden away; also certain other than to one another? but I do not 

of our finest books, a few volumes are hid- feel I have the right to run away and 

den. But I had to sacrifice our Grand- leave our sister. At any rate I would not 

father s library! Certain of my collec- undertake anything without knowing 

tions of rare small things are still safe too, that you were near enough to me in Eu- 

but bulky objects one must separate one- rope for me to have a fair chance of 



THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 13 

reaching you. Tell- me, if you can, what much doing which is kept quiet by the 

you think of the general world situation, different elements, both the Bolsheviki 

of which I can get no news here. Perhaps and the anti-Bolsheviki. There is always 

such knowledge of events will open new evolution, and it has already begun 

horizons to me and help me plan. In among certain small groups, but it will be 

total ignorance as we are, we can judge very long if one depends upon it entirely 

of nothing, for we know nothing of the for saving Russia. 

real condition of affairs outside this coun- "As far as I am personally concerned, 

try; nor inside of it for that matter ! suppose I managed to run away? What 

" A great many people think that when would I do and where would I live ? At 
all the treaties are signed and commer- my age it would not be easy for me to find 
cial relations established, which we know employment, and if I found a position it 
to be impossible, the frontiers may be would be so difficult, weak as I am, to fill 
opened. Perhaps then whoever wants to it, that I would not succeed probably in 
leave can do so freely? I personally do being independent of you; and the con- 
not believe that this would be allowed, sciousness of this would hardly balance 
because in the first place so many people the infinite delight of finding myself again 
of us, the brains of the country, would in civilization and in a normal life. For 
make a mad rush out of it, and the au- a year, or a year and a half perhaps, I 
thorities would find themselves without might manage to live by the help of 
the least semblance of any element suf- friends who are abroad, and perhaps I 
ficiently intellectual to carry on any kind might have enough money not to be suf- 
of organization, or get anything done, fering very much financially. But what 
They, the Bolsheviki, would consequently, would come afterward ? 
to my mind, immediately take measures "My work of the past five or six years, 
to prevent their being caught in such a editing of historical documents, I have 
situation. Secondly, the foreign powers almost finished. I even have the illus- 
who would be absolutely invaded by trations prepared for two big volumes, 
these refugees, would be forced to put It makes a large box of manuscripts, and 
restrictions on our entering freely into you know my dream was always to have 
their countries. I think consequently it printed, half in Russian, half in French, 
our captivity has no chance of ending. It would be wonderful if I could get these 

"I have never believed in the success books out of the country and have the 

of any of the efforts to liberate us, except thing done in Paris or elsewhere and get 

for a moment last year during the ad- work and live from that for a year or two. 

vance of Youdenitch s army. He was at It might really pay me but I would only 

Tzarskoe-Celo, which seemed too close to go abroad in case in some way it could be 

"fail, and another group of the same army arranged that I might come back again, 

had reached Gatchina; but even then if the sister needed me and that is 

one felt their movement was not organ- impossible under present conditions. It 

ized with any surety they had neither is merely a dream and the reality is very 

provisions nor munitions, and were beat- different ! Here many years will pass 

en, naturally. before one can ever think of publishing 

"Wrangel s effort, from what we heard an edition which would be worth while, 

of it, must have been even less made for Momentarily I am not working at the 

success, having less materials. According manuscript am merely existing, trying 

to my idea, any outside attack of that to wait as patiently as possible and not to 

kind could have been a success only by think of a complete expatriation but to 

an enormous and serious intervention of hold on to the hope that something may 

the Allies armed forces on every side at happen. 

once, all working together but there is "I am too happy now to know that 

no hope of their ever doing that. Mo- you at least are out of here and still alive, 

mentarily, during the winter, there is and to know that our sister is in better 

little possibility of an interior uprising conditions than I had dared to hope, for 

that is co-ordinated, though one can since three or four years ago I have not 

scarcely tell what may come, and there is been able to send her any money. With 



14 THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 

this knowledge I can very well tolerate and they manage somehow, as does every 

a great many things, of which the worst one else who must live here. They live in 

one is our atmosphere of general uncer- a part of their lodging and try to preserve 

tainty, and our having nothing to look what they can intact, though they have 

for in the immediate future. However, several people occupying most of their 

there is nothing one can do about this. flat. However, they have been left two 

"Thank you again and again. What- small back rooms. He (Z) has aged ter- 

ever happens, you have placed us in a ribly and lost ground, but he has discov- 

position which relieves us of great strain ered in himself a new talent for working 

and simplifies our gravest problem of the metal. Sometimes he has managed to 

moment. To have this security, of a make at this craft 80,000 roubles a month 

little money which is foreign, renews my paid by Bolshevik clients, who bring him 

energy, and proves to me again how their metals to work; but of course the 

easily we react to the least hope ! It is money has almost no buying power. His 

strange what a remarkable role the un- wife does everything else cooks, washes, 

expected takes in our existence, whether goes out and fetches wood which she 

it is good or bad, in such times as these, brings in, cutting it with an axe and mak- 

"This letter and the one to Vera, if ing their modest fires. She does the 

they get out, should give you a tableau heaviest work. Without her, I do not 

more or less exact of me as I am old, know what he would do, he is so broken 

dirty, with a long beard, but still able to down? But her courage, resourcefulness, 

move about, and with my mind still lucid and energy are wonderful ! 

enough to write a letter and to say what "I think I have told you everything 

I mean. now that could interest you, so I finish 

"Do you see J. C.? Where is that this long letter. I hardly hope to get as 

family ? Have you travelled at all ? long a one from you, but still I hope you 

Write to me. will write and try to send one through. 

"P. S. I am adding a few words to " God keep you ; write to me sometimes, 

tell you that I met M., who served here in and at any rate think of me. We will 

the Museum, and 0., whom I meet quite meet again see if we don t !" 
often at what was the old W. s palace, 

where he is installed for his work. They We heard no more after this, save from 
always speak of you, and tell me, if I have a refugee who sent us word the writer of 
the occasion, to send you their regards, the above was still well at the end of 
and to say how much they envy you that March. Somewhat later came another 
you are not here. ... 0. is the most message: he was alive in the late spring, 
energetic of us all, but the other is more Whether because he was watched and 
down than I am. He serves in the Orien- could not write then, or because the car- 
tal Department of his Museum, but as the riers were captured- and perhaps shot, no 
museum is not heated, with the climate more letters have come from this corre- 
here, nobody goes in winter. The collec- spondent, but from another source I re- 
tions which were evacuated in 1914 and ceived a message from Petrograd within 
1917 900 boxes with pictures, sculp- the past month, which I am glad to give 
tures, silver, porcelains, etc. have been my readers as an ending, 
brought back and are to be unpacked The churches long closed have been 
and reinstalled. There was a moment thrown open again. Whereas till recently 
when they thought all these things would the Orthodox Russian priests were perse- 
be spread around among the provinces, cuted by the Soviets, now services are 
What an opportunity to steal ! It was celebrated and the congregations as well 
difficult to persuade those in command as the clergy are left in peace. The Bol- 
that this was a bad plan, but finally they sheviki found they were rousing the pop- 
have been dissuaded. ulation s ire by their persecution of reli- 

" In the evening I work at my manu- gion, and the threatened serious uprisings 

scripts, and I hardly ever go out; some- of a city unarmed but desperate forced 

times on a Sunday I manage to go and the frightened tyrants to allow Christian 

see the Z s. He is well comparatively, worship to progress according to Rus- 



THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF RUSSIA 15 

sia s faith. My information concerned ed. And here, now, these people, after 

this, and gave some further curious and three years of the heavy yoke, were sud- 

sympathetic details. denly marching through the street of 

Through the main streets of Petrograd Apfelbaum s own capital, openly carrying 

in open day, recently a great procession the statue of their murdered sovereign, 

started poor people praying loudly, acclaiming him as if he were a saint. But 

singing anthems and psalms, with priests they should pay for it. 

chanting, carrying banners and such icons Quickly Bolshevik soldiers were called 

as had not been stolen from their shrines and ordered to "Clear the streets!" 

in three years of bloody misrule. Slowly But to the surprise of all they joined the 

the procession wound its way about the procession. Their own ruler, their own 

city, slowly it gathered force, as group religion it appealed to their race and to 

after group of passers-by joined them- their souls. They were of Russian blood 

selves to the original members of the cele- and Orthodox creed, and for three years 

bration. Finally, on one of the main they had seen the one flow and the other 

streets it attracted the attention of the treated with contempt,, by these swarthy 

Bolshevik officials, always alert to spy. foreign aliens, who had been such hard 

Astonished, they stared! They could masters. The authorities called more 

scarcely believe their eyes ! What was it troops, with a dawning awe of what this 

being carried by the crowd there in its meant: Chinese and other foreign mer- 

midst ? The litany they chanted, too, had cenaries were needed to quell a church 

not been heard for many, many moons, procession, it would seem; and the "com- 

The officials rubbed their eyes and looked missars" must themselves lead and en- 

again they saw a bust of Nicolas II, courage their henchmen. The movement 

emperor of all the Russias, with a crown was revolt and must be crushed at any 

of thorns- upon his head, occupying the cost. 

centre of this procession, all honor being No news of this event has been allowed 
paid to it as to the image of a saint and to pass the censor, but on that day quite 
martyr ! It seemed hard to believe what recently in Petrograd there were some 
was spread out before them. They saw a of Bolshevism s bullying commissars who 
people who were so thoroughly in hand, were most roughly handled by the crowd, 
the Soviet thought; who had been beaten, and many of their picked and well-paid 
intimidated, starved, and bled, whose be- soldiers received wounds, some of which 
longings had long since been taken from were mortal, doubtless. In the disorder of 
them; who besides had been fed on the the skirmish the statue which had caused 
lying propaganda of a false idealism and it disappeared; or so thought the on- 
false promises, with a millennium, which looker who was my kind informant, 
never came, constantly announced as So it seems that Russia, in spite of 
being just around the next turn in their much trampling through three long years 
road of martyrdom; a people who had of agony, still breathes in her faith and 
accepted all this (disarmed as they had pity ! These people, who in silence bore 
been in the beginning) with only feeble material destitution, even starvation, 
struggles, on the whole seemingly resigned still rise to the touch of spiritual things ! 
and patient, docile and believing, till they A good sign to those outside, who 
were thought to be completely in hand, through all its woes have believed in their 
from lack of nourishment and blows; so nation s future greatness. Also a warn- 
far they had asked persistently but for one ing to the bastard tyrants, who thought 
thing leave to pray; and this ridiculous that by their red terror they could conquer 
desire in the Soviets eyes had been grant- Russia s soul as they could crush her body. 




From a painting by C. A. Slade. 



An Arab boy. 



TUNISIAN TYPES: EIGHT PAINTINGS BY 

C. A. SLADE 

Memorizing the Koran is the first and foremost duty in the education of the Arab boy. Under a master s directions 
he repeats lines from it, at the full strength of his lungs, until it is indelibly impressed upon his memory. A room full of his 
little friends doing the same thing but not in unison does not seem to detract from his power of concentration. It is a strange 
babble that reaches the ears of the passer-by. (See also Frontispiece.) 

16 




From a painting by C. A. Slade. 



An Arab girl. 



Shyness of foreigners together with an almost fanatic superstition is common to the children of Tunis. Offers of 
money or trinkets seldom will induce one of them to pose for an artist. This may be accomplished sometimes through 
influence of an elder brother, as was done in the case of the Arab girl on this page. 



VOL. LXXI. 2 





From a painting by C. A. Slade. 



One of the most picturesque types. 



The bronze face enshrouded in the pure-white burnoose is one of the most picturesque types. The Arabs range in color 
from nearly white to the ebony of the darkest negro. Color seems to carry with it no class distinction; the strains of Nubian 
blood from Central Africa account for the difference. 



18 




Li. 
From a painting by C. A. Slade. 

Our so-called "advanced civilization" is an unknown quantity among the Arabs of Tunis. 

Camels and <; burricos" furnish the power for his antiquated agricultural implements, and the selection of his wife is 
not governed by sentiment but depends upon position and the settlement of satisfactory pecuniary arrangements with the 
prospective father-in-law. 




From a Painting by C. A. Slade. 

The child that is born simple or deficient is well cared for by all. 

He need never worry as to the source of his food; the gentle Arabs seem to put themselves out for such 
unfortunates. The girl above ^Ylls a traveller in many villages but always found shelter and nourishment. 



20 




From a painting by C. A. Slade. 



At thirteen or fourteen the Arab girl of Tunis commences to veil her face. 

She is never seen unveiled except in the privacy of her own home, which has no outside windows, but opens on a court - 
yinl. She is always very careful that her hair is well "henna d"; also her finger-nails and toe-nails. Watching the 
"fetes " and marriages from her roof-top are her only diversions. 



21 




From a painting by C. A. Slade. 



Young Arab girl. 



Until the ajje of fourteen the life of the Arab girl is even more care-free than that of her Western sister, for such a 
matter as education means nothing to her and the rudiments of simple Arab housekeeping are the only distractions she 
has from her small Arab doll-babies. 



22 



The Ethics of Nelson Cole 



BY CHARLES BELMONT DAVIS 



ILLUSTRATIONS BY T. K. HANNA 



D 



URING the twenty 
years I had known the 
Madison Springs, the 
band attached to 
the quaint old Virginia 
hostelry had experi 
enced many changes. 
For several seasons 
there was an orchestra composed of three 
aged gentlemen, and it required all of our 
youth and enthusiasm to dance to their 
offerings at all. These patriarchs were 
succeeded by four boys from an orphan 
asylum, who were as incompetent, owing 
to their youth, as the old men had been 
on account of their extreme old age. 
Then came all kinds of bands bands 
composed of decayed Southern ladies, too 
proud to play or to meet the hotel guests, 
and one lady band in particular from the 
Middle West which was altogether too 
friendly with the male guests. And then 
to the curious (and ntost of the habitues 
of tlie Madison Springs were naturally 
curious) it was announced that the new 
band had been selected from the students 
of a conservatory of music in the Far 
South. We were assured that the three 
young ladies had been most carefully 
culled from this particular bed of beauties 
not only on account of their pulchritude 
and superior musical ability, but also ow 
ing to their high moral arid social qualifi 
cations. True to the oldest traditions of. 
the Springs, the band arrived just in time 
for the Fourth of July ball, and, as usual, 
the guests hung over the porch railing 
and, with an ill-concealed curiosity, drank 
in every detail of the faces, forms, and 
dress of the newcomers. 

Impressions as to the members of the 
new band no doubt varied, but I know 
that mine were very distinct that is, 
they were distinctly composite. One was 
short with brown hair, another was 
blonde and of medium height, and the 
third was tall and of a distinctly brunette 



type. All as different as different could 
be, and yet all so lacking in definite 
facial characteristics that my first im 
pression and the one I carried for several 
days was no more distinct than a com 
posite photograph of the graduating 
class of a girls high school. However, as 
the days passed and I learned their names 
and which one played the piano, which 
the violin, and which the clarionet, to a 
certain extent the class photograph dis 
integrated, and in a rather vague way I 
recognized certain differences of face and 
manner if not in character. I think this 
vagueness must have been due to the 
fact that so far as I could judge all of the 
three were wholly lacking in personality, 
temperament, a sense of humor, or super 
lative good looks. Not that any one of 
them was ill-favored; in fact, they were 
all rather pretty girls the prettiness 
common to small towns, where beauty 
must .stand on its own and with no as 
sistance from the adorning but expensive 
dressmaker or the beauty doctor, who 
for an extortionate price corrects the 
faults of nature. The scope of their 
minds seemed to be that of a very young 
girl who had been shut in continuously 
and extended no farther than the musical 
conservatory and their home town. To 
say that they were unsophisticated would 
be idle; the word could have no more 
place in a description of their character 
than it probably had in their simple 
vocabulary. I very much doubt if any 
of them knew whether Caruso was a 
violin-player or a trombone soloist, or if 
Farrar sang or played the harp. After I 
had become fairly well acquainted with 
the three young ladies, I found that their 
ambitions were apparently limited to a 
teacher s diploma and an engagement with 
a one-night-stand Chautauqua troupe. 
The. cynical musical conversation of the 
casual visitor to the Metropolitan or to 
the concerts at Carnegie Hall would 

23 



24 THE ETHICS OF NELSON COLE 

have fallen on their pretty ears with no to anything. But when they heard I d 

more meaning than a prose poem in been appointed clarionet-player of the 

ancient Hebrew. Madison Springs orchestra, they were 

However, in spite of this overwhelming knocked all of a heap. Would you be- 

ignorance of the pessimistic chatter com- lieve it, a committee of the Laury Musical 

mon to the members of their chosen pro- Club asked me down there to play for 

fession, the social success of the band was them." 

instant and unquestioned. Their very " And of course you accepted ?" I said, 

naivete was a delight, and I have never At the very suggestion, Miss Jenkins 

known an instance when it was possible smiled condescendingly and slowly shook 

to give so much pleasure at so small an her head. "Not much, I didn t," she 

outlay. Of nature they seemed to know gurgled. "I went back to visit my folks 

nothing, and they discovered it and but I didn t take my instrument. My 

abandoned themselves to its wondrous playing would have been way over their 

mountain beauties with the joyous zest heads." 

of little children who for the first time This confidence of the clarionet-player 

had been suddenly transferred from a was to a large extent shared by Harriet 

sweltering tenement to a field of sweet- Nash, the pianist, and Rita Grinnell, who 

smelling, new-mown hay. The sight of played the violin. There was nothing 

an isolated wild flower was greeted with objectionable in this particular kind of 

cries of wonder and happiness, and all vanity, and it was due solely to the fact 

three girls would race for it over mossy that the musical conservatory, whose 

banks and shelving rocks, and fight for its judgment was the only one they knew 

possession as if it had been a black pearl, and which they regarded so highly, had 

It was small wonder that the guests vied granted each of them a teacher s diploma, 

with each other in giving the band picnics, As to the music produced every night 

and made the three musicians the especial in the hotel ballroom by the combined 

guests on numerous excursions to the efforts of the three certified students, 

various neighboring grottos and rival re- opinion seemed to vary considerably, 

sorts. But I noticed that these parties Personally, I should have said that they 

were always given to the band and never played with precision and correctness, but 

to any particular member of it. Not even wholly without personality or the rhythm 

the oldest male flirt at the Springs seemed that impels the casual dancer to stop idle 

to have any inclination to lead one of the chatter and join in the merry whirl. Of 

young musicians into a dark corner of the the many guests, there was probably only 

long galleries. Had he done so, I am sure one, Henry Ongley, who really knew much 

it would have been necessary to instruct about music, and as Ongley knew pretty 

her in the very A B C s of polite flirtation, nearly everything about it, he preferred 

Of the hotel instrumentalists, it was the talking about anything else, especially to 
short, stout one, Flora Jenkins, the clario- people like myself who were wholly igno- 
net-player, who was perhaps the most rant of the subject. Ongley was an old 
popular. She was the youngest of the man and during the evening preferred the 
trio, and as she stood by the piano in pleasures of the whist-table to the ball- 
the corner of the ballroom blowing lustily room. However, several days after the 
on her clarionet, she looked like a pretty arrival of the band, I found him standing 
child with the mumps. As was the case at an open window and, apparently with 
with her two fellow sisters in art, Flora much interest, regarding the ladies of the 
could also play the piano, and had an orchestra, who at the moment were bang- 
extreme confidence in a light soprano ing out a popular one-step, 
voice; but confidence in her all-around "How good are they, Henry?" I asked, 
ability was one of the clarionet-player s Ongley turned from the window and 
greatest assets. smilingly blew a cloud of tobacco smoke 

"When :: left my home town that s from his cigar up toward the rafters of the 

Laury, Alabama" - she once said to me, piazza roof. "Morally," he said, taking 

"my friends down there didn t give me my arm and moving away from the win- 

a chance didn t think I d ever amount dow, "I should say they were all very 




Drawn by T. K. Uanna. 



As she stood by the piano . . . blowing lustily on her clarionet, she looked like a pretty child 

with the mumps/ Page 24. 



26 



THE ETHICS OF NELSON COLE 



good, but if you mean musically, I don t 
really know. I m afraid my interest was 
only that of an old man who is not so 
old that he has lost the power to admire 
three pretty girls. One hardly looks for 
a Kreisler or a Hofman in a hotel orches 
tra." 

Ongley s words, especially coming from 
Ongley, assumed a significance that they 
probably did not deserve. As every one, 
at least every one in Boston and New 
York and the larger centres, knows, Henry 
Ongley has three hobbies winter cruis 
ing among the tropical islands, the Madi 
son Springs, and paying for the education 
of poor but promising musical students. 

"But there is no particular reason," I 
suggested, still hoping, I imagine, to get 
some kind of criticism of the band from 
an expert, "why a Kreisler or a Hofman 
should not start in a hotel orchestra?" 

"There s every reason," Ongley 
chuckled, "why they shouldn t start in 
a ladies hotel orchestra, if only on ac 
count of their sex." Then the old man 
dropped my arm and, half turning, faced 



me. 
u 



But why are you so keen on the lady 
band?" he asked. 

For the moment I confess that I was 
somewhat confused and unprepared with 
an answer. However, at last I frankly 
said: "I am interested in them as a type 
I ve never met, and I ll further admit 
that their very commonplaceness and 
naivete intrigues me. I ve never met 
three women before who apparently had 
no early advantage of environment or 
education, and whose knowledge of life 
began and ended in the four walls of a 
small-town musical conservatory. To 
me it s an entirely new specimen and I 
should like to know from some one who 
ought to know if they are any better or 
worse than any other three-piece hotel 
band." 

Ongley smiled at my interest in the 
three ladies and shook his head. "I 
don t really know," he said; "when I 
was at the window just now I was using 
my eyes and my eyes only. It wouldn t 
be fair to do anything else when they 
were playing that rag stuff. But so long 
as you are so interested I ll tell you what I 
will do, and, believe me, it s considerable 
of a sacrifice. I ll go with you to one of 



those damned sacred concerts they give 
on Sunday nights, and we can sit there 
with the rest of the boarders and hear 
them play their solos and do their stunts 
and probably hear one of them sing 
The Palms. And after I ve suffered 
for you, I ll tell you my honest opinion 
for whatever it s worth. More I can do 
for no man." 

True to his word, Ongley joined me 
after the next Sunday-night dinner, and 
arm in arm we solemnly entered the big 
drawing-room, and in an inconspicuous 
corner patiently awaited for the ladies 
to begin. To more worldly artists the 
mere presence of Henry Ongley might 
have caused a certain amount of trepida 
tion or stage-fright, but to these three 
charming instrumentalists it meant no 
more than that of the old lady with the 
knitted shawl and the ear-trumpet who 
had moved her chair to within a few feet of 
the clarionet. The concert was long and, 
perhaps on account of the sacred char 
acter of the music, particularly monoto 
nous. Flora Jenkins blew on the clarionet 
until the women in the room wondered 
how any girl could so disfigure her pretty 
face by deliberately adopting such an 
instrument as her life-work. Harriet 
Nash played the piano without a tech 
nical fault, and Rita Grinnell scraped the 
bow across her violin with a sure and 
confident touch. As the evening wore on 
its dreary course the young ladies, just 
as Ongley had anticipated, showed us 
various examples of their several accom 
plishments. Flora put away her clarionet 
and turned to the piano, while Harriet 
and Rita both played violins. Flora 
and Harriet sang a duet, and Rita obliged 
with a vocal solo. I understood that the 
young ladies had three ukaleles concealed 
in their bedroom, but beyond this ac 
complishment I am sure that before the 
sacred concert had reached its end the 
trio had thoroughly and ruthlessly shown 
us all their wares. When it was over and 
the rest of the audience had gathered 
about the band to express its gratitude, 
Ongley and I stole away to a corner of 
the piazza, and for several moments in 
haled long drafts of the pure night air. 

"Well," I asked at last, "how about 
it? Quite hopeless, I should say." 

"That would be very brash of you," 



THE ETHICS OF NELSON COLE 



27 



Ongley said, "and not quite fair. I sup 
pose you were hoping to discover a 
phenomenon, but phenomena are very 
scarce in any craft. And then you must 
remember that most phenomena are the 
children of superlative artists. I don t 
mean that they inherit their talent, but 
they have had exceptional opportunities 
of environment. These girls have in all 
probability come of very plain people 
without any imagination, and the only 
opportunity they have ever had is to 
take a short course in a small-town mus 
ical conservatory, which is scarcely any 
opportunity at all. Their whole lives 
have no doubt been shut in, and there has 
been no chance to develop the big things 
that may be lying dormant." 

"Do you mean to contend," I said, 
"that a musical course, even as meagre 
as these girls have had, would not de 
velop the spark or personality or tem 
perament, or whatever you choose to call 
it, that is essential to raising the true 
artist above her fellows?" 

" Bosh," laughed Ongley. " The woman 
best known on the operatic stage to-day, 
and particularly famous for her personal 
ity and her excessive temperament, was 
the rather dull, phlegmatic daughter of a 
baseball player. It is as natural for most 
women to take on temperament as it is 
for them to slip into a sable coat. Give 
any one of those three girls a few years in 
the musical colony of Florence or Paris, 
and she is liable to develop more tem 
perament than any impresario could deal 
with, and also there is no particular 
reason why she should not become a great 
artist." 

However, still suffering from the sacred 
concert, I was not convinced. "As a 
layman," I said, "I can t follow you at 
all. With every advantage in the world, 
I don t believe any one of those girls 
could ever gain even a mild success. 
They are all, at least to me, hopelessly 
mediocre." 

Ongley smiled and shook his head. 
"Mediocre, now, they may be," he ad 
mitted, "but not hopeless." 

"Can you honestly say," I went on, 
"that you have ever backed a student 
for a musical education who could show 
no more ability than one of these girls?" 

"Several," Ongley said, "and one or 



two of them won out. Of course you 
must remember that very few women or 
men ever become great artists, or, for that 
matter, great anything else." For a 
few moments he hesitated and then went 
on. "I can only afford to send one stu 
dent abroad this fall, and I ve got an 
even half-dozen applicants already, and 
for the life of me I can t make up my 
mind which one to send. Just to con 
vince you and to side-step making a 
choice from the six, I ve a great mind to 
send one of these girls that is, if any of 
them happens to want the chance. " 

"I should imagine any one of them 
would jump at it," I said, "but I d hate 
to make the choice." 

"So would I," Ongley echoed; "but 
the very idea of giving one of these three 
babes in the wood the opportunity that 
so many thousands of others are fighting 
and scheming for, rather appeals to me." 
For a few moments he was silent. "I 
suppose the best way to find out the 
most deserving," he went on, "would be 
to consult the head of this conservatory 
where they were educated." 

"Of course," I agreed, and the scheme, 
once presented, seemed to be the only 
logical one. " Why don t you write him ? " 

"I will," said Ongley; "and in the 
meantime don t say anything about it to 
any one. We ought to get a little inno 
cent pleasure out of it, whatever hap 
pens." 

The answer of the head of the con 
servatory to Ongley s letter was a good 
deal of a surprise to both Ongley and 
myself. Nelson Cole, which was the 
man s name, was sincerely appreciative 
and grateful, but what surprised us was 
the fact that he said he would himself 
come on and discuss the matter. It was 
a long and expensive trip to the Madison 
Springs, and we did not imagine that 
Cole s position could be a very lucrative 
one, but both Ongley and I were glad 
that he had decided to make the jour 
ney. It shifted the responsibilities largely 
from our own shoulders, and the results 
of the visit could hardly fail to be of ad 
vantage in making a choice. 

"I suppose he wants to lay all the 
facts before you," I said to Ongley, "so 
that all three of the girls will have a fair 
chance." 



28 THE ETHICS OF NELSON COLE 

"On the contrary," Ongley objected a striking contrast between the two men 

smilingly, "I ll wager you a dozen golf- Ongley, suave, immaculate in his flannels 

balls that he is coming to plead for a as in his manner, and the younger man, 

particular girl. He probably won t ad- very sincere but a trifle nervous in the 

mit it, but watch carefully and see if I m presence of a man of much power and a 

not right. It s very difficult to eliminate unique position in the world of music, 

the human element, and Cole, who is no The hour was just before luncheon, and 

doubt a musician of sorts, is probably Ongley began the interview by asking us 

human, and is going to try to put some- to adjourn to the casino porch and open 

thing over on us." our conference with a mint julep. I do 

During the few days that intervened not believe Cole wanted the julep, but I 

before the arrival of Cole, I tried to learn rather imagine he felt that it would make 

something of him from his three students, him appear unworldly if he refused, so he 

but I was not particularly successful. Ap- promptly accepted the invitation, 

parently they all had the kind of hero- When we were seated at a small round 

ownership that most girls have for their table with the frosted glasses before us, 

teacher, especially when he is a bachelor Ongley came quickly to the purpose of 

and retains a certain aloofness. But be- his talk. "Mr. Cole," he said, "I greatly 

yond the acts that Nelson Cole was un- appreciate your interest in this matter 

married, held strictly to the reserve due which you have certainly shown in taking 

his position, and played no favorites this long trip. To save time I am going 

amongst his women pupils, I learned to ask you frankly if you believe any one 

really nothing, and was forced to retain of the three young ladies is particularly 

my curiosity until the arrival of the man worthy of this opportunity. I mean 

himself. worthy in a musical way and well, in 

When Cole did make his unexpected every other way. Her record at your 

appearance that is, unexpected to the conservatory and her record at her home, 

lady orchestra the enthusiasm of their of which you probably know something, 

greeting knew no bounds. They fairly is of course of inestimable value." 

thrilled at the sight of him, and their Cole gazed steadily at Ongley in his 

cries of delight echoed far up and down tentative and unimpertinent way, and 

the valley. I had never met the director the confidence which Ongley had so 

of a small-town musical conservatory be- readily placed in him brought the sug- 

fore, but Cole was a much younger man gestion of a blush to the young man s 

than I had pictured him. He was of colorless face. 

medium height and narrow build, with "That s very kind of you," Cole said, 

stooping shoulders. The features of his speaking very slowly, "but I came up 

rather pale, bloodless face were finely here to talk it over with you rather than 

modelled, and there was something in his settle the question by correspondence." 

big dark eyes that was very appealing. For a moment he hesitated and then 

He had a trick of staring curiously at went on. "Above all, I wanted to be fair. 

you through his round horn glasses which The chance would mean so very much to 

was apparently not at all impertinent but any one of these young ladies it would 

rather gave one the impression that the mean everything. Everything to them 

man s mind was trying to thoroughly personally and to their families.. They 

grasp the last remark it had received, and are all poor, very poor, and it is not pos- 

doing its utmost to frame a proper and sible that any one of them could obtain 

worthy reply. Indeed, Cole s whole such an opportunity except it came from 

manner was tentative and shy and in- a philanthropist like yourself, which is 

vited one s confidence. When his riotous really very much as if it had come straight 

greeting by the young ladies was over, from Heaven." 

and he had washed away the stains of his "You flatter me, Mr. Cole," Ongley 

long journey, he at once sought out Henry laughed. 

Ongley and, in a somewhat diffident But Cole was in no mood for laughter, 

manner, made himself known. I was This was, indeed, a most serious matter 

with Ongley at the time, and there was to the young man, and he evidently re- 



THE ETHICS OF NELSON COLE 



29 



garded Ongley s altruistic offer as little 
less than inspired. 

"But suppose Mr. Ongley had not 
made his very generous proposal?" I 
asked. "What would have been the 
probable fate of the young lady, and, as 
a matter of fact, what is probably going 



a humdrum, narrow existence, and- 
yet 

"And yet," Ongley repeated,- 



-and 



you 



mean it has its advantages even in con 
trast to the life of a successful artist?" 
In his shy, nervous way, Cole smiled 
at us in turn. "Why, yes, Mr. Ongley," 




The enthusiasm of their greeting knew 110 bounds. Page 28. 



to become of the two who do not go 
abroad?" 

Again Cole hesitated, and then slightly 
shrugged his narrow shoulders as if to 
imply that the situation was rather 
hopeless for the two unsuccessful candi 
dates. "They would probably become 
music-teachers in a small way, or they 
might marry and give up their music. 
Most of the girls who marry in a small 
town like ours have to devote their time 
to looking after their children and to 
taking care of their home. Few of our 
young men have any money it is rather 



he said; "surely, sir, there are worse 
fates for woman than motherhood and a 
home and a husband to care for her. 
And then suppose the girl doesn t suc 
ceed what then? She has had her one 
golden opportunity and she has failed. 
It is not easy for her to return to a small 
town life and all the drudgery and the 
limitations that go with it. For a few 
years she has lived. Of course the girl 
should be thankful for those years and 
be content. But well, I doubt if it 
often works out that way. The chances 
are, so far as her happiness is con- 



30 THE ETHICS OF NELSON COLE 

cerned, that her whole life will be a fail- him; "there s no hurry; that is, so far as 

ure ." I m concerned." 

"And even suppose she succeeds," At Ongley s suggestion, when luncheon 
Ongley said, "there is still no guarantee was over we avoided Cole, and left him 
that she will be happy. From my ex- to his own devices and to reach a de- 
perience with successful artists, I shouldn t cision in his own way. Late that after- 
say that they were a particularly con- noon Ongley and I, as was our custom, 
tented lot. The life usually makes them took a long walk over one of the moun- 
self-centred and selfish. But from my tain roads but little used by the guests 
standpoint it doesn t make much differ- of the hotel pleasant strolls, principally 
ence what it does to the individual, given over to long spaces of silent ad- 
I m supposed to be a benefactor to strug- miration of the gray-green hills covered 
gling artists. As a matter of fact, I only with pine and chestnut and the nile- 
consider the public. A great singer or a green meadows and pastures that lay be- 
great musician gives pleasure to thou- low us and stretched as far as one could 
sands, yes, hundreds of thousands of see up and down this lovely valley of 
people. It makes a lot of them better, peace. 

helps them to forget their troubles. What " What do you think of the professor ? " 

is the life of any artist compared to the I asked bluntly. 

happiness their work spreads broadcast " I suppose you mean Cole. Fine chap, 
over the world? If I wanted to really I m sorry for him, very sorry." 
help one of the three young ladies, I "Sorry, why?" I asked, 
should build her a pretty bungalow in a "Why?" Ongley repeated; "because 
commuter s paradise and set her young he s up against it. When I got that 
man up in some modest business. But I letter from him I supposed he was com- 
don t do that. I send her abroad and ing to plead for a particular girl s hap- 
pay for her education, exactly as some piness; now I know he s here to protect 
men commission a great sculptor or a his own happiness. I suppose every man 
great artist to create a statue or a picture and every woman, too, runs into a cross- 
that would belong to the world, so that roads sooner or later, but generally we 
the world would be the gainer from its ex- have plenty of warning and we approach 
istence. It s the soul and the heart of the it deliberately and slowly. This poor 
world that interests me and for which I m devil finds himself at the sign-post with- 
willing to gamble my money; the soul out any warning at all. He s suddenly 
and the heart of the artist whom I back asked to choose at once between hap- 
is no more to me than that of the lifeless piness and heroism, and that s a hard one 
statue or the picture that the other man to put up to any man." 
commissions to be moulded or painted." "Pardon me," I said, "but 
Ongley stopped talking and smiled some- "Surely, man, you can see he s in love 
what apologetically at Cole. "I think with one of these girls," Ongley inter- 
that s all," he added. "You must for- rupted me rather testily. "Didn t you 
give my long-winded dissertation, but hear him raving about motherhood and 
I just wanted you to know where I a home and a devoted husband? Of 
stood." course he s in love with one of them, and 

Thank you, Mr. Ongley," Cole said he had it all fixed in his own mind to 
simply. "I understand you perfectly, marry her, when suddenly along comes 
sir, and I m sure that that s the big way a complete outsider who offers her a 
to look at it, but- chance to be a great artist, which Cole, 
Ongley finished his julep and, suddenly, being quite blinded by his love for the 
as if intentionally interrupting Cole, got girl, believes to be a sure thing. Fine for 
up from the table, and the talk was at an the girl, but it s the end of Cole. His 
end. On our way to the hotel he put his love, the home he had planned, happiness, 
arm through Cole s, and it was quite children, all the other dreams about to be 
evident that he had already taken a realized, suddenly tossed into the scrap- 
distinct liking to the young man. heap!" 

Think it over," he said when we left "Supposing you are right, and perhaps 



mW^{%^^ 

*.- *f 4X, i\f ;iiwfva-^ . 




From the girl s expression I could not venture any kind of a guess as to the thoughts that 

filled her mind. 



you are right," I said, "which one of the 
girls do you think it is?" 

"Ah, there you have me," Ongley 
smiled; and then, stopping suddenly and 
lowering his voice to a whisper, added: 
"No, you haven t. Look there." 

Seated on a flat rock, perhaps a hun 
dred feet from the road, we saw Rita 
Grinnell and, at her feet, the professor. 
Both of them were looking across the 
valley at the endless circle of hills that 
seemed to shut in our valley of peace and 
content from the rest of the world. So 
far as I could tell, they were for the mo 
ment quite silent. From the girl s ex 
pression I could not venture any kind of 
a guess as to the thoughts that filled her 
mind, but although Cole s face was par 
tially hidden from me, it was not difficult 
to imagine of what he was thinking. 
Here at his side was the girl he loved, and 
in a few words he could offer her his pro 



tection and care and a simple home and 
children, perhaps. And it was fair to 
suppose that the girl would be delighted 
to accept all of this and consider herself 
blessed. But Cole also knew that almost 
within his grasp he held the key to this 
girl s paradise the key that could open 
the gates to the great world that lay be 
yond the narrow cramped life that now 
bound them in. It was evident that Cole 
and the girl had not seen us, and from a 
sign from Ongley we turned and silently 
retraced our steps down the mountain 
road. 

At the request of Cole, Ongley and I 
met him that night in the ballroom at 
eleven o clock, the hour when the band 
ceased its efforts and the dancers vanished 
into the darkened recesses of the porches. 
He wanted us to hear his students per 
form their musical stunts, assisted on this 
occasion by their beloved instructor. 

31 



32 THE ETHICS OF NELSON COLE 

Flora Jenkins played her favorite selec- equally frank in asking you if your per- 
tion on the clarionet and, with many sonal regard for this young lady would in 
flatted notes of which she was apparently any way affect a decision once reached ? " 
wholly unconscious, sang a sentimental "In no way," Cole said quickly; "the 
ballad. Harriet Nash played a soulless young lady is quite ignorant of my re 
but technically correct nocturne on the gard. I fear the affection has been only 
piano, and, with Cole as her accompanist, on my side." 

Rita Grinnell performed on the violin. "Good," said Ongley; "then I am 
When the ordeal was over that is, ordeal going to make a suggestion that will prob- 
so far as Ongley and I were concerned, ably appeal to you gentlemen as quite ab- 
the ladies being quite unconscious of what surd and altogether cowardly, especially 
it was all about we men once more ad- after all the trouble Mr. Cole has taken 
journed to the casino porch. Once more in coming here. I propose we draw lots 
we sat about a round table and, while to see which of the young ladies is going 
waiting for some one to begin the fateful to be sacrificed on the high altar of art." 
conversation, consciously played with our There was nothing in the expression of 
straws rising from the frosted glasses. It Cole that would intimate what his feel- 
was Cole who took the initiative. ings were in regard to this preposterous 

" Well, gentlemen," he asked, " did our idea of Ongley, but Ongley s attitude had 

little concert bring you any nearer a de- been so preposterous throughout the 

cision?" whole matter that I, too, remained silent. 

Being a mere onlooker, I remained After all, it was Ongley s own money, to 

silent, but Ongley shook his head and do with as he chose. ; 

smiled genially at Cole. "I m afraid By the dim light of a kerosene -lamp 

not," he said; "I m perfectly willing to that swung in a bracket against the wall 

look after the young lady s education but of the casino, Ongley tore an envelope 

I don t feel up to taking on the respon- into three strips, and as he wrote the 

sibility of making the choice. Surely, name of a girl on each slip, he folded the 

Mr. Cole, you must know which one of piece of paper, announced the name, and 

the three has the greater possibilities?" dropped it into the professor s straw hat. 

For a few moments Cole remained , "There we are," he said; "and may 

silent, and even in the darkness we could the best one win. Mr. Cole, I m going to 

see the mental struggle going on in the ask you to draw. The first name drawn 

man s mind. . And then, throwing all his is the winner." 

habitual reserve to the winds, he stared Now that the fate of a human being 
steadily across the table at Ongley. had been, taken out of Cole s hands, it 
"Yes," he said, "there is one of the would be natural to suppose that he 
young ladies who, I believe, has a great . would show some relief, but, on the con- 
talent and who would easily justify the trary, his face went quite white and beads 
chance you offer, but"- again he hesi- of perspiration stood out on his forehead, 
tated and then went on "but I will be His long, tapering fingers trembled per- 
quite frank, gentlemen; I fear I am great- ceptibly as they groped about the up- 
ly prejudiced. I fear the personal equa- turned hat, and finally closed tightly on 
tion is too strong with me to be fair to one of the three slips of paper. Through 
the other two." The professor drew his his horn glasses he looked steadily at the 
thin lips into a straight line and in a smiling, calm features of Ongley. Slowly 
confused way glanced nervously at Ong- and mechanically he opened the slip -of 
ley, then at me, and then back to Ongley paper and held it close to his face. Then 
again. "When a man s in love with a his glance moved from Ongley to the 
woman, sir," he went on doggedly, "his writing on the paper, 
judgment isn t worth very much. Don t "Rita Grinnell," he said, 
you agree with me, gentlemen?" In the momentary silence that followed 

"I do," said Ongley; "quite useless, I the announcement, Cole took the two re- 
should say. However, so long as you maining pieces of paper from the hat 
have been so good, Mr. Cole, to honor us and, placing them with the one he already 
with your confidence, I am going to be held in his hand, tore them into small 



THE ETHICS OF NELSON COLE 33 

pieces, tossed them -over the porch railing, express my views on the ethics of the 
and watched them nutter to the lawn be- case of Cole, we heard the steps of the 
low. It was the kind of action that a professor and Miss Grinnell approach- 
man might take to conceal his emotions, ing us along the boardwalk. When we 

"That s fine," said Ongley; "there s were all seated about the round table, 
a great opening for a woman violinist." our faces barely showing to each other in 
He raised his half-finished glass, hesi- the dim light of the solitary kerosene- 
tated, and put it down. "I ve an idea," lamp, Ongley arose and formally ad- 
he said; " that is, if Mr. Cole approves, dressed Miss Grinnell, who was seated just 
Why not ask the young lady over here opposite to him. Ongley had a wonder- 
now and tell her of her good fortune? ful old-time manner of courtesy and def- 
Think of what happy dreams she would erence, and on this occasion it was par- 
have to-night and what a good excuse for ticularly impressive not only to myself 
us to have another julep and drink to her but, I am sure, to the other two guests 
success." who sat at his table. 

His mind apparently in a complete "Miss Grinnell," he began, "through 
daze, Cole nodded his assent, and, as I the inheritance of a good deal of money, 
was only too glad to be in at the finish of for which I did nothing and no doubt but 
Ongley s comedy or tragedy, whichever ill deserved, I have nevertheless been 
it was, I, too, promptly approved of the able to help those who were really de- 
suggestion, serving. The only question has been to 

"And I further propose," Ongley said, choose those who were worthy of con- 
"that Mr. Cole be appointed a com- fidence. With the assistance of my two 
mittee of one to fetch Miss Grinnell to good friends here we have decided that 
us." you are particularly worthy of such con- 
Cole got up from the table and, with no fidence, and it has been arranged between 
more words, left us. Even after he had us that, if agreeable to you, you shall go 
disappeared in the darkness we could abroad and be trained to become a great 
hear his unsteady steps stumbling along artist in your chosen profession. No op- 
the boardwalk that led to the hotel. portumty shall be denied you that is, 

Ongley moved his shoulders in a no opportunity that money and influence 

manner that rather suggested a shudder, can buy to become a world figure 

and in one long gulp finished his julep, that is, in the world of music, and that is 

"Poor devil," he said; "and it wasn t a very big world and a very fine world to 

very pleasant for me to see a man sign dwell in. The result will, of course, de- 

his own death-warrant, even if I don t pend on your own untiring efforts, but at 

know the man very well." least I can say that we who are here to- 

" It was your own fault," I laughed, night have every confidence in your ulti- 

"Why in the name of all conscience did mate triumph." 

you make him do the drawing ? Seemed Ongley bowed and smiled at Miss 

to me the refinement of cruelty." Grinnell, sat down, and waited. The 

" That s easy," Ongley said. "Just as girl s eyes were extended wide with the 

an acid test to his heroism. None of wonder of the new world to which the 

those slips of paper contained the name door had so suddenly and so unexpectedly 

of Miss Grinnell. I wrote the name of been opened to her. Even in the dim 

Miss Jenkins on two of them, and Miss light one could see the scarlet blood rush 

Nash on the other." to her face, diffusing her cheeks and 

Then the man s a liar," I said. temples, and as we looked at her, we saw 

"Sure, he s a liar," Ongley agreed; a pretty girl transformed to a superb 
"but he lied like a gentleman for the woman. It seemed as if even only the 
woman he loved didn t he? And in thought of this golden future had in a 
doing it he gave up every vestige of hope moment clad her in the rare personality 
for his own happiness, and scrapped his which Ongley claimed needed only op- 
future like a man." portunity. I had never had the slightest 

Before I could gather my somewhat confidence in Rita GrinnelPs power to 

confused thoughts, and had started to succeed, but now I had every confidence. 
VOL. LXXL 3 



34 TRAILS 

How long the silence lasted I do not pretty much everything. Before I came 

know, but I know it seemed like many up here, we had arranged that in the fall 

minutes. Miss Grinnell smiled at Ongley I should return to the conservatory and 

as if she were apologizing for her blushes, and so I think I shall return to the 

and then she looked at Cole, and in an- conservatory and and to Mr. Cole." 

swer to his nod, evidently of approval Miss Grinnell slowly turned her eyes 

and congratulation, she, too, nodded and and let them rest calmly and unafraid on 

smiled again. those of Cole, and if any of us had har- 

"It s quite impossible," she began at bored the thought that the girl was act- 
last, "to even attempt to thank you, ing from a sense of duty or gratitude, the 
Mr. Ongley, for your kindness quite look of her eyes the look that shows how 
impossible." greatly a woman can sometimes love a 

If the girl s words were conventional, man dispelled it at once and for all time, 

even bromidic, there was a certain sure- I suppose that after the revelations of 

ness and a confidence in her manner that the past few moments Rita Grinnell and 

impressed me greatly with the fact that Cole had much to say to each other, 

she had herself well in hand. "It s a In any case, I know that without any un- 

wonderful opportunity for any girl," she necessary excuses they got up from the 

went on. "I know that. But strange as table and left us, and Ongley and I 

it may seem to you all, it is so different watched them watched them, hand in 

from the life I had planned, that I am hand, like two happy children, disappear 

going to be so ungrateful as to refuse." in the darkness. 

For a few moments Miss Grinnell hesi- For some time we remained silent, and 

tated while she glanced about the table then in the general direction of Ongley I 

at the three certainly surprised and directed a broad grin. "That was a sort 

probably rather crestfallen faces. "Ever of a body blow to art and philanthropy, 

since I started to play the violin, and that wasn t it? " I asked, 

is practically the time when I began to Ongley stifled an ostentatious yawn and 

live," she went on, "I have depended on smiled grimly. "I suppose so," he agreed; 

Mr. Cole. He has been my teacher and "but when she turned those big eyes of 

the best friend I have ever had, or any hers on Cole, it was the jolt she handed 

girl ever had, and I owe him well, bachelorhood that made me wince." 



Trails 

BY MARTHA HASKELL CLARK 

WHEN I have passed the last, far hill-blue turning 
Of life s long trail against the sunset burning, 

If some can say: "I saw his camp-fire s flame 
Gleam through the dark as up the trail I came, 
Foot-weary, and discouraged, and found rest. 
He never thought to ask me for my name, 
But filled the coffee-pot, and swiftly spread 
Fresh-gathered balsam branches for my bed. 
We talked until the low moon notched the west. 
He said not much. But somehow when he spoke 
Within my weary heart new courage woke. 
Forgotten was the aching mufsde-s train 
Of plodding feet and lagging paddle-stroe. 
The sullen Future turned a comrade-face, 
The grim world seemed a kindly camping-place 
The trail-end grew a gladder thing to gain!" 
Then can I face the coming night with laughter 
Till dawn-light gilds the trails of the Hereafter. 



Leaves from My Autobiography 

THE UNITED STATES SENATE AMBASSADORS AND MINISTERS 

BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 



[THIRD PAPER] 



THE UNITED STATES SENATE 



M 



Y twelve years in the 
Senate were among 
the happiest of my 
life. The Senate has 
long enjoyed the repu 
tation of being the 
best club in the world, 
but it is more than 
that. My old friend, Senator Bacon, of 
Georgia, often said that he preferred the 
position of senator to that of either presi 
dent or Chief Justice of the United States. 
There is independence in a term of six 
years which is of enormous value to the 
legislative work of the senator. The 
member of the House, who is compelled 
to go before his district every two years, 
must spend most of his time looking after 
his re-election. Then, the Senate being 
a smaller body, the associations are very 
close and intimate. I do not intend to go 
into discussion of the measures which oc 
cupied the attention of the Senate during 
my time. They are a part of the history 
of the world. The value of a work of this 
kind, if it has any value, is in personal in 
cidents. 

One of the most delightful associations 
of a lifetime, personally and politically, 
was that with Vice-President James S. 
Sherman. During the twenty-two years 
he was in the House of Representatives he 
rarely was in the City of New York with 
out coming to see me. He became the 
best parliamentarian in Congress, and 
was generally called to the chair when the 
House met in committee of the whole. 
He was- intimately familiar with every 
political movement in Washington, and 
he had a rare talent for discriminatory 
description, both of events and analysis, 
of the leading characters in the Washing 
ton drama. He was one of the wisest of 



the advisers of the organization of his 
party, both national and State. 

When President Roosevelt had selected 
Mr. Taf t as his successor he made no in 
dication as to the vice-presidency. Of 
course, the nomination of Mr. Taft under 
such conditions was a foregone conclusion, 
and when the convention met it was prac 
tically unanimous for Roosevelt s choice. 
Who was the best man to nominate for 
vice-president in order to strengthen the 
ticket embarrassed the managers of the 
Taft campaign. The Republican con 
gressmen who were at the convention 
were practically unanimous for Sherman, 
and their leader was Uncle Joe Cannon. 
We from New York found the Taft mana 
gers discussing candidates from every 
doubtful State. We finally convinced 
them that New York was the most im 
portant, but they had gone so far with 
State candidates that it became a serious 
question how to get rid of them without 
offending their States. 

The method adopted by one of the 
leading managers was both adroit and 
hazardous. He would call up a candidate 
on the telephone and say to him: "The 
friends of Mr. Taft are very favorable to 
you for vice-president. Will you accept 
the nomination?" The candidate would 
hesitate and begin to explain his ambi 
tions, his career and its possibilities, and 
the matter which he would have to con 
sider. Before the prospective candidate 
had finished, the manager would say, 
"Very sorry, deeply regret," and put up 
the telephone. 

When the nomination was made these 
gentlemen who might have succeeded 
would come around to the manager and 
say impatiently and indignantly: "I was 
all right. Why did you cut me off?" 
However, those gentlemen have had their 
compensation. Whenever you meet one 

35 



36 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of them he will say to you : " I was offered Frye, of Maine. He was for many years 
the vice-presidency with Taft but was so chairman of the great committee on corn- 
situated that I could not accept." merce. Whatever we had of a merchant 
One evening during the convention a marine was largely due to his persistent 
wind and rain storm drove everybody efforts. He saved the government scores 
indoors. The great lobby of Congress of millions in that most difficult task of 
Hall was crowded, and most of those pres- pruning the River and Harbor Bill. He 
ent were delegates. Suddenly there was possessed the absolute confidence of both 
a loud call for a speech, and some husky parties, and was the only senator who 
and athletic citizen seized and lifted me could generally carry the Senate with him 
on to a chair. After a story and a joke, for or against a measure. While wise and 
which put the crowd into a receptive the possessor of the largest measure of 
mood, I made what was practically a common sense, yet he was one of the 
nominating speech for Sherman. The most simple-minded of men. I mean by 
response was intense and unanimous, this that he had no guile and suspected 
When I came down from a high flight as none in others. Whatever was upper- 
to the ability and popularity to the hu- most in his mind came out. These char- 
man qualities of "Sunny Jim," I found acteristics made him one of the most de- 
" Sunny Jim " such a taking characteriza- lightf ul of companions and one of the most 
tion that it was echoed and re-echoed. I harmonious men to work with on a corn- 
do not claim that speech nominated Sher- mittee. 

man, only that nearly everybody who was Clement A. Griscom, the most promi- 
present became a most vociferous advo- nent American ship owner and director, 
cate for Sherman for vice-president. was very fond of Senator Frye. Griscom 
The position of vice-president is one of entertained delightfully at his country 
the most difficult in our government, home near Philadelphia. He told me 
Unless the president requests his advice that at one time Senator Frye was his 
or assistance, he has no public function guest over a week-end. He had, to meet 
except presiding over the Senate. No him at dinner on Saturday evening, great 
president ever called the vice-president bankers, lawyers, and captains of indus- 
into his councils. McKinley came near- try of Philadelphia. Their conversation 
est to it during his administration, with ran from enterprises and combinations 
Hobart, but did not keep it up. involving successful industries and ex- 
President Harding has made a prece- ploitations to individual fortunes and 
dent for the future by inviting Vice- how they were accumulated. The at- 
President Coolidge to attend all Cabinet mosphere was heavy with millions and 
meetings. The vice-president has ac- billions. Suddenly Griscom turned to 
cepted and meets regularly with the Cab- Senator Frye and said: " I know that our 
inet. successful friends here would not only be 
Sherman had one advantage over other glad to hear but would learn much if you 
vice-presidents in having been for nearly would tell us of your career." "It is not 
a quarter of a century a leader in Con- much to tell," said Senator Frye, "espe- 
gress. Few, if any, who ever held that daily after these stories which are like 
office have been so popular with the Sen- chapters from the Arabian Nights. I 
ate and so tactful and so effective when he was very successful as a young lawyer and 
undertook the very difficult task of influ- rising to a leading practice and head of 
encing the action of a Senate, very jealous the bar of my State when I was offered an 
of its prerogatives and easily made resent- election to the House of Representatives, 
f ul and hostile. I felt that it would be a permanent career 
Among my colleagues in the Senate and that there was no money in it. I 
were several remarkable men. They had consulted my wife and told her that it 
great ability, extraordinary capacity for meant giving up all prospects of accumu- 
legislation, and, though not great orators, lating a fortune or independence even, 
possessed the rare faculty of pressing but it was my ambition, and I believed I 
their points home in short and effective could perform valuable service to the 
speeches. Among them was Senator public, and that as a career its general 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 37 

usefulness would far surpass any success was none at my time, the only way the 

at the bar. My wife agreed with me minority could defeat the majority was by 

cordially and said that she would econo- talking the bill to death. I never knew 

mize on her part to any extent required, this method to be used successfully but 

"So," the senator continued, "I have once, because in the trial of endurance 
been nearly thirty years in Congress, the greater number wins. The only sue- 
part of this time in the House and the cessful talk against time was by Senator 
rest in the Senate. I have been able on Carter, of Montana. Carter was a capi- 
my salary to meet our modest require- tal debater. He was invaluable at peri- 
ments and educate our children. I have ods when the discussion had become very 
never been in debt but once. Of course, bitter and personal. Then in his most 
we had to calculate closely and set aside suave way he would soothe the angry ele- 
sufncient to meet our extra expenses in ments and bring the Senate back to a 
Washington and our ordinary ones at calm consideration of the question, 
home. We came out a little ahead every When he arose on such occasions, the 
year but one. That year the president usual remark among those who still kept 
very unexpectedly called an extra session, their heads was: " Carter will now bring 
and for the first time in twenty years I was out his oil can and pour oil upon the 
in debt to our landlord in Washington." troubled waters" and it usually proved 

Griscom told me that this simple narra- effective. 

tive of a statesman of national reputation Senator George F. Hoar, of Massa- 
seemed to make the monumental achieve- chusetts, seemed to be a revival of what 
ments of his millionaire guests of little we pictured in imagination as the states- 
account, man who framed the Constitution of the 

Senator Frye s genial personality and United States, or the senators who sat 

vivid conversation made him a welcome with Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. He 

guest at all entertainments in Washing- was a man of lofty ideals and devotion to 

ton. There was a lady at the capital at public service. He gave to each subject 

that time who entertained a great deal on which he spoke an elevation and dig- 

and was very popular on her own account, nity that lifted it out of ordinary sena- 

but she always began the conversation torial discussions. [He had met and knew 

with the gentleman who took her out by intimately most of the historical charac- 

narrating how she won her husband. I ters in our public life for fifty years, and 

said one day to Senator Frye: "There will was one of the most entertaining and in- 

be a notable gathering at So-and-So s structive conversationalists whom I ever 

dinner to-night. Are you going?" He met. 

answered: "Yes, I will be there; but it has On the other hand, Senator Benjamin 

been my lot to escort to dinner this Tillman, of South Carolina, who was an 

lady" naming her "thirteen times this ardent admirer of Senator Hoar, was his 

winter. She has told me thirteen times opposite in every way. Tillman and I 

the story of her courtship. If it is my became very good friends, though at first 

luck to be assigned to her to-night, and he was exceedingly hostile. He hated 

she starts that story, I shall leave the everything which I represented. With 

table and the house and go home." all his roughness, and at the beginning of 

Senator Aldrich, of Rhode Island, was his brutality, he had a singular streak of 

once called by Senator Quay the school- sentiment. 

master of the Senate. As the head of the I addressed the first dinner of the Grid- 
finance committee he had commanding iron Club at its organization and have 
influence, and with his skill in legislation been their guest many times since. The 
and intimate knowledge of the rules he Gridiron Club is an association of the 
was the leader whenever he chose to lead, newspaper correspondents at Washing- 
This he always did when the policy he ton, and their dinners several times a 
desired or the measure he was promoting year are looked forward to with the ut- 
had a majority, and the opposition re- most interest and enjoyed by everybody 
sorted to obstructive tactics. As there is privileged to attend, 
no restriction on debate in the Senate, or The Gridiron Club planned an excur- 



38 



LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



sion to Charleston, S. C., that city having 
extended to them an invitation. They 
invited me to go with them and also 
Senator Tillman. Tillman refused to be 
introduced to me because I was chairman 
of the board of directors of the New York 
Central Railroad, and he hated my asso 
ciations and associates. We had a won 
derful welcome from the most hospitable 
of cities, the most beautifully located 
City of Charleston. On the many excur 
sions, luncheons, and gatherings, I was 
put forward to do the speaking, which 
amounted to several efforts a day during 
our three days visit. The Gridiron 
stunt for Charleston was very audacious. 
There were many speakers, of course, in 
cluding Senator Tillman, who hated 
Charleston and the Charlestonians, be 
cause he regarded them as aristocrats and 
told them so. There were many invited 
to speak who left their dinners untasted 
while they devoted themselves to looking 
over their manuscripts, and whose names 
were read in the list at the end of the 
dinner, but their speeches were never 
called for. 

On our way home we stopped for lunch 
eon at a place outside of Charleston. 
During the luncheon an earthquake 
shook the table and rattled the plates. I 
was called upon to make the farewell 
address for the Gridiron Club to the 
State of South Carolina. Of course the 
earthquake and its possibilities gave an 
opportunity for pathos as well as humor, 
and Tillman was deeply affected. When 
we were on the train he came to me and 
with great emotion grasped my hand and 
said: "Chauncey Depew, I was mistaken 
about you. You are a damn good fel 
low." And we were good friends until 
he died. 

I asked Tillman to what he owed his 
phenomenal rise and strength in the con 
servative State of South Carolina. He 
answered: "We in our State were gov 
erned by a class during the colonial 
period and afterward until the end of the 
Civil War. They owned large planta 
tions, hundreds of thousands of negroes, 
were educated for public life, represented 
our State admirably, and did great ser 
vice to the country. They were aristo 
crats and paid little attention to us poor 
farmers, who constituted the majority of 



the people. The only difference between 
us was that they had been colonels or 
generals in the Revolutionary War, or 
delegates to the Continental Congress or 
the Constitutional Convention, while we 
had been privates, corporals, or sergeants. 
They generally owned a thousand slaves, 
and we had from ten to thirty. \ made 
up my mind that we should have a share 
of the honors, and they laughed at me. 
I organized the majority and put the old 
families out of business, and we became 
and are the rulers of the State." 

Among the most brilliant debaters of 
any legislative body were Senators Joseph 
W. Bailey, of Texas, and John C. Spooner, 
of Wisconsin. They would have adorned 
and given distinction to any legislative 
body in the world. Senator Albert J. 
Beveridge, of Indiana, and Senator 
Joseph B. Foraker, of Ohio, were speakers 
of a very high type. The Senate still 
has the statesmanship, eloquence, schol 
arship, vision, and culture of Senator 
Lodge, of Massachusetts. 

One of the wonders of the Senate was 
Senator M. W. Crane, of Massachusetts. 
He never made a speech. I do not re 
member that he ever made a motion. Yet 
he was the most influential member of 
that body. His wisdom, tact, his sound 
judgment, his encyclopaedic knowledge of 
public affairs and of public men made him 
an authority. 

Senator Hanna, who was a business 
man pure and simple, and wholly unfa 
miliar with legislative ways, developed 
into a speaker of remarkable force and 
influence. At the same time, on the so 
cial side, with his frequent entertain 
ments, he did more for the measures in 
which he was interested. They were 
mainly, of course, of a financial and eco 
nomic character. 

One of the characters of the Senate, and 
one of the upheavals of the populist 
movement, was Senator Jeff Davis, of 
Arkansas. Davis was loudly, vocifer 
ously, and clamorously a friend of the 
people. Precisely what he did to benefit 
the people was never very clear, but if 
we must take his word for it, he was the 
only friend the people had. Among his 
efforts to help the people was to denounce 
big business of all kinds and anything 
which gave large employment or had 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 39 

great capital. I think that in his own I worked very hard for the American 

mind the ideal State would have been mercantile marine. A subsidy of four 

made of small landowners and an occa- million dollars a year in mail contracts 

sional lawyer. He himself was a lawyer, would have been sufficient, in addition to 

One day he attacked me, as I was the earnings of the ships, to have given 
sitting there listening to him, in a most us lines to South and Central America, 
vicious way, as the representative of big Australia, and Asia. 
corporations, especially railroads, and one A river and harbor bill of from thirty 
of the leading men in the worst city in the to fifty millions of dollars was eagerly 
world, New York, and as the associate of anticipated and enthusiastically sup- 
bankers and capitalists. When he fin- ported. It was known to be a give and 
ished Senator Crane went over to his take, a swap and exchange, where a few 
seat and told him that he had made a indispensable improvements had to carry 
great mistake, warned him that he had a large number of dredgings of streams, 
gone so far that I might be dangerous to creeks, and bayous, which never could be 
him personally, but in addition to that, made navigable. Many millions a year 
with my ridicule and humor, I would were thrown away in these river and 
make him the laughing-stock of the harbor bills, but four millions a year to 
Senate and of the country. Jeff, greatly restore the American mercantile marine 
alarmed, waddled over to my seat and aroused a flood of indignant eloquence, 
said: "Senator Depew, I hope you did fierce protest, and wild denunciation of 
not take seriously what I said. I did not capitalists, who would build and own 
mean anything against you. I won t ships, and it was always fatal to the 
do it again, but I thought that you would mercantile marine, 
not care, because it won t hurt you, and Happily the war has, among its bene- 
it does help me out in Arkansas." I re- fits, demonstrated to the interior and 
plied: " Jeff, old man, if it helps you, do it mountain States that a merchant marine 
as often as you like." Needless to say, is as necessary to the United States as its 
he did not repeat. navy, and that we cannot hope to expand 

I have always been deeply interested and retain our trade unless we have the 

in the preservation of the forests and a ships. 

warm advocate of forest preservers. I The country does not appreciate the 
made a study of the situation in the Ap- tremendous power of the committees, as 
palachian Mountains, where the lumber- legislative business constantly increases 
man was doing his worst, and millions of with almost geometrical progression, 
acres of fertile soil from the denuded hills The legislation of the country is handled 
were being swept by the floods into the almost entirely in committees. It re- 
ocean every year. I made a report from quires a possible revolution to overcome 
my committee for the purchase of this the hostility of a committee, even if the 
preserve, affecting, as it did, eight States, House and the country are otherwise 
and supported it in a speech. Senator minded. Some men whose names do not 
Eugene Hale, a Senate leader of .con- appear at all in the Congressional Record, 
trolling influence, had been generally op- and seldom in the newspapers, have a 
posed to this legislation. He became certain talent for drudgery and detail 
interested, and, when I had finished my which is very rare and, when added to 
speech, came over to me and said: "I shrewdness and knowledge of human na- 
never gave much attention to this subject, ture, makes a senator or a representative 
You have convinced me and this bill a force to be reckoned with on commit- 
should be passed at once, and I will make tees. Such a man is able to hold up al- 
the motion." Several senators from the most anything. 

States affected asked for delay in order I found during my Washington life the 
that they might deliver speeches for local enormous importance of its social side, 
consumption. The psychological mo- Here are several hundred men in the two 
ment passed and that legislation could Houses of Congress, far above the aver- 
not be revived until ten years afterward, age in intelligence, force of character, and 
and then in a seriously modified form. ability to accomplish things. Otherwise 



40 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

they would not have been elected. They our generation, say that if business 

are very isolated and enjoy far beyond methods were applied to the business of 

those who have the opportunity of club the government in a way which he could 

life, social attentions. At dinner the real do it, there would be an annual saving of 

character of the guest comes out, and he three hundred millions of dollars a year. 

is most responsive to these attentions. We are, since the Great War, facing ap- 

Mrs. Depew and I gave a great many propriations of five or six billions of 

dinners, to our intense enjoyment and, dollars a year. I think the saving of 

I might say, education. By this method three hundred millions suggested by Sena- 

I learned to know in a way more intimate tor Aldrich could be increased in propor- 

than otherwise would have been possi- tion to the vast increase in appropriations, 

ble many of the most interesting char- There has been much discussion about 

acters I have ever met. restricting unlimited debates in the 

Something must be done, and that Senate and adopting a rigid closure rule, 

speedily, to bridge the widening chasm My own recollection is that during my 

between the Executive and the Congress, twelve years unlimited discussion de- 

Our experience with President Wilson feated no good measure, but talked many 

has demonstrated this. As a self-centred bad ones to death. There is a curious 

autocrat, confident of himself and suspi- feature in legislative discussion, and that 

cious of others, hostile to advice or dis- is the way in which senators who have 

cussion, he became the absolute master of accustomed themselves to speak every 

the Congress while his party was in the day on each question apparently increase 

majority. their vocabulary as their ideas evaporate. 

The Congress, instead of being a co- Two senators in my time, who could be 
ordinate branch, was really in session relied upon to talk smoothly as the placid 
only to accept, adopt, and put into laws waters of a running brook for an hour or 
the imperious will of the president, more every day, had the singular faculty 
When, however, the majority changed, of apparently saying much of importance 
there being no confidence between the while really developing no ideas. In 
executive and the legislative branch of order to understand them, while the Sen- 
the government, the necessary procedure ate would become empty by its members 
was almost paralyzed. The president going to their committee rooms, I would 
was unyielding and the Congress insisted be a patient listener. I finally gave that 
upon the recognition of its constitutional up because, though endowed with reason- 
rights. Even if the president is, as Me- able intelligence and an intense desire for 
Kinley was, in close and frequent touch knowledge, I never could grasp what they 
with the Senate and the House of Repre- were driving at. 
sentatives, the relation is temporary and 

unequal, and not what it ought to be, AMBASSADORS AND MINISTERS 

automatic. The United States has always been 

Happily _we _ have started a budget admirably represented at the Court of 

system, which is a step in the right di- St. James. I consider it as a rare privi- 

rection. But more is needed. The Cabi- lege and a delightful memory that I have 

net should have seats on the floor of the known well these distinguished ambas- 

Houses, and authority to answer ques- sadors and ministers who served during 

tions and participate in debates. Unless my time. I was not in England while 

our system was radically changed, we Charles Francis Adams was a minister, 

could not adopt the English plan of select- but his work during the Civil War created 

ing the members of the Cabinet entirely intense interest in America. It is ad- 

from the Senate and the House. But we mitted that he prevented Great Britain 

could have an administration always in from taking such action as would have 

close touch with the Congress if the Cabi- prolonged the war and endangered the 

net members were in attendance when purposes which Mr. Lincoln was trying to 

matters affecting their several depart- accomplish, namely, the preservation of 

ments were under discussion and action, the Union. His curt answer to Lord John 

I heard Senator Aldrich, who was one Russell, "This means war," changed the 

of the shrewdest and ablest legislators of policy of the British Government. 



:- 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 41 

James Russell Lowell met every re- to know if I had any fresh American 

quirement of the position, but, more than stories, and I told with some exaggera- 

that, his works had been read and ad- tion and embroidery the story of the 

mired in England before his appointment. Reading cattle show. Dear old Hoppin 

Literary England welcomed him with was considerably embarrassed at the 

open arms, and official England soon be- chafing he received, but took it in good 

came impressed with his diplomatic abil- part, and thereafter the embassy was 

ity. He was one of the finest after- entirely at my service, 

dinner speakers, and that brought him in Mr. Edward J. Phelps was an extraor- 

contact with the best of English public dinary success. He was a great lawyer, 

life. He told me an amusing instance, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme 

As soon as he was appointed, everybody Court of the United States told me that 

who expected to meet him sent to the there was no one who appeared before 

book stores and purchased his works, that Court whose arguments were more 

Among them, of course, was the "Biglow satisfactory and convincing than those 

Papers." One lady asked him if he had of Mr. Phelps. He had the rare distinc- 

brought Mrs. Biglow with him. tion of being a frequent guest at the 

The secretary of the embassy, William Benchers dinners in London. One of the 
J. Hoppin, was a very accomplished English judges told me that at a Bench- 
gentleman. He had been president of the ers dinner the judges were discussing a 
Union League Club, and I knew him very novel point which had arisen in one of 
well. I called one day at the embassy the cases recently before them. He said 
with an American living in Europe to ask that in the discussion, in which Mr. 
for a favor for this fellow countryman. Phelps was asked to participate, the view 
The embassy was overwhelmed with which the United States minister pre- 
Americans asking favors, so Hoppin, sented was so forcible that the decision, 
without looking at me or waiting for the which had been practically agreed upon, 
request, at once brought out his formula was changed to meet Mr. Phelps s view. 
for sliding his visitors- on an inclined plane I was at several of Mr. Phelps s dinners, 
into the street. He said: "Every Amer- They were remarkable gatherings of the 
ican and there are thousands of them best in almost every department of 
who comes to London visits the embassy. English life. 

They all want to be invited to Bucking- At one of his dinners I had a delightful 
ham Palace or to have cards to the House talk with Browning, the poet. Browning 
of Lords or the House of Commons. Our told me that as a young man he was sev- 
privileges in that respect are very few, eral times a guest at the famous break- 
so few that we can satisfy hardly any- fasts of the poet and banker, Samuel 
body. Why Americans, when there is so Rogers. Rogers, he said, was most arbi- 
much to see in this old country from trary at these breakfasts with his guests, 
which our ancestry came, and with whose and rebuked him severely for venturing 
literature we are so familiar, should want beyond the limits within which he 
to try to get into Buckingham Palace or thought a young poet should be confined, 
the Houses of Parliament is incompre- Mr. Browning said that nothing grati- 
hensible. There is a very admirable fied him so much as the popularity of his 
cattle show at Reading. I have a few works in the United States. He was 
tickets and will give them to you, gentle- especially pleased and also embarrassed 
men, gladly. You will find the show ex- by our Browning societies, of which there 
ceedingly interesting." seemed to be a great many over here. 

I took the tickets, but if there is any- They sent him papers which were read by 

thing of which I am not a qualified judge, members of the societies, interpreting 

it is prize cattle. That night, at a large his poems. These American friends dis- 

dinner given by a well-known English covered meanings which had never oc- 

host, my friend Hoppin was present, and curred to him, and were to him an entirely 

at once greeted me with warm cordiality, novel view of his own productions. He 

Of course, he had no recollections of the also mentioned that every one sent him 

morning meeting. Our host, as usual presents and souvenirs, all of them as 

when a new American is present, wanted appreciations and some as suggestions 



42 



LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



and help. Among these were several 
cases of American wine. He appreciated 
the purpose of the gifts, but the fluid did 
not appeal to him. 

He told me he was a guest at one time 
at the dinners given to the Shah of Persia. 
This monarch was a barbarian, but the 
British Foreign Office had asked and ex 
tended to him every possible courtesy, be 
cause of the struggle then going on as to 
whether Great Britain or France or Rus 
sia should have the better part of Persia. 
France and Russia had entertained him 
with lavish military displays and other 
governmental functions, which a demo 
cratic country like Great Britain could 
not duplicate. So the Foreign Office 
asked all who had great houses in London 
or in the country, and were lavish enter 
tainers, to do everything they could for 
the Shah. 

Browning was present at a great dinner 
given for the Shah at Stafford House, the 
home of the Duke of Sutherland, and 
the finest palace in London. Every 
guest was asked, in order to impress the 
Shah, to come in all the decorating to 
which they were entitled. The result 
was that the peers came in robes, which 
they would not have thought of wearing 
on such an occasion, and everybody else 
in any costume of honor possessed. 
Browning said he had received a degree 
at Oxford and that entitled him to a scar 
let cloak. He was so outranked, because 
the guests were placed according to rank, 
that he sat at the foot of the table. The 
Shah said to his host: "Who is that dis 
tinguished gentleman in the scarlet cloak 
at the other end of the table?" The 
host answered: "That is one of our great 
est poets." "That is no place for a 
poet," remarked the Shah; "bring him 
up here and let him sit next to me." So 
at the royal command the poet took the 
seat of honor. The Shah said to Brown 
ing: "I am mighty glad to have you near 
me, for I am a poet myself." 

It was at this dinner that Browning 
heard the Shah say to the Prince of Wales, 
who sat at the right of the Shah: "This is 
a wonderful palace. Is it royal?" The 
Prince answered: "No, it belongs to one 
of our great noblemen, the Duke of 
Sutherland." "Well," said the Shah, 
"let me give you a point. When one of 
my noblemen or subjects gets rich enough 



to own a palace like this, I cut off his 
head and take his fortune." 

A very beautiful English lady told me 
that she was at Ferdinand Rothschild s, 
where the Shah was being entertained. 
In order to minimize his acquisitive tal 
ents, the wonderful treasures of Mr. 
Rothschild s house had been hidden. 
The Shah asked for an introduction to 
this lady and said to her: "You are the 
most beautiful woman I have seen since 
I have been in England. I must take 
you home with me." "But," she said, 
" Your Majesty, I am married." " Well," 
he replied, "bring your husband along. 
When we get to Teheran, my capital, I 
will take care of him." 

Mr. Phelps s talent as a speaker was 
quite unknown to his countrymen be 
fore he went abroad. While he was a 
minister he made several notable ad 
dresses, which aroused a great deal of 
interest and admiration in Great Britain. 
He was equally happy in formal orations 
and in the field of after-dinner speeches. 
Mrs. Phelps had such a phenomenal suc 
cess socially that when her husband was 
recalled and they left England, the ladies 
of both the great parties united, and 
through Lady Rosebery, the leader of the 
Liberal, and Lady Salisbury, of the Con 
servative women, paid her a very unusual 
and complimentary tribute. 

During John Hay s term as United 
States minister to Great Britain, my 
visits to England were very delightful. 
Hay was one of the most charming men 
in public life of his period. He had won 
great success in journalism, as an author, 
and in public service. At his house in 
London one would meet almost every 
body worth while in English literary, 
public, and social life. 

In the hours of conversation with him, 
when I was posting him on the -latest 
developments in America, his comment 
upon the leading characters of the time 
were most racy and witty. Many of 
them would have embalmed a statesman, 
if the epigram had been preserved, like 
a fly in amber. He had officially a very 
difficult task during the Spanish War. 
The sympathies of all European govern 
ments were with Spain. This was espe 
cially true of the Kaiser and the German 
Government. It was Mr. Hay s task to 
keep Great Britain neutral and prevent 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 43 

her joining the general alliance to help Cassini. He is a revelation in the way of 

Spain, which some of the continental secret diplomacy. He brought to me the 

governments were fomenting. voluminous instructions to him of his 

Happily, Mr. Balfour, the British for- government on our open-door policy, 

eign minister, was cordially and openly After we had gone over them carefully, he 

our friend. He prevented this combina- closed his portfolio and, pushing it aside, 

tion against the United States. said: Now, Mr. Secretary, listen to Cas- 

During part of my term as a senator sini. He immediately presented an ex- 
John Hay was secretary of state. To actly opposite policy from the one in the 
visit his office and have a discussion on instructions, and a policy entirely favora- 
current affairs was an event to be remem- ble to us, and said : That is what my gov- 
bered. He made a prediction, which was ernment will do. " It was a great loss to 
the result of his own difficulties with the Russian diplomacy when he died so early. 
Senate, that on account of the two-thirds As senator I did all in my power to 
majority necessary for the ratification of a bring about the appointment of Whitelaw 
treaty, no important treaty sent to the Reid as ambassador to Great Britain. 
Senate by the president would ever again He and I had been friends ever since his 
be ratified. Happily this gloomy view beginning in journalism in New York 
has not turned out to be entirely correct, many years before. Reid was then the 

Mr. Hay saved China, in the settle- owner and editor of the New. York Trib- 

ment of the indemnities arising out of the une, and one of the most brilliant 

Boxer trouble, from the greed of the great journalists in the country. He was also 

powers of Europe. One of his greatest an excellent public speaker. His long 

achievements was in proclaiming the open and intimate contact with public affairs 

door for China and securing the acquies- and intimacy with public men ideally 

cence of the great powers. It was a bluff fitted him for the appointment. He had 

on his part, because he never could have already served with great credit as am- 

had the active support of the United bassador to France. 

States, but he made his proposition with a The compensation of our representa- 

confidence which carried the belief that he tives abroad always has been and still is 

had no doubt on that subject. He was entirely inadequate to enable them to 

fortunately dealing with governments maintain, in comparison with the repre- 

who did not understand the United States sentatives of other governments, the 

and do not now. With them, when a dignity of their own country. All the 

foreign minister makes a serious statement other great powers at the principal capi- 

of policy, it is understood that he has be- tals maintain fine residences for their 

hind him the whole military, naval, and ambassadors, which also is the embassy, 

financial support of his government. But Our Congress, except within the last 

with us it is a long road and a very rocky few years, has always refused to make 

one, before action so serious, with conse- this provision. The salary which we 

quences so great, can receive the approval pay is scarcely ever more than one-third 

of the war-making power in Congress. the amount paid by European govern- 

I called on Hay one morning just as ments in similar service. 

Cassini, the Russian ambassador, was I worked hard while in the Senate to 

leaving. Cassini was one of the shrewd- improve this situation because of my inti- 

est and ablest of diplomats in the Russian mate knowledge of the question. When 

service. It was said that for twelve years I first began the effort I found there was a 

he had got the better of all the delegations very strong belief that the whole foreign 

at Pekin and controlled that extraordi- service was an unnecessary expense, 

nary ruler of China, the dowager queen. When Mr. Roosevelt first became presi- 

Cassini told me that from his intimate dent, and I had to see him frequently 

associations with her he had formed the about diplomatic appointments, I found 

opinion that she was quite equal to Cath- that this was his view, but with this modi- 

erine of Russia, whom he regarded as the fication; he said to me: "This foreign 

greatest woman sov ereign who ever lived, business of the government, now that the 

Hay said to me: "I have just had a very cable is perfected, can be carried on be 
long and very remarkable discussion with tween our State Department and the 



44 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

chancellery of any government in the cised by a man less endowed would have 

world. Nevertheless, I am in favor of brought him continuously into trouble, 

keeping up the diplomatic service. All He had the faculty, the art, of so directing 

the old nations have various methods of conversation that at his entertainments 

rewarding distinguished public servants, everybody had a good time, and an invi- 

The only one we have is the diplomatic tation always was highly prized. He was 

service. So when I appoint a man am- appreciated most highly by the English 

bassador or minister, I believe that I am bench and bar. They recognized him as 

giving him a decoration, and the reason I the leader of his profession in the United 

change ambassadors and ministers is that States. They elected him a Bencher of 

I want as many as possible to possess it." the Middle Temple, the first American to 

The longer Mr. Roosevelt remained receive that honor after an interval of one 
president, and the closer he came to our hundred and fifty years. Choate s wit- 
foreign relations, the more he appreciated ticisms and repartees became the social 
the value of the personal contact and currency of dinner-tables in London and 
intimate knowledge on the spot of an week-end parties in the country. 
American ambassador or minister. Choate paid little attention to conven- 

Mr. Reid entertained more lavishly and tionalities, which count for so much and 

hospitably than any ambassador in Eng- are so rigidly enforced, especially in royal 

land ever had, both at his London house circles. I had frequently been at recep- 

and at his estate in the country. He ap- tions, garden-parties, and other enter- 

preciated the growing necessity to the tainments at Buckingham Palace in the 

peace of the world and the progress of time of Queen Victoria and also of King 

civilization of closer union of English- Edward. At an evening reception the 

speaking peoples. At his beautiful and diplomats representing all the countries 

delightful entertainments Americans came in the world stand in a solemn row, ac- 

in contact with Englishmen under condi- cording to rank and length of service, 

tions most favorable for the appreciation They are covered with decorations and 

by each of the other. The charm of Mr. gold lace. The weight of the gold lace on 

and Mrs. Whitelaw Reid s hospitality some of the uniforms of the minor powers 

was so genuine, so cordial, and so uni- is as great as if it were a coat of armor, 

versal, that to be their guest was an event Mr. Choate, under regulations of our 

for Americans visiting England. There diplomatic service, could only appear in 

is no capital in the world where hospital- an ordinary dress suit, 

ity counts for so much as in London, and While the diplomats stand in solemn 

no country where the house-party brings array, the king and queen go along the 

people together under such favorable con- line and greet each one with appropriate 

ditions. Both the city and the country remarks. Nobody but an ambassador 

homes of Mr. and Mrs. Reid were uni- and minister gets into that brilliant circle, 

versities of international good-feeling. On one occasion Mr. Choate saw me 

Mr. Reid, on the official side, admirably standing with the other guests outside 

represented his country and had the most the charmed circle and immediately left 

intimate relations with the governing the diplomats, came to me, and said :" I 

powers of Great Britain. am sure you would like to have a talk 

I recall with the keenest pleasure how with the queen." He went up to Her 

much my old friend, Joseph H. Choate, Majesty, stated the case and who I was, 

did to make each one of my visits to and the proposition was most graciously 

London during his term full of the most received. I think the royalties were 

charming and valuable recollections, pleased to have a break in the formal 

His dinners felt the magnetism of his etiquette. Mr. Choate treated the occa- 

presence, and he showed especial skill in sion, so far as I was concerned, as if it had 

having, to meet his American guests, just been a reception in New York or Salem, 

the famous men in London life whom the and a distinguished guest wanted to meet 

American desired to know. the hosts. The gold-laced and bejew- 

Choate was a fine conversationalist, elled and highly decorated diplomatic 

a wit and a humorist of a high order. His circle was paralyzed, 

audacity won great triumphs, but if exer- Mr. Choate s delightful personality and 



WHAT AM I? 



45 



original conversational powers made him 
a favorite guest everywhere, but he also 
carried to the platform the distinction 
which had won for him the reputation of 
being one qf the finest orators in the 
United States. 

Choate asked at one time when I was 
almost nightly making speeches at some 
entertainment: "How do you do it?" 
I told him I was risking whatever reputa 
tion I had on account of very limited 
preparation, that I did not let these 
speeches interfere at all with my business, 
but that they were all prepared after I had 
arrived home from my office late in the 
afternoon. Sometimes they came easy, 
and I reached the dinner in time; at other 
times they were more difficult, and I did 
not arrive till the speaking had begun. 
Then he said: "I" enjoy making these 
after-dinner addresses more than any 
other work. It is a perfect delight for 
me to speak to such an audience, but I 
have not the gift of quick and easy prepa 



ration. I accept comparatively few of 
the constant invitations I receive, be 
cause when I have to make such a speech 
I take a corner in the car in the morning 
going to my office, exclude all the intrud 
ing public with a newspaper and think 
all the way down. I continue the same 
process on my way home in the evening, 
and it takes about three days of this ab 
sorption and exclusiveness, with some 
time in the evenings, to get an address 
with which I am satisfied." 

The delicious humor of these efforts of 
Mr. Choate and the wonderful way in 
which he could expose a current delusion, 
or what he thought was one, and produce 
an impression not only on his audience 
but on the whole community, when his 
speech was printed in the newspapers, 
was a kind of effort which necessarily re 
quired preparation. In all the many 
times I heard him, both at home and 
abroad, he never had a failure and some 
times made a sensation. 



(To be continued.) 



What Am I ? 

BY EDWARD G. SPAULDING 

Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University 




T is an age of questions. 
The psychologists 
made out their list, 
and by examining the 
1,700,000 men in the 
army that constituted 
a "fair sample" of our 
population, ranked us 
all from age 10 to 19. Mr. Einstein came 
to America, and every one asked questions 
of him. The Eighteenth Amendment was 
adopted, and we are still asking how it 
happened. Indeed, one is moved to ask : 
" What have we to-day that is not ques 
tioned, or concerning which questions are 
not asked?" 

Some questions are of interest to some 
people, but not to others; some are per 
haps interesting to all; but whether there 
are any questions that are interesting to 
no one may be doubted. 

Now a question that might be supposed 



to be of interest to all, though I know that 
it is not, is the query " What am I ? " It 
would seem that this question would be 
of interest for the reason that every one 
is an "I." And yet I know not only 
that very few ever ask the question, but 
also that still fewer have an answer for it. 

However, it is, fortunately, not neces 
sary to know what the "I" is in order to 
be one. Also one may not answer" the 
question and still be a successful pro 
fessional or business man, make friends, 
have hobbies, grow old, and finally die. 
Nevertheless, upon giving an answer to 
this question may depend the answers 
that one gives to other important ques 
tions, such as the question as to what life 
means. And I am not sure but that upon 
the answer that is given there also de 
pends much that one does and says in 
every-day affairs. 

These are some of the reasons why the 



46 WHAT AM I? 

question is of interest to me. But the is a series of cycles of reproduction and 

chief reason is, perhaps, my intellectual development. All flowering plants well 

curiosity. I confess that I should really illustrate this. Thirdly, living beings 

like to knauhwhat I am, or wjiat my "I" are acted upon by natural objects and 

j s _ forces such as light, heat, and food, but 

If, now, having asked my question, I they react toward these forces in that 
set about to find an answer to it, I am way which is advantageous. For exam- 
immediately inclined to appeal to science pie, even the simplest living beings, such 
as a source of information. For, living in as the amoeba, discriminate between food 
the twentieth century as I do, I find that and other objects. This fact has led some 
perhaps the paramount characteristic of biologists to claim that all living beings 
the intellectual spirit of the times is the have the analogue of consciousness. No 
claim of science to be the best source of inorganic thing presents at least this par- 
answers for all the important questions ticular combination of characteristics, 
that one can ask. In accordance, then, even though it may manifest some of 
with the spirit of the times, I turn to them singly, so that it would seem that it 
natural science for information, and, first is the fact of the combination that is at 
among the natural sciences, to biology. least one of the distinguishing features of 

Modern biology has centred around all living beings. 

two theories, both based on observed But living beings .consist of cells, and 

facts. The one theory, evolution, is that it is this fact that also distinguishes the 

present species of plants and animals have living from the non-living. Cells are 

evolved from preceding species; the other, vital units, that is, they are very minute 

that individual living beings are made up individuals that have a relatively inde- 

of smaller parts called cells. The accep- pendent life of their own. Cells are also 

tance of the former theory is due, as is highly specialized in structure and func- 

well known, chiefly to the influence of tion for example, there are nerve-cells 

Darwin s "Origin of Species," first pub- and muscle-cells. It is, therefore, neces- 

lished in 1859, while the latter, the so- sary for them to co-operate, but this they 

called "cell theory," was first propounded do without losing their individuality and 

in 1838 by Schleiden and Schwann. The independent life. 

modern developments of each of these A cell, however, is not a static entity, 

two theories give answers to our question. It is dynamic. Many processes are tak- 

Biology in general has established the ing place not only within it, but also be- 

fact that all the chemical elements, such tween it and the environment. These 

as hydrogen and oxygen, and all the cell processes are the basis for all other 

physical forces, such as electricity and bodily processes, such as the passing of a 

heat, occurring in living beings, are also nerve current and the contraction of a 

found in inorganic nature. What, then, muscle. 

is the difference between the living and But all processes, both in organs such 

the non-living? It is one of complexity as nerves and muscles, and in the cells 

and organization. The elements that are that make up such organs, at the same 

found in living beings are organized more time that they are vital processes, are 

complexly than they are in non-living also chemical, physical, and mechanical, 

nature. For example, organic molecules This means that a living being consists 

have many more atoms in them than have not only of cells and of those vital parts, 

inorganic. But also, as a result of organi- such as the nucleus, of which cells them- 

zation, living beings do certain things selves are composed, but also of the 

which inorganic things do not do. Thus, molecules, the atoms, and the electrons 

first, a living being, either plant or ani- that make up the substance or material 

mal, grows, but only by transmuting the of the cell itself. For, as is well known, a 

material which it ingests into such form molecule consists of atoms, and an atom 

as is suitable for its various tissues. Sec- of electrical charges, both positive and 

ondly, all living beings reproduce their negative. But it also means that a living 

kind, this process of reproduction being being is completely determined in all that 

accompanied by development from youth it is and does, just as are the machines 

to reproductive maturity, so that there which man constructs, and the rocks and 



WHAT AM I? 47 

winds and seas, the electric and mechani- independently of the kings. Any one 

cal forces, the stars and suns that form ace may, for example, in a hand at bridge, 

the world in which he lives. Law holds be in combination with any one of four 

supreme in the one as in the other, and kings, so that sixteen combinations of 

in neither is t there such a thing as chance, aces and kings are possible, the combi- 

In both, the same cause under the same nation that occurs in any particular deal 

conditions always produces the same ef- being entirely a matter of chance, or of 

feet. the laws of probability. The case is not 

The appeal to that part of biological different in principle with the tallness and 
science which deals with cells shows, dwarfness, the smoothness and wrinkled- 
then, in answer to my question, that I ness of the peas, and with a large number 
am a complex of various kinds of entities of other characters in both plants and 
existing as it were at different levels, and animals which this example illustrates, 
of the processes that take place at each Into the elaborate details of recent 
of these levels. Accordingly I am a discoveries in this field we cannot go, but 
being that conforms absolutely to the there is no doubt that the modern science 
laws of biology, chemistry, physics, and of genetics shows conclusively that the 
mechanics. But I am not merely a com- inheritance of all individuals of those 
plex. I am also an organization. Elec- species that reproduce sexually conforms 
trical charges are organized, not merely to the Mendelian Law. Theory and ob- 
summed or added, to make atoms; atoms, servation both show, then, that a human 
to make molecules; molecules, to make being is a complex of unit characters, a 
cells; cells, to make organs; and organs, to combination but a combination that is 
make the body. This is the rule the always so rare that it is never likely to be 
law. I am complex, tremendously so, repeated. On the basis of the various 
but I am an organized complex of or- factors involved, Conklin has made the 
ganized complexes. And I am also a computation that the number of differing 
being that conforms rigorously to physical human individuals that are possible is 
law. three hundred thousand billions. Any 

But "evolutionary biology" also has particular combination is likely to occur 
its answers to the question, What am I ? only once in that number of times. 
Thus it is generally recognized, whatever The answer, then, which the modern 
specific theory of evolution may be ac- study of heredity gives to my question is 
cepted, that every organ or function of a clear. What am I? I am an absolutely 
living being is characterized by useful- unique individual. My exact like proba- 
ness, either past, present, or future. The bly will never occur again. Nature has 
usefulness may be in relation either to the dealt the cards, and I am one hand. I 
life of the individual, or to the life of the can play only with what I have drawn, 
species, or to both. I am, then, a com- It is useless to hope or wait for another 
plex of organs and functions that are for deal, because, with that deal, I shall not 
the most part useful here and now. Shall be "I," but there will be other human 
we go so far as to place the same inter- beings, 
pretation on all functions, on all proces 
ses, even those that we call rational and There is a strong tendency on the part 
ethical? of the biologist to insist that his science, 

Perhaps, however, the most interesting together with chemistry, physics, and 
answer that "evolutionary biology "gives mechanics, tells the whole story as to 
is derived from the results of the modern what I am. But the claim cannot be ad- 
study of heredity as this has been guided mitted. Must one deny that there is a 
in recent years by the knowledge of the building because there are bricks, a tree 
Mendelian Law. Mendel found in 1865 because there are leaves and branches and 
that, as a typical example, the tallness a trunk? As well deny consciousness in 
and dwarfness of peas act in inheritance its various forms because there are brain 
as a pair of characters that are quite and nerve cells, reflex acts and other re- 
independent of the smoothness and actions to stimuli. Consciousness may 
wrinkledness of the seeds,, just as, when be but a characteristic of an organized 
dealt, the aces in a pack of cards fall complex, but I am such a complex. 



48 WHAT AM I? 

Water is not like hydrogen and oxygen, a "split-off," as is shown to be possible 
building is not like bricks and supports, by the fact of the existence in cer- 
Consciousness is not like nerve cells and tain individuals of two or more discon- 
muscles, although it may depend on nected personalities? Or, finally, is it 
these. This is the orthodox view in psy- purely physiological and, therefore, phys- 
chology, and the biologists and behavior- ical ? What happens to me, for ex 
ists who oppose it have not made out their ample, when I am in a dreamless sleep, 
case. or under the influence of an anaesthetic? 

Orthodox psychology has, as is well Is there then a total lack of consciousness, 
known, its own scientific lingo. Every or am I conscious, but subsequently un- 
teacher of psychology has written a text- able to recall the specific conscious proc- 
book in which are discussed sensations, esses that took place? In the former 
percepts, memory images, imagination, case, either there is no longer an " I, " or 
concepts, reasoning, ideo motor action, the "I" is purely physiological, and not 
will, habit, reflexes, jnstincts, emotions, in the least dependent upon or identical 
association, dissociation, and the like, with consciousness. In the second case, 
and there is no doubt that particular while it is implied that the "I" is con- 
processes of these different types do take scious, the "I" is nevertheless something 
place from moment to moment, many of that cannot be got at something of 
them, indeed, at the same moment. I which I cannot by volition be conscious, 
can, for example, coincidently have sense- Such considerations show that it is 
percepts, remember, reason, have emo- most difficult, if not impossible, to iden- 
tions, and will to do something. I can tify the "I" with a conscious being, and 
also be conscious of myself whatever that in so far as orthodox psychology 
the self may be although it is evident has endeavored to make this identifica- 
that the consciousness of self does not tion, the endeavor has failed, 
disclose what the self is. But perceiving, For at least the time being, then, I 
remembering, thinking, and the like are leave the kind of psychology that deals 
processes, and a process is a change, with the conscious, and pass to the exami- 
There is a "stream of consciousness," nation of that kind of evidence which 
as William James said. My conscious- shows that there is such a thing as the 
ness now is not what it was a minute ago, subconscious. This evidence is furnished 
nor what it will be a minute hence. by "abnormal psychology," or by psy- 

What, then, am I ? Am I the present chiatry and psychoanalysis, 

consciousness ? If I am, then I am not That we are never at any period of time 

the same self that I was or will be. I am, conscious of all that we can be conscious 

rather, many selves. And if I am this, of will be granted by all. But that there 

which one of the many is the self ? are experiences that are registered and 

But if I am not the present conscious- conserved, and that profoundly influence 

ness, but some consciousness that is past, our consciousness without themselves 

then is the "I" a conscious I? Is it not, ever being in the field of consciousness, 

rather, a consciousness become subcon- indeed with it impossible volitionally to 

scious, and organized either alone by bring those experiences into that field, 

itself, or both by itself and also with my will not be so readily granted. Yet that 

present consciousness? If the "I" is. there are such subconscious processes is 

however, this particular complex of both the only conclusion that will account for 

present and past consciousness, then it is a host of observable facts, 

not exclusively either conscious or sub- The types of evidence which demand 

conscious, but, rather, the organization this conclusion are as follows: 

of the two. First, it is found that memories of cer- 

This possible solution of the problem tain experiences are revealed in automatic 
raises the further question, however, as to writing, either under normal or under 
what the nature of "the subconscious" hypnotic conditions, that cannot volun- 
is. Is the subconscious one in kind with tarily be brought into the field of con- 
consciousness, only less in degree or in- sciousness. Further, the more precise 
tensity? Or is it a " coconsciousness " of details and circumstances of the occur- 
the same intensity as consciousness, but rence of these experiences are revealed by 



WHAT AM I? 



49 



the subject when, in hypnotic condition. 
There is no doubt, then, that these experi 
ences are conserved. The further study 
of these experiences by the disclosures of 
the subject when automatically writing or 
when hypno tized shows that they account 
for certain conscious processes, for ex 
ample, for. phobias, which the subject con 
sciously cannot account for at all. As 
conserved, yet as not accessible to voli 
tional control, these experiences must be 
subconscious, while as accounting for 
the occurrence and persistence of specific 
conscious states they are subconscious 
influences. 

Secondly, hypnotized subjects are often 
able to recall dreams that cannot be 
remembered in normal consciousness. 
Dreams are themselves the effects of con 
served experiences that are not in normal 
consciousness, and that in the majority 
of cases cannot be brought into that con 
sciousness by volitional effort. This is 
true, whatever further interpretation be 
made of dreams, that is, whether they be 
regarded as symbols, as fantasies, or as 
realistic reproductions. 

Thirdly, there are certain perceptions 
which seemingly never enter even the 
fringe of the normal consciousness, and 
which nevertheless are conserved. Both 
the occurrence of such perceptions and 
their conservation are demonstrated by 
the recall of the perceptive experiences 
by subjects both when hypnotized and 
when automatically writing. As exam 
ples of the kind of things that can be thus 
subconsciously perceived one may men 
tion paragraphs in newspapers and minor 
details of dress. These experiences can 
not be volitionally recalled, but if a sub 
ject is hypnotized, they can be reproduced 
in the consciousness of that subject. 

Fourthly, post-hypnotic phenomena 
give rich evidence of the fact of the sub 
conscious. For example, if it be sug 
gested to a subject in hypnotic condition 
that a specific arithmetical problem be 
solved and the answer given at a specified 
later time, and if the subject be awakened 
from the hypnosis before there is oppor 
tunity to solve the problem, then, in suc 
cessful experiments, the subject will auto 
matically and absent-mindedly at the 
time specified give the answer to the 
problem. Frequent success in such ex- 
VOL. LXXI. 4 



periments shows that there are subcon 
scious reasoning processes. 

Fifthly, instances of so-called second 
ary personality demonstrate the reality 
of the subconscious, and of the possi 
bility ^ of its far-reaching influence on the 
conscious. But the subconscious in such 
instances tends to become what Doctor 
Morton Prince calls the "coconscious." 

Doctor Prince says: 

"A subconscious personality is a con 
dition where complexes of subconscious 
processes have been constellated into a 
personal system, manifesting a secondary 
system of self-consciousness endowed with 
volition, intelligence, etc. Such a sub 
conscious personality is capable of com 
municating with the experimenter and 
describing its own mental processes. It 
can, after repression of the primary per 
sonality, become the sole personality for 
the time being, and then remember its 
previous subconscious life. By making 
use of the testimony of a subconscious 
personality, we can not only establish the 
actuality of subconscious processes, but 
by prearrangement with this personality 
predetermine any particular process we 
desire and study the modes in which it 
influences conscious thought and con 
duct. For instance, we can prescribe 
a conflict between the subconsciousness 
and the personal consciousness, and ob 
serve the resultant mental and physical 
behavior. Subconscious personalities, 
therefore, afford a valuable means for 
studying the mechanism of the mind. 

"The conclusion, then, seems compul 
sory that the subconscious processes in 
many conditions, particularly those that 
are artificially induced and those that are 
pathological, are coconscious processes." * 

It has become the fashion in recent 
years, perhaps largely because of the in 
fluence of the Austrian psychoanalyst 
Freud and his school, to discourse on that 
development of the theory of the sub 
conscious which has to do with all sorts 
of "complexes," suppressions, conflicts, 
and the like, and especially to regard the 
sex-complex as dominant. It lies, how 
ever, quite outside the purpose of this 
article either to discuss the pros and cons 
of Freud s views, or to dilate upon them. 
Basically, however, in their insistence 

* "The Unconscious," pp. 159-160. 



50 WHAT AM I? 

upon the role played by the subconscious, gence of personality. This emergence is 

they are regarded as established. The characterized by such phenomena as the 

subconscious has come to stay. In fact, taking on of a name, the showing of a 

it has always been with us. different emotional disposition from that 

Certain points stand out, however, as of the normal personality, the possession 
the result of the recent study of the sub- of certain "ideals," the ability to act 
conscious that help us to answer the voluntarily and intelligently, the corn- 
question with which we started: municating with other personalities, and, 

First, in all automatic motor phe- finally, the manifestation of a conscious- 
nomena such as gesturing, playing a musi- ness of self. "The subconscious" thus 
cal instrument, and speaking, it is the becomes a personality, but one from 
subconscious processes that are doing which there is shut off the normal con- 
the work. The "I," when I think and sciousness of the primary personality, 
speak, is very largely if it is not, indeed, Such a personality is secondary, and con- 
solely the subconscious "I." scious. If, however, the organization of 

Secondly, ideas and experiences, both the subconscious, for example, in the case 

those that we get consciously and those of a hypnotized subject, does not reach 

that occur subconsciously, as in the case that degree in which a secondary per- 

of subconscious perceptions, become or- sonality emerges, but stops short of this, 

ganized into systems or complexes in then the questions arise: What has be- 

which there may also be included emo- come of the normal personality ? Is there 

tions and feelings. Systems or complexes any personality at all for the time being ? 

and their " elements " are, while in a state Is not all personality in abeyance ? This 

of conservation, and perhaps also as ac- last question must seemingly be answered 

tively functioning complexes, subcon- with "yes," and yet so to answer it has 

scious. Yet that which makes "ele- important consequences. For, on the one 

ments" into a system is "linkage," or hand, that the self is not the present span 

organization, and a basis for this is found of consciousness has already been shown, 

in the neurones, or nerve-fibres, that con- and, on the other hand, it has also been 

nect directly or indirectly practically all found that the subconscious need not 

parts of the brain with all other parts, reach the degree of being a personality. 

The systems that result differ in their The conclusion seems forced upon us, 

characteristics. For example, some com- therefore, that the primary personality 

plexes include the conserved after-effects normally is the organization of the two, 

of strong emotions, and it is such emo- that is, of the present span of conscious- 

tional complexes that are the causes of ness and the much larger range of the 

certain specific emotional disturbances, subconscious, when this last is not itself 

such as hysteria. Other systems may in a personality, 
contrast be called "subject-systems," 

since they are relatively emotionless. This brings us to a new stage in the 

Subject-systems constitute the conserved answering of our question. What am 

elements of the experiences that occur in I ? Certainly all that biology, physics, 

those fields in which one is especially chemistry, and mechanics show that I 

"interested" and active. Indeed, edu- am, and also all that orthodox psychology 

cation may be defined as the process of discloses me to be. But abnormal psy- 

organizing such specific complexes, so chology compels the further conclusion 

that, for example, in the case of a "liber- that I am also a subconsciousness, indeed 

ally" educated person, there would be a that this part of me is even more impor- 

" history complex," a "Greek complex," tant in some respects than is my con- 

a "mathematical complex," and so on. sciousness. Yet I am not exclusively 

But there might also be a "golf complex" any one of these "things." The study 

and a " bridge complex." of the subconscious shows that it does 

Thirdly, subconscious complexes are not always become a personality. A cer- 

themselves organized into still "higher" tain degree of organization is necessary 

complexes, until the organization reaches in order that personality shall emerge, 

in some cases such a degree or such an And, normally, when there is only one 

extent, one or both, that there is an emer- personality, only one "I, " it is the sub- 



WHAT AM I? 



51 



conscious and the conscious that are 
organized together. 

Indeed, if we retrace our steps and look 
for some one characteristic that is present 
at each step or level in the building up of 
the personality, we find that that con 
stant is organization. I am " electronic," 
but not exclusively so; I am atomic, but, 
again, not exclusively so. Yet whatever 
I am, electronic, atomic, molecular, 
cellular, subconscious, conscious, I am in 
each one of these respects also an organi 
zation. 

Since organization is, then, the one 
constant or invariant thus far discovered, 
we must inquire as to what the further 
bearing of this is on our problem. Can 
any laws or principles or corollaries of 
organization be found? I think there 
can be, and that one of these principles is 
this: At every "higher" level of organi 
zation there is something, some quality, 
that is not present at any lower level. 
There is something that is qualitatively 
new, something that is of a different order 
from the preceding "lower" levels, and 
that at the level of the new order acts as 
a unit. Molecules are qualitatively dif 
ferent from atoms, and act under certain 
circumstances in relation to other mole 
cules as units. Cells also are qualita 
tively different from their components 
and act as units in relation to other cells. 
The same principle holds good for the 
human personality. 

What am I ? I am different kinds of en 
tities, some of them existing in tremen 
dous numbers. I am electrons, atoms, 
molecules, cells, organs, and a body. But 
I am also as certainly subconscious and 
conscious as I am physical, chemical, and 
biological. Yet I am not merely any one 
or all of these. I am the organization of 
all of them. And as an organization of 
entities at successive different levels, I am 
a hierarchy. I am more complex as re 
gards the electrons that are "me" than as 
regards the atoms. I am complex even as 
regards my subconsciousness and my con 
sciousness. But is my "I" a complex? 
Or is there at the summit of the hierarchy 
a singleness or numerical oneness? 

My answer is: "Yes, there is." Not 
only is there a newness of quality at each 
succeeding higher level, but there is also 
a unitariness. This is the second prin 
ciple of organization that I now discover. 



Qualitative "newness" and "oneness" 
go together. That which is a "one" at 
each higher level is in some respects quali 
tatively new, and that which is "new" is 
a quality of that which is a " one " in rela 
tion to other things at that level, for ex 
ample, molecules to molecules, cells to 
cells, personality to personality. 

If, now, I apply these principles to the 
question, What am I? I am led to the 
important and rather unexpected con 
clusion that I am not only something 
more than electrons, molecules, cells, a 
body, but also something more than even 
a subconsciousness and a consciousness. 
There is -an "I" that transcends all those 
different parts that are organized to make 
up the "I," and this "I" is not only 
one, but it is also qualitatively different, 
as regards some of its characteristics, 
from those parts. This "I" is as much 
my personality, my self, as are the con 
stituents which make it up. Indeed, I 
conclude that it is much more my self 
than are they, since they as organized 
lead to it. 

Practically all writers on the nature of 
the personality or of the self admit this 
argument, but do not draw the inevitable 
conclusion from it. For example, Pro 
fessor E. G. Conklin in his recent book, 
"The Direction of Human Evolution," 
says: "New combinations give rise to 
new qualities. When hydrogen and oxy 
gen combine, they produce something 
which is different from either." * And in 
an earlier book, "Heredity and Environ 
ment," the same author speaks repeatedly 
of "the essential unity of the entire 
organism." Similarly Doctor Stewart 
Paton in his excellent recent volume, 
entitled "Human Behavior," clearly dis 
tinguishes the unity from the complexity 
and finds that the latter does not pre 
clude the former. As well deny the unity 
of the personality, he says, as "deny the 
existence of unity to an organic chemical 
compound because it is composed of many 
parts." f Explicit recognition is thus 
made by these authorities, who but ex 
press the conclusions of the majority of 
writers in this field, of the facts of syn 
thesis, of "newness" and of unity. But 
these facts are not emphasized nor are 
their implications developed. 



* P. 10. Italics mine. 
t*. "5- 



52 WHAT AM I? 

One implication in particular, in addi- mind, and forego the teachings of science ? 

tion to those already indicated, remains Impossible, even if advisory. But it 

to be stated. The implication is that if does mean that natural science cannot 

at each level of organization there is answer all questions, perhaps for the very 

something new a difference of kind and simple reason that not everything is part 

not of degree then each level is free of nature, and that there are some facts 

from the limitations of all the preceding that are not compassed by the whole 

levels. Each level is a new kind of fact range of science from mechanics to psy- 

in the universe, and cannot be reduced to chology. The "I," the personality at 

other kinds of fact. And its freedom con- the apex of the hierarchy of the entities 

sists in acting in agreement with those with which science does deal, is one of 

very characteristics that constitute its those facts, 

"newness." What, then, am I at this v level? The 

Why, then, may not this " newness" answer is that I am a unit, a personality, 

in the case of the "I" that ultimately with characteristics different from those 

emerges as a result of organization, put of all the parts of which I am composed, 

this "I" into a realm of fact that the I am the kind of entity that, historically, 

sciences cannot and do not deal with at religion, art, literature, ethics, politics, 

all a realm that is the ethical, the aes- and philosophy have dealt with. I am 

thetic, and the rational? My answer not a thing, but a value, like goodness and 

is that this is just what does happen, beauty and truth. No "mechanical ex- 

In other words, I find that as a personality planation " in terms of any science suffices 

I belong to a rational and to an ethical to explain or even describe me. Much 

realm, and that as belonging to those more, indeed, through those "bodies of 

realms I am free from the limitations of knowledge" that deal with the lives, the 

the other, the scientific realms to which successes and disappointments, the con- 

I also belong. In the ethical and ra- flicts, the desires, the hopes, and ideals of 

tional realms I am, however, not lawless, men, do I discern what I am, what the 

That is not the nature of my freedom, human personality is. 

But law in those realms is a different I conclude, then, that it is to literature, 

kind of law from law in other realms, art, ethics, religion, and philosophy that 

and so as a rational and ethical being one must turn if one would find what the 

I am free from the limitations of the personality is. Personality is what per- 

laws of biology, chemistry, and physics, sonality does, and we do not find per- 

This is the third principle of organiza- sonality at any of those levels of which 

tion- science treats. It is only at a higher, a 

non-scientific level, that personality ex- 

In endeavoring to answer our initial ists, and at this level personality comes 
question, we have traversed in brief the in contact with personality, with beauty, 
more important natural sciences, only to with the good, and with the immaterial, 
find that we are led ultimately beyond sci- the ideal, and the spiritual, 
ence. There is something that I am that Finally, if my argument is correct, this 
natural science cannot disclose, and that necessity is to be regarded as due, not 
there is this "something" is an implica- to ignorance, which would allow one to 
tion of natural science itself. Only in an say that in time, when science has pro- 
age, however, when natural science has gressed further, it will answer all ques- 
developed so rapidly and become so effi- tions, but to the nature of things. It is a 
cient as to be induced to claim that it can necessity that is writ deep in the very 
solve all problems, would this result be structure of the universe. There are 
doubted. In the periods of Greek and some things that can be measured, 
mediaeval thought, when philosophy and counted, correlated, and expressed in 
religion were respectively the two domi- formulas according to the methods of 
nant motives, it would not have been science, but there are other quite as di- 
challenged. rectly and as certainly experienced facts 
Does our result mean, then, that we that do not submit to these methods, 
should return to that earlier attitude of And personality is such a fact. 

(Professor Spaulding s article "What Shall I Believe?" will be published in the February number.) 



My Stevensons 

BY WILLIAM HARRIS ARNOLD 

WITH FACSIMILES FROM MR. ARNOLD S COLLECTION 




N Edinburgh, a few 
years before the Great 
War, while chatting 
with a Scot with whom 
I had a bookish ac 
quaintance, I made an 
allusion to Robert 
Louis Stevenson. 
"Would you like to meet Gummy ?" said 
my companion. I eagerly assented. 

A few hours later, bearing a letter of 
introduction, my wife and I rang Alison 
Cunningham s door-bell. The old nurse 
gave us a glad greeting; she said she 
liked Americans. Conversation was dif 
ficult Gummy was stone-deaf, so what 
we wished to say had to be written. Soon, 
in response to our messages, she became 
delightfully voluble. 

One of the reminiscences of her "dear 
boy" was that at a time when he had 
been very, very naughty, Mrs. Steven 
son gave directions to have him stand in 
a corner of the room. After half an hour 
Gummy successfully interceded for par 
don. On telling Louis to come to her he 
said: "Sh-sh don t talk to me; I m 
telling myself a story." 

Another tale was of the delicate child 
waking in the night after frightful dreams. 
He would cry, "Gie me the Bible! Gie 
me the Bible!" but with the coming of 
dawn his call was " Gie me the novel ! 
Gie me the novel!" 

Time and again the rigors of the Edin 
burgh winter impelled the boy s mother 
to take him to milder climes. In his fif 
teenth year, while at Torquay, he wrote 
a letter in rhyme to Gummy which, not 
withstanding crudities, reveals incipient 
descriptive powers. I have never seen 
this letter in print, although several tran 
scriptions have been made. My copy is 
the original that was sent to the beloved 
nurse. It seems quite worth while to give 
it here in full. 



"This rhyming letter s writ to the (sic) 
From Glen Villa at Torquay 
It is raining plashing pouring 
And without the wind is roaring 
Among the cliffs that bound the sea 
And through the boughs of every tree 
With an untuneful melody 
Not peculiar to Torquay 
Oft I ve heard it midst the shades 
Of Drey Norns* lovely wooded glades 
And now again we ve got it here 
Quite as bad as there I fear 
Imagine to yourself a hill 
And then another and one more still 
Then mix together houses white 
And cliffs of a stupendous height 
And just as red as red can be 
And then a landlocked bit of sea 
Mix these together with each hill 
And place three capes beyond that still 
And then you ll have the fair Torquay 
That is as near as near can be 
But I ve forgot the Port to add 
Which really is a deal too bad 
Our ill luck never seems to leave us 
The weather here is quite as grievous 
As it was in Edinburry 
Which we left in such a hurry 
For to try if we could find 
A place more suited to Ma s mind 
But now the lunch has been brought in 
With bread and cheese and Burtons beer 
So I must leave this preely letter 
And occupation for a better 
I being feasted take again 
The Ink, the paper and the pen 
So now you see I ve writ to thee 
A letter very long Ma am 
And as this rhyme took up much time 
It needed patience strong Ma am 
Its I am ill and stay my fill 
In Glen Villa Meadfoot Road 
Which as you see will need to be 
Till I get round again Ma am. 

ROBERT LEWIS BALFOUR STEVENSON 

Glen Villa 
Torquay March /6s" 

* A wood near Colinton 

The superscription is "Mrs. Cunning 
ham, Torryburn, from Lewis." 

One of the most highly prized volumes 
in my collection is the little blue-cloth 
book "A Child s Garden of Verses" 
which, it will be remembered, was dedi- 

53 



54 MY STEVENSONS 

cated by Stevenson to" the woman who Balfour are disregarded and the text of 

did so much to make his young life happy, the manuscript meticulously adhered to. 

Mine is the "Dedication Copy," for on "Thursday May gth. Went to office 

the title-page is inscribed: for first time. Had to pass an old sailor 

"To Alison Cunningham from R. L. S." and an idiot boy, who tried both to join 

company with me, lest I should be late 

I have an unpublished letter, written for office. A fine sunny breezy morning, 

by Stevenson to his mother when the book walking in. A small boy (about ten) 

was in preparation, which contains a calling out Flory to a dog was very 

paragraph that marks most emphatically pretty. There was a quaint, little tremolo 

his sense of gratitude and loyalty. in his voice that gave it a longing, that 

"I stick to what I said about Cummy: was both laughable and touching. All 
which was that she was the person en- the rest of the way in, this voice rang in 
titled to the dedication; if I said she was my memory and made me very happy, 
the only person who would understand, " Friday May loth. Office work copy- 
it was a fashion of speaking; but to Cum- ing, at least is the easiest of labour, 
my the dedication is due because she has There is just enough mind- work neces- 
had the most trouble and the least thanks, sary to keep you from thinking of any- 
Ecco ! As for auntie, she is my aunt, and thing else, so that one simply ceases to 
she is a lady, and I am often decently be a reasoning being and feels stodged and 
civil to her, and I don t think I ever in- stupid about the head, a consummation 
suited her : four advantages that could devoutly to be wished for. Miss Fairf oul 
not be alleged for Cummy. That was girl at Wilson s the tobacconist s mar- 
why, out of the three of you, I chose ried to Montieth, a nephew of Lord Mar s, 
Cummy; and that is why I think I chose the day before yesterday. Miss F. was a 
right." good friend of mine and I do not think 

After several years of training in en- she will disgrace her new whats-his-name. 

gineering, Stevenson, in his twenty-first "Sunday May 2ist. My father and I 

year, told his father of his disinclination walked over to Glencaise to church. A 

for the pursuit and his desire to enter the fat ruddy farm wench showed us the way; 

profession of literature. This request for the church, although on the top of a 

was reluctantly granted with the proviso hill, is so buried amg tree tops that one 

that he should at once begin the study of does not see it till one trips against the 

law so that he might have another pro- plate. It is a quaint old building and the 

fession to turn to in the event of failure minister, Mr. Torrance (his father and 

in the realm of letters. His biographer, grandfather were here before him) is still 

Graham Balfour, has this to say of a more quaint and striking. He is about 

short diary kept on a folio sheet of paper eighty; and he lamed himself last summer 

at the time the young man first entered dancing a reel at a wedding. He wears 

the law office where he was to learn con- black, thread gloves; and the whole 

veyancing. manner of the man in the pulpit breathes 

"I have printed nearly the whole of it of last century. After church, my father 

for the sake of the contrasts; the high and I were taken to Woodhouselee to 

spirits and the sentiment, the humour and lunch by Professor Tytler. It is a very 

the immaturity, make a remarkable con- interesting old place, and the family is 

junction. Already it would be difficult charmante. 

for any one to read it without recogniz- "Monday May i2th. In all day at the 

ing the author, or else prognosticating office. In the evening dined with Bob. 

for him a future which, at any rate, Met Catton, who was quite drunk and 

should be neither commonplace nor ob- spent nigh an hour in describing his wife s 

scure." last hours an infliction which he lured 

This folio sheet, now in my possession, us to support with sherry ad lib. Splen- 

is so significant and is such a charming did moonlight night. Bob walked out to 

disclosure of the mind of the author in Fairmilehead with me. We were both 

esse that I venture to print it here in full; rather better than good, and in a state of 

the omissions and verbal changes of Mr. mind that only comes to (sic) seldom in 



MY STEVENSONS 



55 



a lifetime. We danced and sang the 
whole way up the long hill, without sen 
sible fatigue. I think there was no actual 
conversation at least none has remained 
in my memory: I recollect nothing but 
profuse bursts of unpremeditated song. 
Such a night was worth gold untold. 
A ve ! pia testa ! After we parted company 
at the toll, I walked on counting my 
money and I noticed that the moon shone 
upon each individual shilling as I dropped 
t it from one hand to the other; which 
made me think of that splendid passage 
in Keats, winding up with the joke about 
the poor, patient oyster. 

"Wednesday 22nd. At work all day 
at Court work being periphrasis for 
sitting on my behind, taking three lunch 
eons and running two errands. In the 
evening, started in the rain alone arid see 
ing a fellow in front I whistled him to wait 
till I came up. He proved to be a pit- 
worker from Mid Calder, and faute de 
mieux I bribed him by the promise of 
ale to keep me company as far as New 
Pentland Inn. I heard from him that 
the Internationale was already on foot at 
Mid-Calder, but was not making much 
progress. I acquitted myself as became 
a child of the Propietariat and warned 
him, quite apostolically against all con- 
nextion (sic) with this Abomination of 
Desolation. He seemed much impressed, 
and more wearied. He told me some 
curious stories of body-snatching from 
the lonely little burying ground at old 
Pentland, and spoke with the exaggerated 
horror, that I have always observed in 
common people, of this very excusable 
misdemeanour. I was very tired of my 
friend before we got back again; and so 
I think he was of me. But I paid for the 
beer; so he had the best of it. 

"Friday July 5. A very hot, sunny 
day. The Princess Street Gardens were 
full of girls and idle men, steeping them 
selves in the sunshine. A boy lay on the 
grass under a clump of gigantic hemlocks 
in flower, that looked quite tropical and 
gave the whole Garden a southern smack 
that was intensely charming in my eyes. 
He was more ragged than one could 
conceive possible. It occurred to me 
that I might here play le dieu des pauvres 
gens and repeat for him that pleasure 
that I so often try to acquire artificially 



for myself by hiding money in odd cor 
ners and hopelessly trying to forget where 
I have laid it; so. I slipped a halfpenny 
into his ragged waistcoat pocket. One 
might write whole essays about his de 
light at finding it." 

Books formerly owned by Stevenson 
are not easily obtained, and those that 
become available are quickly snatched up 
by collectors. In the catalogue of a New 
York dealer, sent to me about a year ago, 
I found one of these rarities thus de 
scribed: 

STEVENSON S COPY WITH AUTOGRAPH 

250. ANTONINUS. The Emperor Marcus An 
toninus. His Conversation with Himself. To 
gether with the preliminary Discourse of the 
learned Gataker. Translated by Jeremy Collier. 
Portrait by Van der Gucht. 8vo, old calf in a full 
green levant-morocco slip-case. 

London, 1708 $37.50 

Inscribed on inside front cover: "R. L. Stevenson, Sept. 
1869." A large number of passages are marked in pencil 
and there are a few notes. From Stevenson s Library, with 
book label signed Isobel Strong. 

Not less than a thousand collectors had 
received the catalogue as soon as I, so 
there was only a little chance that my 
order would be the first, especially as the 
price, in my estimation, was only a frac 
tion of the value of this book of unusual 
association.. I read the catalogue of an 
evening and telephoned early the next 
morning; the volume was in my hands 
before night. A day later I received 
a letter from the dealer asking whether 
I was satisfied to keep the book he 
had "received another order" doubtless 
many more. 

In the essay "Books Which Have In 
fluenced Me," first published in his thirty- 
seventh year, Stevenson has this to say 
of the "Meditations." He had then 
owned his copy for eighteen years. 

"The dispassionate gravity, the noble 
forgetfulness of self, the tenderness of 
others, that are there expressed and were 
practiced on so great a scale in the life of 
its writer, make this book a book quite 
by itself. No one can read it and not be 
moved. Yet it scarcely or rarely appeals 
to the feelings those very mobile, those 
not very trusty parts of man. Its ad 
dress lies further back: its lesson comes 
more deeply home; when you have read, 
you carry away with you a memory of 
the man himself; it is as though you had 



56 



MY STEVENSONS 



touched a loyal hand, looked into brave 
eyes, and made a noble friend; there is 
another bond on ycni thenceforward, 
binding you to life and to the love of 
virtue." 

He carried the old tome with him to 
the South Seas; it bears the Vailima 
ticket inserted after his death in each 
volume of his library. The old calf bind 
ing still shines with the coat of varnish 
applied to the covers of all of the books 
Stevenson had with him in his tropic 
home to preserve them from the ravages 
of insects. 

Stevenson and George Meredith first 
met in the spring of 1878. Notwith 
standing the wide difference of ages the 
two men immediately established a sym 
pathetic relation. I have in my collec 
tion a letter written by the older friend 
which in a few words discloses the 
thoughtful regard in which he held the 
aspiring young writer. 

The year date should be 1879 the 
common January mistake. 

"Box Hill, Dorking 
January i4th 1878 
"My dear Stevenson, 

"I wish you all good things, and best 
of all, good heart for work, through the 
year. We were sorry to have missed see 
ing you, and supposed that Christmas 
would whirl you off to Edinborotown. 

11 The Egoist is not yet out of my hands, 
and when it is I doubt that those who care 
for my work will take to it. How much 
better it is always to work in the grooves. 
From not doing so, I find myself shunning 
the date of publication: the old dream 
of pleasure in it has long gone by. I 
sent Kegan Paul a poem for the first 
number of his N. Quarterly M, He 
tells -me he is not sure when your story 
will be ready and binds me to produce 
him one. We can work in the same field, 
and I am well satisfied to think that we 
work together. A host of rubbishy ap 
plicants assails him already. 

"Is the play finished? I should imag 
ine Mr. Henley to be an excellent collabo- 
rateur; shall be glad to have the title, 
and more to sit on the banks and thrill 
with your great invention. Also I am 
very curious about the tour. My wife 
would fain hear what prisons you were 



taken to, and the general bearing of of 
ficials toward you. 

"By the way, if now you are at work 
on everything human, know that this is 
not to be done without record of an oath 
to take the Summer for idleness. I could 
do things had I yearly six months of in 
ertness. What lights would not be seen 
in my vacancy ! and you, bear in mind 
that you forfeit your richness by labour 
ing it overmuch. At your age do nothing 
for ambition, nothing for money, so will 
your production be good and choice, while 
you now go on amassing treasure for the 
time when a man may reasonably write 
for ambition and will be too reasonable 
to do it. We claim you here to stay with 
us in the Spring. Present my compli 
ments to your father & mother. My 
wife & the boy & girl are well. They 
often speak of you. As to my work, you 
shall hear of it when you come. Yours 
ever faithfully 

GEORGE MEREDITH." 

The "story" by Stevenson which was 
not yet ready was probably "The Story 
of a Lie," which appeared in the October 
number of the new magazine. The 
"play" was "Deacon Brodie," rewritten 
from many early experiments but not 
printed until 1880. The "tour" was 
"Travels with a Donkey in the Ce- 
vennes": the incidents of that unusual 
journey were doubtless related to amused 
listeners when Stevenson visited the 
Merediths in the following May. The 
book was not published until June. 

No wonder Meredith was curious about 
the tour. In the previous autumn Ste 
venson had gone alone to the little moun 
tain town of Monastier in central France. 
Here he spent nearly a month getting ac 
quainted with the inhabitants, making 
preparations for the proposed journey, 
and writing articles with a view to publi 
cation. The deliberate object of the jour 
ney itself was the production of a book. 
The first chapter, as originally planned, 
was to be a description of Monastier and 
its people. Two separate manuscript 
drafts of this sketch each headed with 
the title adopted for the book are in my 
possession but neither of these trial ef 
forts were included in the published 
volume. On second thought, the young 



MY STEVENSONS 



57 



writer doubtless realized that as Monas- 
tier was not a part of the actual journey, 
it was scarcely pertinent to devote much 
space to what was merely the point of 
departure. The longer of these early 
drafts formed the major portion of an 
article entitled "A Mountain Town in 
France," first published in 1896 in the 
winter number of The Studio, accompanied 
by illustrations from drawings made by 
Stevenson himself during his sojourn. 

I am fortunate in having three cheery 
little letters written from Monastier to 
the mother of the adventurous visitor. 
All three are hitherto unpublished. 

"Sept. 1878. 
Chez Marel 
Monastier 

Haute Loire 
" My dear mother, 

"I suppose you are now at Buxton, but 
as you have not sent me your address, I 
cannot address except to Swanston. I am 
much better, and in good spirits. The 
country is beautiful, rather too like the 
Highlands, but not so grand. The valley 
of the Gazeille below the village is my 
favorite spot; a winding dell of cliffs and 
firwoods with here and there green mead 
ows. The Mezenc, highest point of cen 
tral France is only a few miles from here. 
My company consists of one fellow of the 
Fonts et chaussees, two excise officers, 
and a precepteur de contributions direc- 
tes. There are sometimes horrid scenes 
at table. The Engineer is the best. 
" There is news ! 

Ever your afft son 

ROBERT Louis STEVENSON." 
/ 

"Chez Marel 

au Monastier, Haute Loire 

" My dear Mother, 

"I heard that my father meant to give 
me coins for this little banishment. I am 
in a wager with the world to carry on my 
affairs at my own expense if I can. But 
if I am still to have my allowance of 25 
a quarter, and you would not mind giving 
me the arrears of two quarters due, 50, 
I own I should take that gladly, and 
should not feel as I had lost my wager. 

"I am ill to-day, having both over 
worked and over-walked yesterday. The 
people for miles round know me and my 
gaiters and my cane, by .now. Vous 



Rentrez au Monastier ? they cry as I go 
past. The engineer is a very nice fellow, 
so my meals go well, and I take a walk 
with him in the evening before bed. The 
pension is 3^ francs, say three shillings, 
a day; and the food capital, really good 
and plenteous, and the wine much 
stronger and pleasanter than most ordi- 
naires. Besides which, there is some 
Saint Joseph, of which I sometimes treat 
myself to a bottle, whidi is gaudy fine 
stuff. I like the country better almost 
every day, and get on with my sketching 
better than I could have expected. 
Ever your afft son 

R. L. S." 

"Monastier 

Sunday, Sept. 8, 1878. 
"My dear mother, 

"Rec d Scots Worthies, without notes. 
However it is a rotten book, and not 
worth a rush at best. I sketch, I shoot 
with a revolver, I work, I take long walks ; 
generally, I have a good time; above all 
I am happy to meet none but strangers; 
this pleases me greatly. In a little while, 
I shall buy a donkey and set forth upon 
my travels to the south; another book 
ought to come of it. In the meantime, I 
have scarce enough energy, and still too 
much work on hand. I must have a 
clean bill before I start. Tell me about 
Buxton, and who my father finds to flirt 
with. I cannot exactly say I wish I were 
with you, for indeed I am better here by 
myself; but I wish I wished so 

ever your afft son 

R. L. S." 

What Stevenson put before us in 
"Travels with a Donkey" is really a 
quixotic and sentimental journey of the 
nineteenth century a modest successor 
to the classic prototypes of Cervantes 
and Sterne. 

We are told that the traveller wrote 
the account of his little tour during the 
ensuing winter, but the fact is that the 
book was virtually written in the twelve 
days of the journey itself. There is now 
in my happy possession the journal in 
which Stevenson, with a fulness of de 
tail almost marvellous when we consider 
the circumstances, tells the story of his 
adventures. This journal, revised and 



58 MY STEVENSONS 

somewhat amplified, became the text of to put before the reader a few represen- 

the book as published. tative extracts, and to place next to them 

In view of the unusual character of the the same matters as they are related in 

journal it seems to me quite worth while the book. 

The first of these takes us to the inn at which the traveller puts up the first 
night: 

From the Manuscript Journal From the Book as Published 

"The sleeping-room was double bed- "The sleeping-room was furnished 

ded; I had one"; and I will own I was with two beds. I had one; and I will 

somewhat abashed to find a young man own I was a little abashed to find a young 

and his wife and child in the act of en- man and his wife and child in the act of 

sconcing themselves in the other. Honi mounting into the other. This was my 

soit, que mal y pense; but I was suf- first experience of the sort ; and if I am al- 

ficiently sophisticated to feel abashed. I ways to feel equally silly and extraneous, 

kept my eyes to myself as much as I I pray God it be my last as well. I kept 

could; and I know nothing of the woman my eyes to myself, and know nothing of 

except that she had beautiful arms, full, the woman except that she had beautiful 

white and shapely; whether she slept arms, and seemed no whit abashed by my 

naked or "in her slip, I declare I know not; appearance. As a matter of fact, the 

only her arms were bare. To be thus ad- situation was more trying to me than to 

mitted into the conjugal alcove struck me the pair. A pair keep each other in coun- 

as so unaffectedly indiscreet that I sought tenance; it is the single gentleman who 

to make peace with the husband, who has to blush. But I could not help at- 

told me, over a cup of my brandy, that tributing my sentiments to the husband, 

he was a cooper of Valais travelling to St and sought to conciliate his tolerance 

Etienne in search of work, and that in his with a cup of brandy from my flask. He 

spare moments he followed the fatal call- told me that he was a cooper of Alais 

ing of a maker of matches. We were all travelling to St. Etienne in search of 

tired however and soon slept the sleep work, and that in his spare moments he 

of the traveller without fuss or after followed the fatal calling of a maker of 

thought." matches. Me he readily enough divined 

to be a brandy merchant." 

Next we have the succinct description of the village of Florae: 

From the Manuscript Journal From the Book as Published 

" Florae itself , seated among its hills, is "On a branch of, the Tarn stands 
as perfect a little town as one could desire Florae, the seat of a subprefecture, with 
.to see, with its old castle, its fountain an old castle, an alley of planes, many 
welling from the cleft basin of the hills, quaint street-corners, and a live fountain 
its alley of planes, its rugged street cor- welling from the hill. It is notable, be- 
ners and infinity of bridges." sides, for handsome women, and as one of 

the two capitals, Alais being the other, 
of the country of the Camisards." 

The contrasted accounts of a camp at night are particularly typical examples 
of the similarities and differences of the two texts: 

From the Manuscript Journal From the Book as Published 

"A little hollow underneath the oak "A hollow underneath the oak was my 

was my bed. Before I had fed Modestine bed. Before I had fed Modestine and 

and arranged my sack, three stars were arranged my sack, three stars were al- 

already brightly shining and the others ready brightly shining, and the others 



MY STEVENSONS 



59 



were dimly beginning to appear. I 
slipped down to the river, which looked 
very black among its rocks, to fill my 
can; and then dined with a good appetite 
in the dark, fpr I scrupled to light my 
lantern in the near nieghborhood (sic} of 
a house, and thereafter lay and smoked a 
cigarette. The moon which I had seen a 
pallid crescent all afternoon, faintly il 
luminated the summits of the hills, but 
not a ray fell where I lay. The oak rose 
before me like a pillar of blackness; and 
overhead the heartsome stars were set in 
the face of the night. Peace fell from 
them upon my spirit like a dew. No one 
knows what a spell they exercise who has 
not slept afield; slept, as the French hap 
pily put it, a la belle etoile. There is no 
reason why a man s eyes should love to 
behold these far away worlds, sprinkled 
like tapers or shaken together like a silver 
mist upon the sky, or no more at least 
than why he should love his children or 
be ready to give his life for a woman. It 
is one of the brute facts of human nature ; 
a coolness of the spirit, a content, a quiet 
gladness, comes from their contempla 
tion ; and all ill humours vanish from the 
soul." 



were beginning dimly to appear. I 
slipped down to the river, which looked 
very black among its rocks, to fill my 
can; and dined with a good appetite in 
the dark, for I scrupled to light a lantern 
while so near a house. The moon, which 
I had seen, a pallid crescent, all after 
noon, faintly illuminated the summit of 
the hills, but not a ray fell into the bot 
tom of the glen where I was lying. The 
oak rose before me like a pillar of dark 
ness; and overhead the heartsome stars 
were set in the face of the night. No one 
knows the stars who has not slept, as the 
French happily put it, a la belle etoile. 
He may know all their names and dis 
tances and magnitudes, and yet be ig 
norant of what alone concerns mankind, 
their serene and gladsome influence on 
the mind. The greater part of poetry is 
about the stars; and very justly, for they 
are themselves the most classical of poets. 
These same far-away worlds, sprinkled 
like tapers or shaken together like a 
diamond dust upon the sky, had looked 
not otherwise to Roland or Cavalier, 
when, in the words of the latter, they had 
no other tent but the sky, and no other 
bed than my mother earth. >: 



While in the published book we find 
the author has added several paragraphs 
relating to the history of the region trav 
ersed and various reflections, there are 
in the journal many lines that are not 
included in the printed text. Among the 
most notable of these omissions are three 
little prayers which appear in connection 
with the incidental visit to " Our Lady of 
the Snows," and were doubtless the ex 
pression of thoughts inspired by the at 
mosphere of the monastery and inter 
course with the devout brethren. The 
trio is given here with a few prefatory 
lines from the journal, also hitherto un 
published. 

"Apart from all other considerations, 
the thought of this perpetual succession 
of prayers made the time seem pleasant 
to me in the Monastery of our L. of the 
S. I have, like other people, my own 
thoughts about prayer; I find some 
prayers among the noblest reading in the 



world; Often when I am alone, I find a 
pleasure in making them for myself, as 
one would make a sonnet. I share, but 
cannot approve, the superstition that a 
man may change, by his supplications 
the course of the seasons or the linked 
events of life. I have prayed in my day, 
like others, for wicked, foolish, or sense 
less alterations in the scheme of things. 
But these grasping complaints are not 
prayer; it is in prayer that a man resumes 
his attitude towards God and the world; 
the thought of his heart comes out of 
him clean and simple; he takes, in Shake 
speare s language, a new acquaintance of 
himself and makes of that a new point of 
departure in belief and conduct. ... As I 
walked beside my donkey on this voyage, 
I made a prayer or two myself, which I 
here offer to the reader, as I offer him any 
other thought that springs up in me by 
the way. A voyage is a piece of auto 
biography at best." 



60 



MY STEVENSONS 
f\ \ A-~V*^ 



I 



J B 



\ J 

. tt\*A Wf- v-^/|(VvJ. V/~, ATKW>^<XA^<A-H>J 

^ Hn 



s^A/T rf/o-c^; &^- <J CC VU*/*- KEu. 






A Prayer 



From the original manuscript. 



"O God who givest us day by day the 
support of thy kindly countenance and 
hopeful spirit among the manifold temp 
tations and adventures of this life, hav 
ing brought us thus far, do not, God, 
desert us, but with thy continued favours 
follow us in our path. Keep us upright 
and humble, and thou who equally 
guidest all mankind through sun and 
rain, give us thy spirit of great mercy." 

A Prayer for Mind and Body 

" Give us peace of mind in our day, 
Lord, and a sufficiency of bodily com 
fort, that we be not tortured with chang 
ing friendships or opinions nor cru[c]ified 
by disease, but ever in strength, con 
stancy and pleasantness, walk in a fair 
way before thy face and in the sight of 
men; and if it please thee, O Lord, take 
us soon in health of mind and honour of 
body into thy eternal rest." 

A Prayer for Friends 

"God, who hast given us the love of 
women and the friendship of men, keep 
alive in our hearts the sense of old fellow 
ship and tenderness ; make offences to be 
forgotten and services remembered; pro 
tect those whom we love in all things and 
follow them with kindnesses, so that they 
may lead simple and unsuffering lives, 
and in the end die easily with quiet 
minds." 

On two of the front leaves of the book 
which was used by Stevenson for the 
daily record of his "Travels" is a closely 
written sketch in very small handwriting 
bearing the title "To the Pentland Hills." 
This is an early draft of a chapter of 



"Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes." The 
anecdote of the Gauger which concludes 
the manuscript is undoubtedly the gene 
sis of one of the three poems written on 
several back pages of this same book. In 
the manuscript the title is " The Guager s* 
Flute"; this, on publication, was changed 
to "A Song of the Road." The first 
stanza will recall to many the lilting lines 
of the poem. 

"The Guager walked with willing foot, 
And aye the Guager played the flute; 
And what should Master Guager play 
But Over the hills and far away ? " 








kJUW^ 



wA, 





^ 



From the original manuscript. 



The inciting anecdote is here printed 
from the manuscript; the text was re 
vised when published. 

"Down below upon a stream the road 
passes Bow Bridge, now a dairy farm, 
but once a distillery of whiskey. It 
chanced in the last century, that the dis 
tiller was on terms of good fellowship with 

* Stevenson was not an accurate speller; the word Gauger 
is always Guager in the manuscript of both anecdote and 
poem. 



MY STEVENSONS 



61 



the visiting officer of excise. This latter 
was a man of an easy, friendly disposition, 
and a master of convivial accomplish 
ments. Every now and again, he walked 
out of Edinburgh to measure his friend s 
stock; it was a double-faced predica 
ment, agreeable enough when one s busi 
ness lead one in a friend s direction, but 
painful to be the cause of loss to a host. 
Accordingly when he got to the level of 
Fairmilehead the guager would take his 
flute, without which he never travelled, 
from his pocket, fit it together, and as if 
inspired by the beauty of the neighbor 
hood, proceed to play a certain air as 
hard as ever he could. At the first note, 
the distiller pricked his ears. A flute at 
Fairmilehead? and playing Over the 
hills and far away? It was his friend 
the Guager. Instantly, a horse was put 
to: and sundry barrels were got upon a 
cart and driven furiously round by Hill- 
End, and concealed in the mossy glen 
behind Kirk Yetton. At the same time, 
you may be sure, a fat fowl was put to 
the fire, and the best napery brought out. 
A little after, the Guager having had his 
fill of music for the moment walked down 
with the most innocent air, and found the 
good people at Bow Bridge taken entirely 
unaware by his arrival, but none the less 
glad to see him. In the evening, the 
guager s flute and the distiller s liquors 
would combine to pass the rosy hours; 
and I dare say, when both were a little 
mellow, the proceedings would terminate 
with Over the hills and far away , to an 
accompaniment of knowing glances." 

Another of the poems which follow the 
manuscript of the "Travels" has for 
title the name of the young peasant who, 
without military training but with a 
genius for war, was chosen brigadier of 
the Camisards at seventeen. The roman 
tic career of John Cavalier readily ap 
pealed to Stevenson, who himself would 
have loved the life of a guerilla. 

In fact, his interest was so aroused that 
he contemplated writing a story based on 
the marvellous life of the young hero. 
The reader of "Travels with a Donkey" 
will recall the allusions to the bloody 
battles of the rebellious mountaineers 
with the soldiers of the king, but here, 
for the first time, he may read the poem 
written by Stevenson while in the very 



country of the intrepid Camisards, who 
fought the fight of faith in those intricate 
hills more than two centuries ago. 

John Cavalier 

"These are your hills, John Cavalier. 
Your father s kids you tended here, 
And grew, among these mountains wild, 
A humble and religious child. 
Fate turned the wheel; you grew and grew; 
Bold Marshalls doffed the hat to you; 
God whispered counsels in your ear 
To guide your sallies, Cavalier. 

You shook the earth with martial tread; 
The ensigns fluttered by your head; 
In Spain or France, Velay or Kent, 
The music sounded as you went. 
Much would I give if I might spy 
Your brave battalions marching by; 
Or, on the wind, if I might hear 
Your drums and bugles, Cavalier. 

In vain. O er all the windy hill, 
The ways are void, the air is still, 
Alone, below the echoing rock, 
The shepherd calls upon his flock. 
The wars of Spain and of Cevennes, 
The bugles and the marching men, 
The horse you rode for many a year 
Where are they now, John Cavalier? 

All armies march the selfsame way 
Far from the cheerful eye of day; 
And you and yours marched down below 
About two hundred years ago. 
Over the hills, into the shade, 
Journeys each mortal cavalcade; 
Out of the sound, out of the sun, 
They go when their day s work is done; 
And all shall doff the bandoleer 
To sleep with dead John Cavalier." 

The third poem from the same source 
as characteristic of the author as any 
from his pen has also remained unpub 
lished until now. 



\ 



J ***<. V<*M 




62 



MY STEVENSONS 




J 





From the original manuscript. 



Praise and Prayer. 

"I have been well, I have been ill, 

I have been rich and poor; 
I have set my back against the wall 
And fought it by the hour; 

I have been false, I have been true; 

And thro grief and mirth, 
I have done all that man can do 

To be a man of worth; 

And now, when from an unknown shore, 

I dare an unknown wave, 
God, who has helped me heretofore, 

O help me wi the lave!" 
Monastier. 

In the course of a few years several 
editions of the "Travels with a Donkey" 
were called for by a public gradually 
awaking to the charm of the new writer. 
We must now take leave of Modestine 
with this note of the author to his pub 
lishers : 

" Skerryvore 
Bournemouth 

June 5th 1886 

Messrs. R. & R. Clark 
"Dear Sirs 

"What has become of me and my 
donkey? She was never a fast traveller, 
but she has taken longer to come through 
Hanover Street than to cross Gevaudan. 



There must be carrots in your office. 
Please see to it, and let me hear 

Yours truly 
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON." 

I have been more than fortunate in 
obtaining original manuscripts of Ste 
venson s poems; no less than ten of those 
contained in the first edition of "Under 
woods" are in my collection. There is 
no material difference between the text of 
these manuscripts and that of the poems 
as published except in the "Envoy" and 
"Requiem." The "Envoy" was written 
at Bournemouth, and Stevenson in the 
little verse was describing in the "wish 
for all" his own home there, called Sker 
ryvore, which Thomas Stevenson had 
bought as a gift for his daughter-in-law. 
In this, its original form, the poem has 
two extra lines, the third and fourth. 





From the original manuscript. 



7 Envoy. 

"Go, little book and wish to all 
Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall 
An active conscience, honored life, 
A tender and a laughing wife, 
A bin of wine, a spice of wit, 
A house with lawns enclosing it, 
A living river by the door, 
A nightingale in the sycamore!" 

The "Requiem," by general verdict Ste- 




u 



vUj 

Utd. 









J 




) 




fLt^f. 











vu. 

















From the original manuscript. 



venson s poetical masterpiece, has in the 
manuscript an extra stanza, placed be 
tween the two ever-familiar verses. 

XX Requiem 

"Under the wide and starry sky, 
Dig the grave and let me lie. 
Glad did I live and gladly die 
And I laid me down with a will. 

Here may the winds about me blow; 
Here the clouds may come and go; 
Here shall be rest for evermo, 

And the heart for aye shall be still 



This be the verse you grave for me: 
^crc he lies where he longed to be; 
Home is the sailor, home from sea, 

And the htmter home from the hill" 

I have, as well, manuscripts of eight 

more poems, most of them written in the 
c ti_ c j T i t 

South Seas and l am als ^tunate in 
the possession of a folio book, used by 
Stevenson for experiments in poetry. 
Here are scores of poems in the making, 

together . with several quite complete. 

A1 ? 

Altogether a manuscript volume to be 

treasured for all time. 

63 



64 MY STEVENSONS 

Several years after the death of Steven- her, whom I have transferred from the 
son his wife sent to Dodd and Livingston, Long Island to Mull. I find it a most 
of New York City, to be sold for her ac- picturesque period, and wonder Scott let 
count, the title-page and first ten chap- it escape. The Covenant is lost on one 
ters of the original manuscript of "Kid- of the Torrans, and David is cast on Ear- 
napped," comprising sixty-two folio raid, where (being from inland) he is 
leaves. I bought them. A few years nearly starved before he finds out the 
later I obtained from the same source island is tidal. Then he crosses Mull to 
the manuscript of chapters eleven to Torosay, meeting the blind catechist by 
twenty-six inclusive, and all but the last the way; then crosses Morven from Kin- 
leaf of chapter twenty-seven, comprising lochaline to Kingairloch, where he stays 
one hundred and one folio leaves. Later the night with the good catechist; that 
still, a thorough search was made for the is where I am; next day he is to be put 
missing leaf and the last three chapters, ashore in Appin, and be present at Colin 
Only the single leaf was found. This I Campbell s death. 

have. No trace of the missing chapters " Today I rest, being a little run down, 

has been discovered, but my collecting Strange how liable we are to brain fag in 

luck has been so remarkably good that I this scooty family ! But as far as I have 

still have hopes of some day receiving an got, all but the last chapter, I think David 

almost magic letter telling me how these is on his feet, and (to my mind) a far 

lacking sheets were mislaid (perhaps by better story and far sounder at heart than 

the printer) and offering them to me. Treasure Island. 

It is needless to say that I stand ready to " I have no earthly news, living entirely 

show my most generous appreciation if in my story and only coming out of it to 

in this or in any other way I am put in a play patience. The Shelleys are gone; 

position to complete the manuscript. the Taylors kinder than can be imagined. 

Stevenson himself says of "Kid- The other day Lady Taylor drove over 
napped": "In one of my books, and in and called on me; she is a delightful old 
one only, the characters took the bit in lady and great fun. I mentioned a story 
their teeth; all at once, they became de- about the Duchess of Wellington which I 
tached from the flat paper, they turned had heard Sir Henry tell ; and though he 
their back on me and walked off bodily; was very tired, he looked it up and copied 
and from that time my task was steno- it out for me in his own hand. The Van- 
graphic it was they who spoke, it was dergrifter is pretty vandergrif tly ; I am 
they who wrote the remainder of the well, only for this touch of overwork 
story." which annoys me but does me no harm I 

There is a letter in my collection, think. 

written when the story was all but com- "I do trust Bath may do the trick; but 

pleted, which has already been printed in I suspect the great thing is rest. Mind 

part. It is surely worth while to give it your allowance; stick to that: if you are 

here in full (omitting only inconsequen- too tired, go to bed; don t call in the aid 

tial postscripts) so as to further empha- of the enemy, for as long as you are in this 

size the author s own opinion of the tale, state, an enemy it is and a dangerous one. 

The letter is without place but was un- Believe me 

doubtedly written at Bournemouth. Ever your most affectionate son 

ROBERT Louis STEVENSON" 

"Jan. 25th, 1886. 

" My dear father, In another published letter, also in my 

"Many thanks for a letter quite like collection, which was written to his father 

yourself. I quite agree with you and had shortly after the book was issued, Steven- 

already planned a scene of religion in son makes this happy forecast: 

D. Balfour, the Society for the Propa- " David seems really to be going to suc- 

gation of Christian Knowledge furnishes ceed: which is a pleasant prospect on all 

me with a catechist whom I shall try to sides. I am I believe floated financially; 

make the man. I have another catechist, a book that sells will be a pleasant novel- 

the blind, pistol-carrying highway rob- ty. I enclose another review; mighty 



MY STEVENSONS 65 

complimentary and calculated to sell the of the work. It was in the course of these 

book too." highland studies that I bought, in the 

Let me remind the reader that David city of Inverness, the printed trial of 

and Alan within sight of their goal turned James Stewart bound up with a critical 

back after the unsuccessful attempt to examination of the evidence; I suppose 

pass the sentry at the bridge of Forth, the volume cost me a few shillings, and 

They stopped at a small inn in Limekilns has proved certainly the best of my in- 

and bought bread and cheese from the vestments. I was taken with the tale 

good-looking maid in charge. They de- from the beginning; no one so dull, but 

parted, but a little later returned to the must have been struck with the pictur- 

inn, and Alan then, by a bit of excusable esque details; no one at all acquainted 

deception, so worked on the sympathies with the Highlands, but must have recog- 

of the susceptible lass that she promised nized in this tragedy something highly 

to find means to put them over the water typical of the place and time. Agrarian 

to Queensferry. In the book as published crime in Scotland had a colour of antique 

the intrepid girl who brought the refugees and disinterested virtue; it was in the 

to safety is not mentioned by name, cause of the exiled chief, not of the tenant 

That Steven son had intended definitely it was for another, not for himself, that 

to identify her is disclosed in a few can- the murderer acted. Hence a part of the 

celled lines of the manuscript. pleasure with which I considered this old 

"To make a long story short, she was trial ; hence, I determined to found upon it 

as good as her word and about eleven of a narration of fact; and hence, in order to 

the clock came by herself in a boat, and make certain of my local colour, I visited 

set us across near Carriden. Her name, Appin in the early summer of 1880. It 

she said, was Alison Hastie. She would was the last of many journeys with my 

have none of ours though I offered to tell father. It was the first time I had trav- 

her mine, and having shown herself in all elled with him since we were at all on a 

things a very good friend to us, she shook footing of equality. The weather was 

us by the hand and got again into her very wild; we were confined whole days 

boat for the return." to the inn parlour, at Glenorchy, at Oban 

When I acquired the second batch of and elsewhere; but the time sped with 

the manuscript I found with it a folio that delightful comrade. I have rarely 

leaf containing a "Note to Kidnapped," been well received among strangers, never 

incomplete, but very interesting as far as if they were womenfolk; and I recall how 

it goes. It is here first printed. it pleased and amused me to be a sharer 

in my father s popularity, and in the 

Note to Kidnapped public sitdng rooms to be the centre of 

"I have prepared myself or begun to delighted groups of girls: the stormy and 
prepare myself for several works of his- tender old man with the noble mouth and 
tory; the mountains were repeatedly in the great luminous eyes, had, almost to 
travail, and mice, in the shape of little the end, so great a gift of pleasing. At 
story books, were the best of my results. Balachulish, we had no difficulty in find- 
The best of all my designs, a History of ing the cairn that still marks the place of 
the Highlands from the Union to the death ; and when we inquired after" 
Present day; social, literary, economical As the reader knows, this article, for 
and religious, embracing the 15, and the the most part, is Stevenson s own writing; 
45, the collapse of the Clan System, and in fact there is so much by Stevenson and 
the causes and the growth of existing dis- so little by William Harris Arnold that 
contents, I bequeath to a more qualified some may say, Why put your name to it 
successor. I was myself debarred by the at all ? I don t want to go to that ex- 
difficulties of the Gaelic language and the treme, for I do desire recognition for 
state of my health which made of me an bringing to light a considerable body of 
exile from my native country; but I de- original Stevenson material, hitherto un- 
sisted with regret, having grown more and published, which can now receive the at- 
more convinced of the utility and interest tention it deserves. 

VOL. LXXL 5 




Volunteer night-school teachers. 
A most advanced picture; women and men both in same photograph. 



Miss China 



BY EMMA SAREPTA YULE 

Author of "Filipino Feminism" and "Japan s New Woman 
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 




ALLS surround the 
cities in China; walls 
surround the dwell 
ings inside the city 
walls; in the country 
there are walls around 
the villages, even the 
farmstead is inclosed 
with some kind of a wall. Turn where 
you will, look where you will, a gloomy 
wall confronts you. To one accustomed 
to open domain, wide outlook, the walls 
are depressing, repressing, exasperating. 
One feels so shut out and so sorry for the 
shut-in. 

Behind the walls, whether topped with 
brilliant blue or yellow tiles or just dull- 
gray stone or common clay, hollyhocks, 
66 



ofttimes push their sturdy stems up tall 
enough for the gay blossoms to nod a 
bright greeting over the wall. Miss 
China, the new young woman in this 
oldest of old countries, like the hollyhocks, 
is pushing her way above the walls that 
have shut her in so long and is calling to 
the outside world a cheerful, hopeful 
"hello!" Poor soil, poor seed, frost, 
pinching back of bud and young stem by 
elders who face always the wisdom-paved 
past these things keep the many too 
stunted to reach even peeking-over 
height, but the few who overtop are a 
cheering sight, as good to see among this 
custom-corralled people, as are the holly 
hocks behind the dreary walls. 

Miss China is doing more than looking 



MISS CHINA 



67 



over the walls: she is getting outside. She 
is so plucky, so determined, that it is 
quite thrilling to watch her at work, 
making holes, climbing over, any way to 
get outside. 

"The stniggle between the new and 
old in China," is a current phrase. In 
stead of a struggle it appears to be more 
of a mighty holding 
on to the old by the 
old and the conser 
vative young, a pa 
thetic rebellion 
against change. In 
her grasp of the old 
as it touches her 
personal life, the 
hold of woman is 
fairly tenacious. 
The ideas, acts, am 
bitions of Miss Chi 
na shock her soul 
and her soul s loy 
alty to her ancestral 
past. She is im 
placable to. the ar 
guments for eman 
cipation, freedom. 
Always there are 
exceptions, but the 
new woman in Chi 
na is essentially a 
young woman; a 
young woman who 
from the platform 
says : " Some lay all 
the blame of the 
dark condition of 
our country on our 
unenlightened gov 
ernment. I say 

that the most unenlightened of all are our 
Chinese women. First, we bind our feet; 
second, our minds are bound; third, we 
are the inferiors or servants of our hus 
bands." 

With this third condition allowance 
must be made for the hyperbole of ora 
tory, it should not be taken too literally 
and too sweepingly. The world of the 
Chinese woman for so long that one can 
safely say always, has been limited to the 
space and life within her home walls ; but 
in that world if she has the personality, 
the force, and is the mother of sons, she is 
dominant. The respect for parents is so 




emphasized by the doctrines of Confucius 
and other venerated teachers that the 
regard in which children hold their father 
and mother is almost worship, in fact it 
is the fibre of the religion of the country. 
This sanctified custom of filial reverence 
when the mother possesses ability and 
energy, makes her supreme in the realm 

of the household to 
a degree difficult for 
a Western woman 
to comprehend. 
Not only are her 
children dominat 
ed, frequently she 
exercises a forma 
tive and restraining 
influence over her 
husband s mind. 
Her counsels may 
not be wise always, 
the point is that 
they prevail. The 
Chinese mother, 
when she is of the 
controlling type, is 
often not loath to 
use her power to the 
utmost. The Em 
press Dowager is 
not the only woman 
autocrat China has 
known. This vig 
orous, sometimes 
tyrannical, sway of 
the household scep 
tre has preserved 
and developed vi- 



Miss China campaigning 



rility in character 
and mind in the 
Chinese woman 

doomed for so many centuries to a life 
compassed by walls and restricted by 
adamant customs. To-day she is narrow 
in experience, limited in outlook, and 
usually with little learning gained from 
books, but she is not spineless, clinging. 
There are, of course, countless Chinese 
women who, weak, stupid, or both, are 
but shadows in their households. To 
them may be applied the Chinese saying: 
"Rotten wood cannot be carved, nor a 
clay wall be plastered." But apparently, 
there have always been enough of the 
type of the Old Buddha to keep intact 
and pass on, practical sagacity, a power 



68 MISS CHINA 

to direct, and a ready incisive tongue, and women clearer vision than their 

Without this heritage of mind and spirit elders. Not being insulated by custom 

it would have taken more than one or and self-interest they are electrified into 

even two generations of the "new edu- action by the newer mental currents cir- 

cation" to produce Miss China. cling the world. It is idle to speak of this 

As a factor to be considered in public movement as mere youthful ebullition, to 

affairs, Miss China made her debut in the call their ideas "fantastic delusions." It 

mammoth student movement in 1919, is a new force in China, potent, as Japa- 

when thousands of students in both nese manufacturers and exporters, as well 

private and government schools rose in as statesmen, can testify for who so radi- 

protest against the part Japan was being cal, so extreme, as the young ? Age may 

permitted to take in the government of let convenience modify principle, but not 

China. The definite protest was against youth. 

three pro- Japanese officials in the govern- Miss China s part in this movement 

ment. and organization is by no means a minor 

This student s movement is a sign of a one. And the men students, to their 
national consciousness forming in China, credit be it told, give Miss China her due 
It does not voice the North, or the South, in running over measure. They take a 
it speaks for China. Some may charac- vast pride in her and her achievements, 
terize it as the effervescence of overzealous Parents in most cases objected forcibly 
boys and girls or attribute it to more un- to their daughters taking part in parades 
worthy forces, but in China where the and street demonstrations. It filled the 
roots of dissension and sectionalism pene- mothers with horror and shook the cita- 
trate into a soil formed before Europe was dels of their feminine pride. But their 
even mapped, the unity of the movement wishes were disregarded and their corn- 
shows that a new mentality, a new spirit mands disobeyed. In a country where 
is in the making in this country with a obedience to parents is a religion this 
great Past and a possible great Future. made a considerable breach in the wall of 

With one voice on a prearranged day, custom. Miss China in choosing, placed 

thousands of China s youth in the best principle and patriotism against parental 

schools said: " We attend no more classes authority and regard for traditional 

until our demands regarding certain pro- standards. "We are taught by our sages 

Japanese officials are met." To give this to obey our fathers and mothers, but our 

protest added force they declared a boy- Republic is the father and mother of four 

cott against Japanese goods. These hundred millions. Therefore, we should 

strikers stirred citizens from their leth- place the interests of our greater father 

argy, aroused and formed public opinion and mother above the wishes of our own 

to an astonishing degree; they estab- parents," proclaimed a speaker at a mass- 

lished their own strength by orderly pa- meeting in a girls school. A Joan of Arc 

rades, street demonstrations, street-corner light illumined her face as she spoke these 

speeches. In the end Young China made words of revolutionary heresy, 

concessions, but on the whole could claim Many girl students were curbstone 

victory. Peking s cabinet knew no more speakers who carried conviction to the 

certain officials with ear prone to listen crowds they drew. The voluble, forceful 

to the tinkle of the yen, or with rabbit tongue of the household ruler has been 

hearts or chicken brains when Nippon s handed on to the daughters for use in 

fist was raised, or her specious tongue wider spheres. Queries as to whether the 

spoke subtleties. In Versailles, China s girls had unpleasant experiences from the 

delegation could stand firm in refusing to crowds in street speaking and demonstra- 

sign the treaty which they held dishonor- tions always brought a negative answer, 

able to their country, for China s aroused "What was the effect on the girls of this 

youth supported this stand. Smug age sudden radical breaking away from the 

in China feels the power of long-ignored usages as old as the race?" was asked a 

youth. Ability to read the printed page quiet, gentle, earnest young woman who 

and the lengthening diameter of personal had been active in two large centres. " In 

experience has given these young men a few cases the girls became rather bois- 



MISS CHINA 



69 



IS 



terous in manner and speech, but in gen- further. The strike." she continued 
eral I could note no effect. We knew we a weapon, but to be effective it must not 
were being severely criticised, so we were be used too often and only to stimulate 
very careful. Then why should it make and arouse public opinion. If it is used 
a girl less a lady to do her duty in public often the striker becomes like a stubborn 
than in private? To march, to carry a child, who rolls on the floor and screams 
banner, to stand on the street and tell our when it is not given what it wants." The 

boys coaxed, jeered 
as only enthusias 
tic youth can for its 
own ends, but the 
girls were immov 
able. And it was 
later conceded that 
they showed the 
better judgment, 
the better balance. 
There is a gal 
lant audacity that 
makes the imagi 
nation flame and 
stirs the fighting 
blood, in Miss Chi 
na s undertaking 
hand in hand with 
her brother, to set 
China in order, to 
form cosmos out of 
chaos. Such 



ignorant fellow citi 
zens what must be 
done for the good of 
our country need 
not make a girl less 
a gentlewoman." 
This young wo 
man s opinion as to 
the bearing of the 
girls is corroborated 
by older observers 
of both sexes. 
Many bear witness 
to the dignity and 
seriousness of the 
girl students in this 
period, for it was no 
mere incident. 

In February, 
1920, a year after 
the first public ex 
pression of the stu 
dents, Miss China 
demonstrated that 
she could form her 
own opinion and 
keep it formed un 
der heavy pressure. 
The Students Or 
ganization, which 
claims some mil 
lions of members, 
decided to strike as 
a protest against 
China s entering 
into negotiations 
with Japan on the 




Zealous crusaders. 

At right, Zee Yuh-tsung, first Chinese woman to teach 

men s classes; Wu-Yi-fpng, at left, mathematics 

teacher in Girls Higher Normal School. 



a 

massive mess as 
the country is! 
There is no ailment 
that a political- 
science doctor 
would not find pres 
ent in a diagnosis. 
But, undaunted, 
Miss China pur 
poses to devote her 
brain and body to 
the curing of these 
ailments. "We 
Chinese girls were 



often told at col- 
Shantung question. The girls did not ap- lege that we were too serious," said a 
prove of this, but being a minority, could graduate just back from the United 
not prevent it, but in Peking and Nanking States. "We could only say in defense 
and some lesser centres they decided they that though we, too, loved fun we had no 
would not take part in any way. "This time for it, we had so much to learn, par- 
was a matter involving foreign diplomacy, ticularly about sociology, political science, 
and far too wide in its ramifications for and especially municipal government. I 
young or old citizens to proclaim an ulti- said to some girls one day, Your grand- 
matum," was the way one prominent fathers and fathers have worked out all 
young college woman explained their these problems for you, so you don t have 
stand. " We were willing to petition and to worry, but we Chinese girls and boys 
show where we stood, but would go no must study and learn about these things, 



70 MISS CHINA 

for on us depends very largely the future with the older generations, but their day 
of our country. Her only hope is in her cannot be for long, and the coming gen- 
young students who have such opportuni- eration must be prepared. Not only 
ties as we. That s why we seem seri- leaders must be educated but the masses 
ous. " also, at least, so they can read. There 

"What are the duties that face the will be improved communication. In 

class of 1919?" asked the class orator in these two things lies the only hope of 

Ginling College. "They are national China s maintaining her integrity and 

obligations, social obligations, college becoming the nation that the character 

obligations, and family obligations." of the Chinese and the greatness of the 

"Woman s only function is to produce country warrants," is the opinion of a 

sons and her life s duty is housekeeping," young woman recently returned with her 

was the corner-stone and the cope-stone diploma from an American college, 

of this young orator s mother s education, With realization has come action. Miss 

and of her mother s and all Chinese China is at work without blare of trum- 

mothers farther back than the mind s pets or waving of banners, but with the 

periscope can penetrate. true crusading spirit. " We must have a 

Obviously, the story of the new young primary school in every village," said one 
woman in China is largely a story of edu- crusader. "That means that thousands 
cation, of the new education from the of girls now in school must have the cour- 
West. Generally speaking, in all advance- age to go to these villages and teach. It 
ment education is the motive force, but will take tact to create the desire for 
in this eon-old country in this particular education in the children as well as the 
move forward, it is education in the sense parents. It will take character to face 
of that obtained in schools that is speci- the hard conditions of living as well. But 
fically, literally the dynamics. One won- we must do it if the China we are working 
ders if the teaching brought from across for is to become a reality." 
the Pacific at such an enormous outlay of Consider the size, the topography of 
devotion, energy, and material wealth China. Look up a little on the corn- 
may not be the stone cut out of the moun- munication and transportation facilities 
tain in Nebuchadnezzar s dream. It cer- in the country. Try to visualize the vil- 
tainly has done considerable smashing of lages, the interior towns. Try to con- 
images in the Celestial Empire. Just at ceive of the more than four hundred mil- 
present some of the bearers of the new lions of population. Then do homage to 
education are looking with bewilderment the courage and patriotism of Miss China, 
at the product which they have helped And remember she knows the conditions, 
to make. Elements outside of the class- What gives one faith in her fight against 
room have quickened the recipient of the the colossal mass of ignorance, is that 
orthodox teachings into a creature en- while her vision is on the future she is 
tirely beyond the ken of the instructors, busy with the little tasks at hand. In 
Miss China amazes them; they are one large government Girls Normal 
aghast at her ideas, her actions. But Miss School, the students of their own accord 
China is neither confused nor uncertain, conduct night classes for the employees of 

Clear-sighted, she sees that it requires the school and their families; in China 
a much greater store of facts and a clearer the employees in such an institution are 
understanding of the relation of these far greater in number than in the West, 
facts, and infinitely more self-knowledge To buy books and other necessities for 
and self-adjustment, for one to live in the the work the girls give entertainments, 
wall-less open in free intercourse with At a mission school many of the girls 
fellow beings than to spend one s life span carry on neighborhood classes for adults 
safely immured. So she is eager for and children. These two instances multi- 
wider, more advanced education for her- plied by all the girls schools, both mission 
self. She also realizes that the leaven of and government, in China, would give a 
knowledge must be put in the lower levels product fairly well within the bounds of 
of the population to accomplish the truth. An aid in this work is the new 
leavening of all. "Little can be done "Chinese Esperanto, "which, it is claimed, 



MISS CHINA 71 

so simplifies reading that the art is with- On the boat with Athena s acolyte is 

in the possibility of acquirement by the produce of divers kinds, both animal and 

masses, which it is not with the old ideo- vegetable and both odorous and malo- 

graphs, to a degree of ready book and dorous. If the gods are good and the bad 

newspaper reading. spirits keep their proper route she may 

Going to school is a new thing, a novel- cover the last part of the journey in style 
ty for Chinese girls. It is only within the on a railroad train or steamboat. At 
last fifteen years or so that there was any last she reaches school, a lonesome home- 
opportunity outside the mission schools sick mite. Some way as one looks at 
for girls to become "book educated." these plucky pleasant-faced schoolgirls, 
Not that there were not educated women, one s faith in Miss China s education cam- 
and according to the standard highly so, paign stiffens. One wants to pin orders 
but there was no provision for it. Edu- for heroic courage on their blouses, kiss 
cation was not considered necessary, "a them on both cheeks, and otherwise ac- 
woman without talent was virtuous." claim them as among the brave. They 
"Why give books to girls, the only use surely exemplify their own saying: "Love 
they make of them is to keep their em- of knowledge without the will to learn 
broidery silks between the leaves," was casts the shadow of instability." 
and still is a very commonly expressed The old tragic tales about the unpop- 
opinion in China. Only here and there ularity of girl-babies in China will soon 
was a girl, favored by the fates or the take their place with Bluebeard, for the 
gods, taught even how to sip at the fount pouring of girls into schools will change 
of learning. And her sipping was all their status. Pater China s objection to 
done inside walls with no glimpse of the daughters, providing he has a son to see 
world outside. Even now when they are to his spiritual life after his earthly days 
crowding around this old fount gulping are ended, is largely economic. She is a 
and gurgling, in numbers enormously burden, a parasite, not only an unpro- 
large in comparison with a decade ago, ductive item but her dower must be pro- 
the percentage of the whole population is vided. This, in addition to maintenance, 
appallingly low. This percentage Miss is a load in this land where the struggle 
China intends to increase, and at the same to survive is so hard. But the possibility 
time sweep in her brothers and even some of a daughter s becoming a producer, 
fathers and mothers; age and sex do not changes the aspect. In speaking on this 
disqualify in her campaign against il- subject, a teacher, a mission-school prod- 
literacy, uct, the oldest of her family, said: "I am 

" Going away to school," does not mean held in much esteem by my father and 
for many hundreds of Chinese girls at- family and relatives, because at the age 
tending the intermediate and normal of fifteen I began to earn money teaching, 
schools, a tearful "good-by till Christ- and have been the main support of the 
mas," after an excited packing; then a family ever since, as my father is a para- 
comfortable trip of a few hours consoled lytic. He calls me with pride, my son. 
by boxes of chocolates. No, little Miss The whole question is economic, financial, 
China packs her little wooden box or aside from the desire of every father for 
maybe just a bag, says good-by for four, a son to carry on his name and family. " 
five, six or more years, and journeys for With the influx of girls into the higher 
days, sometimes for three or more weeks schools comes the inevitable question of 
over roads that were deeply rutted when co-education. It is now much to the fore 
Christ was born and have never known as a topic of discussion in press, on plat- 
repair. She is transported by buU-cart, on form, and over the teacup. In a popular 
donkey back, in wheelbarrow, and if she vote the ballot would be "against" un- 
can afford it, in a sedan-chair. On wide doubtedly. The mission schools do not 
river and narrow swift stream she travels favor it, "not yet ready," although at 
in boats of the model popular in China Canton Christian College, girls take 
when Ulysses was finding respite from science courses with boys, and work with 
stupid hearth and poky knitting Penel- them in the laboratory. In the pre- 
ope in "smiting the sounding furrows." medical school of the Union Medical 



72 



MISS CHINA 



College recently opened in Peking by the 
Rockefeller Foundation, two girls entered 
in the fall of 1919. They did this without 
solicitation on the part of the college. To 
the question, "How did you happen to 
come?" one answered, "My father 
wished me to," the other, "I always 
wanted to be a doctor and my parents 
consented." These 
"co-eds" lived in 
the college com 
pound, the only girl 
students. When 
asked if it had not 
been lonesome, they 
replied : "Not often, 
we ve been too 
b u s y . : Though 
not brilliant, they 
held their own in all 
class work. Their 
American profes 
sors said that they 
would never have 
known from class 
attitude of both 
boys and girls that 
coeducation was 
not the usual thing. 
True, girls choosing 
a medical course 
would be of a seri 
ous turn of mind; 
still in talking with 
them they seemed 




L_ 



Wah Mo-yin, physical 
school. 



not averse to life s 
lighter side. The 
two girls with a 
Chinese woman- 
doctor doing postgraduate work in the 
college, were often seen on the tennis- 
courts in a lively game of doubles or 
singles with their masculine college mates. 
Considerable space is here given to co 
education, old and scuffed though the 
topic be, because it is not only a milestone 
in Miss China s advancing attack, but 
her views reveal something of her caliber. 
One gathers that when she favors coedu 
cation it is not because of added diversion 
in her life, but for educational advantages. 
In all work above the most elementary, 
the government does not equip the girls 
schools anything like so completely as 
the schools for boys. The mission schools 
cannot usually provide adequate labora 



tories and well-stocked libraries. So 
where and how is Miss China to secure 
proper modern teaching and opportunity ? 
She probably never heard of Cleveland s 
classic "It is a condition not a theory 
that confronts us," but she recognizes the 
situation in her own vocabulary. So 
quite a swelling chorus is heard: "If you 

will not equip our 
schools, let us at 
tend the boys 
schools." She also 
claims that work 
ing together in the 
higher institutions 
will lead to that ac- 
quaintanceship 
and interchange of 
ideas with young 
men which is so es 
sential for citizen 
ship. Miss China 
never loses sight of 
her belief that she 
must be a real citi 
zen of her country, 
not just a tax 
payer. 

A hyperprogres- 
sive principal of a 
teachers college in 
Nanking, the old 
southern capital 
with its Ming 
tombs antedating 
the famed ones of 
Peking, defied his 
board last year and 
appointed Zee 

Yuh-tsung as teacher of Western his 
tory to boys. The board, to a man, was 
scandalized that so inferior a creature as 
woman should be put as instructor of 
males, and in so profound a subject as 
history. It is claimed that Miss Zee is 
the first Chinese woman to be appointed 
to teach masculine pupils above primary 
age; even in this grade the women teach 
ers are a new thing. That Miss Zee made 
good is established by her reappointment 
without protest. She is also instructor in 
English to young men in this same insti 
tution. 

With the sapient counsels of Confucius, 
which every Chinese girl must learn, are 
now being mixed the rules and the lore 



director, girls middle 
Peking. 




A room used in an institute for mothers, Shanghai Y. W. C. A. 



of the gymnasium. Muscles restricted 
by rules and formality are being loosened 
and brought into normal use in many 
schools. It was something of a revelation, 
as it was a genuine delight, to watch 
Wah Mo-yih, a graduate of the Y. W. C. 
A. Normal Physical Training Course, 
Shanghai, conduct a class in a girls 
middle school in Peking. Her vim, snap, 
comprehension of what she was doing, 
and her magnetic personality made one 
long to leave the side-lines for the floor. 
The pride of the girls in their natty 
"gym" suits was delightful and most 
feminine. It is only a question of getting 
enough Miss Wah s trained to do the 
teaching, when physical training will be a 
part of the work in all the government 
schools. To predict Miss China, at no 
remote day, in riding togs of extreme cut, 
astride her mount, galloping over the 
country; in a bathing suit of textile-short 
age design mermaiding in lake or surf, 
may appear flying high in prophecy, 
though it seems a moderate flight after 
one has seen her at a hotel tea dance held 
in a cabaret clasp by a brother or possibly 
cousin, tripping the light fox-trotting toe. 
That the major part of the credit for 



the starting of the modern club idea 
among the women of China belongs to the 
Y. W. C. A. is a statement that would 
hardly be questioned. A world-wide 
woman s organization it logically, where 
it locates, becomes the mother of other 
organizations for women. That is part 
of its business. In December, 1920, at a 
reception by the American Woman s 
Club in Shanghai for the wife of the Amer 
ican representative for the Chinese Con 
sortium, Mrs. H. C. Mei of the Y. W. C. 
A. of China, in an address, said: "There 
are ten Y. W. C. A. s of as many cities 
engaging the energies of purely Chinese 
women directors, secretaries, and assis 
tants. Women have accomplished good 
work in the Red Cross, flood, and famine 
relief. Women doctors and nurses, both 
home-and-foreign-trained, are patiently 
laboring for social amelioration, some 
conducting hospitals, dispensaries, and 
nursing schools, and with success and 
credit. Here and there are social-ser 
vice leagues, alumnae societies, and social 
clubs. In Shanghai there is a Returned 
Students Club composed of women, an 
athletic association, and the recently 
organized Chinese Woman s Club. All 

73 



74 MISS CHINA 

these societies have been formed for the Chinese women are giving help to those 
purpose of promoting the common in- not of their kin ; are feeling responsibility 
terest of women or in response to some for human beings not in their own court- 
vaguely felt, undefined, but none the less yard. This club is cited as a type of those 
real, need of unity of plan and action." coming into existence in increasing num- 

Of all the forms of club work, that bers throughout the country, 

which has for its object the practical Chinese young women are putting new 

helping of the needy, the unfortunate, is vigor into the temperance work. One 

of the greatest interest, for China is organizer said that this was necessary to 

strictly Oriental in the humane attitude, offset the increase of breweries and other 

"Where further increase in population alcohol factories in China since the adop- 

means increase in severity of the struggle tion of the prohibition amendment in the 

for subsistence, aggressive benevolence is United States. " We do not want alcohol 

not likely to assume large proportions," to get the hold opium was allowed to, 

is Doctor Dewey s explanation for this because China was not organized against 

attitude in China. May it not be pos- it," said this youthful Frances Willard. 

sible that through China s women learn- " Our work is directed against opium and 

ing how to give the cup of cold water a gambling as well as alcohol." 

change may be wrought in spite of the Chinese women grasp opportunities to 

hard struggle to live ? seek the open with pathetic curiosity and 

In Peking one woman s club, less than eagerness. In Chengtu, not long ago, 
two years old, has among its members four thousand women and girls gathered 
women of means and prominence. None in a meeting of welcome to three secre- 
were educated abroad and few are Chris- taries of the Y. W. C. A. A report of the 
tians. In its work, which is wholly along meeting tells of the eager mother faces in 
social-service lines, this club is associated the large audience, (the doll faces, the 
with the Y. W. C. A. and Y. M. C. A., faces chiselled by experience, the alive 
and other organizations. There are faces of groups of girl students, the old 
seven departments in the club; health, wrinkled faces showing interest in the 
craft work, and playground work indi- new ideas in the addresses, and nodding 
cate the lines of endeavor. The talks on approval thereof, while restraining sur- 
health and hygiene in neighborhoods, prise that a woman should make a speech, 
sometimes in houses, more often in the Expensively dressed girls attended by 
streets, are given mostly by young women servants mingled with cotton-coated 
students and teachers. They show far mothers with round-faced babies in their 
greater interest and persistence than the arms. The women of whole families unto 
young men. Last year a " better baby remote connections were there in groups, 
campaign" was enthusiastically carried All for what? The singing? The moving- 
out even unto the "best baby" prize- pictures? Yes, but the strongest magnet 
giving day. The department under which was the new notions, the glimpses of new 
poor women gather and sew and receive things to add to their meagre experiences 
the receipts for their work when sold, in their walled-in lives, 
and are taught new hand crafts, calls to Dress is one thing in which Miss China 
mind the well-worn pebble and the well- needs no emancipation, for she has long, 
known lake, because of the certain results say an eon or so, worn the type of costume 
that this new, practical, sane form of to which Western woman seems to be ap- 
helping the poor will have on woman s preaching. Apparently she is inclined to 
future charity work in China. Chinese adhere to the basic garments, which are 
women are not averse to giving, but they long trousers and a well-shaped coat-like 
have not practised the real help of creat- blouse, and a skirt, which with her is a 
ing self-dependence, nor been interested slip-on-and-off garment, much as the 
outside their acquaintances. The play- sweater and coat are in the West. If corn- 
ground is a joy dispenser to scores of fort or thrift suggests taking off the skirt 
children who otherwise would know no in the house, off it comes. On the railroad 
play. No children who attend any school train, Miss or Mrs. China may step out 
are admitted. But the big thing is, that of her skirt, fold it up carefully, deposit it 




Girl students giving house hygiene talk. 



in the rack, then comfortably tuck an 
unimpeded trousered leg under her and 
slumber or idly scan the passing land. 
One always watches, furtively polite, of 
course, a Chinese woman s face off guard 
for some gleam of eye or ripple of muscle 
that will give a hint of what is going on in 
the cerebrum under the thatch of satin- 
smooth hair. Fruitless scrutiny ! Prob 
ably if one could pierce the mask one 
would find prices, not poetry; rice, not 
romance; gossip, not goldfish. China is 
not all embroidered silk and apple-green 
jade. When our inscrutable lady prepares 
to leave the train, she carefully unfolds 



her skirt, steps into it, fastens it at both 
sides, and, unwrinkled and immaculate, 
detrains. 

While not so erratic a despot as in the 
West, fashion s whims become decrees in 
China. The cut of trousers runs the en 
tire gamut, from tight to loose, wide to 
narrow, heel to ankle length. Last year 
in some centres, trousers were ankle- 
length and quite tight. One seemingly 
popular style of skirt was made of black 
material not unlike coarse Spanish lace 
in appearance. When quite a new arri 
val in the country one did gasp a bit at 
the effect of this openwork black skirt 



76 



MISS CHINA 



over light-colored, close-fitting trousers. 
China, male and female, probably did 
some gasping, also, at the effects of the 
blouses worn by the feminine Occidentals 
on the streets of the same city this same 
season. Costumes differ in China very 
much in different regions; Canton, Shang 
hai, Peking are each a Paris in promulgat 
ing styles, as are other cities. Whatever 
may be said of the grace or artistic effect 
of the costume of the Chinese woman 
much can be said for its common sense. 

As to style of hair-dressing, Miss China 
is rather individual and simple. A few 
years ago when Japan was looked upon 
with more friendly eyes than now, stu 
dents returning from this neighbor coun 
try brought in the style of the high pom 
padour, so pronounced a part of the Jap 
anese coiffure. In several school centres 
the style quickly became popular and 
spread to some extent. Then when all 
things Japanese became abhorrent, pom 
padours, at once, fell flat. To-day, a girl 




A winner, "better baby show." 

with a high pompadour would be looked 
upon as a traitor. With Miss China 
principle would seem to be stronger than 
style. 

One of the significant phrases used by 
young Chinese is, " the new home." The 
main features distinguishing the "new 
home" from the "old" is that the hus 



band and wife entertain their friends to 
gether. In the "old," with the exception 
of near relatives, guests of each sex are 
entertained in separate apartments, and 
usually at different times. The wife does 
not meet her husband s friends nor does 
the husband s presence add interest to 
his wife s parties. Such a thing is un 
thinkable. Of the changes in this cus 
tom, Mrs. Mei, in her address, said: 
"From American homes they (Chinese 
girls) drank in the wholesome atmosphere 
of domestic harmony with which they are 
making normal households. . . . I might 
add that the large and growing number of 
homes patterned after vour own is an 
index that the East and the West are 
getting closer together." One reason 
Miss China gives for her partiality for the 
"new home" is the human one, that it is 
"livelier and gayer than the old." 

Closely related with the new home idea 
is the new idea on marriage; that is in 
dividual choice rather than family choice ; 
"for love, not by purchase." Like the 
new home this will be a matter of slow 
evolution. For in China the individual 
is not thought of, or looked upon, as an 
entity; he is but a part of a family which 
is the unit, the entity, and which at all 
costs must be preserved and perpetuated. 
Hence, individual desires must be sub 
sidiary to the wishes or the benefit of the 
family. The practice of this principle 
throughout the long centuries has in 
stilled in children a submissiveness to 
parents, to family, that is engulfing of 
personality, though it is the steel that 
gives strength and form to the structure 
of the Chinese nation. The submissive- 
ness is more than a conscious obedience; 
it is involuntary surrender. Consequent 
ly, though the new young woman may 
advocate the theory of personal choice in 
marriage, only the most radical really de 
sire it or would dare wholly to follow it. 
In matters touching the soul centres, 
inheritance and tradition are always 
stronger than imported ideas, no matter 
how forcible their appeal to reason. Miss 
China still feels that in the matter of a 
life mate, the parents judgment is the 
better. With more social freedom this 
confidence will undoubtedly weaken. 
But the chains of uncountable genera 
tions loosen very slowly and rarely break. 



MISS CHINA 



77 



Occasionally a girl is -permitted acquain 
tanceship with her betrothed. This con 
cession gives her opportunity for rebellion 
should he prove repugnant, but only a 
mind unusually_positive, a character un 
usually tough in fibre, will 
ever break the betrothal. 
Miss China s force in claim 
ing the right to choose her 
husband is weakened by the 
divorce-court records of the 
West. These make her hesi 
tate. She is rather fond of 
quoting Sir Robert Hart, who, 
after forty years of residence 
in China, voiced the follow 
ing epigram : A Western mar 
riage may be compared to 
putting a kettle of boiling 
water on a fireless stove and 
letting it cool, and a Chinese 
marriage to putting a kettle 
of cold water on a hot stove 
and letting it boil." 

Much space is being oc 
cupied in women s journals 
in discussion of this subject 
of freedom of choice in mar 
riage. One article on "Choosing a Hus 
band," divided the counsel given under 
eleven heads: Appearance, knowledge, 
age, occupation, property, relations, as to 
how many and as to whether they inter 
fere with his actions, health, living, that is 
as to habits and as to whether he has a 
balance at the end of the month, temper, 
character, purpose as to treatment of wife 
and number of wives he is planning on, 
and friends. The suggestions given under 
each head would seem wise, and those re 
lating to maintenance very canny, as 
would be expected as a hold-over from the 
generations of carefully schemed matches 
and estimated dowers. 

One thing Miss China has quite de 
cided opinions about, and that is when 
she marries she desires her own home in 
stead of following the old, old custom of 
going to the household of her husband s 
father, there to become not the head of a 
home, but a sort of upper servant of her 
mother-in-law, to bide her time until she 
in turn becomes a mother-in-law, and an 
object of respect and a ruler of a house 
hold and daughters-in-law. One can ap 
preciate the human attitude of Chinese 



mothers-in-law. Each woman in turn 
gets even, as it were, for her early period 
of suppression as a son s wife, and so the 
wheel ceaselessly revolves. One suspects 
the Chinese wife s entreaty to the god- 




Ding Che-ching, chief executive secretary Y. W. C. A., Peking. 



dess, Kwan-in, to give her many sons 
may not always be for ancestor-worship 
alone, but also that she may have many 
daughters-in-law to exercise rule over. 
The more sons, the more subjects in the 
future realm where her every wish be 
comes a mandate. The new home under 
its own roof, with its own courtyard, will 
probably come in time, but it will take a 
long time, as the separate home would 
mean many radical economic changes as 
well as social, and with China s packed 
population where subsistence is always 
in danger of being on the wrong side of 
the ledger, these cannot be easily brought 
about, except with the few. 

Intimately connected with the home 
and marriage in China is concubinage. 
On this, Miss China is unwavering in her 
stand. In clarion voice she insists on 
" one wife." She denounces concubinage, 
and in no moderate terms. And young 
Mr. China must join her if he would 
stand in favor. One only hopes he is as 
sincere as his sister. "There can be no 
home life with this system." The speaker 
in her earnestness pounded out on a near 
by table each word with a tiny fist. "I 



78 



MISS CHINA 



denounce it not only because of the un- 
happiness of the real wife, but also be 
cause of the unhappiness of the con 
cubines. My uncle s concubines have 
come to me often crying bitterly, they so 
hated the life into which their fathers had 
sold them, not exactly against their will, 
they simply had no choice. And these 
girls are, I know, well treated. For the 
sake of the womanhood of China the prac 
tice must be crushed out, abolished." 
The poise of the slight body, the flashing 
eyes, the flushed face, the little fist pound 
ing out the words, made one sniff the 
scent of battle and mentally exclaim, 
" Men of China, concubinage is doomed ! " 
For the vehemence had been for an au 
dience of only one. 

On the attitude, socially, toward the 
concubines, opinion diverges. Many, as 
suming the position that the concubines, 
if not social outcasts, are at least below 
par, are immovably opposed to their be 
ing admitted into women s organizations. 
Others have more liberal views. Said one 
advanced young woman: "It is not right 
to push aside these girls. They are the 
victims of a custom centuries old which 
has never carried social odium. Let us 
use all effort to get rid of the custom, but 
with the present victims let us apply no 
new standards. It is not fair nor right." 

Airing sometimes hastens disintegra 
tion of very old things. This frank, open 
discussion of concubinage may hasten the 
disappearance of this cause of thousands 
of women living miserably unhappy lives. 
Thousands? Many millions would be 
nearer truth. It is difficult to keep in 
mind China s size. 

In the protest against the parent-ar 
ranged marriage, very particularly in the 
crusade against concubinage it is quite 
the thing for Miss China, either in groups 
or in secret, to take the vow of spinster- 
hood. A further reason advanced is that 
to accomplish the mission she has under 
taken she feels that she must be free from 
entangling matrimonial alliances. There 
is really nothing very alarming in these 
vows as to danger of race-suicide in China. 
They are of importance only as indicat 
ing Miss China s heretical state of mind, 
and the effect on the elders. Perhaps no 
one of her advanced ideas causes such 
horrified consternation among the old- 



time good ladies of China. Not to marry; 
not to be a mother of men ! Wherefore 
born? The whole idea is cataclysmic. 
In reality Miss China is very human. 
Should the time and the man concurrently 
appear, reasons for breaking her vow are 
found. One recreant, a graduate from an 
American college, explained her apostasy 
thus: "I came to realize in my more ad 
vanced studies in biology and eugenics 
that we were wrong, the nucleus of our 
new China should be the new home; the 
new race, the children of the new home. 
I became engaged in my senior year and 
hope to marry very soon." 

Suffrage is a question that is not dis 
cussed with much fire outside of Canton, 
and there only spasmodically. Not that 
the importance of the ballot is not ap 
preciated, so far as it can be under a gov 
ernment so new and chaotic as China s, 
a republic only in name. But Miss China 
pretty clearly realizes two things: One, 
that she has many objects to accomplish 
that are more vital to her development, 
and to the development and organization 
and unification of her country than the 
right to vote ; the other, that in the pres 
ent stage of China s trying to find herself 
the ballot is of little value. Young China 
knows that there is a deal of work to be 
done, both destructive and constructive 
before the ballot becomes in China the 
sacred and powerful thing it is theoretical 
ly. All in good time Miss China will vote, 
that she well knows. To quote further 
from Mrs. Mei s address: "The gradual 
realization that fifty millions American 
women have been enfranchised and made 
men s political equals will send a thrill 
through Chinese women, as they sense 
the significance. Triumphant feminism 
in America will, it is hoped, see its reflex 
in China in the not too distant day. It 
is not flattery to say that Chinese women 
look for feminist ideals and inspiration 
from America, the home of freedom, of 
equality, and of general goodness to wo 
manhood." 

The long practice within her house 
walls of expressing her opinion frankly 
without subtlety or side-stepping, serves 
the Chinese woman in good stead in the 
new place in the sun which she is taking, 
when she has things to say on matters of 
broader gauge than the household. At a 



MISS CHINA 79 

reception to the American representative for girls has just been opened. The cap 
on the Consortium and his wife, given ital also boasts of a savings-bank for 
by the Shanghai Chinese Woman s Club women and girls, very new. 
which claims to be the first club in China One index-finger that points to a pos- 
organized along the lines of American sible future situation, is that even at this 
clubs, Mrs. Rung made a speech on what stage of woman s emergence from her 
the women of China hope from the Con- home walls, women are found managing 
sortium. Her trend is indicated in these business operations, openly, not from 
two excerpts: "What do the women of behind a curtain. One authority states 
China think of the Consortium one may that around Canton no less than forty 
ask? The evident answer is Socratic in factories are owned and operated by 
nature; it has to be a counter-question, women. These are not large plants; 
that is to say, our answer is, what does China s manufacturing is still carried on 
the Consortium stand for ? Does it look in small concerns. One knitting factory 
upon China only as a field for exploita- doing a business of fifty thousand dollars 
tion ? Is it simply a league of pawn- a year is managed by a woman. A de- 
brokers out to wring the last cent? Or partment store entirely under the man- 
does it attempt to follow a fair and sound agement of a Chinese woman trained 
policy of financial and technical assis- abroad, is a recent innovation in the 
tance to the development of China, a northern capital. In newspaper work, 
policy that will be of lasting benefit both women are coming to the fore rapidly, 
to the borrower and lender ? . . . We Miss China points with pardonable pride 
know we have in Mr. Stevens a product to Miss Cheng who attended the Peace 
of that system of business integrity and , Conference as correspondent for several 
fairness which will not lend a cent to a Chinese newspapers. That so many are 
millionaire whose word is not as good as up and doing in lines of endeavor that 
his bond, but may lend a million to an are not materially remunerative but help 
honest and capable business man without in making life less a burden to many, 
any security. For the hopes of China many poor, in work for the betterment of 
and Chinese women are not that the Con- the home and the community, is after all 
sortium will regard us as objects of char- the best guide-post to Miss China s future, 
ity, but that it will be far-sighted enough And what a future one visualizes for 
to be fair to China, and to adopt a policy her ! It is not a day s work she is facing, 
of live and let live." Is this a new tone but she will keep pace with her oppor- 
in national affairs in China ? Will the new tunities. To add to her possibilities, to 
woman bring an open diplomacy, honest- facilitate the changes she would work is 
and-aboveboard speech in the confer- the inherent democracy of the Chinese 
ences? Will she endeavor to make words people. There is literally no fixed caste, 
say thoughts, not trickily conceal them ? The daughter of the coolie is not debarred 
Comparatively few Chinese girls are by birth from being the intimate friend 
employed in any line of business, and of the daughter of the rich merchant or 
government plums, large and small, fall government official. For long genera- 
into the hands of masculine China. But tions the scholar has been China s only 
it looks as though the day of this natural recognized aristocrat, 
monopoly was passing. Through the Intelligence, patient courage, fidelity 
concentrated efforts of women s clubs in Miss China inherits from centuries of 
Canton in pressing the matter of recog- walled-in mothers; the legacy of China s 
nizing woman s claim to a plum or two, fine culture is hers through her own lan- 
a young woman has very recently been guage; to many, the wealth of Western 
appointed to a government clerkship of modern culture is open through the Eng- 
responsibility, the first in the country it lish language. Thus equipped, China s 
is said. Also, the Canton-Samshui rail- new woman should and will trample 
wav and the Canton Telephone Company down tradition, remove the blinders of 
yielding to the club s pressure have voted superstition, and create a new era for 
to approve the employment of young Chinese women. For has she not come 
women. In Peking, a commercial school into the kingdom for such a work as this? 





donas 



80 



BY WILLIAM HERVEY WOODS 



DECORATIONS BY BEATRICE STEVENS 



How may young Great-heart dream to build a name 
In these last days, when all is done and known 
That Sirens sang Ulysses? Now no zone, 

Nor either pole, the coming heirs of Fame 

Awaits untrampled; and as War s red game 

Sea-caves, and even the sky, has made Man s own, 
And air-ships high o er Oklahoma drone, 

What star is left to light Ambition s flame? 

What s left? To-morrow; Youth and Hope and Joy, 
And since not Life and Love, but men, grow old, 

Somewhere are Eldorados yet to gain, 
And Galahad-quests to thrall the gifted boy; 
Not all the golden stories have been told 
The great world s still outside the window-pane. 




The Reverend James E. Markison 

J 

BY EDWARD CARRINGTON VENABLE 

Author of " Pierre Vinton," etc. 



ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES CALVERT SMITH 



JO? 



W 



HEN Markison walked 
into the little Beach 
View dining-room the 
first night I was glad 
of the sight of him. 
It had always seemed 
to me that Slack Har 
bor needed him not 
spiritually, perhaps, but as part of the 
spectacle. We lacked only the black coat 
of the priest to complete our motley, or, 
as we preferred to think of it, our infinite 
variety. For it was a multicolored com 
pany there that summer with the group 
of violent young artists in every attitude 
of revolt and their entranced followers; 
and seekers of health, seekers of solitude, 
seekers of mere cheapness for the village 
was cheap for the Maine coast. We had 
even a few dim fashionables, clinging to 
dinner-dress and memories and semi-pre 
cious stones. Altogether, we must have 
represented every possible way of think 
ing about everything except Markison s 
way. When he arrived he completed 
what one may call the collection. 

I knew he would do so as soon as I laid 
eyes on him, for Markison s "way" was 
as plainly marked on his appearance as 
his nose, and I was delighted to see him. 
He seemed quite as quickly to sense my 
sympathy, or, as was very much eas 
ier, every one else s hostility. For it 
amounted to hostility the man s recep 
tion at the Beach View. He was too poor, 
too unresistingly poor, for the dim fash 
ionables, and to almost all the others he 
was simply, I suppose, a benighted idiot 
or something of the sort. For Markison s 
way was to think only of God (and he 
had a tendency to pronounce it " Goad"), 
and that there was only one possible way 
to think about him. Among Vorticists, 
Communists, Tactilists, Dadaists, the 
poor man sat down to meat. To an idle- 
minded observer he was priceless, and to 
VOL. LXXL 6 



almost any sort of human being he was 
pitiable. 

It would certainly never occur to Mar 
kison to think of himself in any regard 
priceless, but he plainly regarded himself 
as pitiable. He thought himself the most 
miserable of men, and possibly he was. 
I never met a man more profoundly un 
happy. But he was unfortunately frank 
about it. He did not exactly parade his 
misery it was impossible to do that, 
but he. made not the slightest effort to 
conceal it. It needs a very profound 
respect to endure a man of that sort, 
and I had no such feeling for him. I was 
decently polite to him, in the beginning, 
chiefly because nobody else was, but in 
three days, I longed to kick him. Those 
first three days were, unluckily for our 
understanding, the period of a northeast 
blow. The bare unceiled New England 
summer hotel hardly fifty yards from the 
surf was cold and damp. The little floor 
space in front of the fireplace was the 
only comfortable spot in the building. 
The whole company gathered there most 
of the time Markison, gloomy, black, 
silent, chiefly conspicuous among them. 
And when at the first gleam of sunshine 
the cluster burst like a frightened covey, 
Markison alone remained, brooding over 
the empty fireplace like some strange bird 
blown in by the storm and left behind it. 
People shrank from him, I among them. 
It did not occur to me that, believing 
firmly that there was no help for him 
from his fellow creatures, he was utterly 
indifferent to them. I thought he was 
merely making a spectacle of himself. 
His spirit was wandering through an im 
mense solitude; I thought he was parad 
ing some grievance before a household of 
freaks. 

I was mistaken. My excuse is that I 
knew so little of him, and he was to the 
end so extraordinarily inarticulate. The 

81 



82 



THE REVEREND JAMES E. MARKISON 



shabby inn register said "Rev. James E. 
Markison"; he told me the first night, 
when we smoked a pipe together on the 
porch after supper, that he had been the 
rector of the only Episcopal Church in 
Taylorsville. "f aylorsville, Virginia," 
he had added after a pause. I think he 
was quite resolved to complete solitude 
then, and his talks with me were merely 
the mechanical sociabilities which his 
profession had instilled and he could 
not control yet. They were generally, 
these talks, the shabbiest commonplaces. 
When they extended beyond the weather, 
or the food or the climate, they were 
chiefly of Taylorsville. But even so, 
sitting next him at table, and daily 
meeting him as many times between, I 
learned a surprising lot about Taylors 
ville. I grew familiar with Nunnally s 
drug-store, which served in some ways as 
a club, apparently, and the battle-field on 
Skipper s Run, and the First and Second 
Presbyterian Churches, and the First and 
Second Methodist, and the Washington 
Street Baptist. "I was raised Baptist 
myself," he explained once. "I always 
had a high respect for the Baptists. 
They are good people." It was then I 
understood what I might have perceived 
much sooner his profound abstraction. 
The man was not really in Deep Harbor 
at all. If then I had been compelled to 
place him, I should have said he was in 
Taylorsville, which would have been 
wrong too, but not so stupidly wrong. 

His own charge was Emmanuel. "It 
used to be the biggest church in the place, 
but when I got it, it was pretty near 
racked to pieces," he told me later. His 
wife, it seemed, was an invalid, and his 
vestry, he said mournfully, were "good, 
God-fearing men, but mighty slow." It 
was easy to guess that the others I 
fancy he would not have hesitated at 
saying rivals were good and God-fear 
ing, too, and were not slow. The outline 
of the struggle slowly grew complete. 
And I insensibly grew interested. That 
it had been exhausting, and that it had 
been vain were easily seen. He was old 
and worn out in the early forties. Poor, 
harsh, and hopeless. Why, I used to 
wonder when I caught sight of him in his 
blacks in the varicolored tide of the little 
village s summer invasion, why could he 



not have been content, like his good, God 
fearing vestry, and let the Second Metho 
dist and the First Presbyterian prosper 
as they might. What benefit could his 
struggle have brought to God, whom he 
worshipped, or man whom he ignored? 
The secret probably lay in that queer 
little confession, "I was raised Baptist." 
It was, then, the zeal of the convert, or 
else the pride of the renegade. To change 
flags, and then surrender to the deserted 
colors! Yes, probably any struggle is 
better endured than that. 

Whatever the motive, the result was 
the engagement of Evangelist Jones. 
That was his great stroke. Evangelist 
Jones ! I had been talking to him in such 
desultory fashion for more than a month 
before we got this far. He asked me if 
I had ever heard of the evangelist. "He 
had done some mighty good work up 
here in New England." "And he con 
verted more people in one month in Dan 
ville than the regular preachers had been 
able to get at in ten years." For the first 
time he seemed concerned by my reply. 
"He was widely known," he repeated. 
Then, a little later, he said: 

"I thought I was mighty lucky to get 
him." 

I greatly doubt if in the ordinary course 
of events we would ever have got any 
farther than that, the engagement of 
Evangelist Jones, and the implied, but 
not confessed, failure of it all. But the 
ordinary is luckily the rarest course of 
human events. Even in Deep Harbor, 
famous for its placidity, no season goes 
by without at least one happening suf 
ficiently out of the ordinary to mark the 
year forever in local talk. This summer 
the event would have been startling any 
where. A young girl was drowned while 
swimming off the bathing beach. It was 
one of those inexplicable tragedies which 
terrify by their audacity. Within fifty 
yards of a sunny summer beach, where 
troops of little children played in the 
foam, the evil spirit of the sea crept up 
and clutched and killed. People shud 
dered and drew back from the water, and 
when I walked there the next day, the 
wide bright sands were as empty as in a 
January gale. For several days the vil 
lage seemed to throw aside its midsum 
mer inanity and recover the grim spirit 




SKITH 



"Taylorsville, Virginia," he had added after a pause. Page &2. 



of early times when it was a community 
of fishermen and such things were com 
mon. All felt it, for almost all knew her 
a singularly bright, happy girl, not more 
than twenty years old, who had spent 
almost all these summers there, followed 
by a troop of boys. 



Yes, all felt it, and Markison most of 
all, though such a thing did not occur to 
me at the time. I did not see him even 
until the afternoon when he read the 
service of burial. There was no church 
in Deep Harbor then, and the services 
were held in the open air, where a little 

83 



84 THE REVEREND JAMES E. MARKISON 

strip of very green turf ran between two unlovely a life he represented. "They 
cliffs down to the waters of the cove, make me sick," he muttered suddenly, 
green to the verge. It seemed that the "The women," he went on. "They 
poor child had recovered from an illness ain t women. Somehow it looks to me as 
of infancy there and grown strong and if they don t want to be women." 
happy, and her mother wished to think "A great many don t," I agreed. "At 
of her there always. It was a rather least, not the kind you mean." 
beautiful last scene for any life the I think no answer could have as ton- 
solemnized people in the little cove be- ished me more than the one he made, 
tween the great brown rocks, the priest sitting immobile, gazing through his 
in his white robes before us against the fingers at the fire. 

wide blue water, and no music except " Well, maybe they are right. I don t 

voices and the sound of the sea. know." 

Later, the sky changed, and by night "But," he went on suddenly, "that 

a chilly rain set in. I was in my little one I read the service for this evening 

painter s cabin, comfortable with a drift- she wasn t that kind. She was differ- 

wood fire, and a desultory letter half- ent." 

written on my knee. There was a fumble "Quite," I answered. "Quite differ- 

at the door-latch, and Markison came in. ent." 

He was dripping wet, without a hat, and " She reminded me of a girl I used to 

carried a still unopened umbrella in his know in Taylorsville." 

hand. Evidently somebody had forced "This one was young and happy and 

it upon him, and he had promptly forgot gay. They are alike in that way, don t 

all about it. But he took great trouble you think?" 

to stand it in a corner before he would sit "Not this one. She was different still, 

down. She was all that you said, too, but she was 

"And what on earth," I asked, "hap- more, somehow. She used to play the 

pened to your hat?" organ in Emmanuel sometimes, when our 

His hair was plastered to his head with regular organist she was pretty old- 
water. He put up his hand absently. "I couldn t get out. She wasn t religious 
mislaid it. I put it aside for the service, either at least not specially so; she did 
and forgot it. Were you there?" he it just because she loved to play. She 
asked suddenly. was better than our regular organist. 

I told him I had been, and thought it But sometimes she used to play the con- 
very beautiful. gregation out of church with something 

"Beautiful? "he repeated. "Beauty that wasn t quite that wasn t regular 

What s that? What s beauty?" church music a little too gay. I didn t 

That is a dangerous question to put mind it myself, but some of the congrega- 

forward in a community like Deep Har- tion objected. She went right on play- 

bor. Oceans of talk had swept over my ing, though I told her about it once or 

head, for that matter. He did not seem twice. She was headstrong." 

even to listen to my rather trivial evasions. It was the longest speech I had ever 

That is the trouble with all these heard him make. I had a fancy that as 

people up here. They are always talking he was speaking something resistant 

about things they don t understand, within had given way. It was not. in ges- 

They say Beauty, and Infinity and Love, tures, for he made none, except to clasp 

They don t know what they mean." his fingers and lean a little closer to the 

"Perhaps they know they don t," I fire, but in his voice and in the concen- 

explained. They only try to. That s tration of his gaze, 

harmless." "She reminded me of this one. I sat 

"Aye, but these people don t even up with the family almost all last night, 
know what the words mean." He sat up and when I was reading the prayers I 
a little and, with his elbows on his knees, felt that curious way you do feel some- 
looked through his fingers at the flames, times that you had done something just 
I was struck afresh how unbeautiful, un- like that a long, long time before, do you 
lovely a thing he himself was, and how know?" 



THE REVEREND JAMES E. MARKISON 



85 



" Did she die ? " I asked. " The girl in 
Taylorsville ? " 

"Her name was Fleming. Dorothy 
Madison Fleming. No. She isn t dead." 

He coughed and, bending closer to the 
fireplace, seemed rather consciously to 
avoid my eyes. 

"It was very tragic," I murmured. 
"Very." 

"There you go," he burst out; "Tragic, 
Beauty, Love. How do you know it 
was tragic ? How do you know anything 
about it?" 

I told him I was speaking of the poor 
girl who was drowned the day before. 
"As for the other I don t know any 
thing about Dorothy Fleming." 

" Don t you think it s a pretty name ? " 
he asked. " The Flemings were about the 
best-known people in Taylorsville. Her 
father was Lawyer Fleming, one of my 
vestrymen. He was related to pretty 
near every one in the county. They used 
to say down there that there were only 
two things a Fleming couldn t do, tell 
lies and save money. Her father was 
like that. We were different. I was 
raised mighty simple in North Carolina. 
But he was mighty good to me, and to 
my wife too, who was sick." 

"She got well?" I inquired. 

"Who?" 

"Your wife?" 

"No. She won t ever get well. She is 
staying with her people in North Caro 
lina." 

He paused, sunk quite in reflection 
again, but of what, there was no slightest 
outward sign. He sat in the same slouchy 
way, his hands outstretched, now clasped, 
now palms outward, without ever lifting 
his eyes to me. It occurred to me then 
that his sermons would be very long and 
very dull, delivered in that uncadenced 
voice, without gesture, or with very little 
gesture. When he began to talk again, 
he talked of North Carolina. He asked 
me if I had ever been there. He said it 
was different. 

I realize now that I did not understand 
what he meant by that word different he 
used so much. It was with him one of 
those key-words that each human being 
has in his vocabulary, and which, properly 
understood, reveal more of the speaker s 
soul than any gesture, any creed, any 



achievement. Napoleon had such a word 
in Destiny. So the Reverend James 
Markison had different. He used it, - I 
think, as a man might who lived in a one- 
dimension world. There was a great deal 
of kindness, of simple wisdom, of what 
he would certainly have called democracy, 
in his use of it. 

But I was not interested in North 
Carolina, and I was beginning to be very 
much interested in Taylorsville. Just as 
though he had divined my waning in 
terest, he skipped. 

"These people up here," he began, "I 
don t understand them. They tell me 
there s only one church, and that s only 
open twice a month. That s why we had 
the funeral to-day out of doors. You 
call it beautiful. Well, it may be, but it 
seemed sort of heathen to me. Down 
there it was different. In Taylorsville, 
the churches were everything." 

"And Emmanuel," I suggested, "was 
the most." 

"It ought to have been. At least, we 
thought so. It used to be in the old times. 
But it had sort of lost ground lately since 
the war. That was how I came first to 
think of that man I spoke of." 

"Evangelist Jones?" 

"That s him." He nodded, and fell 
silent. 

"Of course," he added suddenly, "it 
was to be a sort of interchurch thing, but 
I brought him really. I was responsible 
for him. I know that. Lawyer Fleming 
never was really in favor of it, not even 
in the beginning. And, of course, pretty 
near the whole vestry said as he did." 

"He preached in your church then?" 

"No, no, no," he contradicted. "You 
don t understand. It was the biggest 
thing you ever saw. The town pretty 
near went crazy. We used the Old Street 
tobacco warehouse. That s the biggest 
warehouse in Taylorsville. It would 
hold pretty near a thousand people, and 
it was packed, jammed, every night. We 
brought over all the seats from the Acad 
emy of Music, and church benches and 
camp-stools, and the melodeon from Em 
manuel s basement, and Miss Dorothy 
played on it up there on the platform 
right by the pulpit. He didn t use the 
pulpit much. He used to start there, and 
then he would walk about, all about the 



86 THE REVEREND JAMES E. MARKISON 

platform, praying and preaching; and I could see how it was telling on her. She 

he d go clean through the aisles, touching was getting white, losing that pretty 

people, sitting down by em if he thought color she used to have when she was run- 

they needed it. The third night even ning around just enjoying herself. It 

there must have been a hundred people worried me some to see her that way. 

up front on the mourner s benches, and But I knew the spirit of the Lord was 

two or three hundred more out in the working in her too. Her eyes used to get 

congregation crying and singing and brighter, and lots of times, right while she 

praying." was playing, I d see the tears rolling down 

"And Lawyer Fleming," I asked, her cheeks. When she d finished a hymn, 

" Where did he sit ? " she d put her arms up on the music-stand 

" Oh, he d come round by then. Every- and lay her face on them, and I could see 

body had. The rich and the poor, the her shoulders shake. Everybody could 

good and the wicked. There was one see it, all the congregation." 

old man who had been tried for murder, As he said that, he paused in his walk, 

and ran a saloon down on Albemarle resting his weight on one foot, exactly 

Street, the lowest, wickedest hole in Tay- over a single loose plank that creaked 

lorsville, he stood right up the first week shrilly under the pressure. And he re- 

and confessed his sins, and went down mained there swaying imperceptibly so 

and broke up that saloon himself with an that the burdened timber seemed to 

axe. And old Mr. Hartley, Lawyer shriek under his heel. And all the while 

Fleming s law partner, he stood up and he was looking straight past me into the 

said he had kept a bottle of whiskey in fire. It was as if the picture of the girl 

his safe ever since he was sixteen, and in her white dress, bowed, weeping before 

now he d done with whiskey, God help her cityful, was too terribly vivid to him 

him, forever. to leave. He must needs stand there on 

"It wasn t only at night, either. You d that shrieking plank, stamping it that 

see people in the street stop and talk and way into my consciousness too. It was 

drop right down on their knees and pray, the effect of intolerable over-emphasis. I 

And the churches were open, and people called out an almost involuntary "Stop." 

going in and out in broad daylight just At some invisible change of equilibrium 

like stores. It was the most wonderful the sound ceased. The stillness seemed 

time I ever saw. It was like the second profound, 

coming to me. "I might have said that," he went on 

"I had prayed for it." He sprang out quietly, "if I had been, like you are, look- 
of his chair and began to walk with his ing on. But I was up there on the plat- 
heavy, slow stride across the creaking form. I was leading it. It was my show, 
floor, his clinched hands hanging at his I thought I was serving God." 
sides. "I had prayed for it since I was He didn t laugh, but the creaking under 
a boy. It was a whole city turned to his shoes as he walked sounded to me like 
God. Day and night it was the same, laughter; laughter literally, as the phrase 
People who couldn t get in the warehouse is, dogging his heels. Whatever he had 
would stand outside, and when they to tell, I didn t want to hear it with ac- 
heard the singing they d take off their companiment. I kicked out a chair be- 
hats and join in the hymns. And such fore him. He would not seat himself, but 
singing ! Nothing new about it, just the leaned over the back of it. 
old-fashioned hymn tunes everybody " She had a way of playing between the 
knew. And that little child dressed all hymns, very low, so s you could hardly 
in white leading it. hear it, all the time he was walking out 

"All the ministers sat together on the among the people, exhorting and praying, 

platform. My chair was right next the It used to help him, I noticed, that sort of 

organ where I could see her plainly. It feeling of music in the air. She stopped it 

was along in April then, just getting suddenly and leaned forward, as I was 

warm, and sometimes it was pretty hot telling you just now, for a minute, and 

in there with all these people, and I used then she got up and walked over to the 

to fan her and bring her a glass of water, front of the platform. Everybody noticed 




CAWEttf SMITH 



She started off just like all the regular converts did. Page 88. 



88 THE REVEREND JAMES E. MARKISON 

the musk stopping, and they were all He came around his chair, and sat 

looking at her. She stood just where the down wearily. "If somebody else had 

evangelist stood, right beside the pulpit, said it, said it of Dorothy Fleming that 

" She started off just like all the regular she was a a well, we would have killed 

converts did though she didn t speak so him. Some of the younger men did 

loud. Only she didn t need to because it threaten the evangelist next day, and he 

was so quiet, everybody knowing who had to leave the very next day." 

she was. She said she had been there "So that ended it?" I asked, 

every night, just like they all had. She " Yes, that ended it. That ended every- 

had come there to save others, but she thing. Next morning the newspapers, 

couldn t stand it any longer. She was a which had printed big head-lines every 

sinner herself, and no sinner could help day before and told the text of the ser- 

save others. They had to be cleansed mons, and the names of the converts, just 

first themselves. said: The usual religious services were 

" I never was so happy as when I heard held at the Old Street Warehouse last 
her say that. I almost fell on my knees .night." 

and thanked God out loud. I knew, I The homeliness of the quotation, the 

couldn t help it that I would rather have vividness of his memory had a peculiar 

saved her than everybody else in Taylors- pathos as he repeated it like an epitaph, 

ville. It wasn t love like you people talk a pathetically inadequate epitaph, 

about up here. It was different. I " That did end it completely, didn t it ?" 

wanted to present her to the Lord, a full, "Oh, yes. It only happened this 

perfect, and complete sacrifice. I put up spring. So after a little while, I sent my 

my hands over my face and cried with wife back to her people, and I came up 

happiness. I thought it had come at here to figure it out." 

last. That she was safe forever." He sat, as at the beginning, his big 

Markison was talking, as I imagine he hands outspread before the fire, staring 

preached, in a narrow monotonous ca- at the flames "figuring it out," probably, 

dence. His body seemed to sway a little As I had no possible answer to suggest, I 

back and forth on his arms. joined in his silence. The weird blue 

" She said she had wrestled with the flames of the driftwood made hardly any 

spirit of the Lord until she was worn out. sound. 

She could struggle no longer. She was "Everything," he said to me once, 

going to confess her sins, and ask every- "like an earthquake." 

body to pray for her. It was just like At last, he got up suddenly, 

what they all said, only she was so young, "Well, I am much obliged to you," 

and all in white, and she didn t cry out and he put out his hand for his umbrella, 

loud or shout. She just talked simply. I It was extraordinary that I never knew 

couldn t see her face, being behind her, how to talk with him. All I could think 

but I could see the people out in front, of was to offer to lend him a hat. He 

and some of them were crying just like refused and shook hands. Then he 

I was. Somebody got up and started to walked out. 

play the melodeon, softly, like she did, The rain, I remember, had stopped, but 

but she put out her hand sideways and it was perfectly dark. From my door I 

stopped him. could see the light of the inn up above 

Don t do that, she said, I want us. The way up over the rocks was tortu- 

everybody to hear me. ous and winding, even dangerous for a 

"And then," said Markison, "she pil- stranger. But he would have no gui- 

loried herself in shame before the congre- dance, and set off alone. I held the door 

gation." wide to light the first few feet of his path. 

It was a rather involved figure, and I As I closed it again, I reflected that no 
suppose I stared rather stupidly at him human being could ever do more, 
for a moment or two. Perhaps it was the He elaborately avoided me ever after- 
best way I could have taken it. ward, and though I saw him a score pf 

"Don t you understand?" he asked. times, we never spoke. Then I heard 

"Oh, yes," I said; "I understand." that he had left Slack Harbor. 



A Home of Her Own 



BY OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR 

Author of "Educating the Binneys" and "Scaling Zion 
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR LITLE 




OMEBODY had told 
me in the post-office 
the night before that 
one of the Snead girls, 
as usual, was engaged 
to one of the seminary 
students. According 
to the local pleasantry 
this had always happened by the middle 
of May at the latest, ever since Leota 
Snead, the oldest daughter, had marked a 
precedent by marrying Wilbur Binney, 
that notably godly youth, and starting 
out with him for a missionary post in 
India. And this time I was afraid it must 
be Beryl who was committing herself to 
the familiar fate though I had hoped 
that this sister, so marked a variant from 
the family type, would interest herself in 
something or somebody unmistakably sec 
ular. But my informant, who scarcely 
knew the Sneads, couldn t tell me. I saw 
that I must make up hastily for my two 
years absence from Circleville. So at 
eight minutes before eleven on Sunday 
morning I became a passive drop in the 
social stream. 

"Our" bell had just ceased, but a dis 
mal clangor of slightly varying sectarian 
accent was still sounding, so we could feel 
ourselves thoroughly in tune with the 
day and the institution as we moved 
with slow propriety toward the "First" 
Church. Although it was not yet June, 
the day was hot and moist. But I re 
membered that the Sabbath, as we still 
called it, with a pride in our pious tradi 
tion, was always hot and moist. That 
is, when it wasn t cold and windy. And 
in either case it had a queer empty sound- 
lessness, like the inside of a balloon. 
Somehow that strong fragrance of peonies 
and syringa had a Sabbath character, too. 
Only it had a tinge, nowadays, of gaso 
lene. "Family cars" that were really 
waiting to start out on some godless ex 



cursion, but hadn t the courage to ad 
mit it, stood shamefacedly outside silent 
houses wearing a false air of respectability 
and innocence. 

Hardly a moment later, and we were 
swarming sociably in the vestibule, our 
backs and elbows touching, while we elab 
orately prolonged the conventional in 
quiries. Then, lowering our voices, we be 
gan in brisker accent to exchange our bits 
of news. But we were no more than com 
fortably under way when the sleek, smil 
ing ushers made their deft wedges in the 
drifting mass firmly waved us toward 
the bright, hot, stuffy, shiny interior. We 
choked a little as we crossed the threshold 
and tottered dizzily down the smooth de 
cline. Within, there were no dim corners. 
Wherever you sat, you were within easy 
range of the preacher s eye and of every 
other. Looking about me with the frank 
curiosity that Circleville so powerfully 
stimulates and so mercifully permits, I 
tried to look as if I didn t know that I 
myself was being expertly scrutinized. 
How little change there was, after all ! 
Down near the front sat the theological 
students, as they had always sat, a sparse, 
charmless group, the bright lure of youth 
quite absent from them. Two very cen 
tral pews were occupied by the Reverend 
Wilbur Binney s fascinating family 
father, mother, multitudinous blond 
progeny a group whose complex func 
tion it was to represent the clergy, the 
missionary service, the family principle, 
the Christian home. Just behind them 
there had always sat Leota Binney s own 
family, the, Sneads. I looked for Beryl, 
or for some damsel who should wear 
a consciously bridal look but Albert 
Snead, the morose and unsuccessful gro 
cer, sat alone. The presence of his old 
est daughter gave me, however, a sin 
gular satisfaction. I found that it was 
Leota Binney whom I was blindly in 

89 



90 



A HOME OF HER OWN 



search of, Leota whom I must infallibly 
waylay. An hour later we were walking 
down the street together. 

It proved possible to come to the point 
with but the briefest preliminaries. 

" Beryl ? " Leota repeated my question 
with evident surprise. "Oh, no, it s not 
Beryl. It s Carmen that s the youngest. 
She s done fairly well, I think. They re 
down in Louisville, visiting his people for 
a few days. Of course, I d rather that 
all the girls wouldn t marry preachers. 
But you know yourself how the home 
town boys go away before they re any 
thing like old enough to marry. So if 
you don t elope with one of them at six 
teen you re stranded here with the sem 
inary students, and you simply have to 
help yourself to what there is. That is, 
if you re practical and want to get settled 
in life." 

"But Beryl it can t be she s been 
practical !" 

Leota looked at me sharply. "Do you 
mean to say nobody s told you about 
Beryl ? " she demanded. 

"You see I came only yesterday. But 
is she " 

We were nearing the Binneys gate. 
The older children, charming cloud of 
seraphs that they always seemed to me, 
had preceded us and were already drifting 
into the yard. The youngest Binney, 
who for the first time in the history of 
this rapidly enlarging family was a grad 
uate from the lurching wicker vehicle that 
Leota had so long propelled, clutched 
firmly his mother s hand. Being nearly 
three, he had long since been ripe for 
church attendance, as our customs go. 
Aggressive and a little noisy, he was of 
course Leota s favorite. 

My companion laid an imperative 
hand upon my arm. "I want you to 
come in," she urged firmly. "It s cool 
under the trees. Wilbur won t be home 
for an hour, and we always have cold 
dinner on the Sabbath. I ll tell you the 
whole story." 

Leota led the way to the rear of the 
house, where we found some shady seats 
not visible from the street. The infant 
Matthew, much too large for his mother s 
lap, nevertheless resolutely occupied it, 
in an overflowing fashion. 

"You know how we ve always felt 



about Beryl. How we were certain she 
would die an old maid," Mrs. Binney be 
gan, with the rigid expression and averted 
eyes of one exposing to view the tragedy 
or shame of kindred. 

I ransacked my mind for the appropri 
ate formula and found it. "But your 
mother must have been happy to have 
one grown-up daughter with her." 

"Oh, yes," Leota indifferently agreed. 
"But she naturally wanted Beryl to have 
a home of her own. No mother likes to 
see a girl go on from year to year the way 
Beryl did without a man in sight. People 
begin to think she is queer. And Beryl 
was queer." 

"She s a lovely creature, I always 
thought. I hope that if a man has dis 
covered her, he sees her as she is." 

Leota was silent. But somehow it was 
a richly communicative silence. I re 
membered almost with terror how things 
had a way of happening to people who 
were within the range of her formidable 
power. The small woman s colorless, 
ordinary appearance was so misleading. 
Her energy, free as it was from the slight 
est squeamishness, was so positive a 
power. Something pressed me on to con 
firm my intuition. 

"It s happened, then! And I believe 
you brought it about." 

"I did and I didn t," Leota admitted, 
with no air of triumph. " It wasn t as if 
I d planned the thing from the beginning. 
But what chance had I? There was 
Beryl, quiet and serious, not a bit of life 
in her, so far as you could see, no sense 
of clothes and no way with her where 
men were concerned and almost twenty- 
eight years old. She simply wasn t get 
ting anywhere, living along at home that 
way, watching the other girls go to par 
ties, helping out Saturday evenings at the 
store, and substituting when the grade- 
school teachers had the flu. Father didn t 
like her to work regularly and she wasn t 
strong anyway. There was all this to 
fight against. But I made up my mind 
to see that that girl got married." 

To me this preface was not without a 
tinge of apology. With a fresh wave of 
compassion I recalled Beryl Snead s sen 
sitive face. 

Leota went on brightly. "It was 
while I was getting ready for the autumn 



A HOME OF HER OWN 



91 



conference last October that I made up 
my mind about Beryl. And the week 
afterward the conference came off. Not 
as large a one as usual. In fact the only 
guest we expected, to stay with us, I 
mean, was Doctor Pettigrew. Though a 
man like that, at the head of the whole 
missionary movement, is as much trouble 
as a dozen others, with his telegrams and 
telephones and naps and extra lunches, 
and a girl up from the hotel to write his 
letters for him, to say nothing of Wilbur 
having to give up his study. But, after 
all, Doctor Pettigrew wasn t supposed to 
occupy but one room, so when at the last 
minute the arrangements for Arthur 
Littleby fell through and somebody sug 
gested that he put up with us, we had to 
let him come. Especially as we had met 
him in India. He was to make an address 
on opening day." 

"Another missionary, then !" 

"A doctor. A medical missionary. Or 
that s what he ostensibly was. His ac 
tual serious interest was something quite 
different. I ll explain to you shortly. 

"The two men both arrived in the 
afternoon. That night Doctor Pettigrew 
was to go to the seminary for supper, 
and Wilbur and I were invited too, but I 
had a good excuse for declining, as there 
was Doctor Littleby to attend to at 
home. 

"Before he and the doctor started out 
together, Wilbur came to me with a queer 
look. Don t worry about entertaining 
Doctor Littleby, he said. He ll prob 
ably be going out somewhere. 

" I don t think he will, I said. Beryl 
is coming over for supper. 

"Wilbur looked uncomfortable. He 
hates so to criticise anybody. Littleby 
isn t the man to meet your sister, he 
sort of made himself say. He s not a 
man of God, Leota. 

" Oh, Beryl is old enough to take care 
of herself, I "told him. And I think it s 
her duty to come and help me out now 
and then. 

"And after all, there was no reason 
why I shouldn t have had Beryl in. She 
had been meeting people right along for 
twenty-seven years without anything 
happening and so had Doctor Littleby, 
so far as I knew, for a good deal longer 
time. What troubled Wilbur, you see, 



was the impression of Littleby he d 
brought back from India." 

Yet you hadn t known him?" 

"No. Not known him exactly. We 
had different fields. We met him only 
once. But people talked. We couldn t 
help hearing. Perhaps I d better give 
you an idea. 

; You see, there s so much sickness 
there. And that was naturally Doctor 
Littleby s job. But people thought, I 
mean the missionaries thought, he didn t 
show enough energy in fighting it. He d 
toss out some pills, they said, to the sick 
wretches that swarmed about, but he 
didn t really seem to care. And the hos 
pital he was in charge of may have been 
rather badly run. But I can t say that 
it was. We were so far away. 

"In any case, perhaps you couldn t 
blame him. He d been there so long, and 
caught so many of their ways. He looks 
like them, too, though he has straight 
New Hampshire ancestry he s so lean 
and dark and quiet, with something in his 
personality that just escapes you. 

" The trouble was that he liked the life 
there more than is safe. It had gotten 
inside of him. If Wilbur and I had ever 
liked it, we should be there now! But 
we kept our own tastes and standards 
through it all and he didn t. He loved 
the climate and the kind of houses they 
have, and native servants. You know 
they will wait on you so that you get to 
the point where you don t want to stir. 
But that wasn t the worst of it. The 
really terrible thing was the craze he had 
for museum stuff you know, artistic 
things, bronze and jade and all that. It 
was this that was the ruin of him. 

"And it wasn t any recent hobby with 
him, either. That s what drew him out 
to India in the beginning not any mis 
sionary impulse. And he had spent all 
the years he had lived there in accumu 
lating a houseful of that queer junk that 
it would make a heathen of anybody 
to live with. Everybody that spoke of 
him said the only way you could ever 
rouse Doctor Littleby was to show him 
a piece of carved ivory or some old 
faded woven thing. Of course nobody 
should let himself think so much about 
bruised idols and decayed embroidery. It 
impairs your usefulness." Leota paused 



92 



A HOME OF HER OWN 



self-righteously, and reflected for a mo 
ment. 

"Oh, I couldn t remember all the 
things people have said. And I certainly 
forgot every one of them the afternoon 
that Doctor Littleby came. Nice quiet 
ways he has, always. I decided I couldn t 
have had an easier visitor. He didn t 
seem to have anything to do, though, so 
when the others had gone I took him out 
to the grape-arbor, over there, you can 
see, in the side yard opposite. I was there 
talking with him when Beryl came in at 
the front gate and sauntered up the walk. 
I called to her, but she smiled without 
stopping and went on in. 

"Doctor Littleby watched her. After 
a minute he said, in a distinct, awfully 
educated way he has of speaking: 

" Is there any chance of seeing that 
exquisite creature again ? 

" It s my sister Beryl, I said, and 
she ll be here for supper. 

" Your sister I suppose then you 
don t notice the way she walks or the 
shape of her head. I should say she is 
one of the most beautiful women I ever 
saw. 

"You know yourself that missionaries 
don t talk like that. And that it should 
be about Beryl ! It had such a strange, 
bewildering sound to me that for a mo 
ment I quite forgot my secret plans for 
Beryl. 

" You should have seen Velma, I 
said. She was married last June. Pink 
as a rose ! And vivacious ! 

" Pink ! he laughed. Pink ! That s 
what you Americans admire, I know. 
To me, the marvellous thing about this 
young lady is that you can forget her 
being made of blood and muscle. In 
fact, I refuse to believe she has a circula 
tory system. She s the work of an an 
cient tool in a cunning hand. I remem 
ber that phrase of his because he used it 
more than once about her. The work of 
an ancient tool in a cunning hand. 

"His striking a note like that, after 
just one glance at Beryl, did upset me a 
little, I ll admit. I couldn t believe she d 
know how to handle him, she d had so 
little experience. If it had only been 
that cool-headed little Velma ! 

"We had supper shortly. Of course 
our meal-times, with all the youngsters 



on hand, are pretty distracting. And 
usually our company pays a good deal of 
attention to the children, for politeness 
or some other reason, but Doctor Little 
by didn t look at one of them. He just 
looked at Beryl. Oh, I don t mean that 
he stared. Only he didn t try to disguise 
the fact that he was interested. 

"Well, Beryl may not have had many 
beaux. But she knew when she was being 
looked at. And knowing it was becoming 
to her. She was dressed rather outland- 
ishly, the way Beryl always is dressed, 
if you remember, in a thin black thing 
with a round neck and short sleeves. But 
she has rather a knack in winding that 
soft black hair of hers around her head. 
And I suppose she impressed Doctor 
Littleby more than if she had worn stylish 
clothes. 

"It was plain enough to me that the 
girl wasn t a bit like herself that night. 
Excited, I think she was, and still almost 
afraid of something. She even wanted 
to avoid coming outdoors with us after 
supper tried to go in the kitchen. But 
Maribelle and Jude always do the dishes 
and they re so careful about it there s no 
need of anybody helping them, so Beryl 
had to come with us. Inside of half an 
hour Doctor Littleby had asked her to go 
to walk with him and she went. And 
well, that was about all I saw of either of 
them for the next three days. 

" Busy as I am here at home, they al 
ways expect me to go to half the sessions 
of the conference, at least. That s what 
it is to be married to a minister and a 
missionary. So I happened to hear Doc 
tor Littleby give his talk. And I believe 
it was the best speech that was made 
there, though it hadn t any religion in it. 
Entertaining vivid. He talks wonder 
fully when he talks at all. 

"But when that was over, do you 
think he went back to hear the rest of 
them stumble through their prosy papers ? 
He went walking with Beryl instead. 
Though he hates to walk, and she never 
cared much for it either. Of course ab 
solutely everybody saw them. There 
couldn t have been anything more public ! 
Oh, it wasn t the right thing to do at all. 
Especially for one of us Sneads, with 
father down there on Main Street all day 
long in a mussy apron, either picking over 




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94 A HOME OF HER OWN 

his wilted carrots on the sidewalk or an old maid than ever. So I couldn t help 

measuring out somebody s lard or mo- telling her that I was thankful Littleby 

lasses inside the store. It isn t as if Beryl was gone and that I hoped we should 

had been an Arrowsmith. never see him again. 

"Fortunately, Wilbur was so busy "And what do you think she said? 

being chairman of the conference and I m engaged to him. 

making so many of those prayers they Engaged! Where s your ring, 

fill in with, that he was tired to death, then? I asked her. 

and didn t half know what was going on. " I suppose it s in India, she said. 

But I can tell you that Doctor Pettigrew Leota, what do rings matter? 

knew though you might suppose he d "Well, I had come to be so suspicious 

be just as busy, and just as blind. There s of Doctor Littleby that I could hardly 

a man that sees everything ! Then he s believe they were engaged or at least 

accustomed to a great deal of deference that he knew they were. Beryl had of 

in fact, he s a little spoiled, maybe and course been brought up the way the rest 

yet Doctor Littleby hardly said a word of us were, to think that the minute a 

to him, even at meals. I was amazed, man forgets himself and kisses you, you 

I ll admit, that a man who was even are engaged automatically. But I felt 

nominally a missionary should dare to very sure she didn t know how to work 

neglect the doctor so. It wasn t only her end of it. I asked her when she was 

rude, it was imprudent. gi n g to be married. 

"I don t know that I need .to reproach " Don t ask me questions, she said in 

myself as to the way those two carried that soft, gentle way. I m so terribly 

on. I tried to talk to Beryl, I tried to happy. 

warn her. But she slipped completely "And you couldn t ask her questions, 

away from me. And after all she wasn t You couldn t talk to her at all. She was 

a child. So Littleby had it his own way." so changed that she was impossible. 

"But I don t understand Beryl s being None of the rest of us girls had been like 

so acquiescent," I interrupted. "She s that, you see. When we planned to 

not that kind of girl. She has plenty of marry, we knew what we were about, we 

character. Why should she have al- kept our senses. But Beryl ! Oh, it s a 

lowed this elderly jade collector to absorb terrible thing to care for a man the way 

her so ? " she cared for Littleby ! Even Wilbur 

"Why, don t you see? she liked it. could see how beside herself she was, and 

Two minutes talk with her, when at last there s hardly anything that Wilbur sees. 

I had her cornered, told me that." "This went on for about ten days. 

"She had fallen in love?" And I knew that Littleby was sailing for 

"Straight in love with him, in that India in less than a month. I didn t dare 

reckless way girls have that aren t young ask her if she expected to see him again, 

any longer. Oh, it was her inexperience, though I knew they were carrying on one 

partly. And then he talked to her in a of those fearfully bulky correspondences 

way you might think fascinating about that people seem to be able to manage 

things she had never had a chance to talk when they don t know each other very 

about before. And he admired her so well. And she hadn t a thought, of 

and praised her looks in the most exag- course, for the rest of us, with mother 

gerated way. Hardly anybody here in crying in the pantry the whole morning 

Circleville had ever dreamed Beryl was long because she was so sure that Beryl 

good-looking. never would marry, and with everybody 

" But when I saw how she had lost her stopping me on the street to ask questions 
head over a man that faded out of sight about Beryl that there wasn t any con- 
just as soon as he had thoroughly upset ceivable answer to. I don t go in for 
her you can be sure I wished I d never nerves but for once I knew what people 
had them meet. It was bad enough for mean when they talk about them. Then, 
her to have gone in for such a conspicuous suddenly, Arthur Littleby appeared, 
affair with him. Just the sort of thing "Oh, Beryl was every bit as much sur- 
that would make her more likely to be prised as we were. That I know. I have 



A HOME OF HER OWN 95 

no idea how she secretly interpreted that " Not in the least/ I told him as briskly 

engagement of theirs, but I am sure there as I could. But I should have been sur- 

had been no understanding between prised if it had turned out any other way. 

them that he should come back and You compromised Beryl pretty seriously, 

marry her before he sailed, and, if you you know, when you were here. There 

will believe me, that is precisely what he was nothing else for you to do but marry, 

had come to do. was there ? 

Right after breakfast the next morn- "He smiled. Do let s be frank with 




seen either him or Beryl. that. 

" You re responsible for all this, Leota/ " What motive does influence you, 

mother told me. And you must put a then? I put it to him bluntly, 

stop to it right away. Your father and " My dear Mrs. Binney, Beryl pleases 

I are not going to have Beryl talked about me. She pleases me enormously. She 

so. The man has treated her outrageous- pleases me to the point where well, you 

ly, leaving her in the air this way with no can see for yourself, here I am. 

idea whether he meant to come back or " Beryl is a sweet girl, and she could 

not. And then giving her a two days make a really nice home and all that, 

notice, or whatever it is, that he intends But you don t act as if you cared about 

to marry her. I d rather a daughter of those things. 

mine would never marry ! "He looked out of the window. 

" Oh, no, you wouldn t, mother, I Wouldn t a woman prefer to be desired 
told her. I m surprised you don t see for her beauty rather than for being able 
that the minute he mentions marriage, if to cook or wash? Beryl is beautiful. But 
he has mentioned it, the whole situation it s beauty that cries out for a back- 
is changed. The Littlebys are one of the ground. She doesn t belong here. I can 
best families in the East, and the doctor place her, as I have placed so many 
is educated way beyond the point where things, where her loveliness will count. 
there s any need of being educated, and "I had to leave it at that. For I was 
when you think of Beryl, actually Beryl, having trouble enough, not only with 
settled down in a home of her own, you mother, but with Wilbur. It was simply 
can draw that long breath you haven t unbelievable how Wilbur, who never 
drawn for years. thinks of anything but missions, or that 

"It had been so easy for mother to long visit little Dorcas is making at the 

marry off the rest of us, she didn t seem Pettigrews , took a stand on this and re- 

to understand how it was with Beryl, fused to be reconciled. And I had to 

even though she had worried about her reconcile him, because the wedding was 

so. We had to make concessions, I re- coming off almost the next minute and 

minded her, we had to overlook things, you can see what a scandal it would have 

And that any man, whoever he was, been if anybody else had performed the 

should want to marry Beryl and take her ceremony. I found that he couldn t for- 

to the ends of the earth after knowing get a hint that somebody out in India 

her only three days, was something. It had dropped to him about Littleby. 

made a romantic story, don t you think ? Things do shock Wilbur, you know, that 

Though you may not think much of might not shock another man. I must 

romance. say for him that he is innocent and good. 

"In spite of all I could do, Doctor And this thing I could hardly get him to 

Littleby found mother and father pretty repeat, even to me. 

stiff. So he came to see me, to try to oil "Well, heaven knows, I didn t want 

things up a little. Fortunately, I was bigamy in the family. Being an old maid 

alone. was better than that. So I made Wilbur 

" I understand our charming arrange- go right down to the hotel and call on 

ments have surprised you, he began. Littleby and ask him straight out if 

His voice was very languid. there was any truth in this talk of a na- 



96 



A HOME OF HER OWN 



tive wife out there in India. Poor Wil 
bur, you can imagine how he hated to. 
But he went. And Littleby swore to him 
by everything that was solemn that 
there was absolutely no reason why he 
shouldn t marry Beryl. That he had 
never married anybody, anywhere, in his 
life. Wilbur had to take his word for it, 
finally. But he couldn t like the man. 

"Arthur gave Beryl something like 
four or five days to get ready in. That 
meant they would still have two weeks 
before they were to sail. Beryl was sim 
ply crazy over the idea of going to India. 
My having hated it so, and its having 
ruined Wilbur s health for life, meant 
nothing to her. It was enough for her 
that Arthur liked it and that it was so 
far away from Circleville and all of us 
that she had ever known. Beryl is like 
that. 

" I told her I d give her a wedding, and 
that I d work day and night getting up 
some clothes for her. 

" I suppose I ll need something for the 
steamer/ she said in a vague way. But 
nothing else. No new dresses. Arthur 
says I must wear only Indian things. 

"It was that way with everything. 
The poor girl was in a trance. 

"Having such ideas as theirs, they 
didn t, of course, want a real wedding. 
But I made the house look pretty, and we 
had about twenty-five people and Wilbur 
did marry them, though his voice shook 
fearfully, and Beryl, I ll admit, didn t 
look a day more than twenty. That night 
they took the train for New York. 

"The minute they were gone every one 
of us collapsed from the strain of it. I 
know I fastened myself in the wood 
shed, though the baby was awake and 
needed me, and there I simply sat down 
and cried. Just for relief. And I had 
scarcely ever cried before in my life. 
But I had been so afraid all the time it 
wouldn t go through. Anybody could 
see Arthur wasn t a marrying man, and 
that it was only by the strangest accident 
she d gotten him. And I knew that if 
we hadn t brought this marriage off I 
could never have done anything with 
Beryl afterward never could have got 
ten her settled, I mean, in the way a girl 
ought to be." 

Leota paused for a moment. The child 



in her lap was heavily asleep and she 
shifted his position carefully, so as not to 
wake him. Her gentle movements sug 
gested ample capacity for tenderness. I 
felt I had misjudged her. 

"I could almost cry with relief, too," 
I said, laughing, as I rose to go. "I was 
so afraid from the way you began that 
Beryl had had some unhappy experience. 
And she s such a dear." 

"Don t go just yet," said Leota, in 
her even voice, without moving. "I 
shouldn t have told you what I have if I 
hadn t meant to tell you all. It s because 
you re fond of Beryl." 

"Oh, the story doesn t end, then 
where stories do?" 

"I don t know just what the ending is 
of this story. But there s more that you 
must know. 

"For two or three days after Beryl 
was married we all felt as weak and 
happy as could be. Then we began to 
look for word from her. But nothing 
came. I had to keep reminding mother 
that she was Beryl and a bride, and that 
you really couldn t expect anything. 
Then, after a week, a letter came. 

"But the letter wasn t to mother. It 
was to me. 

"I don t see, myself, how Beryl could 
have brought herself to tell us. Espe 
cially as it made it so much harder for 
us, with people asking questions every 
hour in the day. It was a terrific blow. 
But Beryl is self-centred Oh, I don t 
mind telling you. 

"Of course, you know how it is with 
the board of missions. Their formali 
ties, and all that. And since Doctor 
Littleby was on the point of returning, 
and Beryl was going for the first time, 
the red tape was quite formidable. And 
one of the important points was a phys 
ical examination for Beryl. None of us 
had thought of that. And it was this 
that she somehow failed to pass. Her 
heart wasn t right, it seemed, and there 
were other things the matter with her 
and they simply wouldn t let her leave 
New York. 

"I think still, and so does Wilbur, that 
if Littleby had been a different type of 
man he could have slipped her through. 
But it turned out that he had no prestige 
at all with the board. Doctor Pettigrew 




"Wilbur did marry them, though his voice shook fearfully." Page 96. 
VOL. LXXL 7 



97 



98 



A HOME OF HER OWN 



could have arranged it all for him in an 
instant. Just about anything can hap 
pen, if Doctor Pettigrew wants it to. 
And I ve found out since that Arthur did 
telegraph him for help. But the doctor 
wouldn t move a finger. You see Arthur 
had been so rude to him here. 

"From Beryl s point of view, this was 
almost bad enough, with India sounding 
like paradise to her. But worse followed. 
And bad as it was, she told most of it in 
the letter she wrote me. It seems that as 
soon as he found that Beryl couldn t go 
to India Arthur announced to her that 
he was going anyway going alone. The 
truth was he had never for an instant 
considered life anywhere but in the 
Orient. He didn t intend to consider it. 
Being married to Beryl, and having her so 
crazily in love with him, didn t alter that. 

"But here the board of missions 
stepped in again. And now I think of it, 
there s no knowing that Doctor Petti- 
grew wasn t behind the whole matter, 
from beginning to end. The board let 
Arthur see how much they disapproved 
of his leaving Beryl, when he was just 
married to her some of this we found 
out later. They put it to him in some 
indirect way that if he insisted on going 
he wouldn t find much left of his official 
status. The big contributions his family 
had always made were what accounted, 
I suppose, for his having been retained so 
long. Because the missions people are 
great believers in the Christian home, and 
all that, and they don t care much about 
missionaries who aren t personally con 
secrated, even if they are doctors. And 
I ve told you what Arthur is. 

"But perhaps even without the board s 
interfering, Beryl would have seen for 
herself when things went as far as this. 
Seen, I mean, just how much romance 
amounts to. How risky it is to marry a 
man who talks too well and hasn t any 
domestic instinct." 

"But you seem to have made it pretty 
plain that he was in love with her ! " 

"He was in love with her looks," Leota 
shrewdly discriminated. " But I told you 
he was a collector. He was in love with 
everything that he discovered and ac 
quired small cold things of stone or 
metal, of course, they mostly were. Then 
a good part of the joy for him was getting 



his treasures at a bargain. I don t know 
whether he d really care for anything he d 
been forced to pay too high a price for. 
And when he found what a trap the board 
had put him in, he probably decided that 
Beryl had cost him too dear, though at 
the time he must have supposed he was 
getting her cheaply, undemanding as she 
was. As it was, he d paid the price of 
everything else that he liked oh, of 
things that no doubt he liked far better 
than Beryl herself, things that he consid 
ered more beautiful. If he could, he 
would, of course, have packed her up in 
sawdust and returned her by express the 
next day. But just think what a won 
derful protection for women marriage is ! 
That s what Beryl doesn t seem to appre 
ciate in the slightest the actual advan 
tages of her position, I mean. But there 
is more that I must explain to you. 

"I can t tell you, though, all that hap 
pened, in those few days that they spent 
in New York together. It s only the bar 
est facts that Beryl tells, after all. She s 
so queer and reserved and heart-broken 
when it comes to telling anything that he 
really said. But, good gracious, any mar 
ried woman has to come up against hard 
things, sooner or later. Beryl simply had 
hers in a lump, to begin with. 

"Oh, if she had been a different kind 
of a girl, she might have forced him to 
settle down with her in this country after 
all and lead a respectable life. Beryl 
could have had a nice little home here 
in Circle ville, and the same interests that 
the other married girls of her age have 
ner little parties and all that. Which is 
just what we wanted for her. 

"But there would have been draw 
backs. Liking India as he did, liking 
heat and luxury and laziness and queer 
un-Christian things, had spoiled Littleby 
so. No, it wouldn t have been easy to 
make him live in America and work. So 
/ think Beryl is well rid of him." 

"Rid of him! What do you mean?" 

"Why, he s in China. That is, so far 
as I know. He seized on a sudden chance 
to go as travelling physician to some rich 
New Yorker. And left the next morning. 
Just as free as if he d never been married 
at all. Perhaps, after all, she really had 
to tell of it, in spite of our feelings. But 
it was terrible for mother." 



LEGEND 99 

"But, poor girl, what can have become secretary s position at the Y. W. C. A. 

of her?" I besought Leota. She s good at that sort of thing. She has 

"Well, here again Beryl has acted so a little flat there. Mother has just been 

differently from the rest of us. What- paying her a week s visit. She says 

ever her husband did, there she was, Mrs. Beryl s flat is just as comfortable and 

Arthur Littleby, with all the Little- pretty as the one Velma has in Chicago, 

by money and position back of her. Oh, it s made mother feel differently 

Wouldn t you think she d see how much about Beryl. After all, she is married, 

better that was than being the not-yet- And she has a home o*f her own. And 

married Miss Snead ? But the girl doesn t I ve known a good many cases where it 

seem to understand what marriage im- would have been easier to have a hus- 

plies, as mother often says. She won t band in China than to have him on hand 

accept a penny from the Littlebys. You for midday dinner seven days a week." 
can imagine how terribly we feel about Wilbur Binney clicked the gate-latch 

it. And we ve never had anything in the and I made my hasty good-bys. 
family the least bit queer or scandalous "Of course, you won t tell anything 

before." I ve told you," Leota admonished me. 

"But I don t understand !" "But I wanted you to know what we ve 

"Why, the minute she picked herself been through. And I thought you might 

together after her first collapse she went be relieved to know that something had 

straight out to Cleveland and took a happened to Beryl finally ! " 



Legend 

BY JOHN HALL WHEELOCK 

WHERE are you hid from me, beloved one, 
That I am seeking through the lonely world, 
A wandeier on my way home to you? 

Dark is the night and perilous the road: 
At many a breast in longing have I leaned, 
At many a wayside worshipped, and my heart 
Is tired from long travelling. 

Perhaps 

In centuries to come you wait for me, 
And are as yet an iris by the stream 
Lifting her single blossom, or the faint 
Tremulous haze upon the hills, and we 
Have missed each other. 

O if it be so, 

Then may this song reach to the verge of doom, 
Ages unborn, to find you where you are, 
My lonely one, and like a murmuring string, 
Faint with one music, endlessly repeat 
To you, not even knowing I was yours, 
Her plaintive burden from the dolorous past; 
Telling of one upon a hopeless quest, 
How in the dark of time he lost his way! 



Boston Revisited 

BY KATHARINE FULLERTON GEROULD 



T 



HE title is not amiss, 
for it is twenty years 
since I inhabited Bos 
ton. In twenty years, 
I have perhaps twice 
spent a night there as 
a bird of passage. It 
is half a dozen years 
since I even set foot in the city. Now, in 
recent weeks, I have passed twenty-four 
consecutive hours in Boston a thing, as 
I say, that I had not done before since the 
turn of the twentieth century. And the 
twice-seeing eye is like the twice-born 
soul : it means something better, in a way, 
than any virgin experience whatsoever. 
The first impression cannot, for example, 
register change; it cannot even be sure of 
changelessness. 

The forefathers of New England mar 
shalled their children and said to them, 
even as the Lord said to Israel through 
Moses: "Behold, I set before you this 
day a blessing and a curse." I know not 
how it is in other sections of the country; 
but no thinking man who has been a New 
Englander for three centuries can fail to 
have a congenital uneasiness in the blood ; 
a sense of conflict that accompanies every 
step of his mundane way. He never, like 
some others, denies or explains away or 
endeavors to shift his heritage. He is a 
New Englander, and that settles it. He 
cannot throw it off so obviously cannot 
that there would be no sense in his pre 
tending to try. Sometimes he is more 
conscious of the curse than of the blessing, 
and in some cases, no doubt, the blessing 
seems to fill his sky. The "New England 
conscience" gives him no peace, for he 
has inherited it from folk who thought 
peace, according to its quality, either ig 
noble or undeserved. No: the New Eng 
land conscience never gave any one peace. 
It is the most hair-splitting conscience 
alive. The New Bnglander, you see, in 
sisted on looking his God in the face. 
What wonder that so many of him fled 
down unanthropomorphic ways into Uni- 



tarianism? If you will not put sacra 
ments between yourself and God, there is 
nothing else to do. We were, for very 
long, that terrible thing, a man-made 
theocracy; we were, even worse, a truly 
homogeneous community. Even now, 
Middle States, Southern States, Pacific 
States do not speak our language. We 
may love them passionately, but we are 
not at home among these alien folk. Real 
foreigners are almost easier. 

I have known many people who wished 
they were not New Englanders; but 
never one who had the chance really 
been afforded him would not have 
drawn back in terror before the oppor 
tunity of change: terror because being, 
oneself, anything but a New Englander is 
to the New Englander impossible of com 
prehension. You simply cannot imagine 
what it would feel like, inside to be any 
thing else. In the end, you would shrink 
before the inconceivable. To be a real 
New Englander is to be self-conscious ; and 
conscious, to the marrow, of being "spe 
cial." You may kick against the curse; 
you may even deprecate the blessing; but 
to imagine yourself anything else is like 
imagining yourself a merman or an ele 
mental, a cherub or a fairy. Something 
different: delightful, very likely, but in 
comprehensible. 

What has it all to do with Boston, 
visited or revisited? Being a New Eng 
lander, I had not realized, until now, that 
that question could be pertinent, or that 
sequence muddy. Boston is the one 
great city in New England, and though 
you may centre your allegiance in Port 
land, Maine, or Providence, Rhode Isl 
and, or Hartford, Connecticut, you are 
not unaware of the super-city of your 
province. You may never have lived in 
Boston; you may not know it or care for 
it; but Boston is your metropolis and 
your capital. Alien to you personally it 
may be; but not as Chicago, Philadel 
phia, or St. Louis is alien. On the West 
ern marches, New York is the magnet, no 



IOO 



BOSTON REVISITED 



101 



doubt; New York may even be a habit 
of the march-dwellers. But Boston is the 
capital of New England, and all that is 
traditionally New English in the march- 
dweller will look thither with respect. 
You may shop, or go to the theatre else 
where; but the temple, I think, is still in 
Boston. No Babylonish captivity can 
alter that. 

So, to a New Englander, Boston is still 
and always important, with its own spe 
cial importance. It has become a com 
monplace that "Boston is no longer a 
Mecca," etc., etc. Even that does not 
matter. The New Englander knows that, 
in a very intimate sense, Boston is, for 
him, a Mecca. Though they prove to us 
statistically that the Puritan centre of 
gravity has shifted from New England to 
the Middle West, they will never make 
us feel any corresponding lurch of our 
beings toward the Mississippi Valley. 
We do not mind being transplanted so 
much, perhaps, as some others, though we 
may not be happy in the spot of our trans 
planting. Again, it does not matter, be 
cause we were never happy in New Eng 
land. A New Englander is not happy 
anywhere: he is not made that way. He 
may be fortunate, cheerful, contented; 
but happiness was not included in his 
blessing. His hair shirt is part of his skin. 
My own notion is that he likes immensely 
living in places where people do not grow 
hair shirts in the embryonic stage, but 
that he never really feels at home except 
where he knows that the people he meets 
in the streets are skinned like himself. No 
one seeks the exotic release with greater 
hope and more determination than the 
son of the Puritan or the Pilgrim; no one 
is so completely incapable of making that 
release a real escape. 

Phenomena familiar and unfamiliar 
nearly brought the quick tear to the in 
ward eye as I passed along the streets, as 
I stared across the Public Garden to 
Beacon Hill, or, later, from the Harvard 
Bridge across the river to the golden dome 
of the State House. The Esplanade was 
new to me; the single sky-scraper was 
new; the subway to Cambridge some 
thing never experienced by me before. 
Every color that the State House dome 
can take under any sky I knew already, 
and every tint of the Public Garden in 



spring; but much building, both public 
and private, had been done since my time. 
All the " improvements " at the foot of the 
hill, between Charles Street and the river, 
were new, as were the strange whitish 
masses of the Institute of Technology. 
Nor had I ever before seen (in Cam 
bridge) Holworthy Hall pitiably blank 
and sunstruck with its guarding elms 
gone, or the Widener Library making its 
elders and betters look small. . . . 
To the middle-aged revisitant, a smile 
as inevitable in Boston streets. I re 
membered my first impression, long ago, 
on leaving New England, gathered in 
cities of the Middle States New York, 
Philadelphia, Baltimore which was of 
sheer wonder. European memories of 
childhood had become somewhat blurred 
in the intenser life of youth, and it was 
my honest sense (back there at the turn 
of the century) that I had never before 
seen " the man in the street" which in 
cludes the woman good-looking or well 
dressed, until I reached those other cities. 
Those healthy blooming animals, male 
and female, that were to be seen any fine 
day on Fifth Avenue, Chestnut Street, or 
Charles Street were they a different race, 
or what ? I am not speaking of private as 
semblages; only of the shops, the streets, 
the theatres, the happy hunting-grounds 
of the type, with a fair field and no favor 
for the striking individual. The occa 
sional handsome man or woman, in Bos 
ton, did not even stand out from the 
crowd; the individual was swallowed up 
in that prevailing plainness of feature and 
garb. Whereas, in other cities, I found, 
the background did not eat good looks 
alive. All this I remembered. And when, 
the other day, I made my way up Boyl- 
ston Street at the shopping hour, behold, 
it was true as it had always been: there 
was no beauty, or chic, to perceive. It was 
a plain world. Casual voices, on the 
other hand, were soothing proof posi 
tive that it was, on the whole, civilized 
Boston that surrounded me; for in New 
England the voice is not soothing unless 
it has had "advantages." Our fore 
fathers bequeathed to us nasality as well 
as a peculiar conscience. Nowhere else, 
on the other hand, is the educated voice 
so good. But that is a matter of culture. 
So I walked, as of old, the ear soothed. 



102 



BOSTON REVISITED 



the eye disturbed. This was indeed Bos 
ton. 

The shop-windows were full of good 
clothes a little less insistent in smart 
ness, perhaps, than those on Fifth Avenue, 
but good, all the same. At least, they 
were good on the models. The gift of 
wearing clothes was not vouchsafed to us 
New Englanders at large. "Why," the 
late Henry James once asked me, " do all 
the women in Cambridge dress like the 
wardresses of prisons ? The real answer 
is that they do not, but that New Eng 
land women are more apt than others to 
carry themselves as if uniformed. There 
is a desperate if you like, a decent 
lack of coquetry in the bearing: coquetry, 
which insists ever on its own subtle dif 
ference, though it is only a different 
flower in the hair, a different turn of the 
wrist in placing that flower. That, to my 
mind, is the true explanation of the old 
fallacy about every Frenchwoman s being 
well dressed. Setting aside, as complicat 
ing the issue, the fact that the best-bred 
Frenchwoman is less visible to the public 
eye than the corresponding American 
woman, it has never seemed to me that 
the much-repeated statement is true. 
The average American woman is certainly 
better dressed than the average French 
woman, as she is out and away better 
looking. What she lacks is the air of 
having spent private, personal thought 
on her clothes, of presenting herself to the 
gaze as a perhaps modest, but deliberate, 
product of intense reflection. Nowhere is 
this renunciation of any claim on public 
gratitude for a task performed in the 
public interest so evident as in New Eng 
land, I fancy. And while it brings the 
smile, it brings the tear. For is it not a 
vestige, small but authentic, of a be 
queathed tradition? The Puritan may 
have passed out of our conscious life; but 
he has sunk down into our instincts and 
found there a hospitable couch. There 
does not lack evidence that the "younger, 
generation" in New England is more or 
less of a piece, in manners and conduct, 
with the younger generation elsewhere. 
But it has not yet changed the social 
complexion of Boston streets. If the tear 
follows hard upon the smile, that is be 
cause the tear, too, is reminiscent; be 
cause there is something deeply comfort 



ing as well as deeply amusing in seeing 
certain aspects of things unchanged. 
There are times when the sense of soli 
darity is pure irritation; there are also 
times when the sense of solidarity is a 
very present comfort: when to feel your 
self, after absence and change, still one 
with the folk you were brought up to con 
sider the world, as you and they are still 
recognizably one flesh with generations 
that moulder under quaint tombstones in 
New England graveyards, is the event of 
your inner life that most sustains your 
soul. If you know what you are, you can 
take your stand upon that. Whether you 
like your pou sto or not, footing is not to 
be despised. It is the hurrying millions, 
who know not what they are, that are to 
be pitied. God forbid that we should not 
improve our heritage . . . but we have 
to live up to it first. Permanence, un- 
changingness, may well lead to decay 
the radical mood is right enough about 
that. Yet up to the crumbling point it is 
a sign of strength: a point of repair as 
well as a point of departure. People who 
have, spiritually speaking, nothing to 
come home to, may fare further, if only 
in desperation; but will they build such 
good roads, knowing neither whence nor 
whither? It is a good thing, one imag 
ines, to know whence, since whither is 
always a little uncertain. 

One tiny instance of the persistent Bos 
ton quality seemed to me in my receptive 
perhaps oversensitized mood, illumi 
nating. I was travelling light, sleeping in 
a different place each night of my little 
journey, and had brought no books to 
weigh down my luggage. Something, 
none the less, I had to have to read my 
self to sleep with, that night at my hotel. 
I bought, automatically, a Transcript at 
the news-stand, then looked for maga 
zines. It so happened that there were 
none I had not seen, except some I did 
not want. I started a little disconsolate 
ly to my room. Then the inward smile 
came again. Was I not in Boston? 
There, at my left hand, as it had been for 
twenty years, was the hotel library. I 
turned into the familiar, quiet room, and 
in five minutes left it with two books. 
"Where else," I thought to myself, "does 
a little Irish maid find you the Walter 
Scotts, and write down Woodstock 



BOSTON REVISITED 



103 



against your name, without so much as 
asking you to spell it ? " Few caravansa 
ries there are, in any case, that lend you 
Walter Scott to read in your room, and 
none other, I -am convinced, that does it 
with such an "air." Such an absence of 
"air," I think I mean, in truth; so nat 
ural and quiet an assumption that a 
traveller is not only a person who wants 
his clothes pressed, but also a person who 
wants something besides a telephone book 
to read himself to sleep with. One to 
Boston, I maintain. 

I have left to the last the dominant im 
pression of my little sojourn. That was, 
neither more nor less, the astonishing, the 
breath-taking beauty of -Boston. It 
seemed to me, that first fine spring morn 
ing, that I had never seen an American 
city so beautiful as this. The beauty of 
Boston is old, not new. The Esplanade 
was a fine thing to achieve, but apart 
from that, I saw no new thing that was 
particularly welcome to the eye. It was 
a general beauty, and a beauty that had 
simply been forgotten. Curiously enough, 
the old landmarks, as such, were less im 
pressive than of old. Trinity Church, for 
example, or the Shaw Monument. It 
may be because I have grown out of love 
with modern Romanesque ; it may be be 
cause I have lived too long south of New 
York to like anything in the Shaw Monu 
ment except its technique. But, more 
than that, if you accept New York, once, 
as beautiful and I did, long since you 
accept a different scale and theory of 
municipal beauty. If you have once 
taken the sky-scraper to your heart, even 
Paris, in spots, looks a little mean. I 
still maintain that the canon of Fifth 
Avenue, in the proper light, is more ro 
mantic than anything Boston can offer; 
and that, once having loved them, one 
can never quite do without the "topless 
towers" of Gotham. 

Be that as it may, you set Gotham 
aside, and readjust yourself. You have 
to admit at once that it is not mere to 
pography that gives Boston its charm. 
This is not the only city set upon a hill. 
Position for position, how can Boston 
compare with Seattle, or Portland, or San 
Francisco? Yet none of these cities has 
pulled it off as Boston has. Nor is it a 
mere matter of age and ripeness. Phila 



delphia is not a new town, for example; 
yet Philadelphia has, to the casual visi 
tor, no quality at all. There is in Phila 
delphia this or that quaint corner, or fine 
colonial edifice, to be observed ; but there 
is no point at which you stop, over 
whelmed by the general scene. Is it the 
Public Garden, the Mall, the Hill, the 
river, the lower stretches of the Back 
Bay ? It is all of these and none of them; 
you must neither confound the persons 
nor divide the substance. Detail by de 
tail, it has all shrunk a little in the white 
light of later experience, and each land 
mark is less imposing than of old. Yet 
the whole is more positively beautiful, 
more complicated in charm, more distinct 
in character, than ever before. 

Quality, I think, does it. Boston is 
more consistent than other cities, has ac 
cepted its type with a prouder patience, 
and has thereby achieved a personality 
that other cities have not. Its very 
aesthetic renunciations have counted to 
it for aesthetic merit, for in refusing to be 
lured into strange and thrilling new 
fashions, it has made the most of its own 
physiognomy. It has chosen its dress to 
suit its features, and has left experiment 
to others. And let the non-New Eng- 
lander laugh it has thereby attained a 
moral beauty, having kept the morals of 
the aesthetic law. The only analogy I can 
think of is the woman who has stayed at 
home and cultivated her garden, and 
given her own type its perfect chance, 
refusing to be stampeded by new modes 
or strange decorative gospels. Certainly 
the beauty of the city, while it makes its 
full appeal to the senses, exhales a moral 
quality as well. It has, as some people 
might say, an aura. To the New Eng- 
lander, it must needs sum up much. God 
knows what New York is trying to say 
to you; God knows what the new Pacific 
towns are preparing themselves to shout 
out when they shall become articulate. 
But any twice-born soul knows what Bos 
ton is saying, and its very limitations 
deepen and define the message. 

This is, I dare say, the greatest plastic 
explicitness the Puritan will ever reach. 
Boston s beauty is New England to the 
core. It shows as much outward gracious- 
ness as the New Englander will ever 
achieve. Smaller towns may give you a 



104 BOSTON REVISITED 

purer "colonial": Boston marks the ex- easily come by, a rather long list of essen- 
tremest modification possible to the Puri- tials prevailingly intangible. Souls much 
tan who is still a Puritan. It cannot com- lived in, you would say. Not feasted in; 
pound any farther with the non-Puritan still less, shut up with cedarn doors 
world without losing its own heritage, against moth and rust. 
More cosmopolitan, more mundane, more Indian summer sometimes prolongs it- 
eclectic than this, it would not be safe to self incredibly. Those of us who do not 
be. Boston may yet be changed by the feel that New England in the Mississippi 
foreigner; by the dominant Irishman, the Valley is quite the same as New England 
invading Pole. An Iberian, or a Semitic, at home, will pray for winter to be be- 
or a Slavic breath may yet blow hot de- lated. It is not all pleasure, this percep- 
struction over Beacon Hill. One does not tion of Boston s beauty; for to perceive it 
forget that Old Hadley has lapsed to the one must enter the land where the free 
foreigner, and that its colonial houses, its spirit still feels curbed by a rigidity that, 
double avenue of elms, are now a living strictly speaking, is relaxed, an austerity 
anachronism. But, so far, Boston is still that no longer holds. Original sin, I 
New England, going strong. think, is the name of the prison we enter 
The old cities of the South, they say, when we cross the line into our own New 
are losing all that made them homes of England. New England may have 
romance. Too dependent on a state of thrown over the dogma I do not know 
things that was highly artificial and but what does that matter if you keep 
bound to pass having no prescience, you the state of mind ? I am convinced that 
may say, of the Shaw Monument they the genuine New Englander, wherever he 
have sunk slowly as the props were with- goes, is still imprisoned in that sense, and 
drawn. Boston never was, like Charles- "drags a lengthening chain." For myself, 
ton and New Orleans, a home of romance: I can get rid of it only by crossing the 
the New England conscience did not see Great Divide and staring at the Golden 
life that way. As I hinted before, it is as Gate. And even that shock of liberation 
much its early renunciations as its ac- would probably not last. Robert Frost s 
ceptances that have given it a kind of In- searching words, 

dian summer. The people who live with- TT r 

,. . Home is the place where, when you have to go, 

in its gates have much the same qualities They have to take you in." 
as the gates within which they dwell. 

They are complicated folk, to whom in- se f m to me to define > better than an y 

hibitions are the law of life. Not here lie ^ rs , the esca P ed Ne w Englander s 

the great Philistine adventures not here { eelm S about New English soil. He may 

the splendid riot of physical life. Nor can have bee * ha PPier elsewhere, but else- 

they permit themselves to be true roman- where he has no rl g ht - Onl y there is he 

tics, following " the light that never was at home - To thls > at the end of llfe > 

on sea or land." But there is a quiet in- whether h e die beneath palm or pine, his 

clusiveness of reference, an implied recog- s P int must inevitably return. And so it 

nition of the many things needed for hap- sha11 be > as " Fair Harvard has it, 

piness even though happiness be not "Till the stock of the Puritans die." 




Living Up to His Advertising 

BY EARNEST ELMO CALKINS 

Author of "The Business of Advertising" 




EW have noticed the 
remarkable effect of 
advertising upon those 
who use it. 

Much has been writ 
ten about its effect 
upon the advertisee. 
It has made him a 
better customer. It has changed his 
habits and enlarged his vocabulary. And 
it has equally given him better goods, 
more easily obtained, at lower prices. 

But advertising has one of the qualities 
of Portia s celebrated brand of mercy. It 
works both ways. It lays the advertiser 
under the necessity of living up to his ad 
vertising. And the advertising up to 
which he must live is always a shade 
ahead of his business. The manufacturer 
who invokes publicity has given a hos 
tage to the public. He has joined Gid 
eon s band, broken his pitcher, and let his 
lamp shine. He cannot thereafter hide 
his light and creep back into comfortable 
obscurity. He must abide by his con- 
spicuousness and all its consequences. 

Twenty-five years ago I was a cub 
copy -writer on the staff of an advertising 
agency. One day my boss came into my 
cubicle and brought me a job. 

"I have a friend," he said, "who owns 
a hotel." 

He dropped on my desk a photograph 
of the wooden summer-resort hotel of that 
period. 

"He wants a booklet written to send 
to prospective, guests. I know nothing 
about the place never saw it. I want 
you to write three thousand words about 
the kind of hotel you would like to spend 
your vacation at." 

I did just that. I described a hotel 
where the service anticipated the wants of 
the guests, where the clerk was human and 
approachable, and the proprietor a sort of 
good angel hovering in the background. 
My employer duly submitted my copy 
to his customer friend, along with a 
dummy of the proposed booklet. 
The hotel man read it. 



"This is bully!" he exclaimed, "but 
you see that isn t exactly the kind of 
hotel I keep." 

"Maybe not," retorted the advertis 
ing man, "but it is the kind of hotel you 
ought to keep." 

I wish I could go on and round out my 
anecdote by telling you how that hotel 
man, waiving the advertiser s vested 
right to edit and blue-pencil all copy, 
edited and blue-pencilled his hotel-keep 
ing instead, until it resembled somewhat 
the thing I had imagined. Maybe he did. 
It is enough for my purpose that there 
is to-day at least one chain of great hotels 
whose advertised motto is "The guest is 
always right," and these hotels are in a 
way one result of the advertising man s 
laconic "It is the kind you ought to 
keep." 

The kind you ought to keep, the goods 
you ought to make, the service you ought 
to render, have been displayed temptingly 
and suggestfully before the manufac 
turer s eyes by his own advertising until 
they have had with him something the re 
sult that Jacob s peeled wands had with 
the ring-straked lambs. They have made 
him over, unconsciously, but none the less 
effectively. 

He has been changed by the very effort 
of making a worth-while appeal to the 
public. He cannot say one thing and do 
another, and since the thing he says, or 
permits his advertising man to say for 
him, is that more nearly ideal thing which 
he always meant his business to be, it is 
that thing which under the influence of 
the advertising urge his business gradually 
becomes. An actor sometimes plays one 
part so long and so earnestly that he 
comes to resemble the character he im 
personates. Did not Joe Jefferson acquire 
some of the genial and lovable qualities of 
Rip Van Winkle? 

There is nothing insincere about the ad 
vertising of the manufacturer I am de 
scribing. He does not talk himself into 
believing he is something he is not. But 
the total of all advertising produces a sort 

105 



106 LIVING UP TO HIS ADVERTISING 

of atmosphere of good-will, to which all shrewd buyer carried the price below the 

advertisers contribute and by which all hieroglyphics marked on the tag. But 

are affected. Let us see if an instance will the odds were always in favor of the bank, 

riot make that clearer. Along came advertising. It is true that 

Go into almost any shop to-day and clothiers had advertised before. News- 

you will find the prices of the goods plainly papers carried the stereotyped cards: 

marked. This was not true fifty years "Ezra Hemphill, Clothing, Hats, Boots 

ago. Then goods bore tags covered with and Shoes. 102 Main Street, opposite 

mysterious symbols intelligible only to the Public Square." (How long, I won- 

the proprietor and his salesmen. These der, after boots ceased to be worn did 

symbols (each store had its own code) stores advertise boots and shoes?) But 

recorded the lowest price at which the real advertising involved something more 

article could be sold. But that was not than a mere directory. Some clothier, 

often the selling price. The selling price feeling around for a message, a story that 

was whatever the salesman could get over would give him the individuality at which 

and above that bed-rock upset price, all advertising aims, abolished the secret 

which was presumably the fair retail price price, with all its attendant evils, and an- 

f or that article. The higher the price, the nounced the fixed price: "All garments 

better the salesman. Every sale was a plainly marked." 

haggle, and it must be confessed that fre- How well I remember one such pioneer ! 
quently the customer entered the game On the flat rails of the fences around my 
with as much gusto as the salesman. But native town was lettered in yellow paint 
the time and ability of the salesman were the legend: "N. Boishall, the One-Priced 
wasted wasted trying to get as high a Clothier." What Mr. Boishall meant was 
price as the customer could be made to not that all his suits were the same price, 
pay. Instead, he might have been build- but that the same suit was one price to 
ing good-will. He might have been turn- all. But he did not need to explain it. 
ing a casual purchaser into a permanent The public of that day knew, though to- 
customer. Neither the salesman nor his day the phrase is meaningless, 
employer realized the potentialities of There was no revolution. Changes 
future business a casual purchaser repre- came slowly. Secret price marks are not 
sented. The modern idea that a sale that yet entirely extinct. But they are con- 
cost the store a customer s future busi- fined to the smaller and more exclusive 
ness was a loss, no matter what the profit shops where the tradition still prevails 
on that sale, was then unknown. that there is something vulgar about a 

The secret price worked injury to the price. I do not believe a secret price 

store. It was also an injustice to most to-day means a fluctuating price, but 

customers. Only the good bargainers perhaps Baedeker s familiar phrase will 

could beat the salesman at his own game, serve: "Bargaining suggested." 

Most paid too much, and the same article The buying of clothing was taken out of 

was seldom sold at the same price to dif- the category of games of chance by ad- 

ferent individuals. vertising. Few who made this change in 

The condition was more or less true of their merchandising methods saw where 
all lines, but it was especially true of men s it would eventually lead them. A new 
clothing. Men were (and are) poor judges morale in selling had begun which was to 
of the value of the clothes they wear, continue until the purchaser, instead of 
When a man needed a suit he went to the marshalling all his faculties to buy a suit 
store, picked it out, and then the bar- without being stung, was to become so 
gaining commenced. The word "cheap- pampered and coddled that not even his 
ening" was much used in those days for own mistakes would count against him, 
"marketing" or "shopping." "He was let alone the shortcomings of the store 
cheapening a suit " meaning he was beat- itself. What would N. Boishall, the One- 
ing down the seller. It was all well un- Priced Clothier, have thought of men s 
derstood. No one but an easy mark ac- furnishing stores where goods could be 
cepted the first price asked. No one but returned if unsatisfactory, money cheer- 
the seller knew how little he would ac- fully refunded, without pressure to take 
cept to make a sale. Now and then a other goods in exchange? Where the 



LIVING UP TO HIS ADVERTISING 107 

seller s solicitude extended over the period pockets, staring at vacancy. The motto 

of wearing the article, and where the cus- is " Sell and repent." It was more apt to 

tomer s continued and lasting satisfac- be buy and repent, for caveat emptor had 

tion was placed far higher than the profits a real as well as a legal meaning. For 

on any sale. One such retailer in New thousands of years barter and sale had 

York City advertised a few years ago been one of the outdoor sports, as it is 

urging all who had bought certain suits to to-day in many countries, and as it is in 

bring them back, anxious to warn the all countries in some lines. Take the 

until-now-unsuspicious purchasers that ethics of a horse trade, for instance, as 

the suits were badly dyed and would not told by David Harum. 
hold their color. Roy S. Durstine, in his book " Making 

The sheer advertising value of this in- Advertisements and Making Them Pay," 

cident is great. It gave at once an at- observes: "The appalling fact about ad- 

tention-compelling story and a telling in- vertising is that it can and does change 

stance of the store s desire to keep faith the character of an establishment. Just 

with its customers. The loss on the suits when you decide that the sort of quality 

if there was loss, for probably this was copy used by a merchant is entirely out 

passed back to the manufacturer was a of keeping with a business, you wake up 

small price to pay for such constructive to find that it has completely changed the 

advertising. class of his trade and that he is moving his 

An experience of my own stands out. shop to a better neighborhood where his 

I bought an overcoat of a salesman who customers prefer to shop. The history of 

had made himself so necessary to some of many leading merchants in our large 

us that we always waited for him when he cities is the strongest proof of advertising 

was busy, like a favorite barber. Going power as a democratic force. It has lifted 

to that store a month later for another countless struggling merchants out of the 

purchase, my salesman said: side streets and on to the boulevards. Its 

"Is that the coat I sold you?" atmosphere can crystallize the ideal of a 

I said it was. business more than many spoken words." 

"Let me have it a minute, please. The It must be confessed that advertising 
surface of the cloth seems to be wearing itself needed considerable regeneration be- 
off." fore it could become an uplifter. 

I had no complaint, but he took the In the days before manufacturers had 
coat to one of the store experts, and when accepted it as the great right arm of sell- 
he came back he said: ing, it was looked upon with justifiable 

" The management wants you to re- suspicion, for those who used it most were 

turn this coat, and either select a new coat exploiting the credulity of those who be- 

or let them return your money." lieved in it. Chief among them were the 

And it was so. patent-medicine men. Advertising is the 

Was that good business ? In the years one essential ingredient of a proprietary 

since this happened I have told that story remedy. Legitimate businesses have 

hundreds of times, in conversation, in ad- thrived without advertising, but no pat- 

vertising talks, and in things I have writ- ent medicine could exist without it. The 

ten, as I am telling it here. least harmful of these quacksalvers were 

Both these instances are about the those who merely took the victim s money 
same house, perhaps a more shining ex- and gave him nothing. Remedies cost- 
ample of what I am trying to show than ing one cent to manufacture were sold for 
the average, but the house is on record a dollar. Habit-forming drugs disguised 
that the losses from such a policy are as tonics produced their own re-orders, 
negligible. It became tragic when hopeless people 

It is only within memory of men now suffering from chronic diseases were led to 
living that it has been believed that both depend year after year on worthless rem- 
parties to a bargain could be satisfied, edies until aH help was too late. Testi- 
One of the textile houses has an amusing monials of victims who had in the mean- 
trade-mark, a survival of those early days, time died while depending on the remedy 
An old-time merchant stands with lips advertised to cure them were used in the 
pursed, hands thrust deep into breeches advertising. 



108 LIVING UP TO HIS ADVERTISING 

To the patent-medicine people must be such business complacently were aiders 
added the out-and-out swindlers. Their and abettors. Many publishers looked 
schemes were ingenious and their defense with equal favor upon the money of the 
impudent. They gave a touch of comedy patent-medicine man and the legitimate 
to the prostitution of advertising. They manufacturer. The idea they owed any- 
bore heavily on the universal desire to get thing to their subscribers was then too far 
something for nothing. Two instances in advance of their primitive and short- 
will suffice. One advertised a " complete sighted business instincts. The profes- 
sewing-machine for 25 cents." Another sional advertising man was the first to 
offered a "steel-engraving of General feel the handicap under which his clients 
Grant for 25 cents." Those who sent were laboring. The better agencies of 
their quarters to the first advertiser re- those days were beginning to refuse the 
ceived a cambric needle. The steel-en- accounts of proprietary remedies. The 
graving was a one-cent postage-stamp, agencies used the weight of their legiti- 
The amounts were so small that few took mate accounts as a club. They refused 
legal steps. Written complaints were to O. K. bills when their advertisements 
merely ignored. When legal action was were run on the same page with patent 
taken, the suits failed. The advertisers medicines. It was obvious that advertis- 
had done exactly what they promised. A ing would never come into its own until the 
cambric needle was a complete sewing- Augean stable was thoroughly cleansed, 
machine. All postage-stamps were steel- A Hercules was in training. The pub- 
engravings. The government had only lishers began to see that they were fouling 
one recourse. The naive process, "fraud their own nests in accepting business that 
order," was invoked. The advertiser s destroyed the confidence that is the life- 
mail was stopped and the money returned blood of advertising. Edward Bok, from 
to the senders, which gave an opportunity his seat of power as editor of The Ladies 
to learn the vast profits from this form of Home Journal, launched a crusade that 
advertising. The advertiser changed his stirred the patent-medicine world to its 
name and address and put out a new offer, depth. There is no need to tell that story 
The Post-Office Department could not here. Mr. Bok has already told it, and 
keep up with such versatility. told it well, in his book "The Americani- 

Publications were issued solely to carry zation of Edward Bok." The Journal 

this sort of business. They were called crusade was followed by one in Collier s. 

mail-order journals, and the traffic mail- The magazines cleaned house. They were 

order advertising, thus bringing reproach followed, more slowly and less completely, 

on the name of what has since become a by the newspapers. It is possible to-day 

legitimate and beneficial form of selling to advertise patent medicines, but only in 

goods. The only way of stopping this was a restricted way. The important thing is 

to cut off publicity. that the traffic has been placed under a 

Then there was the advertising of ban. It is no longer an important source 

worthless securities, technically known as of advertising revenue, and many of the 

"blue-sky" or "wildcat" stocks. These most offensive proprietaries, deprived of 

had no market other than that made by their essential ingredient, have followed 

advertising to weak-minded individuals their victims to the grave, 
who believed everything they read in the The attack of powerful magazines was 

papers and magazines. They contributed only one of the forces at work to regener- 

their share to discrediting publicity as a ate advertising. The magazines, brought 

means of selling goods. The itinerary to realize the real value of their columns, 

circus, far more common in those days, and the possibilities of advertising for in- 

was a symbol of amusingly mendacious dustries that had never dreamed of using 

advertising. While few took seriously the it, and never would while it was the chosen 

orgy of adjectives and superlatives which method of every disreputable swindler, 

were thought necessary to bring the crowd took other steps to build up the integrity 

to the big tent, it helped to uphold the of their advertising pages. They began 

impression that sober, restrained, sincere the creation of what is known as reader 

advertising would accomplish nothing. confidence. The first step was the guar- 

In all this the mediums which accepted anteeing of the advertising. Readers 



LIVING UP TO HIS ADVERTISING 109 

were assured that the publisher stood Whatever this college type of man may 

behind every offer in his advertising, be, hejs usually a good sportsman, and the 

morally and financially. On this offer change that has come over the making 

publishers sometimes had to make good, and selling of goods savors strongly of 

Occasionally more money was spent in re- sportsmanship. The large point of view, 

imbursing the subscriber than the pub- good-will, fair play, welfare work, are all 

lisher received for the space. Another results of a higher code of business ethics 

innovation was imperative the censor- just as surely as they are a source of 

ship of copy. The publisher refused ad- greater profits. Sometimes a son joins 

vertising that even unintentionally would the ancestral factory. He takes a year in 

mislead the reader. In some instances the the shop, a year on the road, and a year 

blue-pencilling of all extravagant claims in the office, and then he begins to tell the 

was enforced. The advertiser was no old man how to run the business. Fre- 

longer allowed to say that his product was quently he is right, and frequently he pre- 

the best in the world, unless it was and he vails. Sometimes the argument lasts un- 

could prove it. No advertiser was al- til the father dies or retires; sometimes 

lowed to reflect on a competitor s product, the young man s theories about advertis- 

Each publisher as he made these reforms ing, treatment of help, and co-operation 

effective used advertising to inform the with competitors wins over the older 

world. For some time the dominant note heads, and the business becomes a little 

in advertising of magazines was the spot- less sordid, and correspondingly more 

less integrity of their advertising pages. profitable. 

The so-called Printers Ink statute was For the type of the advertising man has 

another help. That publication, with the changed. Howells, Stevenson, Wells, 

aid of competent lawyers, framed an act Gissing, and Locke all drew the old type, 

to punish fraudulent advertising. This of which the late Tody Hamilton, of 

act has now been put on the statute-books glorious memory, was the living repre- 

by twenty-eight States. The law has sentative. The advertising man is no 

teeth. The Associated Advertising Clubs, longer Fulkerson, Jim Pinkerton, Pon- 

an organization with fifteen thousand derevo, Luckworth Crewe, or Clem Sy- 

members, maintains a fund to enforce it. pher. He is less picturesque, less obvious, 

All these things have helped to take a finer and more imaginative type, saner, 

advertising away from those who used it more reserved, and younger, 

basely and prepare it for its service to For advertising is inherently a young 

legitimate business. But the principal in- man s work. It requires faith, courage, 

fluence that has modified the nature and vision, imagination more than it requires 

scope of advertising is the character of the experience. Men from a world having lit- 

men who in the last twenty years have tie commerce with business have leavened 

gone into it, or into businesses that use it. the whole lump. The novelty, the con- 

These are the graduates of the colleges structive, creative building power of ad- 

and universities, men who in an earlier vertising has attracted them. They have 

day gravitated into the so-called learned adopted it as their main selling force, and 

professions, then the only recognized having adopted it, they have not only 

field for a trained mind and a standard of made it impossible for the old gang to use 

self-respect. Such men now realize that it, but they have set it to work to accom- 

business is the real field of high adventure, plish things the most enlightened old- 

where the opportunities are greater and school advertising man never dreamed, 

the rewards larger than in law, architec- For advertising is no longer concerned 

ture, medicine, or any of the other in- entirely with selling goods. In the last 

tellectual professions. These men have few years there has been much advertising 

taken their brains and their ideals es- of which selling goods was only the far- 

pecially their ideals, for business did not off ulterior purpose. This new advertis- 

entirely lack brains into the selling end ing is being done for the building of busi- 

of business, and with the open-mindedness ness morale. 

that only the outside point of view can A quotation from a piece of advertising 

give, have promptly adopted advertising put out by an advertising agency will set 

as a means of selling. briskly before you how modern advertis- 



110 



LIVING UP TO HIS ADVERTISING 



ing men regard the force with which they 
work: 

The world is paying a new attention to morale. 
Morale has become a familiar word. 

For this the advertising fraternity is duly 
grateful. For years the conscientious advertis 
ing man has been thinking of and dealing with 
such intangible things as morale, good-will, public 
consciousness a state of mind. 

More often than not he has had to talk of those 
things to a man who was thinking of and dealing 
with shoes and ships and sealing-wax. 

This manufacturer naturally tended to limit 
his conception of advertising to the immediate 
sale of a shoe or a ship or a sealing-wax. And 
classed the advertising man as a gentle lunatic 
because his conception of advertising compre 
hended the creation of a state of mind that should 
result in continuous sales. 

Hence the gratitude of the advertising man 
when any circumstance even a deplorable world 
war advertises the state of mind as an essential 
factor in any enterprise. 

The morale of a business is fostered by adver 
tising to a greater extent than any man realizes 
who has not gone into the subject seriously and 
thoughtfully. 

The manufacturer of an advertised brand is 
held to high standards of quality, of improve 
ment, and of service, by the fact that he is iden 
tified with his product. Responsible for it. And 
held responsible for it by the public because he 
has branded it as his. His advertised trade-mark 
is his promissory note to the buying public. 

Greater efficiency in a factory follows the pride 
of employees in working at a business that is well 
known and favorably regarded. There are in 
stances where the decrease in labor turnover has 
shown a profitable return on an advertising ex 
penditure. 

Advertising can create a certain atmosphere, a 
certain impression in the workingman s mind, the 
reaction from which is an added feeling of dignity 
in his employment and the place of employment. 
Other things being equal, a man would rather 
work for a house the standing of which was high 
than a house the standing of which was low. He 
would rather tell his friends that he worked in 
your factory than somewhere else, because he 
knows that in stating that fact his friends, by 
reason of their knowledge of your company, ap 
prove his condition. 

This decreased cost of labor turnover is diffi 
cult to demonstrate, but the results seem to be 
indisputable. 

In another subtle way, a personal sense of re 
sponsibility on the part of the workman for the 
task he performs is brought about, so that, in ad 
dition to the precautions you take, the quality of 
production becomes high because the workman 
unconsciously feels that these goods must live up 
to their reputation. 

And greater efficiency results from the confi 
dence and spirit of a selling force that is selling a 
well-known article of merchandise recognized as 
a leader. 

A single by-product of this confidence on the 
part of your sales force is pregnant with oppor 
tunity for a great and desirable economy. Let 
your advertising create the right impression of 



leadership and authority and your salesmen will 
unconsciously insist on the acceptance of your 
goods as they stand, and find the trade readier to 
accept them. Your salesmen s orders will not 
be encumbered with so many special instructions 
and changes which must be carried out at a much 
higher manufacturing cost than if changes were 
not required by the dealer. 

Advertised concerns are admittedly the pre 
ferred customers of sellers of raw material. Of 
what use is it for the seller of raw material to re 
fer to a satisfied customer one never heard of? 
But a prospective customer lends a readier ear if 
he hears that well-known concerns are patrons. 
The seller of raw material also realizes that the 
advertised established brand is a steady customer. 

All of this force of advertising making for the 
morale of business is a by-product, but sometimes 
a by-product is more important than the primary 
function of advertising, to make sales. 

Such is the in no respect unusual be 
lief of the modern advertising man in the 
possibilities of advertising. Human na 
ture has not been made over. There are 
shysters and quacks in advertising just as 
there are in law and medicine, and there 
always will be. But there is also a code of 
ethics drawing its rigid line between the 
ranks of those delightful rascals, Clem 
Sypher and Ponderevo, and the commu 
nity of real advertising men, who are not 
particularly distinguishable in a crowd 
from other sane and successful business 
men. The heroes of Locke s and Wells s 
books are English types, of course, but we 
had them here, still have them for that 
matter, only none of our native authors 
have yet put them so engagingly in books. 

Even in the days when the boastful, 
vulgar, flashy type of advertising man 
flourished without let or hindrance, he 
was not regarded as representative by 
those who were engaged in what little 
constructive work was then being done. 
A fairer example is the late George P. 
Rowell, founder of Printers Ink, of the 
American Newspaper Directory, and of 
one of the earliest advertising agencies. 
Mr. Rowell was a sane, long-headed New 
Englander, with scant sympathy for the 
"bunk" that permeated so much adver 
tising. He had a wonderful faculty for go 
ing straight through it to the common- 
sense basis underneath. To him I owe a 
lesson in advertising that stands out 
sharply after nearly thirty years. My em 
ployer the same who made the historic 
remark about the hotel booklet had an 
order from Mr. Rowell for some advertis 
ing copy. He turned it over to me. With 



LIVING UP TO HIS ADVERTISING 



111 



the warped judgment of youth I tried too 
hard to be clever. My employer sent my 
stuff to Mr. Rowell, with this comment: 

"Here is some copy one of my young 
men has written." 

Promptly it came back, with the com 
ment : 

"One of your young men has written 
some d - bad stuff." 

Mr. Rowell has left behind him a book 
of reminiscences valuable as a history of 
the beginnings of modern advertising, but 
more than that intensely interesting as a 
human document and well worth reading 
for its own sake. It has something of the 
quaint charm of Pepys s "Diary" on ac 
count of its style, its frankness, and its 
humor. 

Out of a bewildering array of modern 
instances of the refining influence of ad 
vertising upon those who use it, there is 
room to touch further on but one, and for 
that one the most striking is perhaps the 
effect it has had in minimizing what is 
known as cutthroat competition. There 
is one idea in business almost as old as 
that caveat-emptor principle, and that is 
hostility to a competitor. The desire to 
gain some great end by advertising has 
brought groups of competitors together. 
This great end is the one of educating the 
public to be better customers. Cement 
manufacturers have learned that it is 
better to teach more people to use con 
crete construction and thus make a bigger 
market for cement, than to fight each 
other for the smaller trade that already 
exists. Under the aegis of advertising 
paint manufacturers, tile-makers, orange- 
growers, raisin-driers, lumbermen, dairy 
men have joined the hands formerly 
lifted against one another. There is com 
petition still, just as determined and far 
more intelligent than in the old days, but 
it is the competition of golf, all within the 
limits of a gentleman s game. Each one 
plays his own ball, the best he knows how, 
and when his competitor s ball is lost in 
the rough, he cheerfully joins in the search 
for it. 

Men in a similar line of business, meet 
ing to arrange a plan for the common good 
of the industry, and thus becoming ac 
quainted, could never after hate one an 
other with sufficient ferocity to resume 
the old tactics. "I hate that man," said 
Charles Lamb. "Why, you don t know 



him," replied a friend. "Of course I 
don t. How could I hate him if I knew 
him?" Anything that brings competi 
tors together is desirable, but when co 
operative advertising is the attraction, it 
is a preparation for lessening the stress of 
competition by providing a larger market 
for all. 

No better word can be found for ending 
this attempt to present one of the nobler 
results of advertising than to quote the 
plea of Bruce Barton, himself an excellent 
example of the men who are giving adver 
tising its idealistic tendency, which I find 
in a recent copy of Associated Advertising : 

Give advertising Time: that is the thing it 
needs most. 

The advertising agency is the precocious infant 
among the professions. One of the oldest agen 
cies in New York prints on its letterhead the date 
of its founding, and that date, as I recall it now, 
is 1869 ! Think of it almost ten years after the 
Civil War; and the boys of the Civil War are 
still alive among us. 

Is it fair to expect perfection in a profession 
that counts only a single generation to its credit ? 
Should it occasion surprise when even a well-laid 
advertising campaign goes wrong? Is it any 
wonder that workers whose chief raw material is 
human nature should have to confess that they 
cannot always tell in advance just how that raw 
material will act? 

We are learning. We have just passed through 
one great cycle of inflation and deflation. We 
know now what happens to the automobile busi 
ness and the shoe business and the perfumery 
business when prices go up like a rocket and come 
down like a stick. How much wiser counsellors 
to our customers we will be when another cycle 
swings around. How much better we will be able 
to read the signs of the storm, having passed 
through one such tempest. 

I like the references in English novels to those 
old law firms solicitors, I believe they call them 
in which sons have succeeded their fathers to 
the third and fourth generation. Each new gen 
eration of lawyers has handled the affairs of the 
new generation among its clients, dealing out 
counsel based on records which run back for a 
hundred years or more. I see no reason why ad 
vertising agencies too should not outlive their 
founders and the successors of their founders, 
growing wiser with each generation and gather 
ing a priceless possession of recorded experience. 

Think of an advertising agency in 2020 being 
able to turn back in the records to 1920 and say 
to its clients: "In the Fall of 1920 this happened 
in silk, and this happened in leather and this 
happened in wheat, and the selling problems 
which followed were so and so. The present situ 
ation has certain aspects that are similar: and the 
recommendations which we are presenting are 
based on a recognition of that fact." 

We are gaining experience; we are growing more 
and more valuable as advisers every year. 

Don t expect the impossible. 

Give advertising time. 



American Indian Myth Poems 

BY HARTLEY ALEXANDER 

THE poetic spirit of the American Indian is a thing to be retrieved fragmen- 
tarily, partly through the echoes of old songs, partly through the dim re 
memberings of ancient beliefs. The native expression is seldom articulate 
after the manner of white men; it is too simply a communion with nature to need 
formal articulation. But it falls easily into the cadences of unaffected speech, 
interpreted but not misportrayed. The story of the never-ending strife of the 
Daughter of the South, Mother of Life, with the Wolf-Chieftain of the North; the 
na ive faith that to bathe the bare feet in the morning dews will bring youthful 
power; belief in Spirit-Men of the Mirage; old myths of birds or animals who have 
wished death into the world, of such fragments as these are the inspirations for 
what is here given, tradition from the Indian, heritage for ourselves. 

THE CITIES OF WHITE MEN 

THOSE men build many houses: 
They dig the earth, and they build; 
They cut down the trees, and they build; 
They work always building. 

From the elevation of the mountainside 

I behold the clouds: 

The clouds build many beautiful houses in the sky: 

They build, and they tear down; 

They build, and they dissolve. ... 

The cities of white men, 

They are not beautiful like the cloud cities; 

They are not vast, like the cloud cities. . . . 

A wind-swept teepee 

Is all the house I own. . . . 

THE BLIZZARD 

WHIPPED onwards by the North Wind 

The air is filled with the dust of driven snow: 

The earth is hidden, 

The sky is hidden, 

All things are hidden, 

The air is filled with stinging, 

Before, behind, above, below, 

Who can turn his face from it? ... 

All the animals drift mourning, mourning. . . . 

Only the Gray Wolf laughs. 

Who are ye who wallow in the winds? 

Who are ye who strike with stinging blows? . . . 

Man-beings out of the North? 

112 



AMERICAN INDIAN MYTH POEMS 113 

Beast-beings out of the North? 

Snow-beings with fingers of thin ice? . . . 

I am a Daughter of the South: 

My lips are soft, my breath is warm, 

My heart is beating wildly, 

I cannot live in the cold. . . . 

All my animals drift mourning, mourning. . . . 

Only the gaunt Gray Wolf is laughing. 

To-morrow three suns will rise, side by side; 

All the earth will be covered with dazzling snow, 

Cold, cold, and very quiet. . . . 

The animals will lie buried in the snow, 

Cold, and very quiet. . . . 

But the gaunt Gray Wolf will break a new trail, 

Running, with three shadows blue upon the snow, 

THE WET GRASS OF MORNING 

IN the spring when I bathe my feet in the wet grass of morning, 
I see many smiles upon the meadows. . . . 

There are drops of shining dew clinging to the blue harebells, 
And the little white starflowers sparkle with dew, shining. . . . 

Old Woman Spider has beaded many beautiful patterns, 
Spreading them where the Sun s ray falls. . . . 

He also is smiling as he catches the red of the blackbird s opening Wing, 
As he hearkens to the mocking-bir d inventing new songs. . . . 

I was an old man as I sat by the evening fire; 

When I bathe my feet in the wet grass of morning I am young again. 

MIRAGE 

THE footfalls of many feet are on the prairies, 
Treading softly, like the rustling of shaken grasses; 
In the air about me is a sound scarce audible, 
As of the wings of silent birds, low-flying. . . . 

What are they that move in the lutainous mid-day, 
Invisibly, intangibly? . . . 

It is hot and whisperingly still; 

I see only the quivering air, there on the far horizon, 

And beyond it a lake of cool water lifted into the sky: 

Pleasant groves are growing beside it, 

Very distant I see them. . . . 

Are these men come out of the silence to walk beside me? 
Are these gods who flit with invisible wings? 



VOL. LXXL 8 



114 AMERICAN INDIAN MYTH POEMS 



THE GREAT DRUM 

THE circle of the Earth is the head of a great drum; 
With the day, it moves upward booming; 
With the night, it moves downward booming; 
The day and the night are its song. 

I am very small, as I dance upon the drum-head; 

I am like a particle of dust, as I dance upon the drum-head; 

Above me in the sky is the shining ball of the drumstick. 

I dance upward with the day; 

I dance downward with the night; 

Some day I shall dance afar into space like a particle of dust. 

Who is the Drummer who beats upon the earth-drum? 
Who is the Drummer who makes me to dance his song? 

THE ORIGIN OF DEATH 

IN the Day ere Man came, 
In the Morning of Life, 
They came together 
The Father, the Mother, 
Debating. 

"Forever they shall live, 

"Our Children, 

"When they are born Men, 

"Forever they shall live," 

Said the Father, 

Said the Mother. 

But the little Bird cried, 
Ah, the little Bird cried: 
"How shall I nest me 
"How shall I nest me 
"In their warm graves 
"If men live forever?" 

THE SUN S LAST RAY 

UPON the blue mountain I stood, 

Upon the mountain as he sank into the Rivers of Night: 

The camps of the clouds in the heavens were shining with evening fires, 

many-colored, 

And the pools on the plain below gleamed with many reflections: 
All things were made precious with the Day s last ray. 

Farewell, my Father, the Shining One! 

Farewell, whither thou goest, 

Like an aged chieftain adorned with the splendors of many deeds! 

Thou dost touch the world with many reflections, 

With parting injunctions many 

Thy thought thou hast given us. 



The Mother Tongue in School 

BY A. R. BRUBACHER 

President New York State College for Teachers 



T 



HE national spot-light at all in English. High schools and acad- 
of public effort is fo- emies had no teachers of English unless 
cussed on the English there was perchance a teacher of rhetoric 
language to-day as or of the history of literature. Andover 
never before. Theob- Academy, for example, added its first 
vious part of the "English teacher" in 1892. Some well- 
Americanization known New England academies did not 
movement consists add teachers of English before 1900. 
largely in teaching English to the adult School graduates and college men and 
immigrant, but a greater although less ob- women generally, at the opening of the 
trusive part consists of teaching English century, were ignorant of the "four forms 
to the children of immigrants in the pub- of discourse" and the minutiae of "para- 
lie schools of America. The ends sought graph development." These delights of 
go far beyond language, to be sure, but learning came in during the nineties and 
the getting of English is fundamental and have since then spread over the schools 
indispensable. Then, too, English has and colleges like an avalanche, 
claimed a growing part of the daily school But in spite of this rapid growth in 
programme of American school children effort and time, controversy continues 
generally until it is to-day the premier among teachers of English and educators 
subject from kindergarten through the generally over what to teach and how to 
high school and the academy, while the teach it. The extreme position is oc- 
colleges and universities give it at least cupied by a small band of irreconcilables, 
equal place with other departments of the outside the ranks, who maintain that 
curriculum. English is best learned by unconscious 
We take this as a matter of course, as if absorption in the nursery, at play, by 
it had always been the rule, when the association with refined, educated people, 
fact is that English is one of the newer They cite the fact that English schools 
subjects in the curriculum. If it is not do not give the same amount of formal 
wholly new, then it has recently assumed attention to the mother tongue that we 
wholly new importance. Children of the do, and they say, with a bit of malice, 
elementary school are to-day required to perhaps, that the much teaching of Eng- 
do vastly more supplementary reading of ligh since 1900 has not improved the 
English than formerly; and composition quality of the written and spoken Eng- 
has taken a formal place in the day s lish that comes before us daily. Gram- 
work, whereas it used to receive only in- mar is dead bones to some of them. Lit- 
cidental attention. In the high school erature read under compulsion, even 
and in the academy the reading of Eng- though it be academic compulsion, is be- 
lish literature is a new and a voluminous lieved to be a weariness of the flesh and 
requirement, while English composition death to good taste, while the daily 
has during the last twenty years at times theme is confidently recorded as one of 
and in places amounted to an obsession, the inventions of Satan. 
The high school student to-day devotes We expect such bitter things from 
from one-fifth to one-fourth of all his those without the light and leading of the 
time to English, and the college student profession, belligerent fellows beyond the 
finds English the one universal require- pale. But even within the profession all 
ment for the baccalaureate. But note is not well. Doctor Syntax is discredited 
the contrast with a very recent past. Up in high places. A good-sized family 
to the early nineties Yale, in common quarrel goes on among teachers of Eng- 
with a majority of American colleges and lish all the time, the disagreement sway- 
universities, set no entrance requirements ing from rhetoric to spelling, from pro- 



116 THE MOTHER TONGUE IN SCHOOL 

nunciation to logic, from versification to who are probably the first evidence of 
the history of literature, from incorrect fossilization if not of decadence in a 
syntax to the paragraph form, from the language. An unwritten, unprinted Ian- 
classics to the ephemeral and fugitive, guage is in its pristine vigor. The com- 
from literary composition to oral English, mon people, we may readily believe, use 
to commercial English. Each phase of their mother tongue with complete aban- 
English teaching in turn receives vehe- don, being free to shape words and sen- 
ment condemnation or emphatic praise, tences solely in accordance with their 
If we judge by the contrary winds of need for self-expression. Experiences 
doctrine, there is no established phi- and emotions burst out in speech that is 
losophy of English teaching as yet. Even unrestrained and unconventional words, 
the cardinal points apparently remain gestures, and even facial distortions, 
undetermined. Can we teach the essence Out of the fulness of the heart the tongue 
of literature so that the results of our speaks an uncensored, grammarless 
teaching may be measured by the ex- speech. Unwritten speech may revel in 
amination standards ? Can we teach the the anarchy of formlessness and grammar- 
elements of composition so that creative lessness up to the point where social 
literature results? Can we teach the need of common intelligibility places its 
mother tongue, or is it truly a "curse limitations upon it. And the absence of 
that a man should be put to school to fixed standards invites originality. Great 
learn his mother tongue"? Is English epics spring forth. It is the beginning of 
so "easie of itselfe," as Sir Philip Sidney literary things, in spite of the fact, partly 
assures us, that it needs no teaching? because of the fact, that in this creative 

Before King Alfred wrote his chronicles chaos neither the grammarian nor the 

the English language was almost wholly critic had a place. 

in a condition of oral flux. It was heard But this period of innocence did not 
rather than seen. It had no literature; last long in England, for English speech 
its form was indeterminate, varying with forms rapidly imbedded themselves in the 
individual vocal peculiarities and accord- literature of the printed page; words and 
ing to the speech habits of the mass of sentences and paragraphs early became 
the people. Each speaker put upon this static, and users of English had a basis of 
speech the mintage of his own tongue, comparison for their spelling and for their 
and the form of his language was only as sentences. Standards were inevitably 
enduring as the sound of the human voice, recognized, and stability of speech form 
When his voice died away the word form increased rapidly to the point of crystal- 
was gone and the sentence form was lization. The record of this growth in 
merely a memory. Pronunciation with- stability is open to all, from Piers Plow- 
out the stabilizing influence of script or man to Chaucer, to Shakespeare, to Ad- 
print cannot give fixity to word forms, dison, to Howells, to Woodrow Wilson. 
The very idea of spelling presumes a In the first place we can feel a crudeness 
written or printed word, and hence the as well as a spontaneity in the early speci- 
word orthography. Similarly the best mens of the people s language; then we 
specimen of spoken language cannot free begin to discover an increasing self-con- 
itself of personal bias and individual char- sciousness in an effort to conform to 
acteristics, and acquire the social values standards recognized and coveted, and 
of accuracy and definiteness and truth- ever since a process of painstaking polish- 
fulness. For oral speech is elusive and ing has gone on by which speech forms 
cannot be subjected to those polishing have become fixed, and by which literary 
and corrective processes by which a much charm has been increased. Sometimes, 
written and printed language assumes it is true, spontaneity and primitive vigor 
fixity and comeliness. are supplanted by formal correctness and 

The unwritten language defies teachers studied effect. Refinement in any form 

and successful teaching. So the oral era is likely to sacrifice the grosser forms of 

in any language is in one very real sense power. But we are generally agreed that 

the golden age of that language. It has our English speech is a richer, better 

no spelling reformers, no grammarians, social instrument because of the refining 

no teachers, no tinkerers of composition process of more than a thousand years. 



THE MOTHER TONGUE IN SCHOOL 117 

Our writers during the centuries have the people must be sufficiently gram- 
sought to improve their style, and have matical to be intelligible ; the vocabulary 
given elegance and fitness and adequacy must be large enough to encompass the 
to our language. The teacher has per- daily experiences of the whole American 
sistently extended his sway, citing ex- people; and the pronunciation must be 
ample and grammatical precept. But sufficiently accurate to enable the Maine 
the rule of grammar and rhetoric has lumberman, the Texas rancher, the Bos- 
been a beneficent rule, cheerfully ac- ton school-teacher, and the Western 
cepted and loyally upheld by the makers of miner to understand each other mutually 
literature, and in consequence our mother with facility. 

tongue is consistently accurate and effec- The task is easy in the case of children 

tive. Who, then, would exchange the from homes where good language habits 

beauty of diction, the charm of well- prevail. It becomes increasingly difficult 

formed sentences, and the symmetry of when you include children from slangy, 

paragraph and episode for the power slovenly, vulgar homes, or the first gen- 

which we may have lost with the gram- eration of the native-born, or, finally, the 

marless uncouthness of pre-literary days ? foreign-born child. That is, continual or 

But a cultivated language presupposes even frequent and regular association 

teachers and critics and reformers, with those who speak correctly will form 

Without them speech becomes fixed in in children similarly good speech habits, 

death. And in our America of many But children whose speech is incorrect, 

tongues, the national language especially by inheritance and by association, will 

needs teaching to-day. So much Sir Phil- never form good habits until they acquire 

ip himself would grant were he among a speech consciousness, and such con- 

us. It is because the English language is sciousness will become sharp and distinct 

the common currency by which we ex- chiefly through definite corrective exer- 

change ideas, and because the free ex- cises. The skilful teacher has many 

change of ideas in a democracy has very devices suiting the linguistic sins and the 

large social significance, that this, our age of the child, but all must rest ulti- 

national language, assumes such unusual mately in grammar. You cannot convert 

importance in our scheme of education, the child s "I seen him," or his "me and 

And I take it as a political axiom that him set together," into real American 

English shall be the common speech of English without the use of grammar, 

the American people. The time has You may conceal the text-book, and 

passed long since when any other Ian- should^ from the tender child and the 

guage could have attained national sig- earlier school years, but the teacher must 

nificance in America. The many alien never be without grammar as a lamp to 

tongues must yield place to English, the her feet. 

common, national speech. Without such Grammar is frequently misconceived, 
a common speech the forty-eight States To the conscientious objector it is a 
will become a modern tower of Babel; linguistic strait-jacket whose purpose is 
with such a common language we may to hinder-the natural movements of sen- 
hope to build a homogeneous people, a tences and to compress the shape of 
tranquil nation, a stable government, a Words, arbitrarily, into fossil forms. This 
happy, peaceful, society. The chief busi- is a perverted view. Grammar is merely 
ness of the public school, therefore, is to a record of usage. It seeks to show how 
give each child, whether native or adopted, the mother tongue is used by persons of 
such mastery of English that it will be education and good speech habits. It is 
an effective tool for successful industry the simplest means of making language 
and good citizenship. This is the first intelligible to all alike. Grammar is to 
phase of the English teacher s problem, the language, as a whole, what the dic- 
It is the irreducible minimum of educa- tionary is to words alone. Without 
tion in America. And when I say mas- grammar our speech forms would tend to 
tery I mean that command of the English fly off at individual tangents. Be it said 
language which will serve the ordinary once for all that grammar never precedes 
demands of business arid politics and usage, but always follows usage. When- 
social life. The language habits of all ever usage takes a new departure gram- 



118 THE MOTHER TONGUE IN SCHOOL 

mar must follow it, but while usage lasts, school and the college, where our aims re- 
grammar shows the novitiate the right di- main indefinite and our modus operandi 
rection and brings the erring back from the changes frequently. We appear unable 
hills of error into the fold with the ninety to find the common denominator of the 
and nine who try to use correct speech. matter. The oral English teacher, the 

Since the reading of good books also public-speaking instructor, and the elocu- 

contributes to correct speech habits, our tion expert play the same game, but under 

American school children may not let the different rules. The composition teachers 

cinema entirely displace the library. The set up very variable aims, running the 

subject of the reading is less important gamut from a bone-dry, commercial 

than the language of the book read. Let linguistic skeleton known as " business 

it be correct speech always, let the vo- English" to the polished, well-formed 

cabulary be varied and used with pre- style which aspires to the name "literary 

cision. Avoid slang and dialect in chil- composition." Somewhere between these 

dren s books as you would any other pes- extremes will be found one who is pleased 

tilence. Dialect and slang literature is to call his course the "Logic" of English 

a phase of social pathology to be studied Composition. One teacher offers a course 

by adults, not read by children. In a in the "Short Story," another in "War 

word, books must supply to all school Poetry," another in the "Philosophy of 

children that companionship with culti- Beauty in Tennyson." One school main- 

vated persons which is denied to so many tains rigorous requirements in grammar ; 

in their homes and in their daily associa- another minimizes the importance of 

tions. As soon as the schoolboy has con- grammar; and yet another rules grammar 

scious pleasure and pride in the language altogether out of court. One school dis- 

of his book people, he will begin to shape tinguishes carefully between the "four 

his own language along similar lines, forms of discourse," another insists that 

The hero stuff of the book is not very these distinctions between description, 

important, but the language of the hero- narration, exposition, and argumentation 

ics should be scrupulously correct. The are unimportant, while a third group does 

motto over every elementary school and not even name these four classifications 

over every home reading-table in the in its teaching. 

land should be: Read good English, read Is it cause for surprise, then, that young 

and read and read. men and women often fail to find common 

The "movie" characters are filling the ground in conversation about literature 
child mind to-day to the exclusion of the and literary devices? Is it surprising 
delightful book people whose conversa- that college freshmen get clauses into the 
tion charmed the children in pre-cinema place of sentences, confuse the passive 
days. High school pupils in intimate voice with the past tense, and are unable 
private conversation talk little about to extract any meaning out of poetry? 
book acquaintances, much about "Slim Is it possible, as a modest but witty 
.Knee Buckle" and "Charles Shapely." teacher insists, that vers libre appeals to 
That the new acquaintances do not ele- those who cannot penetrate the subtle, 
vate speech standards is probable, for the formal beauty of real poetry? This 
cinema works in a medium where recorded frivolous thought becomes pathetic if it 
speech is partly unnecessary and partly is true that high school students do not en- 
impossible. That is, the "movie" is joy such an assignment as" II Penseroso." 
merely negative as a speech influence. It Perhaps it is a logical result of our pres- 
can become a positive factor by wide circu- ent teaching methods that college men 
lation of its scenarios in good literary form, do little reading in general literature, that 
It will be a great day for the mother tongue the demand for poetry in libraries is in- 
when every good book is "screened" and consequential, that business men charge 
every scenario is a good book. school and college graduates with gross 

But, of course, the vexing problems of inability to write a good business letter, 

English teaching lie beyond this irre- to speak intelligibly and clearly about 

ducible minimum of the elementary their work. But even if it is logical, it is 

school. The point of greatest variation melancholy. 

in content of teaching is in the high The English language bears in its body 



THE MOTHER TONGUE IN SCHOOL 119 

certain intrinsic characteristics which hardness that bears defeat or pain or 

will suggest one possible method of at- grief in a great cause will make us better 

tack in this problem of English teaching, men and women. 

I refer to our vocabulary, rendered unique Surely here is a phase of the English 

by its compositeness. What other Ian- tongue that is not absorbed without con- 

guage may be compared with it ? Eng- scious effort. It is a worthy object of our 

lish has indeed a wonderfully diversified teaching. Children greedily devour new 

vocabulary, reaching back as it does into words if they know how to get new and 

the mental life of numerous, highly culti- mysterious messages with them, messages 

vated peoples for its stock of words that were sealed in the writings of other 

Greeks, Latins, Angles, Saxons, French, lands in distant centuries, perhaps by 

These are the major sources. Not only great personages, to be opened and un- 

is our stock of words amazingly large, derstood to-day by those who will form 

but individual words have great depths a word consciousness. And yet this field 

of meaning. Now, without special effort, is largely uncultivated by teachers of 

we acquire very small vocabularies. Out English to-day. As we leave Latin and 

of the four hundred and fifty thousand Greek more and more to the elect and 

words defined in our dictionaries, many few scholars, as we gradually enlarge the 

citizens must get on with a thousand or "practical" phase of modern language 

two, leaving the great treasury un- teaching, we become content with a flat 

touched. Even school and college grad- English because the richness and deep- 

uates may remain unconscious of the ness of our vocabulary grow obsolete, 

richness of our English word stock. Some A corollary of this word-getting has to 

even accept the slavery to popular forms, do with exactness of meaning. A college 

commonly called slang, making the same graduate, complained that the parents 

word do service for a variety of meanings, are "disinterested" in their children, 

thereby paralyzing their word-getting when her charge clearly was "that the 

tendencies. "Dope," recently so popular parents are wwinterested." In a recent 

on the campus, has been worked overtime magazine number appeared this am- 

doing service for any one of a dozen words biguous statement: "About that same 

in good standing information, directions, time Dormouse did me a good turn in 

assignment, outline, notice, record, story, his inimical (inimitable?) way." Any 

news, secret, advice, formula, plan, etc. issue of the daily press is likely to offer 

Then there is the richness of word his- examples of confusion and abuse of word 
tories. The untrained person will get a meanings. A metropolitan editorial re- 
single meaning for a word; that is, words cently gave us the delicious bit of news 
are flat, two-dimension affairs to many that Cotton Mather entered Harvard a 
of us. There is the word "politics." Its year earlier (younger?) than did his own 
current meaning alone will give little in- father. And so we go forward unashamed 
dication of its real significance. Only and unrebuked as word abusers, while 
when we get into its third dimension do English teachers are agitated about style 
we get beyond party intrigues and dis- and paragraph development. What vir- 
cover the administration of State affairs, tue has the paragraph if the word mean- 
the city-state or polis of the Greeks. The ings are distorted ? And what shall the 
obvious or popular meaning is not only grand style profit if the truth has been 
inadequate but its exclusive use by the violated by using the wrong word ? 
generality tends to social deterioration. Composition teaching has gradually 
Could we implant the word " history " in assumed a chief place in teaching the 
the youthful mind the word would beget mother tongue. It has developed a very 
its own purification by its continual re- distinctive technic, dealing largely if not 
action on popular usage. wholly, with an elaborate mechanism 

Merely to know that friend originally which the mature writer undoubtedly uses 

carried the fundamental idea of love will but of which he is not conscious. Bal- 

dignify and hallow our friendships; to anced sentences, paragraph development 

know that nag is related to gnaw will have by comparison and contrast, characteriza- 

a deterrent effect, even on one who sins tion in narration, the fundamental image 

much; and to identify endure with the in description, exposition by definition 



120 THE MOTHER TONGUE IN SCHOOL 

and the like, are parts of a supporting And so composition writing is unnatural 
skeleton, but an author thinks of them no to the vast majority, a distinct burden to 
more than he thinks of his radius and many, a wasteful use of time to not a few. 
ulna or the scapula while writing. The It would appear, then, that the prior 
arm grows strong and skilful in exercise, business of the school is to assist the child 
in use, while the growing boy is yet bliss- in getting experience, in making ac- 
fully ignorant of the physiology of it. quaintances, in obtaining knowledge of 
But to the young high school student this persons and things. Books are the read- 
skeletal machinery of writing is presented iest means of access to the widest possible 
as a priority, an original sine qua non. range of contacts, and for this reason we 
He is led to believe, at a time when he has use books so freely. Would that every 
no ideas that demand expression, that child could have first-hand acquaintance 
ideas cannot walk across the written page with the things that constitute the ful- 
unless and until they are conscious of ness of life ! But we should not cavil over 
these structural bones of composition, the means if we can make the young life 
The process becomes a veritable blight rich in interests and in knowledge, if we 
to the student mind. It fails to facilitate can charge it with emotion to the point 
expression; it sets up the machine as an where expression in intelligible speech is 
end in itself; it bids the student set up an a pleasure, perhaps a relief. When this 
intricate mechanism before he knows how point is reached, no matter at what age, 
to relate it to his life, before he feels any composition teaching becomes an easy, 
need for such mechanism. rapid, and profitable task. 

There is a living, throbbing, funda- It is a patriotic duty to promote the 

mental relationship between the matter teaching of our national language, which 

of composition and the form. The matter is the English language. While we are not 

grows out of experience and the intellec- likely to prohibit the use of other lan- 

tual and emotional reaction to that experi- guages in America, v/e are agreed that no 

ence. Let the experience be definite, the citizen may remain innocent of English, 

mental reaction discriminating. Then, and the ideal at which we aim is the mas- 

if the writer has social instincts, his nature tery of English for the native-born. The 

will demand expression, and the form of nation is committed to speech habits 

expression, if it is unrestrained, natural that are unconsciously correct, but if 

if it is self-expression the form will have they are incorrect, the school may be un- 

stylistic value even without a knowledge ashamed of grammar, which is the touch- 

of formal rules of composition. That is stone by which unsanctioned variables 

to say, every person who has something may be brought into accord with accepted 

to say and says it with the stamp of his standards. Shall we also confess our sins 

own personality upon it, will find hearers against words?. Grievously do we sin 

and readers. He is already in a fair way daily in private conversation and in public 

to literary recognition. print. The truth is poorly served by the 

But we teach composition in school in vocabularies we have learned to corn- 
wilful disregard of the empty lives of mand. We say what we do not mean, 
those on whom we practise. The high and mean what we do not say, and there 
school student necessarily has had a nar- is much unsoundness of speech in us. 
row range of experience, his field of ob- In this unhappy state we teach the young 
servation has been limited and his social to shake the dry bones of composition, 
instincts are still immature, the desire for giving them an outward form of correct- 
self-expression being physical rather than ness while the springs of thought and 
mental. On this unfortunate being we feeling are dry, and no spirit quickeneth. 
force a literary mechanism which he does But the schools of America are eager to 
not need, much less want. We seem to cultivate a pure national speech. Let 
assume that it is wise to give the form in the nation support this effort. Let young 
the hope that the substance will be found and old together read copiously from the 
later. But as a matter of fact only a purest sources until their lives are charged 
small percentage of high school boys and to overflowing with high sentiment and 
girls ever crave expression through writ- refined emotion, until the daily use of our 
ing. Few even write letters with pleasure, national speech is effective to truth-telling. 




T>E POINT OF VIEW 




THE organfzation of the theatre in the 
United States is always under fire, as 
it was fifty and a hundred years ago, 
and just as it will be in A. D. 2021. It is not 
perfect now, and it never was perfect and 
never will be until the millennium arrives 

Phe Old Comedies and we a11 live in Ut P ia But 
,nd the it is not any worse to-day than it 

Comedians was yes terday; and it cannot be 
quite as bad as its assailants seem to be 
lieve, since it performs its chief function 
it allows the drama to flourish. That 
the drama is flourishing in our language, 
both in the United States and in Great 
Britain, is evident to all of us. There are 
in the British Isles three or four dramatists, 
with Barrie at the head of them, far superior 
to any playwrights living in the first three 
quarters of the nineteenth century; and on 
our side of the Atlantic there are half a 
dozen or half a score of playmakers whose 
promise has ripened into performance. 
These American dramatists know the the 
atre, which is the first requisite. What they 
write is actable; and very often it is read 
able also. Their work stands the double 
test of the stage and the study. 

But if the organization of the American 
theatre is satisfactory in so far as it is bring 
ing our native playwrights to the front, it 
is not so satisfactory in its secondary func 
tion of enabling us to see the masterpieces 
which have come down to us from earlier 
generations. Here in New York forty and 
fifty years ago we generally had the chance 
of seeing every winter half a dozen Old 
Comedies headed by the "Rivals" and the 
"School for Scandal" and "She Stoops to 
Conquer." They were not always as well 
played as they might be; and they were 
often rather shabbily mounted; but there 
they were and it was good to be able to see 
them, even if the performance might have 
its defects. And in those distant days we 
had occasion to see Shakspere s comedies 
and tragedies far more often than we do 
now; and although we used to complain 
that the companies which supported Char 
lotte Cushman and Edwin Booth, Modjeska 
and Mary Anderson, were not all they 
might be, still the actors then had had 



practice in wearing costume and in speak 
ing blank verse. They had breadth and 
sweep, even if they were sometimes rather 
stagy in gesture and in emphasis. 

It is not fair to say that our actors are 
now inferior to their predecessors of half a 
century ago. Although we have not now 
any Cushman or Booth, any Modjeska or 
Mary Anderson, the general average of skill 
is probably higher now than it was then; 
and our plays are better done on the whole 
than were those of our forefathers. The 
real reason why our actors cannot do to-day 
what our actors did yesterday, is that they 
have had to adjust their methods to a differ 
ent kind of theatre. In the old days the 
footlights curved out into the auditorium 
and the performer walked out on the 
"apron" which bowed out far beyond the 
curtain. He was on a platform, so to 
speak, and close to the audience so he had 
the large freedom of the orator. Now the 
curtain rises and falls in a picture-frame, 
which cuts the performer off from the audi 
ence. He is trained to restrain his gestures 
and his voice. He is warned "not to get 
out of the picture." And when he is sud 
denly required to appear in plays written 
with the boldness demanded by the plat 
form-stage, he is all at sea; he does not 
know "where he is at." Probably the 
actor of yesterday would be equally puzzled 
if he could be summoned to play a modern 
part of quiet intensity without "a single 
speech that you can sink your teeth in" 
as the old-school performer aptly put it in 
"Trelawny of the Wells." And if we are 
ever again to enjoy the Old Comedies it will 
only be after the clever comedians of our 
time have been afforded opportunity to 
acquire the larger method, the more highly 
colored manner, which the old-fashioned 
drama demands. 



IF it was difficult for Booth fifty years ago 
and for Irving thirty years ago, to find 
well-graced actors to sustain the secon 
dary characters in Shakspere s comedies and 
tragedies, it is far more difficult to-day when 
our dramatists, even when they are poets, 

121 



122 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



are rarely tempted to write plays in five acts 

and in blank verse. Our modern drama is 

composed in pedestrian prose; and the men 

and women of our theatres have 

El a e n ry-day S Ufe little or no occasion to speak the 
language of the gods. They are 
used to a dialogue which aims at an ap 
parent reproduction of the speech of every 
day life; and therefore they have not been 
called upon to acquire the art of delivering 
the rhythmic utterance of tragic heroes and 
heroines. They are all striving to be "nat 
ural," as befits a stage whereon the scenery 
and the furnishings are, as far as may be, 
those of real life. They are likely to have a 
distaste for blank verse, which cannot but 
seem to them artificial, stilted, "unnatu 
ral." 

Of course, no stage-dialogue can be 
natural, strictly speaking. It must be 
compact and significant; it must flow un 
broken in the shortest distance between two 
points. But to-day actors and audiences 
alike are so accustomed to the picked and 
polished prose of Barrie and Pinero, of 
Clyde Fitch and Augustus Thomas, that 
this appears "natural" to them, because 
they do not note its divergence from the 
average talk that falls on their ears outside 
the theatre; whereas they cannot help feel 
ing that the steady march of ten-syllabled 
iambics is a violent departure from our 
habitual manner of communicating infor 
mation and of expressing emotion. In 
other words, even if our stage-dialogue to 
day is "unnatural" as stage-dialogue 
always has been and always will be it is 
far less obviously "unnatural" than blank 
verse. A long and severe self-training is 
necessary before a performer can feel at 
home in blank verse, and before he can im 
part colloquial ease to it. 

Yet it is a fact that we who speak Eng 
lish have a tendency toward the iambic 
rhythm when we seek to move an audience. 
This rhythm may be unconscious and it 
may be irregular; but it is unmistakable 
in the death-bed scenes of Dickens, for 
example, where he was insisting on the 
pathetic; and in the orations of Ingersoll, 
where he was making his most powerful 
appeals. The Kembles were so subdued to 
what they worked in on the stage that they 
were prone to drop into blank verse on 
occasions when it was not appropriate. 
Mrs. Siddons is said to have startled the 



salesman who was showing her a piece of 
goods by asking, "And will it wash?" 
The first time she met Washington Irving 
after he had published the "Sketch-Book" 
she said to him, "Young man, you ve made 
me weep"; and when she next met him 
after he had published another book, she 
said, "Young man, you ve made me weep 
again !" 

Her brother, John Philip Kemble, was a 
great friend of Sir Walter Scott; and once, 
when they were crossing a field together, 
they were chased by a bull. "Sheriff," 
said the actor to the author, "methinks I ll 
get me up into a tree." Fanny Kemble, 
whose reading of Shakspere Longfellow 
commemorated in a noble sonnet, was the 
daughter of Charles, another brother of 
Mrs. Siddons. Once when she went on the 
platform to read, she found that a cane- 
bottomed chair had been provided for her. 
She turned majestically to the gentleman 
who was escorting her and inquired, "And 
would you give my velvet gown the small 
pox?" When her remote kinswoman who 
called herself Mrs. Scott-Siddons came to 
Fanny Kemble for professional guidance, 
the fragile amateur begged for advice about 
making points; and she was not a little 
frightened by the force of the swift retort 
"Points, girl? I never was a point ac 
tress!" 

This, all this, was long, long ago; and 
a great deal of water has gone under the 
bridge since those distant days. I have to 
confess that I never caught Edwin Booth or 
Henry Irving lapsing into blank verse off 
the stage. 



WE have never failed to elicit gasps 
of horror and consternation from 
our hearers on those occasions 
when we have declared stoutly that we pre 
fer the coal grate to the wood-fire. Of 
course, no mortal could be so benighted as 
to deny the charm of the latter; 
no one who had been given after- [ 
noon tea or after-dinner coffee 
before the wide hearth of some New Eng 
land friend could be so utterly depraved. 
No one who had been hypnotized, as we 
have been, into midnight discussions before 
a dying blaze that lingered over one half- 
burned log, could forget them, or deny the 
hypnotism. Poetry and politics, ethics and 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



123 



education we expressed our opinions on 
all of them, and, if it were late enough and 
the fire had power enough to strip from us 
the last bit of reserve, on the three final 
topics: God, love, and immortality. But 
and with this we express our resentment of 
those who sneer at our Middle Western 
tastes for the really heated discussion, the 
wood-fire is less satisfactory than the de 
rided coal grate. For if one gets excited 
and gesticulates with the poker, and punc 
tuates his remarks by spirited jabs at the 
burning logs, the fire collapses and dies. 
One falls silent, then, under the reproach 
ful glances of the company, and argument 
languishes; and on one s next visit the poker 
is hidden. A coal-fire, on the other hand, 
may be poked and stirred and shaken, and 
with every rattle of the fire-tongs against 
the bars of the grate the flame leaps higher 
and brighter, as though to express its ap 
proval of each weighty point. We who 
were brought up in Pittsburgh or west of 
Pittsburgh demand in our fires the staying 
quality of our arguments. 

If a fire is not to be the background for 
livelier interests, but is itself the centre of 
attention, then certainly the coal-fire is 
superior: it offers in itself more scope for 
the imagination, more inspiration for con 
templation, it leads the mind on a journey 
back through an infinity of time to the First 
Cause. Why should thought linger over a 
burning pile of logs when one can step to 
the window and behold the living reality: a 
birch-tree, white in the moonlight, a tall 
pine by the roadside, groaning eerily in the 
winter wind. (If we were not sure that 
Moral Earnestness would have no weight 
with those who attack us for our preference, 
we should pause to say that in our opinion 
the wood should have been left through 
another winter to greet the coming spring 
a birch on the hillside, a pine, like a Japa 
nese print against the sky, or an oak, its 
russet leaves clinging even to the winter s 
end.) To look at a coal-fire and to medi 
tate on the antiquity of the coal "out of a 
bit of forest," as Charlie Hexam said, 
"that s been under the mud that was under 
the water in the days of Noah s ark" is as 
breath-taking as an effort- to understand 
new astronomical discoveries or those phi 
losophies that "dodge conception to the 
very bourne of heaven." W T hen we were 
children, ignorant of the immensity of 



geologic ages, we believed that the coal had 
been forest in the days of the mound-builders 
for the mounds scattered through our 
valley were as familiar and as mysterious 
to us as the druidic relics of Dartmoor to 
Hardy and his heroes and heroines and 
before the fireplace we reconstructed their 
lives: customs, clothes, and color; their 
loves, battles, and final annihilation. 

For some of the delights of childhood, no 
doubt, a wood-fire answers almost equally 
as well as a coal grate. For warming one s 
flannel pajamas ready for the return from 
a bob-ride to Mary s father s sugar camp- 
but not for keeping hot the big, yellow- 
crockery bowl of bread and milk, since the 
wood-fireplace has no fender on which it 
may stand and wait, steaming. For pop 
ping corn and toasting marshmallows, a 
wood-fire serves. For roasting chestnuts? 
I have never tried it, and prefer not to jump 
to conclusions. But certainly not for toast- 
ting pumpkin-seeds, a delicate operation 
that requires the iron bars of a coal grate, 
on which a line of them may be laid, gin 
gerly, while one keeps at hand a long hat 
pin to turn them with if they do not snap 
off on to the fender of their own accord. 

A coal-fire is smug, my friends say, com 
placent, mid- Victorian, while there is some 
thing of a noisy freedom, of adventure, in a 
fire of snapping logs. Perhaps any one thus 
deluded into thinking of a coal-fire as a 
neat, restrained, and unostentatious method 
of heating a room might believe that chil 
dren would prefer the more enlivening spec 
tacle of a burning log. But fires are not like 
that in the coal grates west of Pittsburgh. 
When we were children, the family used as 
a living-room the vast, dark, high-ceilinged 
"library." In the grate of that room, on 
winter evenings, blocks of coal as large as 
one s doubled fists were heaped up and up 
to the mouth of the chimney, and the fire, 
when lighted, went roaring to the sky. 
Father would rustle his paper anxiously, 
and would finally throw it down to stalk to 
the window and watch for the reflection of 
a burning chimney on the crusted snow; 
mother would call us back from the hearth 
at the first suggestion of scorched wool ; we 
would cool our flaming cheeks on the horse 
hair back of the sofa and watch the loosed 
element wide-eyed and a little frightened. 
When its first fury was spent, and the blaze 
reduced to comfortable proportions, we ad- 



124 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



vanced to the hearth-rug again and sat, 
cross-legged, staring into its depths. 

For stirring the imagination of one who 
would tell fairy-tales, there is nothing equal 
to the intense radiance of a half-burned-out 
coal-fire, especially if one is just tall enough, 
sitting on the floor, to be able to see into its 
heart. The blocks of coal, piled irregularly, 
have fallen together a little, but between 
them flaming passages lead into mysterious 
depths. There is a cavern with molten 
walls, glowing blue and rose and gold, where 
the conquest-defying dragon lives, spouting 
flame. There is a castle, blinding white, 
surrounded by a moat of curling flames, 
where the bewitched princess lies. The 
geography of countless stories Parsifal and 
the Rheingold, Persephone and Pluto, St. 
George and the Dragon can be determined 
by the way the coals have fallen on the 
night of the story. Or there is ample scope 
for the female imagination at its favorite 
game "which house ud you rather have ?" 
the one in the upper corner, reached by a 
narrow path around the cliff, with its door 
of magic sapphire flame, now here, now 
gone, ready to rise and destroy any would- 
be guest of impure heart and motive vile; 
or the one on the lower right, where the 
coals have piled themselves in such a way 
as to afford glimpses into each room, par 
ticularly the ballroom, without windows, to 
be sure, and with a dangerously slanting 
floor, as though there had been an earth 
quake in fairy-land, but immeasurably beau 
tiful, because, like heaven itself, its wall is 
builded of jasper and the foundations of the 
wall are garnished with precious stones. 

But the coal-fire as it is built west of 
Pittsburgh, has not yet been justly cele 
brated in American literature, so that no 
doubt the idea of the tidiness of such a 
hearth arose from a knowledge of England s 
Victorian novelists. Their immortal works 
touch upon the coal grate in almost every 
chapter, and all their heroes warm their toes 
before them, from little Jane Eyre, drearily 
alone before the nursery fire, to Joey Vance, 
climbing the flue to replace the three loose 
bricks. Certainly, the novels of Dickens 
were builded on the coal grate as a founda 



tion. What would Sairey Gamp have done 
with her bottle "brought reg lar and 
drawed mild" if she had not had the 
" chimley-piece." How could Lizzie Hexam 
have told fortunes, had it not been for "the 
hollow down by the flare"? The cricket 
could not have chirped so merrily before a 
wood-fire, nor the kettle sung on the hob. 
Where else could the ghost of Marley come 
to Scrooge, except before the Dutch-tiled 
fireplace? And where could Pip and Joe 
Gargery have gone to escape Mrs. Joe s 
"tickler" except to the chimney-corner in 
the kitchen? 

As for the English poets, they were less 
specific than the novelists, and the exigen 
cies of their metres prevented their adding 
the word or two to tell us what their fires 
were built of. Certainly, circumstantial 
evidence leads us to believe that they were 
of coal. It is not to be supposed that novel 
ists as a class use one type of fire, while 
poets, one and all, insist upon the other. 
We are sure that Burns s Cotter gathered 
his family around a coal-fire for prayers, 
since Barrie s Sentimental Tommy, peep 
ing at another Scotch household, saw the 
velvet glove of the Painted Lady hang 
ing by the grate the glove she used to 
handle the coals, though Tommy knew that 
"common folks lift coals with their bare 
hands, while society uses the fringe of its 
second petticoat." We are willing to con 
cede Milton s "Glowing embers through 
the room," since only a stubbornly smoking 
log could "teach light to counterfeit a 
gloom." But the others, from Gray s 
blazing hearth to Masefield s dying em 
bers, we believe were built of coal. Words 
worth, to be sure, says that his hearth fire 
was of peat, but what is peat save an im 
mature sort of coal, burned by impatient 
mortals who have not the geologic ages be 
fore them? At least one poet proclaimed 
himself in favor of the coal-fire, and his de 
scription makes any defense of ours super 
fluous. For we have Keats s: 

" Small, busy flames play through the fresh-laid coals 
And their faint cracklings o er our silence creep 
Like whispers of the household gods that keep 
A gentle empire o er fraternal souls." 




THE FIELD OF ART 




Changing Ideals of the Art Museum 



BY ROSSITER HOWARD 

Curator of Educational Work, Cleveland Museum of Art 



H 



ERE lies the body, properly mum 
mified and labelled, of Thalia, to 
gether with relics of her fair sisters 
and other antiquities." The house of the 
Muses had come to mean, some years since, 
some such dry collection of specimens, 
mildly curious to the tourist and sometimes 
useful to the scholar; or, if beauty were 
dominant, it was aristocratically superior 
to any taint of usefulness. But the twen 
tieth century is seeing a change. Life, 
beauty, and poetry are being fused with 
service, and the multiplication of young 
art museums is creating in the country a 
great educational power. 

This growth has come at a critical time in 
the development of museum ideals, when 
the parent institution, the Metropolitan 
Museum of New York, is leading the way 
in public usefulness and others are con 
stantly trying experiments in service to 
industry, education, and community well- 
being. 

The founders of the older institutions had 
high purposes of providing the inspiration 
of beauty for the people and help to the 
embryo artist. But art education a quar 
ter of a century ago was almost entirely a 
matter of technical instruction. It was 
somewhat as if literature had been taught 
only through grammar and rhetoric, for the 
writer rather than for the reader. To-day 
it is as patent in art as in literature that 
appreciation is not created merely through 
elementary teaching of processes of produc 
tion; and most schools, from the kinder 
garten to the university, offer instruction 
in art appreciation. The schools are de 
pendent not only upon artists but upon 
industry to provide beautiful environment. 
Museum authorities have seen the light. 
They have realized that the influence they 
were founded to exert would function very 
mildly unless appreciation were actively 



fostered. The Metropolitan Museum, New 
York, has been vigorous in stimulating in 
terest among the public, the industries, and 
the schools; the Boston Museum of Fine 
Arts, with a certain wise conservatism, has 
yet been in the forefront of art education; 
while the younger Toledo Museum repre 
sents the more radical mid- Western plunge 
into community activities. 

The popular response to these changes has 
been so great that museums find themselves 
facing an educational opportunity scarcely 
within immediate grasp. The science of 
museums has in the past been one of col 
lecting, preserving, and exhibiting, imply 
ing intensive scholarship in many fields. 
The collections have tended to express the 
interests of scholars and the enthusiasms of 
donors, resulting in a certain aloofness from 
common interests and common needs. But 
the recent efforts of the museums to help 
the public to understand and to use their 
collections have sometimes brought about 
a demand for more than the museums could 
provide, both in the way of collections 
adapted to the needs of the public and of 
a staff trained to museum instruction. The 
challenge is a healthful one, and the re 
sponse must be no compromise of museum 
ideals of quality and precision of scholar 
ship, but a reconciliation of those ideals 
with popular requirements collections 
which touch common needs and instruction 
which shall be as enjoyable as it is accurate. 

But these things are not enough to pro 
duce the desired result, for the majority of 
Americans are inclined to judge pictures 
rather than to enjoy them. To meet this 
need museums are more and more furnish 
ing instruction in appreciation. 

There. can be little doubt that the grow 
ing attendance at the art museums is en 
larging the public support of American 
painters and sculptors and is raising the 

125 



126 



THE FIELD OF ART 



standard of beauty demanded in the in 
dustries of furniture, fabrics, and all sorts 
of decorative arts. 

"God defend us from commercialism" 
is a conservative protest against a bugbear 
which disappears as the museums face it. 

It is worth while to speak of this element 
of commerce boldly and without shame. 
Art lives on commerce, and commerce al 
ways produces art, good or bad. The 
museum is trying to help make it good, to 
the common advantage of art and industry. 
It is necessary to train designers and crafts 
men for all the manifold things in which we 
expect beauty; the museum furnishes in 
spiration, standards of excellence, and fre 
quently actual instruction supplementary 
to that of the art school. It is necessary 
for manufacturers to develop a vision of 
accomplishment of quality which will, at 
equal price, hold its own against the pro 
ductions of Europe; the museum is co 
operating with manufacturers in organizing 
popular and professional education in the 
taste needful for the manufacture and mar 
keting of finer design, supporting at home 
industries capable of competition abroad. 
It is needful for salesmen to know the value 
of design and finish ; the museum is working 
hand in hand with decorators and depart 
ment stores to train the salesfolk and the 
public to an appreciation of finer merchan 
dise. And finally, it is exceedingly im 
portant that the public, the great mass of 
consumers, be nurtured in a love of the 
qualities which go to make excellent art 
sincerity, appropriateness, sensibility, fine 
relationship of elements. 

In Europe certain industries have habit 
ually turned to the museums for inspiration. 
In America it is the museums which have 
taken the initiative, especially the Metro 
politan Museum, until to-day service to 
industries and commerce is expected of 
them. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts 
started exhibitions and courses of instruc 
tion in relation to local production, and the 
response of workers and trade papers was 
immediate. 

Doctor Arthur Fairbanks, director of the 
Boston Museum, is content to explore these 
uncharted waters with caution. He says:* 
The mere copying and reproduction of 
objects in an art museum for trade purposes 
almost surely creates a false sense of values, 

* In his last annual report. 



by emphasizing the general appearance of a 
work of art at the expense of its essential 
meaning. Apparently the only way for 
designers to get real profit from an art 
museum is by such sympathetic study of 
works of art as may guide their own creative 
efforts into better channels." 

There is a plausible fear on the part of the 
connoisseur that for an art museum to cater 
to the needs of a community may impair 
the interest of the collections. The prob 
lem is to maintain the satisfaction of the 
connoisseur while meeting the needs of the 
public. The task is not easy, but probably 
it can be accomplished. In cultivating 
public taste it is not necessary to begin 
with the poor and progress toward the ex 
cellent. One can begin with the easily 
comprehended and progress toward the 
more difficult more complex and subtle, 
always on a high plane. 

Never before in the history of our civili 
zation have so many men and women de 
manded a high standard of household 
furnishings and desired to learn how to 
obtain them. The museum s opportunity 
to offer acquaintance with the finest things 
of the past, which will stimulate finer pro 
duction, is equally important with the 
exhibition of painting and sculpture. The 
decorator asks: "Why spend so much money 
on second-rate old masters when the public 
needs furniture ? " And it is true that finer 
quality may be purchased in a simple 
Renaissance table than in a vastly more 
costly painting of the same age. For while 
it is possible that the painter of the pic 
ture may have been of higher intelligence, 
it is certain that the designer of the table, 
being under less pressure to be original, 
retained more of the accumulated wisdom 
of past designers. The same is true of the 
designers of antique fabrics and ceramics. 
A Gothic painting may be good or bad; a 
Gothic textile is almost certain to be fine. 
All towns traffic in fabrics and other house 
hold furnishings, a field peculiarly available 
for beautiful exhibition. It is possible for 
a museum to answer the needs of such com 
merce without loss, nay, with probable gain, 
in standards of beauty. 

"But," says some lover of antiques, 
"what beauty can we expect of modern 
manufacturers when everything is machine- 
made for quantity production?" The cry 
is more than four centuries old. The 






THE FIELD OF ART 



127 



Cleveland Museum of Art has just pur 
chased, as educational material for use in 
the public schools, the fragment of a Gothic 
manuscript and a, Gothic printed book the 
page of which is almost an exact reproduc 
tion of the page of the manuscript the 
book a machine-made imitation, for quan 
tity production, of the hand-made manu 
script. Pope Alexander VI, like other 
fifteenth-century bibliophiles, would not 
have a machine-made book in his library. 
Yet the art of printing was one of the great 
contributions of the fifteenth century to 
the aesthetic wealth of the world. 

Mr. John Jager, a Minneapolis architect, 
picked up an engine oil-cup in an exhibition 
of industrial art at the Minneapolis Insti 
tute of Arts, and said of it: "No Louis 
fifteen and seven-eighths ever had a snuff 
box as beautiful as this." The objects 
which Mr. Jager selected for this exhibition 
from the work of the Dunwoody Institute 
of Industrial Education, with his descrip 
tive labels, were of more aesthetic value 
than exhibitions of exotic works difficult of 
popular understanding. The objects them 
selves, made by keen young mechanics 
proud of their developing craftsmanship, 
were certainly as beautiful in sensitive line 
and finish as the vases and figurines dug from 
Egyptian graves and always considered per 
fectly respectable in an art museum. 

The most luxurious products of the ma 
chine to-day, in the realm of decorative art, 
are still skilful imitations of the work of an 
cient craftsmen, like the earliest printed 
books, showing that the dignity of the arts 
of the machine is not yet fully recognized. 
Museums may help create the recognition 
of the possibilities of artistic production 
through the unequalled means of our own 
day. 

Certainly the gallery of paintings and 
sculpture has not given way in importance 
to exhibitions of industrial arts in a city 
museum; for the gift of joy in such pure 
arts, dissociated from utility, is the highest 
service which a museum can perform. 
Space devoted to paintings may, if neces 
sary, be economized by raising the stand 
ard of quality, and the beauty of the paint 
ings may be enhanced by a decorative 
setting. There is no need to say more on 
this point, for no art museum dreams of 
sacrificing the importance of its paintings 
and sculpture. There is, on the other hand, 



a tendency for museums to give music, the 
most abstract and subjective of all arts, an 
increasingly important place in museum ac 
tivities. 

Another field of service for the art mu 
seum is in its connection with the city 
schools. This offers alluring possibilities, 
and it is as yet barely touched. A great 
many museums co-operate with the schools 
of their cities, but they do so in such utterly 
different ways, only partially explained by 
difference in circumstances, that one must 
conclude that the problem is too young to 
be thoroughly understood. The visual edu 
cation which is receiving such impetus from 
the moving-picture is sending teachers and 
pupils to the museum of art in search for 
a closer touch with reality in history, geog 
raphy, literature, and languages, as well as 
in art. As the museum collections were 
not created to answer this purpose, there 
is still much fumbling, but team-work is 
sure to result. 

It is many years since school children 
were made to study the natural sciences 
merely out of books. The children not 
only read about things; they study the 
things themselves. Why not, then, in his 
tory and geography? The very essence of 
age and country is found in the beautiful 
things which men have made. A great 
museum of art reveals the story of man with 
marvellous qualities of romance and actu 
ality. The rise and fall of civilizations be 
come like the acts of a play. The friends 
which the children have made in their 
reading Greeks, Romans, knights, and 
explorers take their places in the drama. 
If museum officials are jealous, as they 
should be, of the aesthetic purpose of their 
galleries, they need not be afraid of such 
educational use of their collections, because 
the associations thus formed by the chil 
dren are of great value in the experience of 
the beauty in art. 

There is, to be sure, a danger that a mu 
seum devoted to the service of the public 
schools may lose its pure art character and 
become in too great a degree scientific. It 
may acquire an object with too little regard 
for its quality because of a desire to com 
plete a series or to illustrate some character 
istic of period or country. But it need not 
do so. Indeed, in the long run, the scien 
tific value of the collections will be higher if 
the quality is kept above reproach. The 



128 



THE FIELD OF ART 



Cleveland Museum of Art has adopted the 
expedient, not altogether new, of permitting 
its educational department to develop a 
collection of its own, which does not injure 
the appearance of the principal galleries be 
cause it is kept in the department itself and 
loaned to schools and libraries for educa 
tional purposes. The objects must not be 
of a character that will make them irre 
placeable if lost or injured, but the esthetic 
value is still always kept uppermost the 
things must be beautiful. A series may be 
filled in with reproductions, and that fre 
quently permits a higher degree of beauty 
than would be possible in a collection made 
up entirely of original works of art. 

In any case the school use of an art mu 
seum is not chiefly scientific but artistic. 
The development of appreciation and talent 
is, in the museum of art, more important 
than the by-products of scientific knowl 
edge. Actual practice in drawing, color, and 
design, as a means to attain a firmer grasp 
of the works of art, is carried on in con 
nection with the work of the public schools 
in several museums, notably in Boston, 
Worcester, and Cleveland, with success in 
bringing out talent and in creating a delight 
in the essential qualities of form and color. 

The problem of such work is greatest in 
the large cities and becomes simpler in the 
smaller places, where a greater proportion 
of the children may be reached. 

The factory town has the greatest need of 
the museum of art to supplement its schools, 
not primarily as a factor in vocational train- 



freely to capitalist and laborer alike, men 
and women with a goodly life outside of 
their factory drudgery. If that is too much 
to hope for, it is not too much to try, and 
the museum of art is" an invaluable aid to 
the schools in the task. Hundreds of the 
children of immigrants come weekly to the 
Cleveland Museum, eager to draw and to 
enjoy the entertainments planned to de 
velop their interest in art. They all find 
counsel, and the most talented of them are 
put into a class for special instruction. 
These children, among the thousands in the 
city, are a symbol of those who are not 
reached. These children will probably not 
enter the body of unskilled labor, but their 
interest points to a cultural service which 
must be performed in the interest of society. 

There is more, much more, to be done 
than has yet been dreamed of. The mu 
seum cannot go into every place in the city 
where its influence is needed, nor can it 
contain all the people who need its inspira 
tion. But means are certain to be found- 
perhaps through branches, like those of the 
public library, perhaps through a larger 
development of lending collections. These 
problems are for a not distant future, nearer 
in the cities in which the museums are work 
ing out effective relations with the people. 

Neither great wealth nor great population 
is necessary in order that a city may have a 
museum with collections of fine quality, 
adapted to serve the industrial, educational, 
and social needs of the community. 

Business men, who such a little while ago 



ing, but as a stabilizing influence among the thought of art as something for women and 



laborers. Boys and girls who step from the 
eighth grade of the elementary schools into 
economic independence are an annually in 
creasing danger to themselves and to so 
ciety. There is no possibility of turning 
the calendar backward to the day when the 
majority of laborers could find pleasure in 
their work. Increasing hours of leisure 
must be filled with interests which are worth 
while. A small minority of the pupils will 
find employment in crafts and trades which 
furnish a degree of life interest; a majority 
will become mechanized operators of ma 
chines. The elementary schools are trying 
to give these children an interest in music, 
literature, and art, interests which will make 
them more reasonable citizens, able to 
appreciate the riches which the city offers 



children, are coming to realize the impor 
tance of an art museum in the life of the 
city. An imposing thing to show to visi 
tors, certainly; but it can grow into some 
thing much more than that, an active ele 
ment in the community lightening the life 
of the poor, chastening the tastes of the rich, 
vitalizing the work of the schools, improving 
the output of industry, creating more effi 
cient salesmen in the stores, increasing the 
value of real estate, a possible community 
centre for music, drama, and all the arts 
which go to make the city a better place in 
which to live. 

Such is the newer ideal. It is worth 
working for, and the struggle to gain it is 
certain to benefit the city which dares the 
attempt. 



A calendar of current art exhibitions will be found on page 7. 






A 














From a drawing by Perry Barlow. 

"I VE A HUNDRED ACRES HERE THAT I VE OWNED FOR THIRTY-FIVE YEARS, 

AND ALL IT HAS EVER DONE FOR ME IS GIVE ME TIME 

TO LEARN TO PLAY MY FIDDLE." 

"The Ripe Peach," page 163. 



130 



ScRiBNER s MAGAZINE 

VOL. LXXI FEBRUARY, 1922 



NO. 2 



Europe at Work 

BY WHITING WILLIAMS 
I. FRANCE AT WORK 

"It s habit, m sieu habit and custom." 
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 




Y French miner "bud 
dy" had been swing 
ing his pick back and 
forth at amazing speed 
for nearly an hour one 
morning last summer. 
We were down about 
two thousand feet be 
low a mining village a few miles from the 
ruined mines and city of Lens in northern 
France. The coal had been coming down 
so rapidly that it kept the rest of us busy 
shovelling it into the cars which the boy 
of fifteen with equally amazing speed kept 
bringing up to the "face" of the seam. 
All of us were stripped to the waist. Not 
one back amongst us but glistened in the 
light of the safety-lamps with the mixture 
of coal-dust and sweat. Except for the 
half-hour s pause for breakfast every one 
kept going at the same pace hour after 
hour. Also day after day. Yet never did 
I find one of them willing to confess the 
job fatiguing. From the lips of all of 
them came the same words accompanied 
by the same smile and the same shrug: 
"C estT habitude!" 
Later in other parts of France from 
leaders in various fields of her work and 
life as well as from other laborers came 
almost always the same name for the 
motive power which keeps the people of 
France busy: 

"It s habit, m sieu habit and custom 
that does it." 



The phrase appears to me to go further 
than any other to explain the spirit of 
modern France as it shows itself among 
the French workers as I came to know 
them. It holds almost equally well, too, 
whether they ar e hand-workers or head- 
workers. In either case, if they are 
French born, they have lived their life in 
very much the same groove for a long 
time. Established social habit and social 
custom have come of old social institu 
tions and old social arrangements of a 
people long established in the same eco 
nomic environment. France is socially an 
elderly if not an old country socially as 
well as geographically and geologically, 
perhaps socially because geographically 
and geologically. The French are an el 
derly people at least a people beyond 
the middle of maturity. 

I believe the evidences of that after- 
middle maturity are as generally manifest 
and as generally significant in the life of 
present-day France as are those evidences 
of England s crowdedness which were set 
forth in these columns last year as ex 
planatory to the life of Great Britain. 

France is a land of habit, of content 
ment born of long usage. It is also a land 
of ho , but let the spelling of that second 
key-word wait until we can discuss the 
new problems which await France and 
the French spirit now that she turns the 
corner of the great victory. 

"We French were too happy!" This 



Copyrighted in 1922 in United States, Canada, and Great Britain, by Charles Scribner s Sons. Printed in 

New York. All rights reserved. 



132 



EUROPE AT WORK 



was the explanation given by one of them broke his bowl of much potato and little 
as the cause of the war. "We have al- meat. After we finished our soup, we al 
ways been too easy-going too contented ways filled the same dish to the top with 
with our modest little homes, our appetiz- much potatoes, but of meat the landlady 
ing if usually simple fare, and our mod- made sure to give us the precious and 
est though inspiriting wine red or wine costly portion with her own impartial 
white. No wonder our enemy thought fork. It was easy to see that with him as 
they should overcome us easily!" with many others elsewhere the hatred 

That does not mean that everybody in of the endless nights and days in the 
France to-day is con 
tented by force, as it 
were, of long-estab 
lished custom. Far 
from it. 

"The capitalists 
know no patriotism. 
They go wherever 
they can find profits. 
Then why shouldn t 
we laborers do the 
same?" So the tall 
grenadier of a mason 
with the huge red 
mustache also the 
seven children at 
home in a distant city 
where there was no 
work used to say at 
our labor boarding- 
house at Douai in the 
invaded district of 
northern France. 
"At one time during 
the war you recall it, 
messieurs? les pa 
trons, the big fellows 
who tell us what we 
workers must do and 
must not do, spent a long time deciding 
whether we French soldiers should shoot 
the Italian soldiers or not. Finally, they 
decided that we did not need to you 
remember it, yes? Very good. So we 
did not shoot them. 




Author as worker in French steel plant. 

The carefulness of the French skilled working men 
practically forbade their opening their jumpers 
at the throat even on a hot day. On the hottest 
days I was glad to assert my Americanism by 
taking off my coat and vest. 



trenches had made 
him hate war with a 
hate which covered 
every phase and force 
of modern life which 
he believed helped 
cause war, including 
capitalism and nation- 
alism. Their logic 
was easy to find holes 
in. But it is difficult 
for masses of men to 
live happily and think 
straightly when re 
turning to the high 
cost of living after 
months and years with 
the front-line s horrors. 

"Buried alive we 
were there at Verdun 
for several days and 
nights 1" one man put 
it. "Several of my 
friends were gray- 
haired when they 
found us. Horrible ! 
Horrible!" 

"I remember," so 
the mason would con 



tinue, "how I used to go to the library as 
a boy and look at all the pictures of 
armies and battles. Perhaps you all did 
the same, messieurs, yes ? I would dream 
of the days when I might get into a uni- 
But if the big ones form myself. But my company or at 
had decided otherwise well, then we least the remnant of it spent some 
should have had to shoot them, is it not months at Verdun. Then, thanks to the 
so? But in any case the Italians would good God, I was wounded and was taken 
have been fellow laboring men like our- away. Now I am through with war ! For 



selves. Isn t that true?" 

"After all, this matter of patriotism 
gets us into much trouble according to 



the rest of my life, I hope ! Never again 
any fighting for me ! No nation is worth 
it!" 



my experience. La Patrie for you and Approval of this pleasant- voiced but 

for me and for all of us workers, what is hard-pressed internationalist would often 

it? I ll tell you. It is the country that come from his helper, a small jolly chap 

gives us this this for our wives and our in his plaster-covered clothes and great 

children and with his fork he nearly wooden work-shoes. When it did it meant 




Breakfast with the miners. 
The hats made of heavy fibre for the protection of the head are being less and less used. 



a cough from the rest of us because he only occasionally. At first he seemed to 

would slap his leg and so bring a cloud of me the most typical villain met in many 

dust out of his faded blue overalls. a day. His make-up included heavy black 

The surprising thing was that the one- hair, a great mustache, one big white and 

eyed road laborer agreed with the mason sightless eyeball, and brown corduroys 




Typical coal-miners with whom the author worked in the mine town at the edge of the devastated 

region. 

Because it was so near the front-line trenches, work had often to be abandoned by day and carried on 
at night so that its smoke would not attract the near-by enemy. 

133 



134 



EUROPE AT WORK 



held up with a broad red sash. It made we miners went out by thousands in order 

him look like a prime trouble-maker in to help the railway men in their general 

any plot, private or public. Yet he was strike on May Day, 1920. And then the 

not a radical. Perhaps because he had railway men were the first to go back and 

managed to make himself too comfortable make sure of their jobs again ! Bad lead- 

during the war. If so, it was certainly ership, is it not? Bad leadership in the 

comfort bought with courage. nation and also, is it not so, one must add, 

"Yes, m sieu , it is necessary to say bad leadership right here at home ? For 

that he is brave this one-eyed fellow." our two last local strikes have failed also." 



So the landlord would 
explain. "When the 
invaders arrived here 
in October, 1914, 
they captured every 
body in town. Soon 
they put everybody to 
work. But our friend 
refused. Me, I will 
not work for you 
boches, he said. 
Three soldiers stuck 
three bayonets against 
his neck just like this 
-ugh ! Then they 
counted eins zwei 
drei to give him ten 
to decide whether he 
would change his 
mind or not. Finally 
they counted ten. 
But he only looked 
them in the eye and 
shook his head, and 
said: No, I will not 
work for you ! And 
they did not fire ! No, 
they did not fire! 
For why ? No one 
knows. All during 
the war the invaders were here almost 
exactly four years ! he was in the hospi 
tal or doing pretty much what he pleased. 
Mainly he pretended to be sick. Un 
brave gar con, is he not?" 

It was a good friend among my coal- 
miner companions who put in a nutshell 
the present feeling of the French workers, 
especially the unskilled ones. We were 
resting from about three hours work, and 
sat with our shirts or coats thrown on 
while we breakfasted out of our cans of 




Author after an eight-hour term in a coal 
mine 2,000 feet deep, five or six miles 
from the destroyed mines at Lens. 



Untiring and thank 
ful to be busy, but 
unhappy and per 
plexed that explains 
the present mood of 
the French worker. 
Too suddenly shaken 
out of his established 
and habitual pre-war 
world to know just 
what to do about it 
and apparently anx 
ious, on the whole, not 
to go too far in any 
sudden attempt to 
"tear things loose." 
It causes one to won 
der whether the Rev 
olution has not made 
us think the French 
man at least the 
Frenchman outside of 
Paris much less a 
man of ordered mod 
eration than he is. 
The wonderment 
grows when you see 
signs on the wall that 
bills are not to be 
posted or ashes 
dumped here or there, "in line with the 
law of 1881," or 1807 or 1791 ! 

The General Federation of Labor is 
said to have lost five-eighths of its mem 
bers since the failure of that general 
strike in 1920. To-day about the only 
members left in it are the Communist 
radicals and the Socialist conservatives. 
These are fighting constantly for control 
of the organization. Both sides claim 
victory. The evenness of the current 
battle makes it look as though the Corn- 



weak coffee and our cloth bags of sand- munists were disquietingly strong. When 

wiches. (The bags strings allow them to the votes go against them the Commu- 

be hung up from the timbers away from nists claim that the real story is told in 

the rats.) the circulation figures of their competing 

" What is one to think, m sieu ! Here newspapers two thousand daily for Le 




The family most of it at the estaminet in Douai, north France. 
" This one-eyed fellow," my hero of the bayonets, is at the right. 




Untiring and thankful to be busy, but unhappy and perplexed so the author found most of the workers 

in the mines and factories of France. 

These were a few of his fellow workers near Lens. 



136 



EUROPE AT WORK 



Peuple, issued by the Socialist Federation- 
ists, and forty thousand for L Humanite, 
of the Communists. 

The country s surprising experience 
during the war also helps the careful ob 
server to discount somewhat the amazing 
extremes of the Bolshevism of the Com 
munists. This experience showed that 
the workers are in actuality much more 
patriotic more conservative than the 



pected to impede mobilization. In the 
moment of invasion these, like all the 
others, came into the army ready to de 
fend their homes." 

Much the same explanation could 
doubtless be given for the failure of that 
general strike. The patriotic spirit of the 
war was still too active. Since then the 
failure of the Russian experiment has dis 
couraged many, though the Communist 




Unloading the local supply of red wine from the tank-cars. 



bitterness of their public expressions 
might lead one to conclude. A French 
labor expert with an international reputa 
tion reports : 

"Before the war the radicals were so 
much in the mind of the government that 
all estimates of our military strength 
when completely mobilized included con 
siderable deductions for the Socialists and 
others who, it was believed, would make 
unsafe soldiers. When the test came, 
even the government was surprised to 
find the percentage an extremely small 
one practically negligible. Further 
more, it proved quite unnecessary to carry 
out the long-contemplated plans for the 
arrest of certain leaders who were ex- 



leaders insist that the famine, for in 
stance, is nothing but the normal result 
of last summer s extreme drought as ex 
perienced in France and more or less 
throughout Europe. 

But it is, of course, unsafe to argue that 
the French worker as a whole can be 
trusted always to accept without organ 
ized protest whatever comes. We will all 
make progress toward solving the prob 
lem of happy relations between the hand 
workers and the head-workers when we 
learn this; the periods of unemployment 
which bring the worker into the greatest 
straits are usually the periods least favor 
able to his effective expression of that un- 
happiness in the form of strikes. Yet it is 




Above-ground, or "outside," workers at a coal-mine in St. Etienne, one of the old manufacturing and 

mining districts of south middle France. 




Youngsters doing their bit in the hard-working manufacturing district of St. Denis, outside the walls 

of Paris. 



137 



138 



EUROPE AT WORK 



the memory of these straits that provides the unwisdom of fighting against the en- 
the motive power for troubles when the tire public s pressure for lower selling- 
situation comes again to play into the prices and, therefore, lower production 
worker s hands by making jobs plentiful costs in terms of wages, 
and workers scarce. When jobs begin to And such evidence can be appreciated 
grow scarce, men fear that a strike will by the French worker as by few others in 
only give the employers a good excuse for the world. For, in general, he is some- 
closing down. When they begin to grow thing more than a member of an old and, 

therefore, fundamentally careful 
and conservative people. That is 
true of the British worker. But 
to an extent far beyond the Brit 
ish worker, and in some aspects 
beyond e,ven the American work 
er, the French-born worker is a 
skilled man, a user of a good mind 
and of good tools. In the steel 
plant at Douai it was a pleasure to 
watch the machinists carry on 
their work. From the youngest 
apprentice up to the oldest expert 
in the place everything required 
the accuracy of millimetres or 
tenths of millimetres ! Accuracy 
and cleanliness were the key-notes. 
On Monday mornings the great 
shop looked like a blue edition of 
Joseph s coat of many colors. Of 
course each suit of overalls or 
"blues" was freshly laundered 
otherwise its owner would have 
been asked if " the wife is then per 
haps ill?" In addition to all the 
variations caused by the differing 
number of launderings, each suit 
in turn showed a color harmony of 
its own by its assortment of blue 
or near-blue, new or much-washed 
patches. In the working quarters 
within the walls of Paris the furni 
ture-makers and the carpenters, 
masons, and machinists look like 
artists in their dust-colored over- 
plentiful, they feel that the}- are in a posi- alls and long blouses. They speak of the 
tion to bargain for better ones in the fu- small establishments in which they work 
ture. for the " patron" as ateliers. When you 

Partly because of the huge work of talk with them or see them reading semi- 
rebuilding L the devastated regions, there radical papers as they eat the most ap- 
has been much less unemployment in petizing of foods or drink good wine in 
France proportionately than in either the restaurants which line the broad 
Great Britain or America during the last boulevards near their studio-factories, you 
year. There has been, however, enough somehow find it hard to take their quiet 
to make the workers generally feel the Socialism or philosophical or political 
time inopportune for large-scale agitation. Communism very seriously. 
The recent failure of the textile workers In such working suburbs outside the 
of the north added one more evidence of walls as St. Denis and St. Ouen, the 




Typical workers in the small factory-studios inside the walls 

of Paris, where the world s most artistic furniture 

and most precise machinery is made. 




A street scene in France s most important steel and artillery town, Le Creusot. 

In many of the most important manufacturing towns there are frequently reminders of France s interest in 
agriculture and of the conservatism of France s agriculturists. 



chemical and other large-scale plants 
give rougher jobs and much poorer homes 
to men of less skill and education and 
of more serious discontent, as proclaimed 
from many a flaming poster. But for all 
these, there is an outlet such as neither 
Britain nor America can enjoy to any 
thing like the same extent an outlet 
which must never be forgotten in connec 
tion with all thought of industrial France. 

"When we don t like our employers or 
their jobs, we can usually take a vacation 
on the farms. There, especially since the 
war, they need us badly." 

As a matter of fact, France has hardly 
yet come into the full swing of modern 
industrialism. As yet, it is hardly to be 
called a first-class industrial power. At 
exactly that point the near future brings "a 
new equipment and, therefore, a new chal 
lenge to the established habits and atti 
tudes but about that later. In the mean 
time, the farm provides the opportunity 
for moderate comfort and more than mod 
erate independence to the great majority 
of the country s native population. 

That great body of native farmers it is 
that represents a sort of huge gyroscope 



which obtained its motion from a distant 
past and so keeps the ship of French life 
moving along the course of that safe and 
conservative "habitude." Besides offer 
ing relief when the pressure of industrial 
life grows too heavy, the French farm 
furnishes the bulk of the population with 
a strong sense of property there are said 
to be more than ten million property- 
holders in France ! an imperviousness to 
radicalism of any serious and funda 
mental sort, and an unfailing opposition 
to heavy direct taxation. 

The influence of the isolation and tra 
ditional inertia of that farm is threat 
ened in several ways by the new industrial 
and social factors brought by the war. 
The most immediate of these is the for 
eign-born unskilled laborer. 

" Six years in Poland, all the time fight. 
No can get bread for family must come 
here. See my back!" the Polish laborer 
in our gang in the north France mine ex 
plained in broken German. One glance 
at the dreadful assortment of shrapnel 
wounds was enough. His back was in 
plain view because we were all stripped 

139 



140 



EUROPE AT WORK 



to the waist after the manner of all 
French miners except those who work at 
lower and, therefore, hotter levels, where 
they wear nothing but a coat of coal-dust 
and a pair of shoes. 

There were fifteen hundred of his Polish 
fellow citizens there in this one com 
paratively small mine town. They were 
housed in barracks with the minimum 
of food and comfort, and were quite 



"This grave must be for an officer, 
m sieu . You can see it is six inches 
deeper than these others," a Moroccan 
laborer explained amidst the ruination of 
the hills about Verdun. Hundreds of his 
fellows and others from Algeria have been 
digging graves there and elsewhere 
throughout France ever since as well 
as during the war. And as they dig 
they have constantly in their ears the ex- 




AYorkers leaving the steel plant where the author worked at Douai. 



certain that they were not being paid 
according to contract. In French steel 
plants and blast-furnaces most of the 
common labor is done by Italians or 
Belgians. In the brick-yards of the north 
these last come in for the seasonal work, 
returning home in between jobs. In the 
great Schneider steel and artillery works 
at Le Creusot I saw three thousand Chi 
nese handling the shovels or the heaviest 
and hottest pieces of fiery steel. They 
still occupy, under semimilitary super 
vision, the barracks originally built for 
them in war time. The chances are 
hardly good, however, for their return to 
China, judging from the air of success 
won by many of them as the result of 
their present earning capacities as com 
pared with those they enjoyed in China. 



plosions of the great shells being searched 
out and set off by their companions. 
These laborers are perhaps not to be 
called foreigners, since they are born 
under the French Colonial flag. Certain 
ly, they make the natural backbone of 
the nondescript gangs which clear away 
the brickbats and debris in the devastated 
regions. Nevertheless, they all bring to 
industrial France much the same problem 
as do the others who have come by thou 
sands from various parts of Europe, in 
cluding Spain and Portugal. Except for 
the several thousands of British "Tom 
mies" recently set to work near their old 
trenches, all these tend to depress the 
status of the less skilled groups of French- 
born workers. Like the Italians in Amer 
ica, they are slow to identify their in- 




A typical blast-furnace at Longwy, in the iron country of France, near the boundaries of Alsace-Lorraine 

and Luxembourg. 

terests with those of the native workers: ket, there to find higher bidders for their 

their homes are so near that they do not brawn. 

hesitate to return to them rather than to "Five-a year in Argentine builda 

take active part in any aggressive efforts beeg-a street. Seex-a year in Boston 

to better their conditions. Or they move builda subway. Longa time here except 

on to other parts of the international mar- for go home," so an Italian gang-boss in 




Rolling a big slab into armor-plate at the Schneider plant in Le Creusot. 

Following the conference on limitation of armament, these may need to change their production programme almost 
as much as the Krupp establishment, a visit to which will be described in later articles. 

141 



142 



EUROPE AT WORK 



a big blast-furnace in Longwy, the capi 
tal of France s iron country, gave me the 
high-spots of his lifelong and world-wide 
attempt to dispose of his muscular abili 
ties. 

How long all his compatriots and their 
non-French friends will stay in France 
after all the "duds" have been exploded, 



proper lengths almost miles of heavy steel 
beams for the factory s extension. For 
it was they who had applied the torch 
the acetylene torch to all the steel 
stanchions of the old factory the week 
before the "Tommies" had driven them 
out in October, 1918. All during the war 
they had run an army bakery near the 




Starting the pork cutlets to the Paris table from the farming towns. 



all the graves dug, and all the ruined 
railway-stations and all the six hundred 
thousand destroyed homes repaired or 
rebuilt, will depend upon that question 
of France s attitude toward her new and 
changed industrial future which we are 
reserving. In any event, the presence of 
these outsiders brings to France, just as 
it has brought to us here in America, a 
threat against that long-standing unity of 
French life which has come from the un 
disturbed unity of the national blood. 

At least one of these outsiders I am 
sure France will find it hard to lose. He 
is an Englishman who, oddly enough, was 
happy to be the leader of our gang that 
operated the big saw in the steel plant 
there at Douai. In a way it was the Ger 
mans that kept us busy cutting into 



place where we stood. After running 
away to sea as a lad and swearing or 
fighting for either military or "social" 
purposes all over the seven j seas, my 
Tom had entered the town with his 
friends, seen the girl he had been looking 
for, and now - 

"Well, blime but twill tike a bloody 
fine job to get me awye from ere now 
unless I can tike er along!" 

He can probably be depended upon to 
co-operate with his French brothers-in- 
law to oppose such efforts to reduce 
salaries as are now worrying the French 
workers in mine and factory. Some 
thousands of other foreign-born fellow 
workers can t. In any event, France can 
not get along without them, even though 
they may become dangerously discon- 



EUROPE AT WORK 



143 



tented. Even if France s raw materials 
had seen no increase from the war, she 
would still be in need of "hands." For 
too many pairs of hands born in her homes 
and trained in her schools and factories 
lie rotting beneath those battle-fields. No 
country responsible for production can 
easily spare hands to the number of one 



been maintained as wide as before the 
war, wages having kept up about even 
with the high cost of living. But to 
day an American worker of correspond 
ing equipment would find that margin 
a pretty narrow one. Apparently the 
French workers also find it so. At any 
rate, the government had recently to 




Everybody works in St. Etienne, the centre of some of France s oldest industries. 
But the margin between outgo and income is not wide now and was not before the war. 



million eight hundred thousand pairs ! 
Especially when that represents of all her 
possessors of the hands of fighting age 
the huge proportion of 53 per cent ! Least 
of all a country that has suffered for years 
from a falling birth-rate and a decrease 
of native population ! 

Under normal conditions this huge lack 
of man-power can be expected to bring a 
somewhat higher valuation to the brawn 
and brain of the native worker-group. 
As during the fourteenth century in Eng 
land when the Black Death took off half 
the population, so those graves at Ver 
dun, it must be said with sadness, are cer 
tain sooner or later unless the foreign- 
born interfere to widen somewhat the 
margin between income and outgo for the 
survivors. In general that margin has 



send about forty thousand troops to that 
textile region of Lille, Roubaix, and Tur- 
coing when the workers opposed the ef 
forts to reduce their rates. 

"Lemme tell ye my experience!" as 
the workers say. My estaminet, or 
boarding -house -and -bar, about thirty 
miles from Lille, represented the lowest 
level of French laborers: the rung next 
lower in the ladder would have taken me 
among the town s assortment of Italians 
and Spaniards. Most of us paid virtually 
half our week s earnings for our week s 
board and bed. The combination of 
these daily necessities purchased by this 
half-day s work is hardly as good as I 
bought here for nearer a third of an eight- 
hour turn. The proprietor worked at the 
same steel plant with us. He charged us 



144 



EUROPE AT WORK 



extra if we had single instead of double 
beds. But I m sure, single or double, none 
of us lacked for company! The first 
morning I tried to leave them all at home 
but the first worker I met flicked one off 
my lapel ! Every morning we took our 
turn with the landlady in washing our 
faces and brushing our hair at the pump 
placed in a glass-covered kitchen-court in 
the centre of the house with a half-par 
tition separating us from the very odor 
iferous toilet. In going up-stairs past the 
corner where the dog and the garbage-pail 
slept together, it was almost necessary to 
wait for the flies to get out of the way. 
At the table in the rear of the barroom 
and, therefore, near the kitchen we had 
to fight flies with one hand while we took 
care of our food or drink with the other. 

Altogether, it struck me as about the 
worst place encountered to date. But 
the estaminet where I later worked as a 
miner a few miles from the destroyed 
mines of Lens was worse. The combina 
tion of cows, chickens, rabbits, babies, 
boarders, and barnyard was too awful 
to permit accurate description. But the 
landlord there did give a service I d never 
encountered before. When after the 
day s work below ground I told my buddy 
that I d wash his back, meaning that I 
hoped that he would take care of my own, 
he answered: 

"Ah, no, m sieu , it is not necessary. 
Here that is done for us all and without 



charge by m sieu the landlord himself ! " 

Sure enough, at the appointed moment 
a whistle brought him to us ready and 
quick to take soap and rag in his experi 
enced hands ! 

After paying for such meagre though 
friendly arrangements and at this board 
ing-house I slept, or at least tried to 
sleep, in the same bed with a young 
worker along with four others in the same 
room the pay left over does not go very 
far. A suit of overalls costs about a day 
and a half of work or twelve muscle- 
hours. A pair of shoes half-soled takes 
about three-quarters of a day s earning 
power. 

If this represents approximately the 
same margin as that before the war, then 
the conclusion is inevitable that the mar 
gin must have been narrow then. 

But as nearly as I can judge this nar 
rowness of margin is also true and has 
been true since long before the war 
for the employer, too. And it has been 
true, also, for the French people as a 
whole. It goes back to the age of French 
geography. Take the country s equip 
ment of coal-veins and coal-mines, for 
instance. . . . 

But about that and similar considera 
tions and their influence on the French 
worker and the French citizen also the 
challenge presented to French life by the 
change in that equipment following the 
war about all that a little later. 



[The second article by Whiting Williams on " Europe at Work " will appear in the March number.] 




Street laborers fixing the pavement in the heart of Paris, near the 

Opera. 



Leaves from My Autobiography 

FIFTY-SIX YEARS WITH THE NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD 

BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 



[FOURTH PAPER] 



H 



EREDITY has much 
to do with a man s 
career. The village of 
Peekskill-on- the-Hud- 
son, about forty miles 
from New York, was 
in the early days the 
market-town of a large 
section of the surrounding country, ex 
tending over to the State of Connecticut. 
It was a farming region, and its products 
destined for New York City were shipped 
by sloops on the Hudson from the wharfs 
at Peekskill, and the return voyage 
brought back the merchandise required 
by the country. 

My father and his brother owned the 
majority of the sloops engaged in this, at 
that time, almost the only form of trans 
portation. The sloops were succeeded by 
steamboats in which my people were also 
interested. When Commodore Vanderbilt 
entered into active rivalry with the other 
steamboat lines between New York and 
Albany, the competition became very 
serious. Newer and faster boats were rap 
idly built. These racers would reach the 
Bay of Peekskill in the late afternoon, 
and the younger population of the village 
would be on the banks of the river, en 
thusiastically applauding their favorites. 
Among well-known boats whose names 
and achievements excited as much in 
terest and aroused as much partisanship 
and sporting spirit as do now famous race 
horses or baseball champions, were the 
following : Mary Powell, Dean Richmond, 
The Alida, and The Hendrick Hudson. 

I remember as if it were yesterday when 
the Hudson River Railroad had reached 
Peekskill, and the event was locally cele 
brated. The people came in as to a coun 
ty fair from fifty miles around. When 
the locomotive steamed into the station 
many of those present had never seen 
VOL. LXXI. 10 



one. The engineer was continuously 
blowing his whistle to emphasize the great 
event. This produced much consterna 
tion and confusion among the horses, as 
all farmers were there with their families 
in carriages or wagons. 

I recall one team of young horses which 
was driven to frenzy; their owner was 
unable to control them, but he kept them 
on the road while they ran away with a 
wild dash over the hills. In telling this 
story, as illustrating how recent is railway 
development in the United States, at a 
dinner abroad, I stated that as far as I 
knew and believed, those horses were so 
frightened that they could not be stopped 
and were still running. A very successful 
and serious-minded captain of industry 
among the guests sternly rebuked me by 
saying: "Sir, that is impossible; horses 
were never born that could run for twen 
ty-five years without stopping." Amer 
ican exaggeration was not so well known 
among our friends on the other side then 
as it is now. 

As we boys of the village were gathered 
on the banks of the Hudson cheering our 
favorite steamers, or watching with eager 
interest the movements of the trains, a 
frequent discussion would be about our 
ambitions in life. Every young fellow 
would state a dream which he hoped but 
never expected to be realized. I was 
charged by my companions with having 
the greatest imagination and of painting 
more pictures in the skies than any of 
them. This was because I stated that in 
politics (for I was a great admirer of 
William H. Seward, then senator from 
New York) I expected to be a United 
States senator, and in business (because 
then the largest figure in the business world 
was Commodore Vanderbilt) I hoped to 
become president of the Hudson River 
Railroad. It is one of the strangest inci- 



146 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

dents of what seemed the wild imaginings most remarkable men our country has 

of a village boy that in the course of long produced. He was endowed with won- 

years both these expectations were real- derful foresight, grasp of difficult situa- 

ized. tions, ability to see opportunities before 

When I entered the service of the rail- others, to solve serious problems, and with 
road on the first of January, 1866, the the courage of his convictions. He had 
Vanderbilt system consisted of the Hud- little education or early advantages, but 
son River and Harlem Railroads, the Har- was eminently successful in everything he 
lem ending at Chatham, 128 miles, and undertook. As a boy on Staten Island 
the Hudson River at Albany, 140 miles he foresaw that upon transportation de- 
long. The Vanderbilt system now covers pended the settlement, growth, and pros- 
20,000 miles. The total railway mileage perity of this nation. He began with a 
of the whole United States at that time small boat running across the harbor from 
was 36,000, and now it is 261,000 miles. Staten Island to New York. Very early 

My connection with the New York in his career he acquired a steamboat and 
Central Railroad covers practically the in a few years was master of Long Island 
whole period of railway construction, ex- Sound. He then extended his operations 
pansion, and development in the United to the Hudson River and speedily acquired 
States. It is a singular evidence of the the dominating ownership in boats corn- 
rapidity of our country s growth and of peting between New York and Albany, 
the way in which that growth has steadily When gold was discovered in California 
followed the rails, that all this develop- he started a line on the Atlantic side of 
ment of States, of villages growing into the Isthmus of Darien and secured from 
cities, of scattered communities becoming the government of Nicaragua the privi- 
great manufacturing centres, of an inter- lege of crossing the Isthmus for a trans- 
nal commerce reaching proportions where portation system through its territory, 
it has greater volume than the foreign and then established a line of steamers on 
interchanges of the whole world, has come the Pacific to San Francisco. In a short 
about during a period covered by the of- time the old-established lines, both on the 
ficial career of a railroad man who is still Atlantic and the Pacific, were compelled to 
in the service: an attorney in 1866, a sell out to him. Then he entered the trans- 
vice-president in 1882, president in 1885, atlantic trade, with steamers to Europe, 
chairman of the board of directors in With that vision which is a gift and 
1899, and still holds that office. cannot be accounted for, he decided that 

There is no such record in the country the transportation work of the future was 

for continuous service with one company, on land and in railroads. He abandoned 

which during the whole period has been the sea, and his first enterprise was the 

controlled by one family. This service of purchase of the New York and Harlem 

more than half a century has been in Railroad, which was only one hundred 

every way satisfactory. It is a pleasure and twenty-eight miles long. The road 

to see the fourth generation, inheriting was bankrupt and its road-bed and equip- 

the ability of the father, grandfather, and ment going from bad to worse. The 

great-grandfather, still active in the man- commodore reconstructed the line, re- 

agement. equipped it, and by making it serviceable 

I want to say that in thus linking my to its territory increased its traffic and 

long relationship with the railroads to turned its business from deficiency into 

this marvellous development, I do not profit. This was in 1864. The commo- 

claim to have been better than the other dore became president, and his son, Wil- 

railway officers who during this time have liam H. Vanderbilt, vice-president. He 

performed their duties to the best of their saw that the extension of the Harlem was 

ability. I wish also to pay tribute to the not advisable, and so secured the Hudson 

men of original genius, of vision and dar- River Railroad, running from New York 

ing, to whorh so much is due in the ex- to Albany, and became its president in 

pansion and improvement of the Amer- 1865. It was a few months after this 

ican railway systems. when he and his son invited me to become 

Commodore Vanderbilt was one of the a member of their staff. 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 147 

The station of the Harlem Railroad in judgment he would render his decision, 

the city of New York was at that time at No one knew by what process he arrived 

Fourth Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, at these conclusions. They seemed to be 

and that of the Hudson River Railroad at the results as much of inspiration as of 

Chambers Street, near the North River, insight. 

In a few years William H. Vanderbilt The Civil War closed in 1865, and one 

purchased the ground for the Harlem of its lessons had been the necessity for 

Railroad Company, where is now located more railroads. The country had dis- 

the Grand Central Terminal, and by the covered that without transportation its 

acquisition by the New York Central and vast and fertile territories could neither 

Hudson River Railroad of the Harlem be populated nor made productive. 

Railroad the trains of the New York Cen- Every mile of railroad carried settlers, 

tral were brought around into the Grand opened farms, and increased the national 

Central Station. resources and wealth. The economical 

In 1867, two years after Mr. Vander- and critical conditions of the country, 
bilt had acquired the Hudson River Rail- owing to the expansion of the currency 
road, he secured the control of the New and banking conditions, facilitated and 
York Central, which ran from Albany to encouraged vast schemes of railroad con- 
Buffalo. This c control was continued, struction. This and a wild speculation 
through the Lake Shore on one side of resulted in the panic of 1873. Nearly the 
the lakes and the Michigan Central on whole country went bankrupt. The re- 
the other, to Chicago. Subsequently the covery was rapid, and the constructive 
Vanderbilt system was extended to Cin- talent of the Republic saw that the res- 
cinnati and St. Louis. It was thus in toration of credit and prosperity must 
immediate connection with the West and be led by railway solvency. In August, 
Northwest centring in Chicago, and the 1874, Commodore Vanderbilt invited the 
Southwest at Cincinnati and St. Louis, representatives of the other and competi- 
By close connection and affiliation with tive lines to a conference at Saratoga. 
the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Owing, however, to the jealousies and 
Company, the Vanderbilt system was ex- hostilities of the period, only the New 
tended beyond to Mississippi. I became York Central, the Pennsylvania, and the 
director in the New York Central in 1874 Erie railways were represented, 
and in the Chicago and Northwestern in The eastern railway situation was then 
1877. dominated by Commodore Vanderbilt, 

It has been my good fortune to meet Colonel Thomas A. Scott, of the Pennsyl- 

with more or less intimacy many of the vania, and John W. Garrett, of the Balti- 

remarkable men in every department of more and Ohio. Both Scott and Garrett 

life, but I think Commodore Vanderbilt were original men and empire-builders, 

was the most original. I had been well There was neither governmental nor 

acquainted for some years both with the State regulation. The head of a railway 

commodore and his son, William H. system had practically unlimited power 

When I became attorney my relations in the operation of his road. The people 

were more intimate than those usually were so anxious for the construction of 

existing. I was in daily consultation with railways that they offered every possible 

the commodore during the ten years inducement to capital. The result was a 

prior to his death, and with his son from great deal of unprofitable construction 

1866 to 1885, when he died. and immense losses to the promoters. 

The commodore was constantly, be- These able men saw that there was no 
cause of his wealth and power, impor- possibility of railway construction, opera- 
tuned by people who wished to interest tion, and efficiency, with a continuance 
him in their schemes. Most of the great of unrestricted competition. It has taken 
and progressive enterprises of his time from 1874 until 1920 to educate the rail- 
were presented to him. He would listen way men, the shippers, and the govern- 
patiently, ask a few questions, and in a ment to a realization of the fact that 
short time grasp the whole subject. Then transportation facilities required for the 
with wonderful quickness and unerring public necessities can only be had by the 



148 



LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



freest operations and the strictest govern 
ment regulations; that the solution of the 
problem is a system so automatic that 
public arbitration shall decide the justice 
of the demands of labor, and rates be ad 
vanced to meet the decision; and that 
public authority also shall take into con 
sideration the other factors of increased 
expenses and adequate facilities for the 
railroads, and that maintenance and the 
highest efficiency must be preserved and 
also necessary extensions. To satisfy 
and attract capital there must be the as 
surance of a reasonable return upon the 
investment. 

The meeting called by Commodore 
Vanderbilt in 1874, at Saratoga, was an 
epoch-making event. We must remember 
the railway management of the country 
was in the absolute control of about four 
men, two of whom were also largest 
owners of the lines they managed. Fierce 
competition and cutting of rates brought 
on utter demoralization among shippers, 
who could not calculate on the cost of 
transportation, and great favoritism to 
localities and individuals by irresponsible 
freight agents who controlled the rates. 
Under these influences railway earnings 
were fluctuating and uncertain. Im 
provements were delayed and the people 
on the weaker lines threatened with bank 
ruptcy. 

Public opinion, however, believed this 
wild competition to be the only remedy 
for admitted railway evils. As an illus 
tration of the change of public opinion 
and the better understanding of the rail 
way problems, this occurred in the month 
of October, 1920. A committee of ship 
pers and producers representing the 
farmers, manufacturers, and business 
men along a great railway system came 
to see the manager of the railroad and 
said to him: "We have been all wrong 
in the past. Our effort has always been 
for lower rates, regardless of the necessi 
ties of the railways. We have tried to get 
them by seeking bids from competing 
lines for our shipments and by appealing 
to the Interstate Commerce Commission. 
The expenses of the railroads have been 
increased by demands of labor, by con 
stantly rising prices and cost of rails, cars, 
terminals, and facilities, but we have been 
against allowing the railroads to meet 



this increased cost of operation by ade 
quate advances in rates. We now see 
that this course was starving the rail 
roads, and we are suffering for want of 
cars and locomotives to move our traffic 
and terminals to care for it. We are also 
suffering because the old treatment of the 
railroads has frightened capital so that 
the roads cannot get money to maintain 
their lines and make necessary improve 
ments to meet the demands of business. 
We know now that rates make very little 
difference, because they can be absorbed 
in our business. What we must have is 
facilities to transport our products, and 
we want to help the railroads to get 
money and credit, and again we empha 
size our whole trouble is want of cars, 
locomotives, and terminal facilities." 

Happily, public opinion was reflected 
in the last Congress in the passage of the 
Cummins-Esch bill, which is the most 
enlightened and adaptable legislation of 
the last quarter of a century. 

To return to the conference at Sara 
toga, the New York Central, the Pennsyl 
vania, and the Erie came to the conclusion 
that they must have the co-operation of 
the Baltimore and Ohio. As Mr. Garrett, 
president and controlling owner of that 
road, would not come to the conference, 
the members decided that the emergency 
was so great that they must go to him. 
This was probably the most disagreeable 
thing Commodore Vanderbilt ever did. 
The marvellous success of his wonderful 
life had been won by fighting and defeat 
ing competitors. The peril was so great 
that they went as associates, and the visit 
interested the whole country and so en 
larged Mr. Garrett s opinion of his power 
that he rejected their offer and said he 
would act independently. A railway war 
immediately followed, and in a short time 
bankruptcy threatened all lines and none 
more than the Baltimore and Ohio. 

The trunk lines then got together and 
entered into an agreement to stabilize 
rates and carry them into effect. They 
appointed as commissioner Mr. Albert 
Fink, one of the ablest railway men of 
that time. Mr. Fink s administration 
was successful, but the rivalries and jeal 
ousies of the lines and the frequent break 
ing of agreements were too much for one 
man. 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 



149 



The presidents and general managers of 
all the railroads east of Chicago then met 
and formed an association, and this asso 
ciation was a legislative body without any 
legal authority to enforce its decrees. It 
had, however, two effects: the disputes 
which arose were publicly discussed, and 
the merits of each side so completely dem 
onstrated that the decision of the associa 
tion came to be accepted as just and 
right. Then the verdict of the association 
had behind it the whole investment and 
banking community and the press. The 
weight of this was sufficient to compel 
obedience to its decisions by the most 
rebellious member. No executive could 
continue to hold his position while en 
deavoring to break up the association. 

It is one of the most gratifying events 
of my life that my associates in this great 
and powerful association elected me their 
president, and I continued in office until 
the Supreme Court in a momentous de 
cision declared that the railroads came 
under the provision of the Sherman Anti- 
Trust Law and dissolved these associa 
tions in the East, West, and South. 

It was a liberal education of the rail 
way problems to meet the men who be 
came members of this association. Most 
of them left an indelible impression upon 
the railway conditions of the time and of 
the railway policies of the future. All 
were executives of great ability and sev 
eral were rare constructive geniuses. 

In our system there was John Newell, 
president of the Lake Shore and Michigan 
Southern, a most capable and efficient 
manager. Henry B. Ledyard, president 
of the Michigan Central, was admirably 
trained for the great responsibilities which 
he administered so well. There was Wil 
liam Bliss, president of the Boston and Al 
bany, who had built up a line to be one of 
the strongest of the New England group. 
Melville E. Ingalls, president of the 
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. 
Louis, had combined various weak and 
bankrupt roads and made them an effi 
cient organization. He had also reha 
bilitated and put in useful working and 
paying condition the Chesapeake and 
Ohio. 

Ingalls told me a very good story of 
himself. He had left the village in Maine, 
where he was born, and after graduation 



from college and admission to the bar 
had settled in Boston. To protect the 
interests of his clients he had moved to 
Cincinnati, Ohio, and rescued railroad 
properties in which they were interested. 
When his success was complete and he 
had under his control a large and success 
fully working railway system, he made a 
visit to his birthplace. 

One evening he went down to the store 
where the village congress was assem 
bled, sitting on the barrels and the coun 
ter. They welcomed him very cordially, 
and then an inquisitive farmer said to 
him: " Melville, it is reported around 
here that you are getting a salary of nigh 
unto ten thousand dollars a year." 

Mr. Ingalls, who was getting several 
times that amount, modestly admitted 
the ten, which was a prodigious sum in 
that rural neighborhood. Whereupon the 
old farmer voiced the local sentiment by 
saying: "Well, Melville, that shows what 
cheek and circumstances can do for a 
man." 

I recall an incident connected with one 
of the ablest of the executives in our sys 
tem. One day we had a conference of 
rival interests, and many executives were 
there in the effort to secure an adjust 
ment. For this purpose we had an arbi 
trator. After a most exhausting day in 
the battle of wits and experience for ad 
vantages, I arrived home used up, but 
after a half-hour s sleep I awoke refreshed 
and, consulting my diary, found I was 
down for a speech at a banquet at Del- 
monico s that night. 

I arrived late, the intervening time 
being devoted to intensive and rapid 
preparation. I was called early. The 
speech attracted attention and occupied 
a column in the morning s papers. I was 
in bed at eleven o clock and had between 
seven and eight hours refreshing sleep. 

On arriving at our meeting-place the 
next morning one of the best-known presi 
dents took me aside and said: " Chauncey, 
by making speeches such as you did last 
night you are losing the confidence of the 
people. They say you cannot prepare 
such speeches and give proper attention 
to your business." 

"Well," I said to him, "my friend, did 
I lose anything before the arbitrator yes 
terday?" 



150 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

He answered very angrily: "No, you the front of the passengers room. Rob- 
gained entirely too much." erts carefully examined the plans and 

"Well," I then said, "I am very fresh said: "Remove that bay window," and 

this morning. But what did you do last then approved the plan, and Caldwell had 

night?" what he wanted. 

He answered that he was so exhausted Caldwell used to tell of another occa- 

that he went to Delmonico s and ordered sion when on a Western line he had over 

the best dinner possible. Then he went him a very severe and harsh disciplinarian 

on to say: "A friend told me a little game as president. This president was a vio- 

was going on up-stairs, and in a close lent prohibitionist and had heard that 

room filled with tobacco smoke I played Caldwell was a bon-vivant. He sent for 

poker until two o clock and drank several Caldwell to discipline or discharge him. 

high-balls. The result is, I think we bet- After a long and tiresome journey Cald- 

ter postpone this meeting, for I do not well arrived at the president s house. His 

feel like doing anything to-day." first greeting was: "Mr. Caldwell, do you 

"My dear friend," I said, "you will drink?" 

get the credit of giving your whole time Caldwell, wholly unsuspicious, an- 

to business, while I am, by doing what swered: "Thank you, Mr. President; I 

refreshes my mind, discredited, because am awfully tired and will take a little 

it gets into the papers. I shall keep my rye." 

method regardless of consequences." Mr. E. B. Thomas, president of the 

He kept his, and, although much young- Lehigh Valley, was a valuable member of 

er than myself, died years ago. the association. The Baltimore and 

George B. Roberts, president of the Ohio, as usual, had its president, Mr. 
Pennsylvania, was a very wise executive Charles F. Mayer, accompanied by an 
and of all-around ability. Frank Thomp- able staff. The Erie was represented by 
son, vice-president and afterward presi- one of the most capable and genial of its 
dent of the same road, was one of the many presidents, Mr. John King, 
ablest operating officers of his time and King was a capital story-teller, and 
a most delightful personality. Mr. A. J. among them I remember this one: At 
Cassatt was a great engineer and pos- one time he was general manager of the 
sessed rare foresight and vision. He Baltimore and Ohio under John W. Gar- 
brought the Pennsylvania Railroad into rett. In order to raise money for his pro- 
New York City through a tunnel under jected extensions, Garrett had gone to 
the Hudson River, continued the tunnel Europe. The times were financially very 
across the city to the East River and then difficult. Johns Hopkins, the famous phi- 
under the river to connect with the Long lanthropist, died. His immortal monu- 
Island, which he had acquired for his sys- ment is the Johns Hopkins University 
tern. and Medical School. Everybody in 

D. W. Caldwell, president of the New Baltimore attended the funeral. Among 

York, Chicago, and St. Louis, added to the leading persons present was another 

railway ability wit and humor. He told John King, a banker, who was Hopkins s 

a good story on Mr. George Roberts, executor. A messenger-boy rushed in 

Caldwell was at one time division super- with a cable for John King, and the boy 

intendent under President Roberts. He handed it to John King, the executor, who 

had obtained permission to build a new sat at the head of the mourners. He read 

station-house, in whose plan and equip- it and then passed it along so that each 

ment he was deeply interested. It was one could read it until it reached John 

Mr. Roberts s habit, by way of showing King, of the Baltimore and Ohio, who sat 

his subordinates that he was fully aware at the foot of the line. The cable read as 

of their doings, to either add to or take follows: "Present my sympathies to the 

away something from their projects. family and my high appreciation of Mr. 

Caldwell prepared a station-house ac- Johns Hopkins, and borrow from the 

cording to his ideas, and, to prevent Rob- executor all you can at five per cent, 

erts from making any essential changes Garrett." 

he added an unnecessary bay window to Commodore Vanderbilt was succeeded 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 151 

in the presidency by his son, William H. gether and formed the Trunk Line Asso- 

Vanderbilt, who was then past forty years ciation. 

old and had been a successful farmer on New York City has not always remem- 
Staten Island. He was active in neigh- bered how intimately bound is its pros- 
borhood affairs and in politics. This perity with that of the great railroad 
brought him in close contact with the whose terminal is within its city limits, 
people and was of invaluable benefit to Mr. Vanderbilt found that the railroad 
him when he became president of a great and its management were fiercely assailed 
railroad corporation. He also acquired in the press, in the legislature, and in 
familiarity in railway management as a municipal councils. He became con- 
director of one on Staten Island. vinced that no matter how wise or just or 

William H. Vanderbilt was a man of fair the railroad might be in the interests 
great ability, and his education made him of every community and every business 
in many ways an abler man than his which were so dependent upon its trans- 
father for the new conditions he had to portation, the public would not submit 
meet. But, like many a capable son of to any great line being owned by one man. 
a famous father, he did not receive the The Vanderbilt promptness in arriving at 
credit which was due him because of the a decision was immediately shown. He 
overshadowing reputation of the commo- called upon Mr. Pierpont Morgan, and 
dore. Nevertheless, on several occasions through him a syndicate, which Morgan 
he exhibited the highest executive quali- formed, took and sold the greater part 
ties. of Mr. Vanderbilt s New York Central 

One of the great questions of the time stock. The result was that the New York 
was the duty of railroads to the cities in Central from that time was owned by the 
which they terminated, and the decision public. It is a tribute to the justice and 
of the roads south of New York to have fairness of the Vanderbilt management 
lower rates to Philadelphia and Balti- that, though the management has been 
more. New York felt so secure in the submitted every year since to a stock- 
strength of its unrivalled harbor and holders vote, there has practically never 
superior shipping facilities that the mer- been any opposition to a continuance of 
chants and financiers were not alarmed, the Vanderbilt policy and management. 
Very soon, however, there was such a Among the most important of the many 
diversion of freight from New-York as to problems during Mr. Vanderbilt s presi- 
threaten very seriously its export trade dency was the question of railway com- 
and the superiority of its port. The com- missions, both in national and State gov- 
mercial leaders of the city called upon ernments. In my professional capacity 
Mr. Vanderbilt, who after the conference of general counsel, and in common with 
said to them: "I will act in perfect har- representatives of other railroads, I de- 
mony with you and will see that the New livered argumentative addresses against 
York Central Railroad protects New them. The discussions converted me, 
York City regardless of the effect upon and I became convinced of their neces- 
its finances." The city representatives sity. The rapidly growing importance of 
said: "That is very fine, and we will railway transportation had created the 
stand together." public opinion that railway management 

Mr. Vanderbilt immediately issued a should be under the control and super- 
statement that the rates to the seaboard vision of some public body; that all pas- 
should be the same to all ports, and that sengers or shippers, or those whose land 
the New York Central would meet the was taken for construction and develop- 
lowest rates to any port by putting the ment, should have an appeal from the 
same in effect on its own lines. The re- decision of the railway managers to the 
suit was the greatest railroad war since government through a government com- 
railroads began to compete. Rates fell mission. 

fifty per cent, and it was a question of the As soon as I was convinced that corn- 
survival of the fittest. Commerce re- missions were necessary for the protection 
turned to New York, and the competing of both the public and the railroads, ] 
railroads, to avoid bankruptcy, got to- presented this view to Mr. Vanderbilt. 



152 



LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



The idea was contrary to his education, 
training, and opinion. It seemed to me 
that it was either a commission or gov 
ernment ownership, and that the com 
mission, if strengthened as a judicial 
body, would be as much of a protection 
to the bond and stock holders and the 
investing public as to the general public 
and the employees. Mr. Vanderbilt, al 
ways open-minded, adopted this view 
and supported the commission system 
and favored legislation in its behalf. 

In 1883 Mr. Vanderbilt decided, on ac 
count of illness, to retire from the presi 
dency, and Mr. James H. Rutter was 
elected his successor. Mr. Rutter was 
the ablest freight manager in the country, 
but his health gave way under the exac 
tions of executive duties, and I acted 
largely for him during his years of ser 
vice. He died early in 1885, and I was 
elected president. 

The war with the West Shore had been 
on for several years, with disastrous re 
sults to both companies. The Ontario 
and Western, which had large terminal 
facilities near Jersey City on the west side 
of the Hudson, ran for fifty miles along 
the river before turning into the interior. 
At its reorganization it had ten millions of 
cash in the treasury. With this as a basis, 
its directors decided to organize a new 
railroad, to be called the West Shore, and 
parallel the New York Central through its 
entire length to Buffalo. As the New 
York Central efficiently served this whole 
territory, the only business the West 
Shore could get must be taken away from 
the Central. To attract this business it 
offered at all stations lower rates. To re 
tain and hold its business the New York 
Central met those rates at all points so 
that financially the West Shore went into 
the hands of a receiver. 

The New York Central was sustained 
because of its superior facilities and con 
nections and established roadway and 
equipment. But all new and necessary 
construction was abandoned, mainte 
nance was neglected, and equipment run 
down under forced reduction of expenses. 

I had very friendly personal relations 
with the managers and officers of the 
West Shore, and immediately presented 
to them a plan for the absorption of their 
line, instead of continuing the struggle 
until absolute exhaustion. Mr. Vander 



bilt approved of the plan, as did the finan 
cial interests represented by Mr. Pier- 
pont Morgan. 

By the reorganization and consolida 
tion of the two companies the New York 
Central began gradually to establish its 
efficiency and to work on necessary im 
provements. As evidence of the growth 
of the railway business of the country, 
the New York Central proper has added 
since the reorganization an enormous 
amount of increased trackage, and has 
practically rebuilt, as a necessary second 
line, the West Shore and used fully its 
very large terminal facilities on the Jersey 
side of the Hudson. 

During his active life Mr. Vanderbilt 
was very often importuned to buy a New 
York daily newspaper. He was person 
ally bitterly assailed and his property put 
in peril by attacks in the press. He al 
ways rejected the proposition to buy one. 
"If," he said, "I owned a newspaper, I 
would have all the others united in at 
tacking me, and they would ruin me, but 
by being utterly out of the journalistic 
field, I find that taking the press as a 
whole I am fairly well treated. I do not 
believe any great interest dealing with 
the public can afford to have an organ." 

Colonel Scott of the Pennsylvania 
thought otherwise, but the result of his ex 
periment demonstrated the accuracy of 
Mr. Vanderbilt s judgment. Scott se 
lected as editor of the New York World one 
of the most brilliant journalistic writers 
of his time, William H. Hurlburt. When 
it became known, however, that the World 
belonged to Colonel Scott, Hurlburt s 
genius could not save it. The circulation 
ran down to a minimum, the advertising 
followed suit, and the paper was losing 
enormously every month. Mr. Joseph 
Pulitzer, with the rare insight and fore 
sight which distinguished him, saw what 
could be made of the World, with its privi 
leges in the Associated Press, and so he 
paid Scott the amount he had originally 
invested, and took over and made a phe 
nomenal success of this bankrupt and ap 
parently hopeless enterprise. 

I tried during my presidency to make 
the New York Central popular with the 
public without impairing its efficiency. 
The proof of the success of this was that 
without any effort on my part and against 
my published wishes the New York dele- 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 153 

gation in the national Republican con- the directors advised me to take an abso- 

vention in 1888, with unprecedented lute rest and a trip abroad, 

unanimity, presented me as New York s I sent word over the line that I wanted 

candidate for president. I retired from everything settled before leaving, and to 

the contest because of the intense hos- go without care. A large committee ap- 

tility to railroad men in the Western peared in my office a few mornings after. 

States. Those States could not under- To my surprise there was a representative 

stand how this hostility, which they had from every branch of the service, pas- 

to railroads and everybody connected senger and freight conductors, brakemen, 

with them, had disappeared in the great shopmen, yardmen, switchmen, and so 

State of New York. forth. These had always come through 

During my presidency the labor ques- their local unions. I rapidly took up and 

tion was very acute, and strikes, one after adjusted what each one of the representa- 

another, common. The universal method tives of his order claimed, and then a 

of meeting the demands of labor at that man said: "I represent the locomotive 

time was to have a committee of em- engineers." 

ployees or a leader present the grievances My response was: " You have no busi- 

to the division superintendent or the ness here, and I will have nothing to do 

superintendent of motive power. These with you. I will see no one of the loco- 

omcers were arbitrary and hostile, as the motive engineers, except their accredited 

demands, if acceded to, led to an increase chief officer." 

of expenses which would make them un- "Well," he said, "Mr. President, there 
popular with the management. They is a new condition on the road, a new 
had a difficult position. The employees order of labor called the Knights of Labor, 
often came to the conclusion that the We are going to absorb all the other 
only way for them to compel the atten- unions and have only one. The only ob- 
tion of the higher officers and directors stacle in the way is the locomotive en- 
was to strike. gineers, who refuse to give up their broth- 

Against the judgment of my associates erhood and come in with us, but if you 

in the railway management I decided to will recognize us only, that will force them 

open my doors to any individual or com- to join. Now, the Brotherhood intends 

mittee of the company. At first I was to present a demand very soon, and if 

overwhelmed with petty grievances, but you will recognize our order, the Knights 

when the men understood that their of Labor, and not the Brotherhood of 

cases would be immediately heard and Locomotive Engineers, we will take care 

acted upon, they decided among them- of what they demand and all others from 

selves not to bring to me any matters un- every department for two years, and you 

less they regarded them of vital impor- can take your trip to Europe in perfect 

tance. In this way many of the former peace of mind. If you do not do this 

irritations, which led ultimately to serious there will be trouble." 

results, no longer appeared. I declined to deal with them as repre- 

I had no trouble with labor unions, and sentatives of the Brotherhood of Loco- 
found their representatives in heart-to- motive Engineers. Then their spokes- 
heart talks very generally reasonable, man said: "As this is so serious to you, 
Mr. Arthur, chief of the Brotherhood of we will give you to-night to think it over 
Locomotive Engineers, had many of the and come back in the morning." 
qualities of a statesman. He built up his I immediately sent for the superin- 
organization to be the strongest of its tendent of motive power and directed 
kind among the labor unions. I enjoyed him to have posted by telegraph in every 
his confidence and friendship for many roundhouse that the request of the Broth- 
years, erhood of Locomotive Engineers, of which 

There never was but one strike on the this committee had told me, had been 

New York Central during my adminis- granted. The next morning the com- 

tration, and that one occurred while I mittee returned, and their leader said: 

was absent in Europe. Its origin and "Well, Mr. President, you have beaten 

sequel were somewhat dramatic. I had us and we are going home." 

nearly broken down by overwork, and Then I appealed to them, saying: "I 



154 



LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



am a pretty badly broken-up man. The 
doctors tell me that if I can have three 
months without care I will be as good as 
ever. You must admit that I have at all 
times been absolutely square with you 
and tried to adjust fairly the matters you 
have brought to me. Now, will you take 
care of me while I am absent?" 

They answered unanimously: "Mr. 
President, we will, and you can be con 
fident there will be no trouble on the 
New York Central while you are away." 

I sailed with my mind free from anx 
iety, hopeful and happy, leaving word to 
send me no cables or letters. After a 
visit to the Passion Play at Ober-Ammer- 
gau in Upper Bavaria, I went into the 
Austrian Tyrol. One night, at a hotel in 
Innsbruck, Mr. Graves, a very enterpris 
ing reporter of a New York paper, sud 
denly burst into my room and said: "I 
have been chasing you all over Europe 
for an interview on the strike on the New 
York Central." This was my first in 
formation of the strike. 

As soon as I had left New York and 
was on the ocean, the young and ambi 
tious officer who was at the head of the 
operations of the railroad and disap 
proved of my method of dealing with the 
employees discharged every member of 
the committee who had called upon me. 
Of course, this was immediately followed 
by a sympathetic outburst in their behalf 
and the sympathizers were also dis 
charged. Then the whole road was tied 
up by a universal strike. After millions 
had been lost in revenue by the railroad 
and in wages by the men, the strike was 
settled, as usual, by a compromise, but it 
gave to the Knights of Labor the control, 
except as to the Brotherhood of Loco 
motive Engineers. The early settlement 
of the strike was largely due to the loyalty 
and courage of the Brotherhood. 

During my presidency I was much 
criticised by the public, but never by the 
directors of the company, because of my 
activities in politics and on the platform. 
For some time, when the duties of my 
office became most onerous, and I was in 
the habit of working all day and far into 
the night, I discovered that this concen 
trated attention to my railroad problems 
and intense and continuous application 
to their solution was not only impairing 
my efficiency but my health. As I was 



not a sport, and never had time for games 
or horses, I decided to try a theory, which 
was that one s daily duties occupied cer 
tain cells of the brain while the others re 
mained idle ; that the active cells became 
tired by overwork while others lost their 
power in a measure by idleness; that if, 
after a reasonable use of the working cells, 
you would engage in some other intellec 
tual occupation, it would furnish as much 
relief or recreation as outdoor exercise of 
any kind. I had a natural facility for 
quick and easy preparation for public 
speaking, and so adopted that as my 
recreation. The result proved entirely 
successful. 

After a hard day s work, on coming 
home late in the afternoon, I accustomed 
myself to take a short nap of about fif 
teen minutes. Then I \vould look over 
my tablets to see if any engagement was 
on to speak in the evening, and, if so, the 
preparation of the speech might be easy, 
or, if difficult, cause me to be late at 
dinner. These speeches were made sev 
eral times a week, and mainly at banquets 
on closing of the sessions of conventions 
of trade organizations of the country. 
The reciprocal favors and friendship of 
these delegates transferred to the New 
York Central a large amount of competi 
tive business. 

While I was active in politics I issued 
strict orders that every employee should 
have the same liberty, and that any at 
tempt on the part of their superior officers 
to influence or direct the political action 
of a subordinate would be cause for dis 
missal. This became so well known that 
the following incident, which was not un 
common, will show the result. 

As I was taking the train the morning 
after having made a political speech at 
Utica, the yardmaster, an Irishman, 
greeted me very cordially and then said: 
"We were all up to hear ye last night, 
boss, but this year we are agin ye." 

The position which this activity gave 
me in my own party, and the fact that, 
unlike most employers, I protected the 
employees in their liberty of political ac 
tion, gave me immense help in protecting 
the company from raids and raiders. 

We had a restaurant in the station at 
Utica which had deteriorated. The situa 
tion was called to my attention, in order 
to have the evils corrected, by the receipt 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 155 

of the following letter from an indignant operating officer. Having gone directly 

passenger: "Dear Mr. President: You from the college to a responsible position, 

are the finest after-dinner speaker in the he naturally did not understand or know 

world. I would give a great deal to hear how to handle men until after long ex- 

the speech you would make after you had perience. He showed that want of experi- 

dined in the restaurant of your station at ence in a very drastic way in the strike of 

Utica . " 1 89 2 and its settlement . B eing very arbi- 

After thirteen years of service as presi- trary, he had his own standards. For in 
dent I was elected chairman of the board stance, I was appealed to by many old 
of directors. Mr. Samuel R. Callaway brakemen and conductors whom he had 
succeeded me as president, and on his discharged. I mention one particularly, 
resignation was succeeded by Mr. William who had been on the road for twenty- 
H. Newman, and upon his resignation five years. Voorhees s answer to me was: 
Mr. W. C. Brown became president. "These old employees are devoted to 
Following Mr. Brown, Mr. Alfred H. Toucey, my predecessor, and for efficient 
Smith was elected and is still in office, work I must have loyalty to me." 
All these officers were able and did excel- I reversed his order and told him I 
lent service, but I want to pay special would begin to discharge, if necessary, the 
tribute to Mr. Smith. latest appointments, including himself, 

Mr. Smith is one of the ablest operat- keeping the older men in the service who 

ing officers of his time. When the United had proved their loyalty to the company 

States Government took over the rail- by the performance of their duties, 

roads he was made regional director of Mr. Voorhees became afterward vice- 

the government for railroads in this terri- president and then president of the Phila- 

tory. He received the highest commen- delphia and Reading. With experience 

dation from the government and from added to his splendid equipment and un- 

the owners of the railroads for the admi- usual ability he became one of the best 

rable way in which he had maintained executives in the country, 

them and their efficiency during the gov- Mr. John M. Toucey, who had come 

ernment control. up from the bottom to be general super- 

On the surrender of the railroads by intendent and general manager, was a 
the government, Mr. Smith was welcomed hard student. His close contact with his 
back by liis directors to the presidency fellow employees gave him wonderful con- 
of the New York Central. The splendid trol over men. He supplemented his 
condition of the Central and its allied practical experience by hard study and 
lines is largely due to him. During his was very well educated. Though self- 
service as regional director the difficult taught, he had no confidence in the grad- 
task of the presidency of the New York uates of the professional schools. 
Central was very ably performed by Mr. In selecting an assistant, one of them 
William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. Though the told me that Toucey subjected him to a 
youngest among the executive officers of rigid examination and then said: "What 
the railroads of the country, he was at is your railroad career?" 
the same time one of the best. "I began at the bottom," answered the 

Among the efficient officers who have assistant, "and have filled every office on 

served the New York Central during the my old road up to division superinten- 

time I have been with the company, I re- dent, which I have held for so many years." 

member many on account of their worth "That is very fine," said Toucey, "but 

and individuality. H. Walter Webb are you a graduate of the Troy Technical 

came into the railway service from an School?" 

active business career. With rare intelli- "No, sir." 

gence and industry he rapidly rose in the "Of the Stevens Tech?" 

organization and was a very capable and "No, sir." 

efficient officer. There was F. W. Voor- "Of Massachusetts Tech?" 

hees, the general superintendent, an un- "No, sir." 

usually young man for such a responsible "Then you are engaged," said Toucey. 

position. He was a graduate of Troy Mr. Toucey was well up-to-date, and 

Fob/technical School and a very able differed from a superintendent on another 



156 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

road in which I was a director. The sub- senger, and mark the amount on the stub 

urban business of that line had increased from which the receipt was torn. Soon 

very rapidly, but there were not enough after a committee of conductors called 

trains or cars to accommodate the pas- upon Mr. Bissell and asked for an increase 

sengers. The overcrowding caused many of pay. "Why," Bissell asked, "boys, 

serious discomforts. I had the superin- why do you ask for that now?" 

tendent called before the board of direc- After a rather embarrassing pause the 

tors, and said to him: " Why don t you oldest conductor said: "Mr. Bissell, you 

immediately put on more trains and have been a conductor yourself." 

cars?" This half-century and six years during 

"Why, Mr. Depew," he answered, which I have been in the service of the 

"what would be the use? They are set- New York Central Railroad has been a 

tling so fast along the line that the people time of unusual pleasure and remarkably 

would fill them up and overcrowd them free from friction or trouble. In this 

just as before." intimate association with the railroad 

I was going over the line on an impor- managers of the United States I have 

tant tour at one time with John Bur- found the choicest friendships and the 

roughs, superintendent of the Western most enduring. The railroad manager is 

Division. We were on his pony engine, rarely a large stockholder, but he is a 

with seats at the front, alongside the most devoted and efficient officer of his 

boiler, so that we could look directly on company. He gives to its service, for the 

the track. Burroughs sat on one side and public, the employees, the investors, and 

I on the other. He kept on commenting the company, all that there is in him. In 

aloud by way of dictating to his stenog- too many instances, because these officers 

rapher, who sat behind him, and praise do not get relief from their labor by varia- 

and criticism followed rapidly. I heard tion of their work, they die exhausted be- 

him utter in his monotonous way: fore their time. 

" Switch misplaced, we will all be in hell The story graphically told by one of 

in a minute," and then a second after- the oldest and ablest of railroad men, Mr. 

ward continue: "We jumped the switch Marvin Hughitt, for a long time presi- 

and are on the track again. Discharge dent and now chairman of the Chicago 

that switchman." and Northwestern Railway, illustrates 

Major Enos Priest was for fifty years what the railroad does for the country, 

a division superintendent. It was a de- Twenty-five years ago the Northwestern 

lightful experience to go with him over extended its lines through northern Iowa, 

his division. He knew everybody along Mr. Hughitt drove over the proposed ex- 

the line, was general confidant in their tension on a buckboard. The country was 

family troubles and arbiter in neighbor- sparsely settled because the farmers could 

hood disputes. He knew personally every not get their products to the market; the 

employee and his characteristics and do- land was selling at six dollars per acre. 

mestic situation. The wives were gen- In a quarter of a century prosperous 

erally helping him to keep their husbands villages and cities had grown up along 

from making trouble. To show his con- the line, and farms were selling at over 

trol and efficiency, he was always pre- three hundred dollars per acre. While 

dieting labor troubles and demonstrating this enormous profit from six dollars per 

that the reason they did not occur was acre to over three hundred has come to 

because of the way in which he handled the settlers who held on to their farms 

the situation. because of the possibilities produced by 

Mr. C. M. Bissell was a very efficient the railroad, the people whose capital 

superintendent, and for a long time in built the road must remain satisfied with 

charge of the Harlem Railroad. He told a moderate return by way of dividend 

me this incident. We decided to put in and interest, and without any enhance- 

effect as a check upon the conductors a ment of their capital, but those investors 

system by which a conductor, when a fare should be protected by the State and the 

was paid on the train, must tear from a people to whom their capital expenditures 

book a receipt which he gave to the pas- have been such an enormous benefit. 

(To be continued.) 



America and I 



BY ANZIA YEZIERSKA 

Author of "Hungry Hearts" 



A 



S one of the dumb, 
voiceless ones I speak. 
One of the millions of 
immigrants beating, 
beating out their 
hearts at your gates 
for a breath of under 
standing. 

Ach ! America ! From the other end 
of the earth from where I came, America 
was a land of living hope, woven of 
dreams, aflame with longing and desire. 

Choked for ages in the airless oppres 
sion of Russia, the Promised Land rose up 
wings for my stifled spirit sunlight 
burning through my darkness freedom 
singing to me in my prison deathless 
songs tuning prison-bars into strings of a 
beautiful violin. 

I arrived in America. My young, 
strong body, my heart and soul pregnant 
with the unlived lives of generations clam 
oring for expression. 

What my mother and father and their 
mother and father never had a chance to 
give out in Russia, I would give out in 
America. The hidden sap of centuries 
would find release; colors that never saw 
light songs that died unvoiced ro 
mance that never had a chance to blossom 
in the black life of the Old World. 

In the golden land of flowing oppor 
tunity I was to find my work that was 
denied me in the sterile village of my 
forefathers. Here I was to be free from 
the dead drudgery for bread that held me 
down in Russia. For the first time in 
America, I d cease to be a slave of the 
belly. I d be a creator, a giver, a human 
being ! My work would be the living joy 
of fullest self-expression. 

But from my high visions, my golden 
hopes, I had to put my feet down on 
earth. I had to have food and shelter. I 
had to have the money to pay for it. 

I was in America, among the Ameri 
cans, but not of them. No speech, no 
common language, no way to win a smile 



of understanding from them, only my 
young, strong body and my untried faith. 
Only my eager, empty hands, and my 
full heart shining from my eyes ! 

God from the world ! Here I was with 
so much richness in me, but my mind was 
not wanted without the language. And 
my body, unskilled, untrained, was not 
even wanted in the factory. Only one of 
two chances was left open to me: the 
kitchen, or minding babies. 

My first job was as a servant in an 
Americanized family. Once, long ago, 
they came from the same village from 
where I came. But they were so well- 
dressed, so well-fed, so successful in 
America, that they were ashamed to re 
member their mother tongue. 

"What were to be my wages?" I ven 
tured timidly, as I looked up to the well- 
fed, well-dressed " American" man and 
woman. 

They looked at me with a sudden cold 
ness. What have I said to draw away 
from me their warmth? Was it so low 
from me to talk of wages ? I shrank back 
into myself like a low-down bargainer. 
Maybe they re so high up in well-being 
they can t any more understand my low 
thoughts for money. 

From his rich height the man preached 
down to me that I must not be so grab 
bing for wages. Only just landed from 
the ship and already thinking about 
money when I should be thankful to asso 
ciate with "Americans." 

The woman, out of her smooth, smiling 
fatness assured me that this was my 
chance for a summer vacation in the coun 
try with her two lovely children. My 
great chance to learn to be a civilized 
being, to become an American by living 
with them. 

So, made to feel that I was in the hands 
of American friends, invited to share with 
them their home, their plenty, their hap 
piness, I pushed out from my head the 
worry for wages. Here was my first 

iS7 



158 



AMERICA AND I 



chance to begin my life in the sunshine, 
after my long darkness. My laugh was 
all over my face as I said to them: "I ll 
trust myself to you. What I m worth 
you ll give me." And I entered their 
house like a child by the hand. 

The best of me I gave them. Their 
house cares were my house cares. I got 
up early. I worked till late. All that 
my soul hungered to give I put into the 
passion with which I scrubbed floors, 
scoured pots, and washed clothes. I was 
so grateful to mingle with the American 
people, to hear the music of the American 
language, that I never knew tiredness. 

There was such a freshness in my brains 
and such a willingness in my heart that I 
could go on and on not only with the 
work of the house, but work with my head 
learning new words from the children, 
the grocer, the butcher, the iceman. I 
was not even afraid to ask for words from 
the policeman on the street. And every 
new word made me see new American 
things with American eyes. I felt like a 
Columbus, finding new worlds through 
every new word. 

But words alone were only for the inside 
of me. The outside of me still branded 
me for a steerage immigrant. I had to 
have clothes to forget myself that I m a 
stranger yet. And so I had to have 
money to buy these clothes. 

The month was up. I was so happy ! 
Now I d have money. My own, earned 
money. Money to buy a new shirt on 
my back shoes on my feet. Maybe yet 
an American dress and hat ! 

Ach ! How high rose my dreams ! 
How plainly I saw all that I would do 
with my visionary wages shining like a 
light over my head ! 

In my imagination I already walked in 
my new American clothes. How beauti 
ful I looked as I saw myself like a picture 
before my eyes ! I saw how I would 
throw away my immigrant rags tied up in 
my immigrant shawl. With money to 
buy free money in my hands I d show 
them that I could look like an American 
in a day. 

Like a prisoner in his last night in 
prison, counting the seconds that will free 
him from his chains, I trembled breath 
lessly for the minute I d get the wages in 
my hand. 



Before dawn I rose. 

I shined up the house like a jewel-box. 

I prepared breakfast and waited with 
my heart in my mouth for my lady and 
gentleman to rise. At last I heard them 
stirring. My eyes were jumping out of 
my head to them when I saw them com 
ing in and seating themselves by the table. 

Like a hungry cat rubbing up to its 
boss for meat, so I edged and simpered 
around them as I passed them the food. 
Without my will, like a beggar, my hand 
reached out to them. 

The breakfast was over. And no word 
yet from my wages. 

" Gottuniu ! " I thought to myself. 
"Maybe they re so busy with their own 
things they forgot it s the day for my 
wages. Could they who have everything 
know what I was to do with my first 
American dollars? How could they, 
soaking in plenty, how could they feel the 
longing and the fierce hunger in me, press 
ing up through each visionary dollar? 
How could they know the gnawing ache 
of my avid fingers for the feel of my own, 
earned dollars ? My dollars that I could 
spend like a free person. My dollars that 
would make me feel with everybody alike ! 

Breakfast was long past. 

Lunch came. Lunch past. 

Oi-i weh ! Not a word yet about my 
money. 

It was near dinner. And not a word 
yet about my wages. 

I began to set the table. But my head 
it swam away from me. I broke a 
glass. The silver dropped from my ner 
vous fingers. I couldn t stand it any 
longer. I dropped everything and rushed 
over to my American lady and gentleman. 

"Oi weh! The money my money 
my wages ! " I cried breathlessly. 

Four cold eyes turned on me. 

"Wages? Money?" The four eyes 
turned into hard stone as they looked me 
up and down. "Haven t you a com 
fortable bed to sleep, and three good 
meals a day? You re only a month here. 
Just came to America. And you already 
think about money. Wait till your 
worth any money. What use are you 
without knowing English? You should 
be glad we keep you here. It s like a 
vacation for you. Other girls pay money 
yet to be in the country." 



AMERICA AND I 



159 



It went black for my eyes. I was so 
choked no words came to my lips. Even 
the tears went dry in my throat. 

I left. Nat a dollar for all my work. 

For a long, long time my heart ached 
and ached like a sore wound. If mur 
derers would have robbed me and killed 
me it wouldn t have hurt me so much. I 
couldn t think through my pain. The 
minute I d see before me how they looked 
at me, the words they said to me then 
everything began to bleed in me. And I 
was helpless. 

For a long, long time the thought of 
ever working in an "American" family 
made me tremble with fear, like the fear 
of wild wolves. No never again would 
I trust myself to an "American" family, 
no matter how fine their language and 
how sweet their smile. 

It was blotted out in me all trust in 
friendship from "Americans." But the 
life in me still burned to live. The hope 
in me still craved to hope. In darkness, 
in dirt, in hunger and want, but only to 
live on ! 

There had been no end to my day 
working for the "American" family. 

Now rejecting false friendships from 
higher-ups in America, I turned back to 
the ghetto. I worked on a hard bench 
with my own kind on either side of me. I 
knew before I began what my wages were 
to be. I knew what my hours were to be. 
And I knew the feeling of the end of the 
day. 

From the outside my second job seemed 
worse than the first. It was in a sweat 
shop of a Delancey Street basement, kept 
up by an old, wrinkled woman that looked 
like a black witch of greed. My work 
was sewing on buttons. While the morn 
ing was still dark I walked into a dark 
basement. And darkness met me when I 
turned out of the basement. 

Day after day, week after week, all the 
contact I got with America was handling 
dead buttons. The money I earned was 
hardly enough to pay for bread and rent. 
I didn t have a room to myself. I didn t 
even have a bed. I slept on a mattress 
on the floor in a rat-hole of a room occu 
pied by a dozen other immigrants. I 
was always hungry oh, so hungry! 
The scant meals I could afford only sharp 
ened my appetite for real food. But I 



felt myself better off than working in the 
"American" family, where I had three 
good meals a day and a bed to myself. 
With all the hunger and darkness of the 
sweat-shop, I had at least the evening to 
myself. And all night was mine. When 
all were asleep, I used to creep up on the 
roof of the tenement and talk out my 
heart in silence to the stars in the sky. 

" Who am I ? What am I ? What do 
I want with my life ? Where is America ? 
Is there an America? What is this wil 
derness in which I m lost?" 

I d hurl my questions and then think 
and think. And I could not tear it out 
of me, the feeling that America must be 
somewhere, somehow only I couldn t 
find it my America, where I would work 
for love and not for a living. I was like 
a thing following blindly after something 
far off in the dark ! 

" Oi weh ! " I d stretch out my hand up 
in the air. " My head is so lost in Amer 
ica! What s the use of all my working 
if I m not in it? Dead buttons is not 
me." 

Then the busy season started in the 
shop. The mounds of buttons grew and 
grew. The long day stretched out longer. 
I had to begin with the buttons earlier 
and stay with them till later in the night. 
The old witch turned into a huge greedy 
maw for wanting more and more buttons. 

For a glass of tea, for a slice of herring 
over black bread, she would buy us up to 
stay another and another hour, till there 
seemed no end to her demands. 

One day, the light of self-assertion 
broke into my cellar darkness. 

"I don t want the tea. I don t want 
your herring," I said with terrible bold 
ness. " I only want to go home. I only 
want the evening to myself!" 

"You fresh mouth, you !" cried the old 
witch. "You learned already too much 
in America. I want no clock-watchers in 
my shop. Out you go ! " 

I was driven out to cold and hunger. 
I could no longer pay for my mattress on 
the floor. I no longer could buy the bite 
in the mouth. I walked the streets. I 
knew what it is to be alone in a strange 
city, among strangers. 

But I laughed through my tears. So I 
learned too much already in America be 
cause I wanted the whole evening to my- 



160 



AMERICA AND I 



self? Well, America has yet to teach me 
still more: how to get not only the whole 
evening to myself, but a whole day a 
week like the American workers. 

That sweat-shop was a bitter memory 
but a good school. It fitted me for a 
regular factory. I could walk in boldly 
and say I could work at something, even 
if it was only sewing on buttons. 

Gradually, I became a trained worker. 
I worked in a light, airy factory, only 
eight hours a day. My boss was no 
longer a sweater and a blood-squeezer. 
The first freshness of the morning was 
mine. And the whole evening was mine. 
All day Sunday was mine. 

Now I had better food to eat. I slept 
on a better bed. Now, I even looked 
dressed up like the American-born. But 
inside of me I knew that I was not yet an 
American. I choked with longing when 
I met an American-born, and I couldn t 
say nothing. 

Something cried dumb in me. I could 
n t help it. I didn t know what it was I 
wanted. I only knew I wanted. I 
wanted. Like the hunger in the heart 
that never gets food. 

An English class for foreigners started 
in our factory. The teacher had such a 
good, friendly face, her eyes looked so 
understanding, as though she could see 
right into my heart. So I went to her one 
day for an advice: 

"I don t know what is with me the 
matter," I began. "I have no rest in 
me. I never yet done what I want." 

"What is it you want to do, child?" 
she asked me. 

" I want to do something with my head, 
my feelings. All day long, only with my 
hands I work." 

"First you must learn English." She 
patted me as though I was not yet grown 
up. "Put your mind on that, and then 
we ll see." 

So for a time I learned the language. 
I could almost begin to think with Eng 
lish words in my head. But in my heart 
still hurt the emptiness. I burned to 
give, to give something, to do something, 
to be something. The dead work with 
my hands was killing me. My work left 
only hard stones on my heart. 

Again I went to our factory teacher and 
cried out to her: "I know already to read 



and write the English language, but I 
can t put it into words what I want. 
What is it in me so different that can t 
come out?" 

She smiled at me down from her calm 
ness as if I were a little bit out of my head. 
"What do you want to do?" 

"I feel. I see. I hear. And I want 
to think it out. But I m like dumb in 
me. I only feel I m different different 
from everybody." 

She looked at me close and said nothing 
for a minute. " You ought to join one of 
the social clubs of the Women s Associa 
tion," she advised. 

"What s the Women s Association?" 
I implored greedily. 

"A group of American women who are 
trying to help the working-girl find her 
self. They have a special department 
for immigrant girls like you." 

I joined the Women s Association. 
On my first evening there they announced 
a lecture: "The Happy Worker and His 
Work," by the Welfare director of the 
United Mills Corporation. 

"Is there such a thing as a happy 
worker at his work?" I wondered. 
"Happiness is only by working at what 
you love. And what poor girl can ever 
find it to work at what she loves? My 
old dreams about my America rushed 
through my mind. Once I thought that 
in America everybody works for love. 
Nobody has to worry for a living. May 
be this welfare man came to show me the 
real America that till now I sought in 
vain. 

With a lot of polite words the head lady 
of the Women s Association introduced 
a higher-up that looked like the king of 
kings of business. Never before in my 
life did I ever see a man with such a sure- 
ness in his step, such power in his face, 
such friendly positiveness in his eye as 
when he smiled upon us. 

" Efficiency is the new religion of busi 
ness," he began. "In big business 
houses, even in up-to-date factories, they 
no longer take the first comer and give 
him any job that happens to stand empty. 
Efficiency begins at the employment- 
office. Experts are hired for the one pur 
pose, to find out how best to fit the worker 
to his work. It s economy for the boss 
to make the worker happy. And then he 



AMERICA AND -I 



161 



talked a lot more on efficiency in edu 
cated language that was over my head. 

I didn t know exactly what it meant 
efficiency but if it was to make the 
worker happy at his work, then that s 
what I had been looking for since I came 
to America. I only felt from watching 
him that he was happy by his job. And 
as I looked on this clean, well-dressed, 
successful one, who wasn t ashamed to 
say he rose from an office-boy, it made me 
feel that I, too, could lift myself up for a 
person. 

He finished his lecture, telling us about 
the Vocational-Guidance Centre that the 
Women s Association started. 

The very next evening I was at the 
Vocational-Guidance Centre. There I 
found a young, college-looking woman. 
Smartness and health shining from her 
eyes ! She, too, looked as if she knew her 
way in America. I could tell at the first 
glance: here is a person that is happy by 
what she does. 

"I feel you ll understand me," I said 
right away. 

She leaned over with pleasure in her 
face: "I hope I can." 

"I want to work by what s in me. 
Only, I don t know what s in me. I only 
feel I m different." 

She gave me a quick, puzzled look from 
the corner of her eyes. "What are you 
doing now?" 

"I m the quickest shirtwaist hand on 
the floor. But my heart wastes away by 
such work. I think and think, and my 
thoughts can t come out." 

"Why don t you think out your 
thoughts in shirtwaists? You could 
learn to be a designer. Earn more 
money." 

"I don t want to look on waists. If 
my hands are sick from waists, how could 
my head learn to put beauty into them?" 

"But you must earn your living at 
what you know, and rise slowly from job 
to job." 

I looked at her office sign: "Vocational 
Guidance." "What s your vocational 
guidance?" I asked. "How to rise from 
job to job how to earn more money?" 

The smile went out from her eyes. 
But she tried to be kind yet. " What do 
you want?" she asked, with a sigh of last 
patience. 

VOL. LXXL ii 



"I want America to want me." 

She fell back in her chair, thunder 
struck with my boldness. But yet, in a 
low voice of educated self-control, she 
tried to reason with me: 

" You have to show that you have some 
thing special for America before America 
has need of you." 

"But I never had a chance to find out 
what s in me, because I always had to 
work for a living. Only, I feel it s effi 
ciency for America to find out what s in 
me so different, so I could give it out by 
my work." 

Her eyes half closed as they bored 
through me. Her mouth opened to 
speak, but no words came from her lips. 
So I flamed up with all that was choking 
in me like a house on fire: 

"America gives free bread and rent to 
criminals in prison. They got grand 
houses with sunshine, fresh air, doctors 
and teachers, even for the crazy ones. 
Why don t they have free boarding- 
schools for immigrants strong people- 
willing people ? Here you see us burning 
up with something different, and America 
turns its head away from us." 

Her brows lifted and dropped down. 
She shrugged her shoulders away from 
me with the look of pity we give to crip 
ples and hopeless lunatics. 

"America is no Utopia. First you 
must become efficient in earning a living 
before you can indulge in your poetic 
dreams." 

I went away from the vocational-gui 
dance office with all the air out of my 
lungs. All the light out of my eyes. My 
feet dragged after me like dead wood. 

Till now there had always lingered a 
rosy veil of hope over my emptiness, a 
hope that a miracle would happen. I 
would open up my eyes some day and 
suddenly find the America of my dreams. 
As a young girl hungry for love sees al 
ways before her eyes the picture of lover s 
arms around her, so I saw always in my 
heart the vision of Utopian America. 

But now I felt that the America of my 
dreams never was and never could be. 
Reality had hit me on the head as with a 
club. I felt that the America that I 
sought was nothing but a shadow an 
echo a chimera of lunatics and crazy 
immigrants. 



162 AMERICA AND 1 

Stripped of all illusion, I looked about of sympathy, a gleam of understanding 

me. The long desert of wasting days of from strangers who could not sympathize, 

drudgery stared me in the face. The who could not understand, 

drudgery that I had lived through, and I, when I encountered a few savage 

the endless drudgery still ahead of me Indian scalpers, like the old witch of 

rose over me like a withering wilderness the sweat-shop, like my "Americanized" 

of sand. In vain were all my cryings, in countryman, who cheated me of my 

vain were all frantic efforts of my spirit wages I, when I found myself on the 

to find the living waters of understanding lonely, untrodden path through which all 

for my perishing lips. Sand, sand was seekers of the new world must pass, I 

everywhere. With every seeking, every lost heart and said: "There is no Amer- 

reaching out I only lost myself deeper and ica ! " 

deeper in a vast sea of sand. Then came a light a great revelation ! 

I knew now the American language. I saw America a big idea a deathless 

And I knew now, if I talked to the Ameri- hope a world still in the making. I saw 

cans from morning till night, they could that it was the glory of America that it 

not understand what the Russian soul of was not yet finished. And I, the last 

me wanted. They could not understand comer, had her share to give, small or 

me any more than if I talked to them great, to the making of America, like 

in Chinese. Between my soul and the those Pilgrims who came in the May- 

American soul were worlds of difference flower. 

that no words could bridge over. What Fired up by this revealing light, I began 

was that difference? What made the to build a bridge of understanding be- 

Americans so far apart from me? tween the American-born and myself. 

I began to read the American history. Since their life was shut out from such 

I found from the first pages that America as me, I began to open up my life and the 

started with a band of courageous Pil- lives of my people to them. And life 

grims. They had left their native coun- draws life. In only writing about the 

try as I had left mine. They had crossed Ghetto I found America, 

an unknown ocean and landed in an un- Great chances have come to me. But 

known country, as I. in my heart is always a deep sadness. I 

But the great difference between the feel like a man who is sitting down to a 

first Pilgrims and me was that they ex- secret table of plenty, while his near ones 

pected to make America, build America, and dear ones are perishing before his 

create their own world of liberty. I eyes. My very joy in doing the work I 

wanted to find it ready-made. love hurts me like secret guilt, because 

I read on. I delved deeper down into all about me I see so many with my long- 

the American history. I saw how the ings, my burning eagerness, to do and to 

Pilgrim Fathers came to a rocky desert be, wasting their days in drudgery they 

country, surrounded by Indian savages on hate, merely to buy bread and pay rent. 

all sides. But undaunted, they pressed And America is losing all that richness of 

on through danger through famine, the soul. 

pestilence, and want they pressed on. The Americans of to-morrow, the 
They did not ask the Indians for sym- America that is every day nearer coming 
pathy, for understanding. They made no to be, will be too wise, too open-hearted, 
demands on anybody, but on their own too friendly-handed, to let the least last- 
indomitable spirit of persistence. comer at their gates knock in vain with 

And I I was forever begging a crumb his gifts unwanted. 



The Ripe Peach 

BY RAYMOND S. SPEARS 



ILLUSTRATIONS (FRONTISPIECE) BY PERRY BARLOW 




IM O ROURKE came 
to America, and a few 
years afterward wrote 
his sister that when 
Jim Carney, her boy, 
was ready to come 
visit him in Kansas, 
his face would be wel 
come. Accordingly, Jim Carney one day 
bade his mother good-by, and started. 
Jim landed in New York with no money, 
but willing hands. Somehow, he just 
couldn t lay his tongue to the name of the 
place where Tim O Rourke lived, and for 
a year or two every time he wrote to his 
folks he forgot to ask them. 

In the meanwhile he started West, with 
ambition, and in Western Pennsylvania 
he gazed down upon a stream with 
green water in it, the Allegheny, some 
called it, and they said around that 
this was a branch of the Mississippi 
River. Then, having ill regard for 
working on oil-wells, Jim struck another 
stream, which was called the Wabash, 
where he fished for button shells awhile; 
and this river, too, was a fork of the Mis 
sissippi. Then Jim headed away for the 
Big Woods people told him about, and 
amid the pines of Minnesota he gazed at 
another stream with green water, and, his 
suspicions aroused, he demanded to know 
if this, too, was the Mississippi ? It was. 
Jim didn t talk any about it. He 
worked all winter in the log camp, and 
drank the Mississippi water with a sus 
picious look in his eye. The winter 
chilled his enthusiasm, it was so cold, but 
he stayed till the Cutaway Camps shut 
down, and then with enthusiasm he spent 
his season s wages down the line. At 
St. Paul he saw the Mississippi again. 

Then he moved out into the West, 
harvesting wheat with a gang, and then 
joined a thresher outfit. Standing on 
hills that were golden with ripe wheat, he 
wiped the sweat as he pitched the shocks, 



and paused to inquire if the wide, yellow 
river down in the bottoms was the Mis 
sissippi, too? It was a fork of it he 
learned; this, it was not green. 

After the harvest, he rolled into Great 
Falls, and gazed again at the Mississippi, 
while he held a job in one of the big plants 
devoted to the conversion of ore con 
centrates into beautiful metals. Here, 
too, the sweep of wintry winds whistling 
over the sage made Jim Carney shiver. 
When the warm Chinook blew he loos 
ened the big sheepskin lined corduroy 
jacket, and threw his job over his shoul 
der, to leave the roar of the Great Falls 
behind him at their flood. A voice within 
reminded him that he had yet to pay a 
visit to his uncle s folks; still he hesitated. 

He needed clothes, and a present to 
take to his relatives. He went on to the 
Montana lumber camps, but a new feel 
ing about trees had come into his heart. 
All across the prairies he had seen thou 
sands who had planted trees, and raised 
them tenderly, with infinite pains. It 
hurt to be concerned with slashing trees 
where they were growing by the bounty 
of nature. Jim soon returned down the 
trail. A brook, bounding down the steeps 
of the Rockies, bade him pause. He 
learned from a cattleman that this was 
out of Two Ocean Pass and on its way 
to the Mississippi. 

Jim tried cowboying on the strength 
of the great stories he heard about the 
life. The foreman found Jim s skill with 
the axe useful in building fences and sledg 
ing lignite for the cook. Then one day 
Jim had to build a bonfire in which strange 
irons were heated blue. Forty-odd calves 
were driven up with their mothers. A 
calf was stretched out with ropes, and 
a cowman snatched one of the hot irons, 
and laid the claw on the end of the iron 
against a helpless calf s side. 

Blue smoke rose odorous; the calf 
bawled; a certain cow came prancing 

163 



164 THE RIPE PEACH 

angrily. Jim Carney stared with bulging Hunger made him faint, while thirst 

eyes and loosening jaws. tortured his throat, yet something in that 

" Excuse me, Boss ! " he said respect- scene quickened his heart beat. With 

fully. "I ll take me time right now !" wonder he tried to think what it was, till 

He roamed away southward, finding his awakened soul laughed at himself, 

odd jobs here and there. In these wide There, four hundred feet below him, so 

spaces he put two and two together. The nearly straight beneath that he had fairly 

houses were twenty, thirty, or even more missed its significance, was a stream; a 

miles apart. In hunger, often in thirst, grand little river to whose pretty flood he 

he gave thought to the life he was leading, scrambled down bluffs, sand slips, and 

"I m getting nowhere, always in the clay banks, with no regard for safety, 

Mississippi Basin!" he grumbled. or the ease of the roadway which curved 

All one day on a naked prairie, with on switchbacks at a fair grade back and 

only a sod house to interrupt its roll- forth along the wind-worn, water-washed 

ing grace and emphasize its vast beauty, steeps. 

he tramped along drinking sparingly of A stream forty feet wide reached its 

salty water in his canteen. At dusk the wet waves to fill his throat with riches of 

road remained but a pair of ruts through moisture. Having drunk, he looked from 

the sod, with little ghosts of young sage- his knees into the rippling, running flow, 

brush standing stark in the gloom, milky "A pale green with milky tinge," he 

white amid the curly buffalo bunch-grass, shook his head, "like me, running along 

"Jim!" he grumbled to himself, through easy times or hard, as the case 
"Sure, I believe you are lonesome and a may be. Green what! Can it be? It 
fool. Tis a grand butte looms there in must be, for a fact another brook feed- 
trie dark, three miles, or may be fifteen ing into that Mississippi. Tis a different 
miles away ! Ah a sod house ! " green, however, not the same green like a 

In half an hour he arrived at the house, gem stone. Tis nothing to me, I know." 

He looked at the darkness of it. Humans He splashed across the wagon ford, 

had lived there; perhaps they had driven stopped at a horse range, but seeing the 

their flivver to town: He hailed, but there red scars on a colt s ham he did not stay 

was no answer. He unhooked the loose to work, though he was "asked. Needing 

wire gate and walked to the building that a bit of money he worked on a railroad 

somehow sympathized with his predica- section; then with a gang of graders; 

ment of loneliness. He smelled some- then, happening upon a wildcat oil-drilling 

thing, he saw jagged holes through the old rig, he turned his hand to feeding a boiler 

sod walls; the roof was settling crooked; with lignite coal. 

above the quiet he heard a faint burring, "I m variously skilful," he mused, 

a crisp, clattering rattle like small dry "soon I will have tried all the labor in 

bones shaken together with great vio- the world, after which I may turn back 

lence. to what suits me- Ugh ! " 

"Snakes T Carney cried. "They re Sitting in a clump of cottonwoods on a 

always thickest around the ruins of men s river bank, the name of which he did not 

hopes good-by, me b ys ! I m disturbin know, he harked to his memory. He 

you no more ! : scratched the years on the sand, and 

He roamed on. At dawn, when his found that he had been fifteen in the 

water was all drunk, and it seemed the country, and fourteen within the basin of 

prairie was a Hades, with no limits, the Mississippi. Marking the years far 

he emerged on a brink; he looked into apart, he made an "x," underneath, for 

the confusion of a thousand washes, clay each job that he had held. When he was 

banks, buttes and knolls which were pink through he summed it all up with a 

in the first sun-rays, but soon changed to laugh that was a sigh: 

blue in the distance, and yellow, gray, "Sure! I m an illegant worker, for 

orange, dark purple, not so far away, have I not had wan hundred an sixty- 

The whole scene of Bad Lands was at his eight jobs? There s work for ivery wan 

feet, so that he looked down on that evil of Mr. Jim Carney s procrastinations and 

indifferences. An you, I know by the 








Marking the years far apart, he made an "x," underneath, for each job 
that he had held. Page 164. 



looks, Mister River, lead straight into 
that same old Mississip that I ve been 
evading since I was sixteen years of age. 
Green with a tinge of red, quicksand in 
yer bottom, an an a divil of a twinkle 
in yer eye. What does it mean to me, 
now?" 

He crossed this river, resolutely turned 
his back on it, going West again. Yet 
when he circled a little to the left, at the 
end of six weeks spent with a man who 
needed a teamster, athwart his course 
was another river. It was the Arkansas, 
somebody told him; a large, useful, and 
interesting stream, he was willing to ad 



mit, with some strange cows in the 
pastures, large, black, with humps on 
their shoulders and remarkably bright 
eyes with red rims whose stare made the 
wanderer nervous. 

" So this is Kansas ? " He looked about 
him. "I wonder is Tim O Rourke near 
here, which I must find out. Tim must 
be visited. Les see Kansas. He was 
in Kansas City on a farm. I ll look 
around a bit to find Kansas City. What, 
only three hundred miles? Tis but a 
step. I ll soon be thereabouts." 

The following spring he arrived in Kan 
sas City, and what, with work in the stock- 

165 



166 



THE RIPE PEACH 



yards and a greasier, but more interesting 
job in a garage, Jim was only six months 
in finding Tim. Tim drove up to the 
garage in a big automobile to have the 
knuckles of his steering-gear tightened up. 

" Sure, Tim ! I m the lad to do so sim 
ple a job as that !" said the man in one- 
piece, greasy overalls. 

"And who the divil might you be?" 
Tim demanded of the tall, variegatedly 
patched mechanic. 

"Jim Carney," was the answer. 

"What? The son of me own sister? 
What on earth ! Why didn t you look me 
up?" 

"I did and down, and around, when 
I had found Kansas by luck and chance." 

"I m only forty miles from here, and 
ivery man knows me !" 

"Oh, I know that but my face was 
dirty, so you see 

"Well, fix the old bus so she will not 
shake to pieces on me; then come to my 
place, when I ve done some shopping. I 
need sixty tons of fertilizer, an Mary says 
not to forget a camping outfit for the auto 
mobile; the children What did they 
want ? Oh, yes ! Two motorcycles an 
a side-car. And I want six twin tires for 
two of me big trucks, a new roof for each 
of two houses of the hired men 

"Tim !" Jim inquired. "Is all that for 
effect on me?" 

"Eh? What! Not a bit of it, for 
twenty-nine years ago I took up my first 
eighty acres, and I ve seven thousand 
now in wheat. How long have you been 
in the country, Jim?" 

" Not long." Jim blinked. " I ve been 
wearing the brogue off my tongue for a 
while getting an illegant, general gift of 
conversation." 

"I ll be back soon. Have the machine 
ready day after to-morrow. I m busy at 
tending a wheat-grading, and must fight 
for my pop-orange which they ve not yet 
been willing to recognize for the fine flour 
producer it is." 

The car was ready when Tim arrived 
at the garage. It had never run better. 
Jim, however, was gone. 

"He was a fine workman, but I had to 
let him go," the garage owner said. "He 
had a telegram message calling him East." 

The pity of it !" Tim exclaimed. "I 
wished to make the young man!" 



This was the suspicion in Jim s heart. 
Tim O Rourke would make him. That, 
however, was not what had brought Jim 
Carney to America. Sitting on the bank 
of the Missouri which he had crossed 
thirty times or so in recent years, the 
wanderer harked back in his memory to 
the day when he had walked down off 
the big steamer, to tread on the land that 
buoys the world s hopes. 

Following the setting sun he had come 
to the Middle West, only to go to the 
right, to the left, circling around and 
around. Now seventeen years were be 
hind him. He felt age in his bones, stiff 
ness in his muscles, and the weary cry in 
his heart that a man is old at thirty-odd. 

"I ve wasted me life; Uncle Tim ll 
waste his charity on me; it ll do me nor 
him any good; so tis a fareyewell again 
forme!" 

For a long time he had traversed the 
.prairies, the places where one must look 
twice to see the horizon; the building lots 
were a mile square out yonder; the very 
bigness of things had made Jim Carney 
blink with far-sightedness, as he stum 
bled along in his heavy-soled shoes. 

He issued forth from Kansas City to 
be clear of the example of his Uncle Tim, 
whose prosperity was the evidence of his 
constancy. Seeing so much of the world 
had been the ruin of Jim, the wanderer 
thought. Shame overcame him, for how 
could he face the aunt he had never seen, 
and children whose lives were bound up 
in the one job of living according to the 
example of a strong parent who bought 
roofs, motorcycles, tires for trucks, and 
grew better wheat a man whose retail 
affairs would have kept Jim busy all his 
life at better than any day wages he had 
ever known. 

" Tis a fool I am, a wasted product 
instead of a by-product ! " Jim sighed. 

He wandered off down into Joplin, 
where the smell of zinc carried him back 
years to a similar smell. It was a taunt 
of his conscience to his memory, and he 
fled from it. He left the main highways; 
he followed rutted wagon roads; he ar 
rived at last beside a fine, wide stream 
of pale-green water, but not milky at all 
sharp, clear, glistening gem-like green 
it was ! 

" Tis that same old Mississip !" he 




Drawn by Perry Barlow. 



"What? The son of me own sister? What on earth ! Why didn t you look me up? " 

Page 1 66. 



167 



168 



THE RIPE PEACH 



grumbled, sitting down. "The old boy 
spreads himself across my trail wherever 
I go. Tis a quiet place here. If I knew 
my own heart " 

He looked about, up and down. There 
was a little clearing across the river with 
a small log cabin in it. Trees grew up the 
slopes of many hills while squirrels ranged 
amid the heavy branches of the forest. 
Birds were chirruping. Around the cabin 
the trees were heavy with ripe peaches. 

"I presume it would cost a man a 
thousand dollars or two to own a place 
like that." Jim shook his head, looking 
across the river at the twenty acres of 
stumpy, stony clearing. " Funny I never 
inquired the price of land. I ll just go 
hail the man, take a drink of water, pick 
a peach from his shade tree, and be 
sociable." 

The man was sitting on the front steps. 
He was playing a fiddle. He was a whisk 
ery, small-eyed, grinning Hill Billy. At 
sight of Jim a look of strong suspicion 
filled his eyes. 

"I presume there s no land for sale in 
a fine country like this?" Jim asked 
sociably. 

"No land for sale, stranger? I ve a 
hundred acres here, or maybe two hun 
dred, that I ve owned for thirty-five 
years, and all it has ever done for me is 
give me time to learn to play my fiddle." 

"I suppose tis worth, therefore, a 
million dollars?" Jim smiled. 

"A man told me that in Kansas City 
or St. Louis a fiddler like me could earn 
five dollars a day," the man replied. 
"All I need s a hundred dollars and I d 
give possession for it 

" Of the fiddle ? " Jim inquired. " Tis 
a good fiddle that s worth a hundred 

"This fiddle is three hundred years 
old; I ve played music on it that is five 
feet high from the floor, sheet music, be 
sides all the tunes I ve heard the birds 
sing, and and other fiddlers play. I sell 
everything but my horses and wagon for 
a hundred dollars." 

"Is is it safe to believe a man s ears 
in these parts?" Jim asked. "I I 
thought I heard the the river down 
there saying something?" 

"I d miss the river," the fiddler said. 
" For ten years, since I learned at last to 
play, it has told me a story that some 



day a man would come along and turn me 
loose from here. Listen while I play it !" 

The fiddler struck a note, held it, then 
struck and held another. Jim, having 
heard much music, French harp, talking- 
machine, log camp, mine town, and the 
like, had also an ear for river talk. 

" You re right," Jim said, when the man 
had finished his play, and was slumped 
limp with the fatigue of waiting over 
much, looking down at the river, which 
seemed these many years to have been 
lying to him. "The river told you the 
truth. I am the promise the .river made 
ye, man! Here s the hundred dollars!" 

"You mean it!" the shaggy-headed 
fiddler cried. "You ll pay me a hundred 
dollars for my prison ? Good Lord can 
it be so ! " 

Jim stared at him as the man stood 
forth with a fiddle and a bow held toward 
the sky. Small eyes? Jim wondered 
whence he had had that notion. The 
fellow s face was alight with joy, his eyes, 
bright, large, and wonderful, believing 
the release that at last had come to him. 

There was the money. The man 
snatched it up. He brought out the 
papers and scrawled a sale a quit claim 
and a transfer; eagerly he gave Jim di 
rections as to how to have the sale re 
corded in the county records, as though 
he feared the responsibility for the land 
would still be on his shoulders. The 
fiddler would not wait. He hitched up 
his team, brought out arms full of music- 
books, a pair of old blankets, and a canvas 
that long since he had acquired against 
the time when at last he should be able 
to migrate, as the stream had promised, 
when skill a-fiddling should be his, by 
hard work and faithful effort. 

Jim Carney sat on the steps of the little 
log hut to watch the man who was driving 
away with such joy. The splash of the 
horses in the ford was followed by their 
rattling and clattering up the poor new 
road into the woods beyond. 

" Tis not true," Jim shook his head. 
"I m aslape, afraid to turn over for fear 
I ll wake up. How come it I had one 
hundred dollars and ninety cents in my 
pocket at this minute Oh Lord ! Tell 
me, is this thing true?" 

He sat there, weak and stunned, all the 
afternoon. The world tells its children 



THE RIPE PEACH 



169 



the most outrageous lies, to make them 
believe that their dreams have been real 
ized. There were ripe peaches on the 
tree, and pigs eating some that had fallen 
from the weight of their own juices. 

A log cabin with one room, a floor of 
half-round timbers, hewn top and sides. 
Shade for chickens and pigs under the 
house, and birds on the roof, a fence 
around the clearing to keep the woods 
and half- wild cattle out of the richness of 
a field long neglected for the music of the 
fiddler s soul. 

"I have no music in me soul," Jim 
sighed as night fell. "But I ve a great 
contentment, two strong arms, much ex 
perience, and a deed to the property to 
curb my spirits with!" 

Eating peaches, he built a fire in the 
big stone fireplace, to bask in the red and 
yellow glow of it. This night he would 
cherish all his future life, sure that he was 
falsely treated somehow. Who sells a 
million-dollar farm in beautiful woods for 
a hundred dollars ? It is the most impos 
sible thing. He slept in a bunk full of 
sweet ferns and spice-leaves. He was in 
the fairy place when he awakened. There 
were still peaches on the trees when he 
awakened. It was a little late for water 
melons, but he found muskmelons when 
he walked around. 

"What manner of a place is this?" he 
asked himself. "Am I enchanted?" 

He was a much practiced man, speak 
ing of varieties of work. One does not 
recall with fluency a hundred and seven 
ty-odd jobs without also recalling ways 
and means of accomplishing things. Jim 
Carney, who had hoed, ploughed, pitched, 
grubbed, built fences, and swamped roads 
for other men, now felt the joy of doing 
things for himself. 

Did his bones rattle from the age? 
Were his muscles creaking ? He felt them 
not, or at least he had found new oil for 
them. The fiddler had planted corn but 
not hoed it; he had a vegetable garden, 
badly crowded by luxurious growths of 
weeds; he had chickens running too wild 
and pigs lazy ing around too tame; there 
was much to be done. 

" I need four hands and six feet for my 
opportunities," Jim told himself. "But 
I ll keep steadily at the job; I may yet 
have time for my wasted years ! " 



At the end of two weeks he had ninety 
cents, as at the beginning. Around his 
log cabin there was a great change, how 
ever. He had a garden all hoed out, and 
a black spot to show whither the weeds 
had vanished. The corn was growing tall, 
luxuriating in the new freedom. Chickens 
were making the most of excellent oppor 
tunities for domestic arrangements. Pigs 
were indignantly discussing the most ex 
asperating fence in the world, to wit, a 
pig-tight one. 

"I am fish hungry," Jim told himself. 
"I wonder would it be a sin to lay off 
work before dark to-night? Eggs are 
good eating, chickens, pork, and the like 
but fish? May a man fish once in a 
while?" 

He risked the effects on his soul of 
fishing. The fiddler, whose example was 
wholly bad, had left a cut cane pole, with 
lines and prodigious hooks. Of worms 
there was no lack. Jim Carney went 
down to the green river, and listening to 
the rippling music of a shoal that glided 
down a smooth strata of limestone, he 
dropped a large worm on the smallest 
hook, where the current swept out of the 
shallows into a pool on which the late 
afternoon sunshine cast yellow beams into 
emerald depths. 

Jim watched the black head sinking 
slowly through the limpid water. He 
saw a fish with serrated back, a tail as 
wide as an oak leaf, a body like a bronze 
watermelon, and a certain gift of agility, 
come darting out of somewhere, and start 
away with the worm and chalk-line. 

"The impudence of him !" Jim Carney 
exclaimed. "He s taking my bait!" 

Jim set up the end of the pole, on whose 
tip was a wad of fish-line as large as a 
small fist. The curving sag of string 
straightened with a hiss through the 
water. A great agitation seized both 
ends of the line, with Jim exclaiming to 
himself, to the woods, to the stream, and 
to the fish whose anxieties increased as 
the contest waxed. 

There is always some question when a 
great black bass is at one end of a fish- 
line, hanging to a bent, black piece of 
tempered steel, and a tall, embattled man 
is at the other end, giving the various 
lever lifts on a pole, as to what the issue 
will be. For minutes Jim was full of 



170 



THE RIPE PEACH 



excitement, which did not end as at last 
the green depths of the pool yielded a 
tumbling, twisting, diving, pin-wheeling 
mass of shimmering bronze with silver, 
which churned the surface for a minute 
into white gleaming foam on which the 
sun fell with bright-colored hues; the next 
moment, still full of acrobatic confusions, 
the fighter of the pool flopped in mid-air, 
swung on the dark line inland, and struck 
a rock with a sound like a mighty hand 
clap. 

"Ah, me beauty ! " Jim held up his vic 
tim, stunned and quivering. "What a 
fish for me ! Tis a full meal, and fish- 
gravy for breakfast, too, besides." 

He stuffed the fish with onions, pota 
toes, corn-meal, and wrapped it in a strip 
of home-smoked bacon rind, tied with 
wire. Then he daubed the pigskin with 
heavy clay. He put the fish into the hot 
coals of his fireplace. When he broke it 
out again, and unwrapped the bacon 
rind, he lifted the skeleton of the fish out 
of the white meat, and, smelling it, won 
dered what he had ever done to deserve 
such living as this. 

Needing salt, some time later, Carney 
was disturbed. He felt a certain menace. 
Could it be that the dream was too pleas 
ant to last? He looked about, wonder 
ing what he had to sell that any one 
would buy? There was a pig whose 
manners were too bad, for no fence would 
keep the brute in. This pig the man har 
nessed and led sixteen miles over a rough 
road to town. 

It was a full-grown, black-and-white 
cane-rooter, weighing sixty-six pounds. 
It was middle afternoon when the land 
holder dragged his unwilling product 
along the village street to the butcher s. 
Hay wire, fish-line, old canvas, and the 
like, had made an effective harness for 
the squealing and indignant pig outlaw. 

" Mr. Meat Market Man ! " Jim greeted 
the butcher. "I have here the champion 
racing hog of the world! What am I 
given for it?" 

"Five dollars," the butcher laughed. 

"He is yours !" Jim said, and took the 
cash. 

The butcher had the hog put into his 
own pen yard. Jim went around and 
bought supplies. He started home on 
foot, carrying a heavy bag. He was dead- 



tired, yet he would not desist from his 
intention of walking the round thirty-two 
miles that day. 

In the darkness of his wooded route, 
passing only occasional little farms like 
his own, he heard something at his heels; 
he stepped faster, and the sound in 
creased; he looked about and saw some 
thing near by. 

" Tis a ghost ! " he murmured, as the 
snuffling, snorting, grunting, pursued him. 
"Sure I Tis a great incentive not to 
waste any time!" 

Hanging onto his precious supplies, 
tormented by fears, hounded by the 
thing at his heels, he found, on reaching 
home after dawn, that it was the pig 
which had followed him so reluctantly to 
town, and was now keeping him company. 

"You re a fine specimen!" Jim cried. 
" The butcher will believe me when I say 
this boar s a great racer 1" 

The pig, too, was tired that day. Jim 
allowed the brute the freedom of the 
shade of the log cabin. Three days later 
he took another cane-rooter to the bul ch- 
er, one as large but not so obstreperous. 

"I knew you d lost the other one," 
Jim explained. "He haunted me all the 
way home, to the discomfiture of my con 
science. This one is a better, I am sure, 
and far more willing ! " 

Jim s credit was somehow established 
by this event, the farmer could not ex 
actly figure out how. An honest man, for 
sooth, it was declared ! It was a strange 
sensation to feel that he was known to his 
neighbors. In the years of his wanderings 
Jim had not once thought of being 
known to the owners of the soil or to the 
men of industries. Even the county 
clerk, to whom he took the deeds to have 
them transferred, shook his hand, and in 
quired which way he was going to vote 
that fall ? 

"For you," Jim replied promptly, and 
later went out around to make inquiry as 
to whether the man was a Republican, 
Democrat, or what ? 

It was a great day in Jim s life when he 
cast his first vote. No one questioned his 
citizenship, till the next spring he learned 
his mistake. He went to the county clerk, 
who was perturbed in the matter, too. 
Between them it was figured out that 
owning land, and having been so many 




Hay-wire, fish-line, old canvas, and the like, had made an effective harness for the squealing and 

indignant pig outlaw. Page 170. 



years in the country, the State laws would 
expedite the matter. 

"I ll be doing penance, while I m wait 
ing," Jim said. "I knew it was too 
pleasant, voting, for me always to enjoy 
the privilege." 

He carried a back load of little fruit- 
trees to his farm, and planted them. A 
neighbor, his nearest, five miles distant, 
came to help him find his old government 
survey lot lines. He owned two hundred 
and forty acres, bottoms, hills, and river 
bank. Great trees grew on all but twenty- 
odd acres of clearing. They grew too 



close together for comfort. He looked at 
them with sympathetic eyes. 

: Tis a job for me," he shook his head. 

He was a man of wild notions. This 
river that flowed for nearly half a mile 
across his land, was a stream of moods 
and habits. After a hard rain, it would 
rise twelve feet or so overnight, run yel 
low instead of green, and roar instead of 
whisper. 

Thirty miles below on the bank of the 
stream was a sawmill town. Jim Carney 
went down to it on a little flood tide, rid 
ing two logs which he had felled into the 



171 



172 THE RIPE PEACH 

stream. He lopped their tops, and lashed He was puzzled, as he saw his pros- 
them with hickory withes. The sawmill perity. In five years he was living on a 
man paid him forty dollars for the good road, carrying wagon loads of pro- 
timbers, and asked for more. duce to his market, driving big mules, 

Thus was opened the way to the man, and with a hired man to add strength 

who had been, a logger, for ready sales and effort to the business of working to 

of the surplus growth of his forest. He the river music. He knew, now, what 

worked all winter, and drove a good raft the fiddler had heard. At night, when the 

down in the spring, alternate black walnut river was straining a its banks, Jim would 

and sycamore, the sycamores floating the catch the strain of a tune, and knew it 

heavy hardwood. was the voice of the Mississippi, approv- 

"I need a team of horses," Jim said, ing him. He was three hundred miles 

and to his own surprise, he now owned a from the great river, yet he felt the in- 

team, with a mule colt to boot. fluence, as he always had, of that vast 

Driving home over the rough road hurt flood whose tributaries had caught his 

his feelings. Never had he seen worse fancy to bring him at last to this his 

going. Having swamped haul-roads on happy home. 

logging camp jobs, he used his team of Jim Carney was a citizen now. He 

horses to work on his right of way. He was one of the supervisors. He was the 

persuaded a neighbor to help," and they best neighbor in the county, people said, 

spent many spare days improving their When all the talk was going on about 

rough going. The days were too short local improvements, he stood up and said: 

for Jim, having so many things to do ! "We need a good stone road from the 

Jim learned the ways of the country, county court to the line, where it joins on 
modifying them by his own experience, the prosperity of our next people s pros- 
He raised a great crop, when he had done perity ! " 

his own planting. Having more corn The road was built, and then another 

than he could use, he increased the num- one was built of stone, wide and sub- 

ber of his pigs. He trimmed his half -wild stantial. Into the clearings of the moun- 

fruit-trees, planted grapes, and added tains struck the fact that a road gave an 

acres to his little clearing, where the add- outlet for what they could easily raise, 

ing wouldn t spoil the best of his woods. Jim s was the only vote against the im- 

He loved his trees. proving of the road that led to his own 

He bought cows to milk them. He farm. 

made yellow butter, which was a rarity "Sure, gentlemen!" he cried out. 

in that region, and it sold well. He would "There are others that need the road 

labor briskly every day, but one after- more than I do, or my neighbors !" 

noon a week he would go to one or an- "You re wasting breath, like you ve 

other of his river s deep pools to catch a wasted strength hauling these many 

black bass on a big worm for a roast, or a years, Jim !" he was told bluntly, 

fry, as the mood moved him. So the fourteen miles was contracted. 

Pride was in his heart. His heel never It added ten thousand dollars to the worth 

scuffled the earth he walked on. He of the already valuable property of the 

wondered what sin he had committed original home. It added more to the 

that for more than fifteen years he had places that Jim Carney had taken over, 

been condemned to range the earth be- when others would have abandoned them, 

fore coming to this, his Paradise ? Out of his land grew hundreds of tons of 

Peaches, pears, blackberries, apples, things to eat, and a bridge spanned the 

raspberries, wild grapes and tame, per- river where formerly a ford had been, 

simmons, strawberries in a little patch, "Still, I ll run a barge down on the 

cherries coming on red and ripe the floods, once in a while, to keep my hand 

fruits of the earth were his. For sub- in, and not to forget the days when I 

stance, he raised corn, potatoes, carrots, must carry out my crops that way of the 

turnips, cabbages, tomatoes, and all the friendly river ! " Jim said, 

ingredients of a mulligan, every one The new road reminded Jim of some- 

honestly come by. thing that he had forgotten. Some years 



THE RIPE PEACH 173 

before he had worked in a garage. Now Jim Carney rode away in the fine spell 
he saw the good road before his very of weather. He was in his new spick- 
eyes. Hardly able to look his faithful span automobile. He was at his Uncle 
horses and mules in the eyes, telling them Tim O Rourke s before he knew he was 
shamefacedly that he wasn t deserting started. The big farm was wonderful, 
them, he sneaked into a salesroom, as he looked at it. Now he knew that the 
looked at a most beautiful automobile, value was not so much, but the work that 
with fixings and improvements he hadn t was in the place, the toil, thought, pride, 
heard of, lines that amazed his love of effort were what counted, 
the graceful, and promises of mileage for Jim turned in at the wide driveway, 
tires that were utterly incredible and rolled up to the porch, and stopped. A 
wrote his check on the spot. man smoking a cigar sat in the shade, 

"In a few years times have greatly wondering who the newcomer was. Jim 
changed," Jim Carney said more than looked. The smooth face was good- 
half to himself. humored, firm, bearing the marks of a 

His hired man drove the team home; lifetime of toil, steadfast in purpose, and 

he drove the automobile. He could hard- the hair grayed amid the sandy, 

ly think for things that he saw, and .yet "Did the car run all right, Tim?" the 

he heard, as he crossed the bridge. visitor asked. 

" Here s your home, Jim ! " " What car ? " 

His home could it be possible? "The wan I fixed for you in Kansas 

There was the old log cabin, beautifully City." 

preserved. But a little back, on the hill, "What s aching you, anyhow?" 

nearer the road, stood a fine dwelling with "I was afraid it wouldn t work well; 

water from a little brook in the woods, a I came to find out. Tis some years 

lawn with shade trees, an orchard, fields since 

of grain, a little sawmill to cut his own "Jim! You spalpeen! Come along, 

trees tenderly into good boards for fine I ve been wondering would you turn up. 

cabinetwork. What s your job? Livery?" 

"It s a dream!" he exclaimed. " Tis "No farming." 

somebody else, not Jim Carney, that has "Where?" 

done this thing? I know it is. I ll look "Over in the mountains and woods, 

at the map to see where I am wandering Fruit, corn, vegetables, chickens, pigs, 

to-morrow." with one thing and another." 

It was a road map, one that had come "Sit down, lad I m glad you came, 

to him as a man interested in good roads. Tell me about it?" 

He could not believe his eyes. He looked "Sure. Knowing you had come, when 

far and wide. His glance fell upon a I could, I followed," Jim said. "I was 

painted trail that led away across coun- fifteen years or so arriving. One day I 

try and stung his conscience as he saw saw a peach-tree, and bought the place, 

whither it went. So I bring you a few baskets of them, now 

Tis time, now, to go pay my re- that the trees are trimmed and bearing 

spects!" he thought to himself. "I can proper, having been sprayed." 

go and look him in the eye!" "Arragh!" the old man laughed. "I 

He had done a man s work at last, told the folks it d be all right that some 

He never had been lazy, but every day day ye d be coming right. It was in ye, 

had been neglected, till he saw the peaches when the time was ripe." 

hanging by the door of the fiddler, who "Not the time the peach!" Jim 

had waited ten years for him to come. laughed. 



&*.". : 

" If 

-f-rfr-M--- 




Its Alcazar bristling with barbacan and battlement. 



The Town of Don Pablo the Crafty 



BY ERNEST PEIXOTTO 



ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR 



A 



S you stand upon the 
terrace of the Royal 
Palace in Madrid, you 
look out over a broad 
expanse of varied 
landscape and follow 
the meanders of the 
Manzanares, a river 
that winds off through lovely groves and 
gardens to a line of lofty mountains the 
Guadarramas whose summits, blue and 
snow-capped, close the limits of the back 
ground just as they do in the Velasquez 
portrait of the Infante Don Carlos. 
174 



Among these mountains nestle old towns 
and castles, and on one of their, northern 
spurs clamber the mediaeval walls and 
houses of Segovia. As long as fortresses 
were necessary or as men lived in feudal 
cities girdled by walls and towers, Segovia 
was a prosperous and powerful city of Old 
Castile, but when the Moor had been 
driven forever from Spain the mission of 
these warrior hill-towns was fulfilled, and 
since that time Segovia, little by little, 
has sunk into a peaceful slumber, retain 
ing, with its neighbor Avila, the charm 
and glamour of a bygone age, the mourn- 




Framing a niche of blue in each of its countless arches. Page 176. 



175 



176 THE TOWN OF DON PABLO THE CRAFTY 

f ul beauty of a city whose decay has made reared such mighty stones ? For nearly 

it even more precious to the dreamer of two thousand years it has carried upon its 

dreams and the lover of the picturesque, countless arches the pure, clear waters of 

The railroad station, as so often is the the Sierras to fill the fountains of the city 

case in Spain, lies somewhat apart from and the great reservoirs of the Alcazar, 

the town, making it a necessity to use the the favorite home of Alfonso the Wise, 

rattle-trap omnibus that stands drawn With its three tiers of mighty arches it 

up before it. Three mules, harnessed remains the most important work that 

abreast, with their skins stretched tight the Romans left in Spain so extraor- 

as drumheads over their dry old bones dinary, indeed, that the peasants prefer 

and their leanness hidden under jangling to believe, and always will believe, I dare 

bells and scarlet pompons, leaped for- say, that his Satanic Majesty, in love 

ward under the driver s lash as we started with a beautiful Segovian maiden, built 

toward the city. Luckily we had taken it in a single night to win her favor and 

seats on the berlina, and I say luckily ad- spare her the trouble of going down the 

visedly, for, had we sat inside, I verily be- hill to fill her water-jug at the spring ! 
lieve we might have lost our hearing even In its very shadow we spied the hotel 

in those few moments. that we were seeking ; so, picking our way 

Some turbulent imp of mischief seemed through the clutter of the market a 
to impel the driver to speed, for we en- litter of pottery, baskets, and blankets 
tered the Madrid Gate at a gallop, clat- we soon had chosen a cool little apart- 
tered on at the same wild pace through ment that faced the square and, having 
the twisting streets, and proceeded thus caught the Spanish custom, spent most of 
through the town to the accompaniment that Saturday afternoon hanging over the 
of urging cries to the mules, the fierce railing of our balcony, 
cracking of the whip and the rattle and At one hand, towering high into the 
bang of the dozen coach-windows crack- heavens and framing a niche of blue in 
ling like pistol-shots about our ears. As each of its countless arches, the giant 
we tore through the narrow lanes, people aqueduct arose, and around its bases the 
fled in every direction at our approach, or peasants bartered and gossiped and chat- 
rushed from doorways to grab up errant tered. On the other hand the land sloped 
children, or popped out upon balconies to sharply away down toward the valley of 
see what in the world was the matter, the Eresma, cut in two by the main road 
We caught fleeting glimpses of weather- to Pedraza, broad, white, and dusty, 
worn houses tottering on wriggly stilts; of Vehicles of every description covered 
dingy posadas before which groups of carts, gigs, coaches, and lumbering far- 
overladen donkeys mournfully hung their mers wains drawn by patient oxen, kept 
heads; of beflowered balconies and gaily arriving by this road (for Saturday is 
painted house-fronts; then we plunged market-day), varied by trains of slim- 
into the gloom of a lane narrower than legged donkeys trotting under inconceiv- 
all the rest, where our wheel-hubs grazed able loads. And every once in a while a 
the walls on either hand, only to emerge stage-coach with four or six horses would 
at last into the brilliancy of the sun- rumble up with a grand flourish and a 
baked Azoquejo. prodigious cracking of whips and deposit 

Could anything be imagined more re- its load of sweltering humanity before 
plete with character than this quaint old outfonda : peasants in kerchiefs or queer- 
market-place ? Venerable houses straddle ly plaited straw hats; priests, crimson- 
its squat arcades and enclose it on every cheeked and apoplectic; or tired-looking 
hand, while across its very centre, vault- commercial travellers with wilted collars 
ing- from hill to hill, piled high with red- and dusty clothes. 

tiled roofs, strides the colossal puente like But we were the only tourists in the 

some prehistoric monster with a hundred dining-room that evening, or, in fact, on 

legs. But a glance at this aqueduct, any of the evenings of our stay there. At 

vast and simple as a work of nature, is the various tables there were but few 

needed to tell that it is of Roman origin, women. There were some sturdy farm- 

for who but Roman builders could have ers, a few officers, a priest or two, and a 







The peasants bartered and gossiped. Page 176. 



VOL. LXXL 12 



177 



178 



THE TOWN OF DON PABLO THE CRAFTY 



travelling barrister or doctor, but the 
women were left at home doubtless a 
survival of Oriental custom, for the 
Spanish lady, though prone enough to 
attract attention on her afternoon prome 
nade, still shrinks from showing herself in 
provincial hotels. 
A large table of honor at one end of the 



And such appetites as they had ! The 
fruits, the nuts, the cakes upon the table 
all disappeared with the soup or, at latest, 
with the fish. And when I chanced to 
remark to the proprietor one day that 
doubtless he was glad to have such steady 
patrons in his establishment, he remarked, 
with a grunt and a shrug: "Oh, that 







Thf ancient monastery of El Parral. Page 182. 



room was occupied by a mess of artillery 
cadet-officers, for in Segovia the artillery 
school of Spain is located. They were a 
good-looking group of young fellows, with 
clear-cut features and whitish skins, most 
of them indubitably titled, and one at 
least might have been a cousin to the 
King, .with his wide mouth and ponderous 
protruding chin. This table alone was 
enough to keep busy the single waiter 
and his overworked assistant, for from 
it proceeded a continual rapping of glasses 
and calls for wine, for food, for paper and 
ink, for a messenger, or for coats and caps. 



that doesn t bring much gain to the 
house." , 

Dinner was late, usually at nine rather 
than at eight, so that, when we went up 
stairs that first evening, the streets were 
dark and deserted, and no one was stirring 
except the sereno, or night-watchman, 
who, with lantern and spear, wandered 
about calling the hour. In his belt he 
carried a number of house-keys, and in 
his hand some tapers, and when the 
people came home late at night, he un 
locked their doors for them and handed 
them a taper to light them up the stairs 



THE TOWN OF DON PABLO THE CRAFTY 



179 



an antiquated custom that still prevails 
even in as big and cosmopolitan a city as 
Madrid. 

Next morning we found that the bulk 
of the city lies up the hill from the Azo- 
quejo. The Calle del Carmen leads up to 
it, affording from time to time, through 
gaps in its houses, glimpses out over the 
pottery roofs of the suburb of San Millan 
with the Piedad and its stations of tfy 
cross in the distance. Just at the sum 
mit of the hill you come upon the singular 
Casa de los Picos, each stone of whose 
facade is cut in facets like a diamond, giv 
ing it a warlike aspect like a porcupine 
bristling for battle. It was the home of 
the corregidor, or mayor of the city, and 
in it the town council used to assemble 
to greet the sovereign when he came on 
a visit, and see that he duly took his oath 
to respect the fueros, or privileges of the 
city. 

The old streets and byways of Segovia 
are as picturesque and as replete with 
character as any in Spain. Hidden away 
in them you will find ancient house-fronts 
diapered with rich patterns in stucco, 
relics of the Moorish occupation, and 
Gothic facades five centuries old, while 
in the smaller squares you will come upon 
palaces whose stout masonry and heavily 
grilled windows have withstood every 
assault of man and time palaces whose 
grim facades, with their massive scutch- 



eoned doorways, hide behind their rug- 
gedness warm patios, sun-baked, deco 
rated with tiles and ornate balustrades, 
and planted with palms and flowering 
shrubs. 

It is in these streets of Segovia that 
Quevedo lays the scenes of his master- 




The cobbler and maker of hats. 



180 



THE TOWN OF DON PABLO THE CRAFTY 



piece, "El Gran Tacano," a classic that 
the Spaniards rate only second to Cer- 
vantes s immortal story. Piece of realism 
that it is, with its biting sarcastic philos 
ophy hidden under a cloak of broad 
humor, it might have been signed by any 
of the realists of to-day, so true to life do 



dered in the dirty Calle de la Neveria, but 
a step from the Plaza Mayor, I came upon 
this sign over the door of a barber-shop: 
FELIPE, PRACTICANTE EN CIRUJIA for 
all the world Don Pablo s father, barber 
and surgeon in one ! 
And so I always think of Segovia as 




The church of Vera Cruz stands alone. Page 182. 



its pictures remain. And as you walk 
about these streets and watch the people 
in them, you will still find his types ex 
tant and will fancy Cabra s school shut 
up behind some grim facade, or Don 
Pablo s uncle, the executioner, living in 
one of the noisome alleys; or, in some 
passer-by, proud though dressed in well- 
brushed, threadbare clothes^ you will 
recognize old Don Torribio, the penniless 
hidalgo, who, existing by his flattery and 
his wit, gravely bows to the ladies in their 
black mantillas as they pass on their way 
to church. And one morning, as I wan- 



Don Pablo s town (the French transla 
tion of Quevedo s work bears as. its title 
"Don Pablo de Segovie"), and see in its 
streets the backgrounds of Daniel Vierge s 
unequalled drawings, to my mind the 
greatest masterpieces of modern illustra 
tion. 

Segovia has further claims to artistic 
laurels. Its craggy hill slopes, its austere 
buildings, its far-reaching horizons have 
tempted the greatest modern Spanish 
painter, Ignacio Zuloaga, to leave his 
native town Eibar and take up his resi 
dence in it. For years he wandered over 



"TV- - - I "T*-^ 

59S i-^fvvr^-^ 




S<iu1 | 



\ 



The city piles up grandly from this side too. Page 183. 



181 



182 THE TOWN OF DON PABLO THE CRAFTY 

the rugged face of Spain in quest of the bank of the gurgling Eresma, is one of the 

picturesque, then made up his mind that, most romantic pleasaunces that I know. 

of all the Spanish cities, matchless Sego- Its loneliness, its grass-grown walks 

via best suited his aesthetic liking. There shaded by rows of venerable trees, stimu- 

he maintains two studios, one being the late the imagination and make of it a sort 

Canonjia, a noble casa with great walls of poet s retreat or lovers paradise. And, 

such as I have before described and win- besides this sylvan charm, it commands 

dows that overlook the endless plains of a number of striking views of the city that 

Old Castile; the other the nave of the piles high above it, girt by its mighty 

primitive church of San Juan de los walls and bartizaned towers, cut with 

Caballeros, an old Romanesque structure gates and punctuated here and there with 

that has been abandoned for more than the belfries of its churches, 

three hundred years. Beyond the Alameda, on a hill, perched 

These early Romanesque churches of high amid vine arbors and trellises, 
Segovia are of a particularly pure and stands the ancient monastery of El Par- 
beautiful type. During the wars against ral, at one time known as "a terrestrial 
the Moors Segovia changed hands several paradise," now but a ruin set in ruinous 
times, and when the infidels were finally gardens. From here on the road be- 
driven from the city, and retired to their comes more and more picturesque. Be- 
fastnesses at Toledo, the Christians who yond the Moneda, the only mint in Spain 
crowded into Segovia after them, fired until a hundred years ago, you come upon 
with religious zeal, began to construct a the highway that descends precipitously 
number of parochial churches in the style from the castellated gateway of Santiago, 
then prevalent, the purest Romanesque, a road enlivened with gypsy women, with 
These churches thus mark the period of men in faded smock-frocks goading 
the town s greatest prosperity and coin- cream-colored oxen, with deformed and 
cide in date with the building of its pal- tattered beggars and all the riffraff that 
aces and its Alcazar, a perfect type of gathers in the dust of Spanish post-roads, 
feudal castle. Later, when the Moors Above the evil-smelling lanes of San Mar- 
were driven from Toledo and retreated cos the church of Vera Cruz stands alone, 
still farther south, Segovia ceased to be twelve-sided, built by the Templars in 
important as a frontier town, and since imitation of the Holy Sepulchre, upon 
then its churches, except those in its more their return from the Holy Wars. Far- 
populous districts, have sunk more and ther down the river looms the sinister 
more into disrepair, have been shorn one Pena Grajira or Crow s Cliff, from whose 
by one of their inestimable treasures, until top criminals used to be flung to death, 
now they remain mere empty shells from It is from this point that, as you look 
which the pearls have been stolen. But back, you realize the justice of the com- 
these abandoned churches, some quite in- parison that likens Segovia to a ship sail- 
tact, others more or less fallen to decay ing toward the setting sun, as, behind a 
and ruin, still decorate the squares and swinging bend of the Eresma, it towers 
street corners, where their cloisterlike high above the two rivers that have cleft 
arcades, their well-proportioned bell- it from the surrounding plateaus, its 
towers and their airy loggias borne aloft Alcazar, bristling with barbacan and 
on slender colonnades, add the key-notes battlement, looming like the giant fore- 
to the general picturesqueness of the city, castle of some mediaeval galleon sailing 

But, if you wish to obtain a true idea of the southern seas. 

the peculiar beauty of this grand old Cas- It was growing late in the afternoon as 

tilian burg, you should do as we did one we returned by the other side of the city 

sunny Sunday afternoon walk around up the narrow valley of the Clamores, 

it. We descended from the Azoquejo to deeply imbedded between wooded hills, 

the faubourg of San Lorenzo; then went Had you been spending July as we had 

on past the Santa Cruz and along the been, on the sun-baked plains of Old 

steep road that descends from the Puerta Castile treeless, shadeless, seared and 

da San Cibrian to the Alameda, which scorched you would have felt as we did 

half -abandoned promenade, bordering the that Sunday afternoon as we breathed 



"TO EVERY MAN A PENNY 183 

the moisture-laden air and heard the songs as well are impregnated with this 

wind sighing in the poplar leaves over- same relic of the Moors. Even in Seville 

head and looked into the shadows where Cathedral, at the solemn moment of the 

children played among the willows. The elevation of the host. I detected the same 

city piles up grandly from this side too strange note in the improvisations of the 

with its walls and towers, its tiled roofs master who evolves such wondrous har- 

and buttressed garden-walls, culminating monies from his pealing organ, 
in the fretted mass of the cathedral whose As we came into the paseo upon our 

west front seemed ablaze in the sunset, return to the city we found a military 

Down among the trees by the river a band playing, and, tired with our long 

little fete was in progress. In one corner, stroll, we were well content to sit down 

near a refreshment booth, the centre of an and amuse ourselves by watching the 

admiring crowd of peasants, stood two citizens and their Sunday raiment. The 

musicians of a bygone day, a drummer men talked over their affairs ; the women 

and a piper, belted with fajas and clothed sat gossiping in groups, their daughters 

in sheepskins. Anything more weird or glancing askance at the well-groomed 

primitive than the lilt and quaver of their cadets of the artillery school; the children 

music strange and Oriental as one might rolling hoops or playing toro, mounted on 

hear in Tunis or in Tangier could scarce- each other s shoulders as picador, charging 

ly be imagined, nor did this surprise me, with banderilla or giving the coup de grace 

for almost all the Spanish melodies that as espada to the poor little bull-boy, just 

I have heard among the people their as Goya depicted them years ago in his 

dances, their folk-songs, and their love- tapestries in the Escurial. 



" To Every Man a Penny" 

BY ISABEL WESTCOTT HARPER 

AND so they sleep forever and a day; 

Of that great quietness they do not tell: 
Only the face of nature seems to say 

That all is well. 

"The rest is silence": only in the dawn 
Do they have being now, and in the wind. 

Dust unto kindred dust again is drawn 
With healing kind. 

Ah, human love ! for this they sacrifice 
Their heritage, the pride of consciousness: 

The love divine, and heaven that men devise, 
Would make this less. 

Through all the ages death has ever lain 

The fact toward which we move, the price of thought- 
Benignity of fate that takes again 
The pain it brought. 

Is there more love than this? Great peace they sought. 

They tell us nothing more; and o er the hill 

The stars rise ceaselessly, and time is naught. 

Let us be still! 




lona from Earraid, as David Balfour saw it. 



Eilean Earraid: The Beloved Isle of 
Robert Louis Stevenson 



BY LLEWELLYN M. BUELL 



ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 



1 But it was in Earraid itself that I delighted chiefly." R. L. S. 




OT 



a few travellers, 
since the days when 
Doctor Johnson and 
his Bozzy ventured 
upon their difficult 
and hazardous tour of 
the western islands of 
Scotland, have visited, 
afoot or afloat, those isles of Skye, Mull, 
Ulva, Gometra, Eigg, Staffa, lona the 
very names, in their strangeness of sound 
and accent, recall the sombre and roman 
tic beauty of those outworks of the British 
coast. Seldom, however, is the casual 
tourist of to-day, steaming around Mull 
from the banalities of Oban to spend one 
hour " doing" lona and another in the 
caves of Staffa, aware that he passes Ear- 
raid,* that islet which Robert Louis Ste 
venson loved perhaps above all others, 

* Eilean Earraid is pronounced, as a group, "ellen air 
raid"; Earraid, not in combination, is pronounced more 
like "arid." 

184 



which he used as setting in two of his 
stories ("Kidnapped" and "The Merry 
Men"), and which still called his fancy 
back to it from the soft delights of distant 
Vailima. 

Something of the fascination this island 
had for Stevenson communicated itself to 
me from my earliest reading of "Kid 
napped," and was strengthened as I came 
to be familiar with "The Merry Men," 
so that it was with a sense of rare privilege 
that I found myself, this past summer, 
sailing close to its rocky shores. Perhaps 
a discursive narration of the way Earraid 
unfolded itself to me will have some value 
as a guide to any that may wish to visit 
the islet, and as a commentary on Ste 
venson s use of it as setting. 

Granted though it be that all mankind 
loves an island, how came it, the reader 
may ask at this point, that Stevenson 
chose this for his own, of all the islands 



// ..--; ,/:;. / - x ..,-.. 2^^- - & RtJbSh. *. I 

^ ^^^S?^^^^ A 



. :../ ^ .f 

Camps Cuil au t St&mh 
I 

\ J Jtlacl 

\ Spoutinj Caf^fJ Culdpnh, 

- 



C" J n* C ^ fr^\ ! ^<V__-/ ^ 

A -. .^^T:. :.-,- }<>\ , : .^/tr^z^r^T^-^^1 

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Map of lona, Earraid, and the Ross of Mull. 

In "The Merry Men" Earraid is called Aros; Earraid Sound, Aros Bay; Mull, 
Grisapol; Traigh Gheal, Sandag Bay; Ben More, Ben Kyaw. 



sown upon all the seas bleak Eilean 
Earraid rather than Ceylon or Fayal, 
Torcello or Formosa or Sark? First of 
all, he was with all his heart and soul a 
Scotsman. Again, he was justly proud 
of his family s work, since before his 
grandfather s time, in the service of the 
Northern Lights, building heart-stirring 
beacons like Bell Rock, Dhu Heartach, 
and Skerryvore, all about the rugged 
coasts of Britain, but mostly in these 
same western islands. Chiefly, however, 



Stevenson owed this affection for the 
Hebrides to a vacation in his twentieth 
year spent upon this very islet, while the 
elder Stevensons were building the Dhu 
Heartach light. That reef lying fifteen 
miles out in the ocean southwest from 
Mull, Earraid was the nearest available 
pied a terre for the builders, and the boy 
Louis had the delightful occupation of 
idling about as the nephew of the chief 
engineer, as he tells us in "Memoirs of 
an Islet." There is no record of his ever 

185 



186 



EILEAN EARRAID 



having revisited Earraid, but the crowded people the lad had met at Oban and on 
impressions of all his later years never the steamer that brought him to lona. 
obscured its features in his memory. It sounds startlingly like the present day 

For the ordinary modern traveller, to hear him tell how he sized up his fel- 
without a yacht or an uncle in the light- low passengers, decided that a certain 
house service, the only convenient way young girl was his "best investment, "and 
to reach Earraid is to go north from Glas- struck up acquaintance with the old gen- 
gow by land or sea to Oban, where at tleman who was with her "and so with 
least the sunsets and the whiskey are to the damsel." Now, as then, every one 

seems to regard 
those island boats 
as heaven-sent op 
portunities for en 
larging his ac 
quaintance and 
ministering to his 
self-esteem, 
flushed with 




Ruins of the Darnaway farmhouse. 



All 
his 

social successes, as 
he calls them, Ste 
venson had to stay 
behind at lona 
while his new 
friends, including 
charming Miss 
Amy, went on. 
Moreover, during 
his wait for a boat 
to ferry him over to 

be commended. From Oban you take Earraid, he had a very bad dinner at what 
the swift and equable Grenadier, which he calls "the wrong hotel." He tells his 
thrice weekly goes the circuit of the great mother of the miserable sequence of rice- 
island of Mull and makes a stop at lona, and-water soup, mashed herring flanked 
the nearest point of approach to Earraid by iron potatoes, and a leathery fowl that 
itself. lona is the historic isle where St. must have been " the grandmother of the 
Columba landed in his little curagh from cock that frightened Peter," a recital that 
Ireland, braving those stormy seas to in its vividness and its reflection of high 
carry the message of the Cross to the 
pagan and barbarous Hebrideans and 
Picts lona, the burial-place of kings 
and of yore the seat of piety and learning, 
now all ruined in the blindness of reform 
ing zeal. It is to-day such a delightful 
place for those who love simplicity and 
quiet, romantic scenery and intercourse 
with the gentle, "homely" islanders, that 
one is given to wonder why R. L. S. 
showed so little affection for lona when 

he had so much to lavish on its plainer liness of guests and staff alike made the 
neighbor, Earraid. Perhaps the explana- Argyll quite the right hotel for me. Be- 
tion is to be found in a letter written to fore my first luncheon was over, a party 
his mother, just after his arrival at Ear- had been formed to explore Earraid with 
raid, that summer of 1870 when he was me, and with the help of these strangers 
young and twenty. of longer residence than mine it was a 

Of Earraid the letter says nothing, but 

,1 j J . i * "Letters," vol. I, pp. 27-36, edited by Sidney Colvm 

there are pages and pages about the (4 volumes, Scribner% New York, 1911). 



spirits shows the twenty-year-old boy al 
ready a promising apprentice to the art 
of writing. Indeed, one of the final 
sentences shows where his heart lay 
"Really, the whole of yesterday s work 
would do as a novel without one little bit 
of embellishment." * 

Unwittingly I followed Stevenson to 
that "wrong hotel," but times and Mac 
leans had changed in fifty years, and its 
unpretending simplicity and the friend- 



EILEAN EARRAID 



187 



simple, albeit gradual, matter to get Coll ter Mary Ellen. It is now the land sta- 

MacDonald, a surly but harmless native tion for a section of the lighthouse service, 

in whose veins surely flows the blood of with a landing-stage, warehouses, cranes, 

ancient pirates and wreckers, to sail us and a row of cottages looking as if cast 

across lona Sound to Fionphort on the in block out of the hardest and dullest 




The coast in a storm. 



Isle of Mull. From there it was a walk 
of a mile or so southward by a desultory 
road to the shore of Earraid Sound, or 
" Aros Bay," as it is called in "The Merry 
Men." 

As I looked across from this point there 
came the first disillusionment. Earraid, 
or "Aros," is no longer uninhabited as in 
David Balfour s day, nor yet occupied 
only by Gordon Darnaway and his daugh- 



iron in the world, all impinging their 
commonplace ugliness upon the beauty 
of Earraid. Yet from here are served 
Dhu Heartach and Skerryvore, both 
lonely and ultimate outposts in the At 
lantic bearing comfort to mariners, both 
counted among the proudest achieve 
ments of that "family of engineers" from 
which R. L. S. felt himself the degenerate 
offspring. 



188 



EILEAN EARRAID 



Confronted with this sight, we stood 
on the rocks and waved hopefully at the 
apparently sleeping settlement, and final 
ly got a response from a leisurely moving 
figure near the landing-stage. While he 
slowly rowed across to us, we had time 
to fortify ourselves with tea from a ther 
mos flask and biscuits brought from the 
tiny general store on "The Street" of 



reef, which Stevenson loved to call "the 
noblest of all extant deep-sea lights." He 
told us the long days of summer were 
harder to endure than the twenty-hour 
nights of winter, and set us to reflecting 
on the oppressiveness of interminable 
daylight in that wide unbroken desert of 
waters. Yes, he read a great deal, espe 
cially in winter, and he once had a royal 




"Sandag Bay" from above. 
Scene of the wrecks in " The Merry Men " and the place where David Balfour in "Kidnapped" was washed ashore. 



lona. The man in the boat, on arriving, 
turned out to be a good-natured member 
of the Lights colony, who assured us that 
there was no public ferry, and that we 
could have walked across the sands higher 
up the bay so long as the tide -was out. 
None the less, he ferried us across. On 
the way, thinking of the barrenness of 
the island as it appears in "Kidnapped," 
I asked how long the single farmhouse on 
the bay had been there. "Since Noah 
was a baaby," was the reply, so prompt 
and emphatic as to terminate discussion. 
Stevenson, who prized the "ability to 
speak with ease and opportunity to all 
sorts and conditions of men," should have 
been there to draw out this Charon of 
ours who was no less than the keeper of 
Skerryvore itself. 

He had been enjoying a four-weeks 
holiday amidst the gaieties of Earraid 
and was going off on the morrow for an 
eight-weeks tour of duty on that far-off 



breakfast on snipe and woodcock he 
found dead from dashing against the light 
as they flew along in the migrating sea 
son. All in all, a stanch, simple, and 
cheerful soul, fit to carry on the noble 
traditions of the Northern Lights. 

Once landed on Earraid, we ascended 
by the road past the hideous granite cot 
tages up a continually greener and softer 
track to a white land-beacon and helio 
graph station used for communicating 
with the deep-sea lights, and thence over 
untrodden moorland to the highest point 
on the islet. Here, with the view unob 
structed on every side, the Stevensonian 
is struck at once by the felicitousness of 
the description in "Memoirs of an 
Islet" : * "The little isle of Earraid lies 
close in to the southwest corner of the 
Ross of Mull: the sound of lona on one 
side, across which you may see the isle 

* In "Memories and Portraits," p. 251 (Scribner s, New 
York, 1895). 




From a painting by N. C. H- yeth. Copyright Charles Scribncr s Sons. 

David Balfour on the Island of Earraid. 
From the special edition of "Kidnapped." Illustrated by N. C. Wyeth. 



and church of Columba; the open sea to 
the other, where you shall be able to mark 
on a clear surfy day the breakers running 
white on many sunken reefs." Add to 
this that there is a small bay in the rocky 
southern side, and that the narrow chan 
nel that separates Earraid from the great 
island of Mull is high and dry at low tide, 
though a fathom deep at high water, and 
you have the essentials for a portrait of 
this beloved isle. 
So from my high-placed coign of van 



tage I could easily recognize that this was 
the place where David Balfour, washed 
off the brig wrecked out there on the Tor- 
rans, came ashore and spent four miser 
able days and nights, wet to the skin, 
fending off starvation by a nauseating 
diet of limpets and bog water, and suffer 
ing the mental pangs of solitude and 
desertion, all ironically needless, simply 
because it never occurred to him, an in 
lander, that escape might be perfectly 
easy at low tide ! 

189 



"These great granite rocks ... go down together in troops into the sea, like cattle on a 

summer s day." "The Merry Men." 



Perhaps not so many as have read 
"Kidnapped" are acquainted with "The 
Merry Men," though it is a singularly 
artistic short story, even more intimately 
and completely associated with this is 
land. It was Stevenson s first literary use 
of his memories of Earraid, and his re 
mark to Graham Balfour,* " I began with 

* "Life of Stevenson," vol. II, p. 169 (Scribner s, New 
York, 1 901). 



the feeling of one of those islands on the 
west coast of Scotland, and I gradually 
developed the story to express the senti 
ment with which that coast affected me," 
shows how he not so much set the story 
in this particular place as built up the 
action to suit the island atmosphere he 
loved. All who have read that " fantastic 
sonata about the sea and wrecks," know 
that the action and, indeed, the charac- 




The channel between Earraid and Mull at low tide. 
The black band on the rocks shows mean high-water line, about six feet high. 



IQO 




Arcs Bay," "Ben Kyaw 



in the distance, Northern Lights colony in the 
foreground. 



ters owe their nature to the situation and 
topography of the island. There is mean 
ing more than literal in the statement 
that "any way the wind was, it was al 
ways salt air." 

Actually on the spot, where one s view 
embraces practically everything men 
tioned in the story, it is easy to appreciate 
how the sea lies all round about the island 
and about the lives of the characters, 



Mary Ellen and Charlie and the blindly 
faithful Maclean clansman Rorie, but 
especially Uncle Gordon Darnaway. One 
can picture that dour Lowlander, penned 
by circumstances on his ultimate Hebrid- 
ean islet, "biting his nails at destiny," 
beset by the awe and the fascination of 
the sea, and obsessed at once by the tragic 
spectacle that is shipwreck and by greed 
for plunder from the broken ships, to the 




The farmhouse on Earraid, said to have been there 

in the distance. 



since Noah was a baaby," lona 



191 



192 EILEAN EARRAID 

point of having killed the sole survivor the Spanish treasure-hunters, wrecked 
from a brig, the Christiana, wrecked on among the Merry Men during the action 
his shore. One sees him in that other of the story, was evidently a pure fig- 
storm, at the time of the story, lying on ment of the romancer s brain, born whilst 
the rocks above Sandag Bay down there he thought of the other wrecks and of the 
below us, and watching yet another ship fate of ignorant sailors in a badly rigged 
going down among the breakers called ship storm-tossed on that sharp-fanged 
the Merry Men, till the sight puts him coast. 

into a complete frenzy, a sort of diabol- As for the terrain itself, it is only a 
ism, a worship of the sea as the embodi- half of a square mile, more or less, of 
ment of "the auld sin o the warld." Highland moor set into the sea rock, 
Roaming at large like a wild goat on his is- bog, grass, and springy beds of heather; 
land, he eludes the well-meant pursuit of nothing, of course, approaching a tree, 
his servant and his nephew, until he sees and hardly an acre of level ground in its 
they are aided by a kingly negro saved whole extent. As we climbed about, my 
from the night s wreck. Him he mistakes sympathies were strong with Charlie 
in his madness for the ghost of his victim, Darnaway in his chase after his poor mad 
and flees straight from him into the swift- uncle, the day after the storm, and I had 
running tide, which engulfs them both no difficulty in imagining the physical 
"and if ever they came up again, which distress of the Edinburgh divinity stu- 
God alone can tell, it would be ten min- dent, soft from a winter spent over his 
utes after, at the far end of Arcs Roost, books. Those crags and hummocks 
where the sea-birds hover fishing." A would be truly heart-breaking to ascend, 
grim tale of wild folk and mortal deeds, and in the haste and disregard of a pur- 
fitting outgrowth to spring from this suit, especially, so slippery and uneven to 
waste of rocky islands, buried reefs, and descend that one would be in constant 
sudden mighty storms. Fitting, too, jeopardy of a turned ankle, or even a 
where one is hearing melancholy songs, cracked skull. In "Kidnapped," Steven- 
tales of old and recent wrecks, and eerie son shows that he had not forgotten the 
superstitions that neither Christianity nor quality of his rambles on Earraid, by 
science has ever fully dislodged from the making David s journey from the channel 
minds of the dwellers therein. back to Sandag Bay, a distance of hardly 
It does give one a thrill to have all the quarter of a mile, cost him half an hour 
setting spread out before one and to be of painful scrambling from rock to bog, 
able to follow out the details of the story, and hummock to crag. 
That little bay with straight rocky sides Earraid is given a peculiar quality of 
and a steep sandy beach filling the inner semi-insularity by the tidal channel to 
end is "Sandag Bay," where Charlie Dar- the east. At low tide it appeared like a 
naway dove to find the wreck of the Ar- sandy-bottomed canyon with a rill of salt- 
mada ship, and where the Christiana had water trickling through it. On our return 
broken her back on the sands, to fire his journey we crossed it, almost literally 
uncle into a wrecker s frenzy of rapacity dry-shod. The floor of the channel, be- 
and murder. MacPhail, the postmaster fore the turn of the tide, stood easily five 
of lona, told me that there actually had feet above the level of Arcs Bay outside, 
been a wreck in that bay, a bit before but in two hours high water would fill it 
Stevenson s time, and that the skipper quite a fathom deep. So deep it was when 
mistook this blind cove for the deeper David Balfour saw it first and jumped to 
entrance to the channel between Earraid the conclusion that he was marooned on 
and the Ross of Mull (see map, p. 185). a desert island. 

That Stevenson heard this tale in 1870 - There are not many living things on 

seems as likely as not, so that for him to Earraid, but what there are harmonize 

combine this wreck with the indubitable with the personality of the island. The 

Armada ship sunk near Tobermory, on poisonous vipers that Stevenson s roman- 

the other side of Mull, would be but a tic heart loved to dwell upon were not at 

simple move ment for his nimble and ro- all in evidence. There were, however, 

mantic fancy. The third ship, that of picturesque black-faced horned sheep, 



EILEAN EARRAID 193 

and a dozen or so of goats as wild as deer, heaven help the man that hears that 

Once, for a moment, I saw on the beach cauldron boiling." 

of Sandag Bay some of the spotted Thus I saw them, that first day, the 

white seals of the region. Besides these, great rocks gathering like kine in sunlit 

there were only sea-gulls wheeling over- water, but that evening a wind sprang up 

head with plaintive, "human" cries, the from the southwest. To mine hostess of 

long-necked black cormorants gossiping the Argyll I spoke of wishing to see a 

on their rocks, and the limpets amongst proper storm in those waters, and she re- 

the seaweed, poor and patient as Keats s plied: " It ll be a storm itself we re having 

oyster. the night." It was. The next morning 

Of more scenic value than the surface the Dinara, the weekly steamer to Skye, 
of the islet are its surroundings the Paps declined to land passengers or mail, or 
of Jura far off to the southeast, the rocks even bread for lona, but stood by in the 
to the immediate west, the mountains of harbor of Bunessan till the next day. 
Mull to the northeast looming over the Coll MacDonald s ferry dared not ply, 
nearer low green pastures, with Ben More and even the Hesperus, the Northern 
dominating them all, that noble peak Lights tender, successor to the Steven- 
spoken of as " Ben Kyaw " in " The Merry sons Pharos, felt uneasy in Aros Bay, 
Men," and in "Kidnapped" serving as and took herself off to a quieter road- 
David s only landmark. It is not to be stead. All this in the partial shelter of 
called a smiling prospect, the view from lona Sound. What the Merry Men, on 
Earraid, for every way you look there is the exposed southern side of Earraid, 
but treeless moor and crag and sea-worn were up to, literally defies description, 
rock, set off against broad tracts of empty Storm-bound on lona in good earnest, 
sea. Yet, even apart from its grandeur I clambered to a promontory opposite 
of mass and expanse, this landscape on Earraid, and watched the mad water leap 
such a sunny day as I saw it first had its and dance over the reefs that are sown 
points of tender beauty the gleam of out in the vicinity of Sandag Bay. Truly 
green and silver water, relieved by the the Merry Men were holding carnival, 
whiteness of breakers on the rocks and and I could almost hear their song at 
the moving purple shadows of the clouds, a distance of over two miles, as they 
the brilliant green of the rain-washed ver- smashed and spouted and sucked away 
dure toning off to the purest blue in the at the jagged immovable rocks. Charlie 
mountain distances, the majestic sun- Darnaway is made to speak of these 
beams descending in a glory of mist far breakers as running fifty feet high, " but 
out on the western plain of the ocean, the that must be the green water only, for 
bright bell-heather and the harebells, and the spray runs twice as high as that." No 
the orange lichens on the rocks at my more can I say exactly how high, having 
feet. seen them only from afar, but if what I saw 

And over across the sound to the north- on the similar coast of lona be any mea- 

west lies the sacred isle that men call sure, I can say they leapt as if goaded by 

lona, or Icolmkill, or simply "I"- the vil- the wrath of God or the fury of the devil, 

lage, the cathedral, and the ruined nun- All day long the wind held, and all day 

nery standing out bare and clear against long monstrous billows came tirelessly 

the treeless green of the island, whose piling in upon the rocks of lona to fill the 

actual beauty seems haloed by its an- island with the thunder of their breaking, 

cient piety and sway. Toward night the gale fell off, and by 

Finally, to the south show the rocks morning there was but a smart breeze, 

and reefs and little bird islands that though the swell was still running high in 

create the Merry Men and the Roost, the sound. Learning that boats would 

These are the rocks of which Stevenson venture out, I hired a native yawl and 

writes so tellingly that " they go down two Gaelic sailors to sail me through the 

together in troops into the sea like cattle Merry Men and up the little bay to the 

on a summer s day. There they stand, gut that just keeps Earraid an island, 

for all the world like their neighbors Some sail, as Scotch, English, and 

ashore . . . but when the sea is up, Americans alike would say. A rough 
VOL. LXXL 13 



194 EILEAN EARRAID 

passage over the sound against wind and Less, however, than any other literary 

tide, then right in amongst the rocks, so setting I know does Earraid let you down, 

that the spray from the breakers wet us, If Stevenson has overstressed the vipers 

now bearing full upon a reef marked only in his zeal for the romantic, at least he 

by boiling white water at one moment left you to discover the seals, those mys- 

and showing its discolored teeth at the terious ladies out of the sea, for yourself, 

next, as the billows sucked away from it, If he has, as he admits in the preface to 

then sheering away from that danger only "Kidnapped," moved the Torran Rocks 

to run ten yards to windward of a spray- several miles nearer to Earraid, if he has 

washed cliff. Happily the canny Gael at somewhat altered Sandag Bay, and trans- 

the tiller had nerves of whipcord, and he ported to it an Armada ship from twenty 

knew those reefs and their tricks as an miles away, why, that is but testimony 

animal tamer knows his lions, so that he to the godlike power of the creative imag- 

took us safely into the entrance to the ination. 

channel and back home again. For all The firm-handed way in which Steven- 
that, there could be no question as to the son moulded his material is further shown 
fate of any vessel, large or small, that by the fact that though "Kidnapped" 
should try to navigate in that passage and "The Merry Men" deal with much 
without such intimate and instinctive the same period of time, the latter half 
knowledge as his. Hence the inevitabil- of the eighteenth century, in the one he 
ity of the third wreck in "The Merry represents the islet as uninhabited, while 
Men." From this angle of approach, too, in the other he has the rather superior 
one could understand how the Christiana family of Darnaways living there. A 
was cast away, for Sandag Bay did look similar freedom in adapting his setting to 
to an unpractised eye enough like the his purpose is manifested when he makes 
entrance to the gut to deceive any skipper David Balfour haunt the rocks on the 
on a stormy night, seeking anxiously for northwest of Earraid and yearn for the 
refuge. Scarcely, however, does it seem warmth and companionship of the fire- 
the place for a ship to be driven into after sides of lona, seen so clearly across the 
a whole day s struggle, as the uncle pic- sound, while in "The Merry Men" it 
turesit: "A sair day they had of it; their suits him to take no cognizance of that 
hands was never aff the sheets, and it blessed isle, and to allow the reader to 
perishin cauld ower cauld to snaw; and think of " Aros" as unsheltered from the 
aye they would get a bit nip o wind, and great desert ocean to the west, 
awa again, to pit the emp y hope into But Stevenson s variations from his 
them. Eh, man ! but they had a sair day model are as nothing to his conformities 
for the last o t ! . . . But, man ! the dunt with it. The picture in "The Merry 
that she cam doon wi when she struck ! Men" is practically identical with that 
Lord save us a ! but it s an unco life to in "Kidnapped," and both, as I learned 
be a sailor a cauld, wanchancy life." from my pilgrimage, are close to the orig- 
We must allow something, after all, to inal. The "Memoirs of an Islet" and the 
the author s imagination. The greatest references in the letters are really less 
trouble with a literary pilgrimage like positive evidence as to the hold that 
this one is just that we somehow expect, Eilean Earraid had taken upon Steven- 
against reason, to find everything exactly son s imagination than the fact that 
as described, not realizing that the pic- twelve and fifteen years after leaving it 
ture was painted for us by a man who, he used it as setting for two stories, corn- 
by his very quality of art, should be ex- plete and unchanged not only in its gen- 
ceptionally endowed with imagination eral character and location but in all de- 
and sentiment, and that he was working tails of contour, vegetation, climate, and 
under the excitement of creation and pre- surroundings. I make no doubt that dur- 
occupied with the dramatic emotions of ing that summer of 1870, the boy, on the 
his self-borne characters. Such being the threshold of a creative manhood, let his 
case, we must expect to find the actuality, romance-weaving mind rove about the 
viewed in cold blood and prose, a little islet, making it the scene of any number 
less brilliantly colored. of fantastic and thrilling adventures in 



THE PERIL OF LABOR 



195 



the manner of his favorite Scott. From 
these, after a lapse of ten years and more, 
he selected with a maturer mind the ma 
terial for that grim "story of wrecks, as 
they appear to the dweller on the coast," 
and for the episode of Davy Balfour s 
miserable experience as a castaway. 

And why should not Earraid have made 
this impression on him him, a Scots 
man, a scion of that line of light-builders 
to whom the western islands were a work- 



ground and a monument? Yes, even 
though one be alien to such traditions of 
family and nation, Earraid, with its semi- 
insularity, its heathery crags, its outlook 
upon storied lona and a quadrant of the 
unbroken ocean, with its deadly reefs and 
weirdly mewing sea-birds Eilean Ear- 
raid just herself, hard, wild, strange, with 
drawn from the paths of men, captivates 
the imagination and bewitches the heart of 
any one who has a vein of true romance. 



The Peril of Labor 

BY J. LAURENCE LAUGHLIN 



I 



F a skipper of a ship in 
a fog keeps the strict 
est outlook, he may 
even yet strike a hid 
den reef and go down. 
In such a case we re 
gard the disaster as 
practically unavoid 
able, because he was following the best- 
known rules of the sea. But the errors 
of leadership of organized labor cannot 
be thus typified. They may rather be 
compared with the possible action of 
some eccentric aviator. When our great 
Pacific fleet was moving south along the 
west coast of South America, suppose an 
opinionated flier had become convinced 
after sailing for days close to a shore 
hidden to the zenith by dark clouds 
that there were no Andes to the east be 
hind those clouds. From his own per 
sonal observation there could be seen only 
thick mists produced by the cold antarctic 
current condensing the moisture in the 
upper air. Of course, he had heard that 
geographers and scientific folk had de 
clared the existence of a lofty mountain 
range close to the Pacific coast; but, he 
reasoned, these academic persons were 
mere theorists, for to the observant 
traveller there were in fact no such moun 
tains. Therefore, obstinately sure of his 
opinion, he decided to act on it. One fine 
morning he rose from the mother ship in 
his plane to about a thousand feet and 



steered due east at full speed for Brazil 
and the Atlantic Ocean. Needless to say, 
no trace of him would ever have been re 
ported. And so it must be with any 
leader of labor who fanatically plunges 
into the rugged world of industry without 
the guidance of established economic ex 
perience. If he acts in this way, he ob 
viously imperils the organization he rep 
resents. But why should he go to smash 
to prove what has been already estab 
lished by scientific methods? 

II 

As every one knows, there has sprung 
up in recent years a class of leaders who 
have been both a cause and a result of the 
growth of unionism. Unionization has 
been forced in many cases where it would 
otherwise have lagged, and the nature of 
the union has called to control men of a 
special type. Most of them must be of a 
sort suited for propaganda and the dis 
semination of views adapted to extend 
the influence of the unions. Mentally 
they are committed to a point of view; 
they are not as a rule searchers after 
economic truth. Hence the agitator is 
frequently found in ofiice. But in the 
class of workingmen, just as in other 
classes of men, there are included all types 
of mind, the conservatives and extrem 
ists, the ignorant and intelligent, the in 
dustrious and lazy, the reasonable and 



196 



THE PERIL OF LABOR 



unreasonable, the evil and the worthy. 
To hold his place, therefore, the labor 
leader must be primarily a politician; he 
must adjust his policy to the views most 
largely held by his group. To keep his 
following he may pose as a conservative, 
and yet, in fact, aid in dangerously revo 
lutionary operations; to get the support 
of the general public he will advertise the 
patriotism of the unions as if they were 
the only class engaged in the war, and at 
the same time abet strikes and cessation 
of work to gain a party point at the ex 
pense of the very existence of the nation. 
A unionist code of morals has sprung up 
which places the union above the state 
wherever their interests conflict and justi 
fies acts which would be condemned by 
the accepted thinking of civilized society. 
Truculence, bullying, brutality, persecu 
tion, even arson and murder, have been 
used to carry a point. Such things, of 
course, are repugnant to the great num 
ber of reasonable and fair-minded work 
ing men. Hence it has become common 
to say we must distinguish between the 
often vicious point of view of the leaders 
and the generally sensible attitude of the 
men in the unions. It may be that, by the 
very nature of the organization in a union, 
the unscrupulous get to the front and do 
not rightly represent their constituency. 
If a leader, for instance, has received a 
bribe to call off a strike which he has 
threatened for the very purpose of black 
mail, the rank and file are supposed to 
know nothing of it. But, whatever the 
cause, a situation has come about in which 
the leaders practically supply their mem 
bership with their reading, direct the gen 
eral course of their beliefs on the subjects 
of labor and capital, and have even coun 
tenanced a systematic agitation against 
any opposition to their views. The inde 
pendent press, so far as it reaches the 
workers, is the only corrective. 

Ill 

VERY few persons can think correctly 
in any subject. Our colleges and universi 
ties have had almost no influence on the 
economic thinking of our people, except 
to provide with fact and argument those 
who have already preconceived convic 
tions. To-day the way the country goes 



on a great economic issue is a matter of 
chance, the accident of the presentation 
of the question by self-interested politi 
cians. It is not surprising, therefore, to 
find that union members hold as many 
erroneous and false economic views as 
those in other walks of life. The point of 
danger about it is that organized labor 
can base its combined action on these 
mistaken opinions and drive it home to 
the irretrievable danger of its membership 
and society as well. If its leadership can 
force its thinking on its members, it is not 
of much practical importance to say that 
it does not correctly represent the mass 
of reasonable workmen. It is of impor 
tance, however, to note the thinking of 
these labor leaders and to test its quality 
by some economic standards. It is well 
to inquire of the aviator driving into the 
clouds hiding the Andes whether his opin 
ions are well-conceived. 

Without going far afield, it is obvious 
that unionist opinion finds itself in an 
tagonism to the existing economic system ; 
its immediate demands are for higher 
wages and better conditions of employ 
ment, but its writings and arguments go 
much farther. Of course, those leaders 
who court popular support aver that they 
detest socialism; but their protestations 
are not convincing. Everywhere in 
unionist utterances is to be found a con 
viction that the share paid to labor is un 
just; often that labor produces the whole 
product; that under the present wage 
system the workers are enslaved; that the 
share of the capitalistic employer is large 
at the expense of wages; that wages can 
be advanced to any limit because of the 
amazing expenditure of the rich; that 
profits are an inexhaustible fund on which 
a laborer should draw by every means at 
his command ; that employment at wages 
fixed by his own desires is a right; that 
industry should more and more be con 
trolled by the state; and, in general, that 
the existing system of distribution of the 
product is so unjust that labor should be 
placed in more or less power over the 
management of industry to the end of 
obtaining a larger share for labor. This 
brief summary, however, is very re 
strained. The radicals have so "bored 
into" the unionist pronunciamentos as to 
make the above statement of their de- 



THE PERIL OF LABOR 197 

mands seem like colorless conservatism, a colossal scale that it has been made 
But, without making the unionists (whose clear to the meanest understanding. Not 
demands range from higher wages to only the socialistic, but the unionist, agi- 
revolutionary % communism) responsible tation has felt the jolt, 
for the opinions of the extremists, it is As the unions seem to have passed more 
clear that in general they were taught to and more under the influence of the ex- 
look for "a new social order" at the end tremists, the fuller understanding of the 
of the war; and the change of the present aims of the leaders has stiffened the fun- 
industrial system to a new social order is, damental instincts of the Anglo-Saxon to 
of course, only a change to socialism. All resist attacks on the safety of capital and 
the persistent agitation of the unionists any infringement of its rights to property, 
sooner or later merges into the current It is not a matter of argument. It is the 
of socialism. Inevitably there appears action of primary instincts under which 
sooner or later the antagonism to private the present industrial world came into 
property and capitalism. This conclusion being with its accumulated aids to the 
may be met by a superior smile of the in- cheap production of the very essentials of 
telligentsia and the remark: " Of course, modern life. It has been stated by a 
that is the end in view ; it was not neces- biographer of President Wilson that it 
sary to make this labored demonstration is an issue between "human rights 
of it." Nevertheless, it is not the end and property rights." In fact, property 
which the great mass of intelligent work- rights arose only because they were hu- 
ers in this country desire ; but they are man rights. Historical jurisprudence has 
being insidiously swept on to that in- shown us that law came from within, not 
evitable end by the guidance of their being imposed from without; that the 
leaders. Unless one is mistaken in read- habits and customs of a people were 
ing human nature, we are likely to see a crystallized into its codes. Property 
cleavage in the ranks of the workers on rights developed out of primitive need, 
the fundamental differences between con- There is nothing immutable about prop- 
servative and radical temperaments, lines erty rights; they are what they are be- 
which are so fixed in human nature that cause the race is what it is. They are 
they do not conform to the divisions be- expressions of the wishes of the race 
tween employees and employers. shaped during many centuries. 

The right of a man also to the use and 

-ry control over his capitalistic tools and 

equipment, whether it be a carpenter s 

THE crux of the situation lies in the hammer, a man s factory, or a farmer s 

necessity of the leaders to hold their fol- horse, is as little open to question. The 

lowing by showing increasing energy in claim of a farmer to his capital in the 

propaganda both as to numbers and dog- form of a horse and to the returns for its 

ma; while at the same time the true use and depreciation, admit of no argu- 

meaning of the agitation is becoming ment with the rank and file; it is based 

clearer and clearer, and the futility of on a primary sense of right over his own 

carrying on industry without encouraging possessions. It is more necessary to the 

the saving of capital as well as insuring protection of the man of scanty property 

its safety, and the resistance of common than to the rich, who can easily take care 

sense and human nature to a weakening of themselves. Against these fundamen- 

of property rights, is everywhere emerg- tal requirements the steadily expanding 

ing. No writing or teaching on the fal- demands of the extremists have been held 

lacies of socialism has had much effect on up; against this impasse socialistic and 

the thinking of the world compared with revolutionary agitation has come to a 

the unexpected and amazing demonstra- halt, 

tion of its actual working in Russia. y 
Sovietism is nothing but socialism plus 

force; socialistic theory enforced by a As radical leaders have been brought 

most brutal tyranny. The world has had up against this barrier they have come 

teaching on socialism by Russia on such to see that their subversive views will 



198 THE PERIL OF LABOR 

never be accepted voluntarily by posses- ment and persuasion but upon success 
sors of capital and property. The colossal in political strategy. Industry under it 
egotism of the fanatic, who so believes in would cease to be governed by efficient 
his self-appointed judgments (as against management, but instead it would pass 
that of the commonweal) that he intends under political control, and the end would 
to force them upon others contrary to be a certain rise in cost of living. Only 
their will, inevitably leads to the policy of when an imperium in imperio is created 
" direct action," or force. Consequently, will it be possible for truculent leaders of 
the problem to leaders of organized labor the railway brotherhoods effectively to 
to-day is how to force their demands upon say, as they did in August, 1919, in op- 
a resisting public. In what way, in de- posing the return of the railways to their 
fault of peaceful persuasion, can the owners: "The brotherhoods were in no 
policy of "direct action" be carried out? mood to brook the return of the lines to 
How can the primary instincts of man be their former control." Or, if their de- 
overcome? mands are refused, they reply that "in 

The first method by physical force, by that case, we cannot restrain our men; 

strikes, intimidation, boycotting, picket- we do not know what will happen." But, 

ing. threats, and assaults has admit- where, we ask, is authority lodged, in the 

tedly not been successful in gaining the unions or in the Government of the 

ends of organized labor, even for such United States? Can the opinions of the 

simple purposes as an increase of wages, few be forced on the majority ? Direct 

It is now generally agreed that, in an action by politics is a two-edged sword 

ordinary condition of the labor market, if which, like physical force, can be used on 

order is preserved by the state, strikes both sides. It is a dangerous weapon to 

are ineffectual. Force can, of course, be introduce. Capital, too, can resort to di- 

applied equally by both sides, if the state rect action. It is better to avoid its use 

fails in its duty. In Italy, for instance, on either side, 
the Fascisti gave the Communists a dose 

of their own medicine and forced their re- VI 
tirement. In Russia we know that the 

power of an unparalleled tyranny has not THE resort to force and direct action is 

been able to make a success of revolu- the tacit admission that the demands of 

tionary doctrine. It has reduced a gran- organized labor will not be voluntarily 

ary of the world to a devastated, starving accepted. Nevertheless, they are being 

territory. Lenine and the Kaiser have pressed with all the authority of the large 

both sufficiently demonstrated the futility union membership. But, if the leaders 

of a policy of force. are untrained in economic analysis, if they 

Another method has by experience adopt impossible and fanatical plans that 

proved much easier and more effective, are ruinous to industry, their policy is 

If the source of legislation can be con- certain to bring disaster, not only to the 

trolled, even extreme doctrines can be community but to the men who make 

enforced on others against their will by up the unions. We have recently had 

law. This is " direct action " by political some remarkable illustrations of the 

means. Leaders of organized labor and manner in which the wrong-headedness of 

extremists find this an effective method labor leaders has compromised their fol- 

because politicians are open to deals for lowing. 

votes. Thus the Adamson Law was forced In the painful readjustment of costs 
upon Congress in the sole interest of the and prices to a lower level, after the crisis 
railway brotherhoods. After the experi- of 1920-1921, so that demand might 
ence with government control during the again be able to call for continuous pro- 
war the unions very naturally prefer to duction, the leaders of the railway unions 
deal with pliant politicians. If nation- clung to the idea that they could make an 
alization of railways and industries were exception to economic law in their favor, 
established, similar class legislation could It was well understood that high materials 
be passed by bargaining for votes. Such and wages had held up the level of war 
direct action does not depend upon argu- prices; but materials had fallen, as well 



THE PERIL OF LABOR 199 

as wages in other industries. With great psychology, a state of mind out of touch 

audacity they decided to insist for them- with the practical world in which we live, 

selves on war wages. They had been af- In taking such a position the leaders com- 

flicted with a megacephalous conception promised their membership in the eyes of 

of their power to enforce their wishes, all other citizens, and made them seem 

After the precedent of the Adamson Act as if they were no better than highway- 

they set out to threaten the very govern- men. This is an imputation that the 

ment with "direct action." Since Jan- great body of intelligent railway men 

uary i, 1917, the outlay of the railways would instantly resent, 

for labor per annum had increased from Nothing has been settled by calling off 

$1,465,000,000 to more than $3,900,000,- the railway strike, except possibly to re- 

ooo ; and yet, because the Labor Board duce the country s belief in the power of 

granted a reduction of 12 per cent in the unions. The problem still remains, 

wages on July i, 1921, amounting to for the contumacious attitude of the 

about $400,000,000, they called a strike, leaders remains the same. When the 

They were not satisfied with having federal court in Indianapolis declared that 

$2,000,000,000 more wages than in 1917. the coal-miners could not force unioniza- 

Or, Compared with December, 1917, their tion on a district where it was not wanted 

wages had increased from 55 to 113 per and forbade the employers to "check 

cent, while cost of living had gone up off" union dues from miners wages, the 

only 24.5 per cent. The strike was a chal- answer of the unions was practical cle- 

lenge to the United States through the fiance. The hold of the leaders would, of 

Labor Board. The strike was, in effect, course, be much weakened if they had to 

a blow at lowered freights for the farmers depend for funds on the voluntary pay- 

and consumers in general. In spite of all ment of dues by members of the union, 

this, the leaders proposed to shut off coal The effect on public opinion has been 

and food from the cities, to cut off mil- cumulative. The action of the miners on 

lions from the use of the railways, to hold top of the railway fiasco tends to create 

up measures for the reduction of unem- an almost universal prejudice against the 

ployment just when business was slowly doings of all labor-unions. And yet the 

recovering in support of inane and im- unions have legitimate and useful func- 

possible demands. Public opinion forced tions to perform. In truth, labor is im- 

the calling off of the strike. perilled by its own leadership. 

In utter disregard of public necessities 

the leaders made their membership ac- YTT 
cessory to an economic error whose con 
sequences would have been almost in- FOR some unaccountable reasons the 
finitely disastrous. The assumption in leaders of the unions have assumed that 
such strikes is that, occupying a key posi- truculence, threats, and ugly intimida 
tion by which they have a power to tions are the only means by which they 
paralyze industry, the public and the can accomplish their purposes. Their 
government have no option but to grant Prussian methods of bullying and the use 
their demands, no matter how extreme of force have no other results than the 
they may be. The effect is exactly the creation of bad blood between the men 
opposite. The irresistible conclusion is and their employers. If their leadership 
forced on the country that action should were worthy of the name, it would aim at 
be taken to prevent in the future any establishing such relations with the other 
small group of persons from holding up necessary factors of production that 
the nation, for its own selfish purposes, amelioration of conditions and better pay 
If men take employment on the railways, would be made possible rather than im- 
which are affected by a public interest, possible. Again and again officious lead- 
they must accept the fact that they are ers have intervened to prevent friendly 
not as free to indulge their whims about relations between workers and employ- 
stopping work as they would be in a pri- ers, in order to keep their membership 
vate industry. The attitude of the rail- in hand for combined action on any policy 
way unions disclosed a wholly mistaken set by the leaders. The idea of one big 



200 THE PERIL OF LABOR 

union, or that employers should not be can be commanded by a skilled than by 

allowed to negotiate with their workers, an unskilled laborer. Moreover, if the 

except through an outside representative joint efforts of the factors of production 

of the unions, bears in the same direction, (resources, management, labor, and capi- 

These " oral laborers " are more concerned tal) can be made to yield more product, 

in keeping themselves in office than in more can be paid to each. In fact, higher 

forwarding the real progress of their mem- wages in the United States than in some 

bers. other countries have prevailed for years, 

An army is always in peril under a because our productivity was greater. By 

stupid or incompetent general. It may working in accord with, rather than 

be led to defeat and slaughter against its against, positive economic forces, gains to 

own will. That the members of unions labor might be easily achieved, rather 

have suffered incalculably from bad lead- than defeated. In bringing such results 

ership is only too true. The bane of the to fruition unions can play an important 

working men is the low quality of their part. There is no opposition to organiza- 

leaders. In temper, in intellectual power, tion of labor in itself, but only to the abuse 

in disrespect for the long process by which of its power by wrong-headed leaders, 

civil liberty has been won for all classes, The peril to labor, moreover, lies not 

in contempt for law and order, they are, only in the lack of economic understand- 

with some obvious exceptions, often un- ing by their leaders, but in the frequent 

fitted for leadership. But, in the main, cases where half-baked theorizing crystal- 

their mistakes have been due to lack of lizes into fanatical bigotry which then 

economic training and insight. Men have governs the policy of the unions. Thus 

seldom sought the study of economics some leaders may be absolutely sincere, 

and the ways of increasing wages from a and yet their fanaticism makes them 

desire to get at the truth, and afterward blind to conditions which might have 

gone into unionism; but, as a rule, those been used to the advantage of the general 

who have had a personal stake in labor body of members. During the English 

organizations or who have already fixed coal strike the opinions of the leaders of 

a priori convictions afterward have gone the miners were, no doubt, honest; but 

into economics to find support for these that did not prevent action which, at a 

convictions. The creation of labor col- critical time in the recovery of business, 

leges is a case in point. It is like estab- cut ruinously into English exports, weak- 

lishing an institution to teach free silver, ened her foreign exchange, crippled the 

or protectionism. chief industries of the nation, and worked 

Assuming that the lucubrations of evil not only to the coal industry but to 
earnest but untrained labor leaders are the finances of the state. The effect was 
more to be trusted than the impartial, the same as if they had been avowedly 
scientific study of all economists since disloyal to the state. 
Adam Smith, the results which have been In looking forward to the possible bet- 
reached on wages and allied topics of dis- terment of our industrial relations we 
tribution have been largely ignored. It must admit the fact that the union lead- 
may be said, obviously, that economists ers encourage industrial inefficiency by 
do not agree on these subjects; but it "making work," and are insisting on 
should be understood that the many dif- policies directly antagonizing the racial 
ferences of economists are the inevitable instincts regarding the safety of capital 
concomitants of a live and progressive and property as well as the accumulated 
science. Nevertheless, a general residuum respect for constituted authority exer- 
of accepted principles affecting wages can cised by the modern state. Direct ac- 
be counted on. Without going into de- tion can make little headway against 
tail here,* it is clearly understood that an such obstacles. Such an attitude can be 
increase of efficiency is a cause of higher likened only to that of the eccentric avia- 
wages. Every one knows that more pay tor who would drive ahead regardless of 

all evidence that the rugged Andes do lie 

*See the writer s "Latter-Day Problems" (Scribner s) L-i, J t u />1rmrlc r>n tVi^ Psrifir 

on The Hope for Labor Unions, and other similar studies. benind trie ClOUQS On Uie .facmC 



What Shall I Believe? 



BY EDWARD G. SPAULDING 

Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University; author of "What Am I ?" etc. 




OT long since a friend 
asked me if there was 
a conflict between 
science and religion, 
and, when I told him 
that I was convinced 
there was not, he re 
quested me to make 
an address on the subject before a forum 
consisting of the congregations of two 
churches. I accepted the invitation, and 
in due time forth I went, made my argu 
ment, and stood a strenuous cross-exam 
ination for an hour afterward. 

I relate the incident, because through 
it I discovered an interest on the part of 
the members of two orthodox congrega 
tions in having the principles of their 
faith brought into contact with certain 
specific knowledge that has arisen in 
our modern civilization, especially that 
knowledge which is identical with science. 
I found that there was the demand for 
free discussion, for question and answer, 
with no dodging of the issue. In brief, I 
discovered that a question was present 
in the minds of many devout and reverent 
people, the question, namely, as to what 
is the bearing of the results of modern 
science, when these results are fairly 
stated as the scientist states them, on 
one s faith and belief. 

That my audience was typical I am 
convinced. It consisted largely of church- 
members. At one time or another they 
had come to believe. Either they had 
been brought up in an environment in 
which it was the tradition to believe, or 
they had had a highly emotional and un- 
analyzed experience, or, consciously or 
unconsciously, they had exercised the will 
to believe. But now, whatever may have 
been the origin of their belief, and still 
holding to it, they desired to examine its 
relation to science and to reason, as well 
as to tradition, emotion, or the will to 
believe. 
This incident has led to the writing of 



this article. Long before the conversa 
tion with my friend I had, however, re 
flected on the questions which he and my 
forum audience raised. What shall I be 
lieve ? Or, if one prefer, Why should I 
believe? What is there, when one ex 
amines frankly and fearlessly the realms 
of science, of art, of literature, of history, 
that, apart from profound emotional ex 
perience, from tradition, and from the 
will to believe, allows or even compels one 
to believe ? 

In those who ask this question I can, 
I confess, find no spirit of irreverence, al 
though it may be that that which they 
revere above all other things is the truth. 
But this means that the truth is regarded 
by them as itself a good indeed, as per 
haps that good which is better or higher 
than anything else. And it is worthy of 
remark at this point that again and again 
in ecclesiastical history the truth as an 
immaterial, ideal, and universal entity 
has been regarded as an essential char 
acteristic of the nature of the Divine 
Being. 

The question, What shall I believe ? is, 
then, not irreverent. It can be so re 
garded only provided one presupposes 
that it is the very nature of the Divine 
Being to disapprove of all sincere ques 
tioning. But to maintain that this is the 
nature of the Divine Being is to give an 
answer to the implicit question, In what 
kind of a Divine Being shall I believe? 
It is an answer to a question which, if it is 
not asked by devout believers now, was 
certainly asked by those who in the past 
determined that very dogma which forms 
the content of certain specific beliefs to 
day. For present unquestioning belief is 
itself in many instances the historical 
product of questions that have been an 
swered by those great masters of the 
church who in the past sought the truth, 
and acknowledged the progress of rational 
and free inquiry, albeit their answer may 
have been that the truth is accessible only 



20 1 



202 WHAT SHALL I BELIEVE? 

through that divine enlightenment and Belief also may have different degrees, 

aid which come from revelation. But, and, accordingly, different definitions, 

again, to maintain that one shall believe It may be denned, for example, as "the 

in a Divine Being who reveals the truth, holding to be true in the absence of direct 

is to ask and then answer the question, proof and demonstration"; also as "the 

What shall I believe? holding to be necessarily true, with the 

opposite regarded as inconceivable"; or, 

In a previous article the question was finally, as "the holding to be true not- 
asked, What am I ? * and the appeal was withstanding demonstration to the con- 
made to science in order to find an an- trary." But with this psychological ques- 
swer. The result was that it was found tion I am not primarily concerned, 
that even the very answers that science Rather, my question is, What facts can 
itself gives to this question carry one be- I discover that compel me to believe, 
yond science and into a realm in which and, believing, what is the content of my 
personality is discovered to be an entity belief when it is reasoned about? Finally, 
that is unitary, qualitatively new, and what is absolutely essential to belief and 
free from the limitations of those scien- what is not ? 

tific realms to which it also belongs. It What means, now, shall one take in 

was found that the personality belongs to order to answer these questions with a 

those realms with which, not science, but maximum of proof and demonstration, 

religion, art, literature, and philosophy and a minimum of assumption? I an- 

deal. True personality is found only at swer that such a means is furnished by 

this level. I am all that science claims, again asking and giving an answer to the 

but I am also that which was recognized question, Are there certain facts that 

to be a fact long before there was any science is incapable of dealing with ? The 

science, and must still be so recognized, reply that I find myself obliged to give is, 

The answer to my first question led "Yes, there are." 

me, then, beyond science, so that, as I Science deals with electrons, atoms, 

approach my second question, I am famil- energy, evolution, cells, machines, statis- 

iar with the conviction that science is tics, and a host of other things, but as yet 

not all, however counter to this its own we have no strictly and exclusively scien- 

claim may be. tific account of personality, love, sincer- 

In seeking an answer to my new ques- ity, goodness, beauty, justice, and the 

tion I take belief as I find it and ask, like. Yet these are as undeniably and 

What are the facts, apart from tradition, directly experienced as are any of the 

emotional experience, and the will to be- whole gamut of scientific facts. Indeed, 

lieve, that lead one to believe ? It would at that level at which personality comes 

thus seem that I am searching for proof, in contact with personality, it is to such 

for demonstration, at least to a certain facts that all science, both pure and ap- 

extent, and I confess that I am. But plied, is ultimately subservient as a means 

proof and demonstration have degrees, to an end. For either science is good in 

The lesser degrees are supplemented itself, which means that knowledge for its 

logically by probability, psychologically own sake, like beauty, is good ; or science 

by conviction. For example, that the in- is but a means to that which is good 

dividuals of a species vary in structure such as the production of works of art, 

and function can be directly observed, the bettering of the material and social 

but that one species evolves from another conditions of living, the alleviation of 

by virtue of minute variations that pain and suffering, and the like. And I 

are advantageous, is not directly demon- am not sure but that one may doubt 

strable. Nevertheless by the strict Dar- whether, when the account is balanced, 

winians this is believed to have been the and the evil that science is capable of 

most probable course of evolution. How- producing, as in war, is debited against 

ever, no one has ever seen evolution ac- the good, science has produced an age 

tually taking place by such means, that is better than those ages which were 

Science is replete with similar examples, without science. 

See SCRIBNER S MAGAZINE for January, 1922. I shall denote theSC HOn-SCientifiC facts 



WHAT SHALL I BELIEVE? 203 

by the well- recognized term "values," Values, then, are experienced, and, 
and then distinguish among values two being experienced, are reasoned about, 
kinds, namely, ethical and aesthetic, iden- We find particular instances of things that 
tifying the former with the good, and the are good as well as of those that are bad, 
latter with the beautiful. There is no and we reason about them. In fact we 
doubt that we experience these values, discover by reasoning that there is a dis- 
that we are actuated by them, and that tinction between concrete, particular 
we judge things by their means. Thus good things, such as a brave act, a kind 
values are efficient causes, forces, powers word, an honest man, a just nation, and 
in our lives, albeit they are immaterial, the good as an ideal. The actually exist- 
In brief, it is by values that we live, ing particular good may never reach the 
Also there is no doubt that neither of ideal. Further, we find that the good is 
these two kinds of values is reducible to, dynamic in character. It is a force, an 
or definable in, any other terms ultimately impelling power, in the sense that it in- 
than itself. Sooner or later in any at- spires and leads men to action, whether 
tempt to define values a point is reached it is the concrete or the ideal good, or 
beyond which one cannot go. The good both, of which they are conscious, 
and the beautiful are, as the scholastics Indeed, even when men explicitly deny 
would say, sui generis. Thus, for ex- the good, they implicitly presuppose it. 
ample, to till the soil is good, because it They act on the basis of the good whether 
produces food; food is good, because it they will or no. Whatever course of ac- 
keeps men in health; health is good, be- tion is adopted is presupposed to be 
cause it conduces to life ; and life is good, better than any alternative course that 
but why ? And what is that good which is not, and, therefore, to belong to the 
life is? The good is an ultimate concept realm of the good. For example, to give 
which one can only liken to the beautiful up one s life as something evil is to pre- 
and admit to be an undeniable and final suppose that something is good, namely, 
fact of experience. either death itself or that to which the 
Nor is the outcome different if, having sacrifice of one s own life may lead. Such 
versed ourselves in the history of such is the motive indeed that actuates many 
ethical doctrines as Stoicism, Epicurean- of those who die for their country in war. 
ism, and Utilitarianism, we compare The good, then, is something that cannot 
these as to their merits. For by such be escaped. It is experienced, presup- 
comparison we endeavor to arrange the posed, and lived by, although there may 
three in accordance with a scale of good- be radically different and even contra- 
ness in order to find which doctrine is the dictory views as to what the good is in 
best or highest good as a rule of life. But particular circumstances, 
goodness itself as the common factor in However, in the broader realm of 
respect to which we compare these doc- values that includes both the good and 
trines is not itself comparable with any- the beautiful, there are also directly and 
thing else. It is as much a fact in this undeniably experienced evil and ugliness, 
universe as is length, but it is a different These may be called negative values, 
kind of fact, and there is no scale on which Evil and ugliness are no more identical 
goodness and length can be compared. with the things with which science deals 
Seemingly, then, I must admit that I than are goodness and beauty, _and yet 
live in the presence of goodness as the they are in opposition to, and in direct 
common factor or invariant of those par- conflict with, goodness and beauty re- 
ticular facts that are good. In experi- spectively. How, now, shall these nega- 
encing those facts I experience it, and tive values be accounted for, especially 
experiencing it, I arrange those facts in a evil ? What is its status, its place in the 
scale according to degrees of goodness, or scheme of things ? 

in a series of means to ends, until in the Things that are commonly regarded 
one instance I reach the highest good, as evil are, perhaps unfortunately, too 
and in the other an end which is not in familiar to demand illustration. But in 
turn a means, but is good for and by itself order to present two typical ways of deal- 
alone, ing with evil, or with the problem which 



204 WHAT SHALL I BELIEVE? 

it presents, two examples of evil may be be evil, therefore, and a very real fact, 

selected, namely, war and poverty. only because it is regarded from a limited 

Is war an evil? The answer depends point of view. But as viewed by an Ail- 
on the point of view, which in turn de- Knower it vanishes. Thus it is that the 
pends on one s philosophy. But what evil of war, as a seemingly very specific 
philosophy can possibly allow x>r main- and horrible evil, is argued out of exist- 
tain that war is not an evil? ence. Indeed, who of us have not heard 

The answer to this question is found the argument, quite in keeping with 

in that very special and widely influen- Idealism, that the Great War would be 

tial philosophy which is called Idealism, seen to be a good if one could only have 

or, preferably, Objective Idealism. This a sufficiently broad knowledge of all the 

philosophy originated in Greek thought circumstances and results past, present, 

in the fifth century B. C., but reached and future, connected with it? 

the climax of its development in the nine- But this idealistic method is not the 

teenth century in the system of Hegel only way of disposing of evil. There is 

and his followers, among whom are in- also a scientific method. Science, and 

eluded our own Emerson and Royce. A especially that naturalistic philosophy 

constant stimulus to the modern develop- which grows out of science, must have 

ment of this philosophy has been science, its own solution for each of the pressing 

For science seems to be in its implications problems that Idealism claims to be able 

absolutely deterministic or fatalistic, non- to solve, or yield to Idealism ; and evil 

moral, soulless and godless, and Ideal- presents such a problem. The scientific 

ism promises a way of escape. This is and naturalistic way of treating evil is 

accomplished logically by distinguishing well exemplified by the solution that is 

between appearance and reality, between given to the problem of poverty, 

the related and the relater, between the Is not poverty, and the suffering which 

opposed or conflicting and the synthesiz- it entails, an undeniable evil poverty as 

ing, between the many and the One. it affects a large part of the world s popu- 

Science is held to be concerned with only lation ? It would certainly seem to be 

the first member of each of these pairs of until one considers evolution and its fac- 

terms and therefore to imply something tors at least those factors that Darwin 

beyond or transcendent to, and different emphasized. Those factors are (i) the 

in kind from, the things of science. Ac- differences, both great and small, among 

cordingly, the conclusion is reached that all the individuals of a species; (2) the 

there is One Absolute and Spiritual Being chance occurrence of these differences; 

who is ultimate reality, synthesizer and (3) the chance advantage given to some 

relater, in contrast with all other things individual^ by certain specific differences; 

as the manifold of illusory appearances. (4) the unfavorable character, in some 

In that One all oppositions and differences respects, of the environment; (5) the fact 

are held to disappear. There is in the of great fecundity, and, therefore, of the 

Absolute One no right and left, no up lack of sufficient food for all individuals; 

and down, no attraction and repulsion, (6) the resulting struggle for existence 

no cause and effect, no subject and pred- and survival of the fittest in the sense of 

icate. And the case is not different with the strongest; and (7) the inheritance by 

evil. It, too, in the Absolute disappears, each successive generation of the average 

Idealism, then, is that philosophy of those individuals of the preceding 

which holds that there is an Absolute generation that survive. This is, in brief, 

One that may be identified with perfect the Darwinian recipe for progress a 

and complete Personality, all-knowing, progress which shall include the produc- 

all-powerf ul, and all-good. Human his- tion of new species and the differentiation 

tory is regarded as a manifestation of and specialization of structures and func- 

that One, so that nothing which appears tions, both physical and mental but a 

in history is admitted to be ultimately evil, progress whose only standard or norm is 

All evil is mere appearance. Its char- constant or increasing adaptation to, or 

acter as evil is lost, absorbed, transformed usefulness in, each specific environment, 

in an all-inclusive Being. Evil seems to In such a scheme everything is either a 



WHAT SHALL I BELIEVE? 205 

means to or an incident of this one end, Good. I then observe humanity, in 
and poverty is no exception. Poverty is whom and in whose affairs the fight takes 
hard on the individual; it is the price to place, and discover that the only means 
be paid by the individual for being weak; by which evil is combated is by the 
but it disappears as an evil if it is regarded Good. I study history, and again the 
as an incident that is necessary in order conflict is revealed. But this means, it 
that the species may progress toward fit- seems to me, that throughout history, 
ness and strength. Nor is the argument working in men, inspiring them and aid- 
different as applied to nations. No won- ing them, there has been a reality, a 
der that the Germans, science-mad and power, that is identical with the Good, 
swallowing whole a Darwinian ethics, and that, taking things by and large, the 
preached the doctrine that small and Good has not been vanquished. Rather, 
weak nations have no right to survive. I believe it has been winning. I must ad- 
There are these two chief ways of nulli- mit, however, that I cannot prove this, 
fying evil, of showing that it is not what It is only my belief, and belief begins 
it seems, and there may be other ways, where demonstration ends. 
But if there are, then there is always one 

remaining philosophy that allows evil to I have reached, then, a certain basic 
stand at its full face value and that finds answer to my question, What shall I be- 
all methods of arguing it out of existence lieve ? Part of that answer I can demon- 
to be invalid. Whether or not one accepts strate, namely, that there is something in 
this perhaps more uncomfortable view the world besides physical fact, and that 
will depend on whether or not some meth- is goodness, or the Good. I can demon- 
od of disposing of evil other than by fight- strate, also, that the Good throughout his- 
ing it is convincing, but, according to my tory has actuated and inspired men. It 
philosophy, there is no such method, has always been working. But I am not 
Evil is evil, and it cannot be transformed able to demonstrate that this reality 
or argued out of existence. There are always will work, or that, working, it 
evil persons, evil motives and deeds, evil always will be victorious. However, I be- 
institutions and practices, evil forces. In- lieve that it will both continue to work 
deed, running through all evil things is and be victorious. This, then, is my first 
evil itself. answer to my question. 

I find, then, in answer to my question, It is an answer, however, that is de- 
What shall I believe? that the world is rived, not by arbitrarily limiting science 
peculiarly divided and then redivided. in order logically to find opportunity for 
There are the indifferent non-values of the Good, but by finding first the fact of 
science such things as atoms, masses, the Good and then the necessity of ac- 
motion and there are values ; values are knowledging the limits of science. It is 
aesthetic and ethical, and these logically an answer, too, that identifies the Good, 
include, the former, the beautiful and the not with a power that is confined to hu- 
ugly, the latter, good and evil. man affairs, but with a cosmic reality- 
Directing my attention to the last two, a reality in the universe that exists side 
I find that there is in the affairs of men by side with those realities with which 
a conflict between good and evil. I find, science deals. Belief in such a reality is 
too, that each exists both in particular trust and confidence; it is a belief that 
cases and as a principle. I put the goods means hope, humility, and reverence, and 
together, both the particular instances the conviction that in those efforts and 
and the principle, and recognize in the endeavors that are the best in human na- 
combination a reality or a power in the ture there is the presence of a Moral Ally, 
sense that the Good is efficient in influenc- Belief in a Being of this kind is belief in 
ing men to action and in leading them to a God who, if he is not known and under- 
be their best and highest selves. The stood intellectually, is nevertheless used 
Good is an immaterial force. I likewise by men in the business of living, 
recognize in the combination of partic- But the objection will doubtless be 
ular evils and the principle of evil a real- raised that this conclusion gives far too 
ity that works efficiently to oppose the limited an answer to my question, and 



206 WHAT SHALL I BELIEVE? 

that there is much more in belief and velopment, however, has always been in- 
faith than the conviction that there is a fluenced by the contemporaneous cultural 
power in the universe that is identical forces in other fields. Thus the fact is 
with the Good. While the objection is that in the historical development of 
granted in part, the reply may neverthe- Christianity the Divine Being has been 
less be made that whatever other content conceived of as Personality, as Power, as 
faith and belief may have, they would All-knower, and as Spirit. Particularly 
not be faith and belief in God were they important, however, in this list of attri- 
not identical with the conviction that the butes is spirituality, for if there is any 
Good exists and is a power as this has one concept more than another that tra- 
been thus far defined. It is impossible to ditionally has been regarded as necessary 
conceive of God as evil. The conviction to the nature of the Divine Being it is 
that there is a Power that not only makes this. Yet the study of the sources of the 
for but that is righteousness is the very influences which historically led to the 
essence of religious faith, toward what- conception of God as a Spiritual Being 
ever else faith may also be directed. shows that this, like other concepts con- 
There is nothing in principle, however, cerning the Divine nature, was at least in 
to prevent the development of this con- part the product of other cultural forces, 
viction into a greatly enlarged belief. In- Thus it is the historical fact that in the 
deed, such a development is demanded by thought of Plato and Aristotle there were 
the very fact that no two personalities present the conceptions of the perfect as 
are ever quite the same, and because the opposed to the imperfect, of the ideal, the 
ethical, religious, and aesthetic nature of immaterial, the conscious and the per- 
the personality is all too richly endowed sonal as opposed to the material, of the 
to be satisfied with the mere conviction eternal as opposed to the ephemeral, of 
of the presence, the conservation, and the the omnipresent as opposed to the limited, 
increase of the good in the universe, of the true and the rational as opposed to 
Only one principle of limitation to such the false and the irrational, and of the 
an extension of belief must be recognized, intuitive as opposed to the discursive. 
This is that as regards those things in These conceptions played an important 
which science is authority, science must role in the period from the second to the 
be allowed to have its way. What shall fifth century when in the thought of such 
I believe in addition to my faith in a theologians as Justin Martyr, Origen, 
Power that makes for righteousness? and Augustine the Divine Being was first. 
Why, whatever appeals to me as a per- clearly conceived of as spiritual. The 
sonality that is in some respects unique, spiritual is the perfect, the ideal, the im- 
and therefore whatever satisfies my own material, the personal, the eternal, the 
emotional and aesthetic nature, so long as true, and the intuitive, one or all. Thus 
the specific beliefs that thus arise do not the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle not 
conflict with reason or with science. And only was of profound influence on Chris- 
what would I have others believe ? Only tian doctrine but still is of influence 
that which appeals to and satisfies the through the tradition that was established 
emotional and aesthetic nature as well as with the formulation of that doctrine, 
the rational character of each personality. When modern science began to develop 
There thus appears the principle of the in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
freedom of belief a principle that might turies, there was, however, the oppor- 
well be recognized side by side with the tunity, psychologically at least, for the 
principles of the freedom of the reason development of still further conceptions 
and the freedom of the will. as to the nature of the Deity, notwith- 
This very principle of the freedom of standing the fact that in certain respects 
belief as it has historically gone hand in these conceptions logically were incon- 
hand with its sister principle, the freedom sistent with science. These inconsisten- 
of reason, has as a matter of fact led to cies were doubtless at first overlooked, as 
the development of a number of specific they are even now overlooked. But their 
beliefs, or specific concepts, concerning removal does not in the least violate the 
the nature of the Divine Being. This de- essence of genuine belief or make im- 



WHAT SHALL I BELIEVE? 207 

possible the existence of a deep and de- be infinite ? The answer to this question 

vout religious faith. It makes impossible on the part of the theologians and even 

only certain specific and unessential theo- of some scientists of the period was that 

logical conceptions, thus to demand a dis- it could not, but that there must be a 

tinction between theology and faith. First Cause, a Prime Mover who was 

Throughout the Middle Ages, when Himself Unmoved, a Creator, a Mecha- 

there was little if any science, there was nist. Thus it was that there was added to 

an ever-growing use of reason, not as a the traditional group of conceptions of 

basis for faith, but in order to clarify the nature of the Divine Being a new 

dogma and to establish the principle of group. But may it not have been theol- 

the authority of the church. But in this ogy and not religion that was enriched or 

twofold appeal to reason there was pecu- at least altered thereby ? 

liar irony. To use logic to clarify dogma, It is at this point, however, that a 

although the outcome of such reasoning specific conflict between science and the- 

might be the conclusion that one must ology appears. The theologians and the 

accept and believe dogma in order to scientists did not at first see the inconsis- 

know, was logically to make the infallible tency of this answer with the genuine 

fallible and to condition belief by reason, implications of science, but this inconsis- 

This human tendency to use reason con- tency became apparent as those impli- 

tinued to develop when modern science, cations later became recognized, and 

with its appeal to nature, to experiment, especially as still further fundamental 

and to its own authority, made its ap- scientific conceptions were developed, 

pearance. But the result was that rea- Lavoisier in 1790 established the principle 

son as serving faith now had certain novel of the conservation of matter, and later 

facts and theories with which to construct Rumford, Joule, and others the principle 

new arguments that were regarded not as of the conservation of energy. As a 

displacing, but as supplementing, other matter of fact, the science of mechanics 

conceptions of the nature of the Divine implied that for every effect there was a 

Being. preceding cause in a world of nature that 

The first great period of modern science is a group of moving and mutually at- 

was characterized by the development of tracting bodies, and that the series of 

the mechanical conception of the uni- such effects and causes could have no be- 

verse. This conception was the result of ginning in other words, that there was 

the experiments, the observations, and the no First Cause, no Prime Mover. Here 

reasoning of such master minds as Co- was a direct conflict between science and 

pernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and theology, and, seemingly, theology must 

Laplace. The general guiding-point of yield. But the conservation of matter 

view of these pioneers was that only nat- and energy also demanded further yield- 

ural causes could be accepted as account- ing, for the implication of these two prin- 

ing for natural effects. The specific result ciples is that the creation of something, 

of their discoveries was the theory that either matter or energy, out of nothing, 

ultimately there were only two kinds of is impossible. Matter and energy are 

natural causes: the one, the push of one only transformed, not created; matter 

body striking another; the other, the pull, comes from preceding matter, and energy 

through gravitation, of bodies on one an- from preceding energy, in both cases with- 

other. Bodies were naturally in motion, out any beginning. Thus again there was 

and not at rest, as Aristotle and the direct conflict between science and that 

church had maintained, and the operation specific theological view in which the Di- 

of specific causes of these two types kept vine Being was regarded as having created 

all bodies in the whole universe in mo- the material world ex nihilo. 

tion. The result was what is known as But if the mechanistic theory of the 

the dynamic conception of the universe, universe was the first great development 

In such a dynamic universe every cause is in modern science, the theory of evolu- 

itself the effect of a preceding cause, as far tion and the general group of biological 

back as one may go. But could this sciences that centre around that theory 

series, this regress of causes and effects, form the second. Evolution as a theory 



208 WHAT SHALL I BELIEVE? 

was itself long in evolving, but when it posive, the teleological, the design ele- 
reached maturity in the work of Darwin ment, has been interpreted, not in analogy 
and his successors, it radically altered to what a human mechanist, or architect, 
every field of human knowledge. Espe- or designer does, but as meaning the pres- 
cially did it render logically possible a ence in the universe of the Good and the 
new explanation of the origin of all living Beautiful as another aspect of things than 
beings -and of all those refinements in the that which forms the subject-matter of 
usefulness and adaptiveness of organs science. That these are the correct inter- 
and functions that so impress the ob- pretations is, indeed, the verdict of prac- 
server of nature as "evidences of design." tically all philosophy from the time of 
This explanation was, briefly, t^iat species the Greeks to the present a verdict that 
evolved from other species and were not is opposed only by that philosophy, called 
especially created and eternally fixed, and Naturalism, which maintains that the 
that the usefulness of organs and func- sum total of the sciences is the only valid 
tions was the result of the accumulation, philosophy there is. However, it seems 
through heredity, of minute variations to be quite impossible, as we have pre- 
that were advantageous. Criticism and vious]y seen, for this naturalistic philos- 
new discoveries since Darwin have some- ophy to establish its case, even for such 
what modified the specific explanation a familiar fact as personality, 
made by that great pioneer, but no scien- I conclude, then, that there is an essen- 
tist, whether he is a follower of Lamarck, tial distinction between religion and the- 
of Darwin, of De Vries, or of some other ology; that theology is influenced by con- 
leader in the field of biology, doubts that temporaneous tendencies in other fields 
purely natural factors quite adequately of thought, such as science, to build up 
and satisfactorily account for all so-called specific theories that are, however, not in 
instances of design. This means again, the least necessary either to theology or 
however, that that specific theological to religion; and, finally, that the irre- 
view which was based, especially in the ducible essence of all genuine faith con- 
eighteenth century, on the argument that sists in the conviction that in the universe 
the wonderful adaptations found in na- there is a Being who is that reality which 
ture implied a Designer, if it did not con- is the Good, and which may be identified 
flict with science, was at least rendered with the Spiritual, the Transcendent, and 
unnecessary by science. Just as the the Eternal, 
science of mechanics does not logically 

allow of a cause that is first in time and We may now reach a definite answer to 
uncaused, or of a creator, who makes our original inquiry. On the one hand, it 
something out of nothing, so does evolu- has been found that, quite apart from be- 
tion render, at least superfluous the con- lieving because of the influence of reli- 
ception of a being who, external to and gious tradition, or because of some deep 
distinct from the universe, is nevertheless emotional experience, or because it is pos 
its architect, its designer, or its purposer. sible to will to believe, there are specific 
In brief, the argument from design loses reasons for belief that come from a can- 
its cogency in the face of the equally valid did examination of all the facts. Belief 
explanation that evolution furnishes, just is quite congruous with science, with his- 
as the argument for a first cause is nulli- tory, and with all other bodies of knowl- 
fied by the implications of the laws of edge. It is congruous because that which 
mechanics and of the principles of the is believed in is directly experienced as 
conservation of matter and of energy. fact. Only one principle of limitation 
However, that this is the fact has been has appeared, and that is, that to science 
frankly recognized in both philosophical must be allowed the decision as regards 
and theological circles, especially since certain questions. But to yield to science 
the time of Kant, with the result that the in this respect is to yield in nothing that 
concept of a First Cause has been inter- is essential to deep and devout religious 
preted to mean, not first in time, but first faith. 

in order of reality, first in importance, If this limitation is observed there still 

first transcendentally. Similarly the pur- remains, however, ample opportunity for 



THE LOVE-VINE 



209 



the exercise of the greatest freedom of be 
lief. Indeed, the principle of the unique 
ness of personality not only permits but 
may even demand those more specific 
beliefs that are traditional and that may 
alone satisfy the ethical and aesthetic na 
ture of the personality. In fact, the very 
recognition of this principle shows that 
it is irrational to suppose that any two 
individuals can ever have quite the same 
belief and faith. A personality is a unique 
entity, and so also must the belief that 
arises in a personality be unique. 

This recognition of the uniqueness of 
one s own personality as a special instance 
of the uniqueness of personality in gen 
eral demands, however, that the right of 
each personality to a belief that satisfies 
that personality, even though it satisfies 
no other, shall also be recognized. This 
means that the right of the individual to 
base his belief on any foundation whatso 
ever authority, tradition, emotional ex 
perience, the will to believe, and reason, 
one or all must be acknowledged, and it 
must be admitted that if any one of these 
does not appeal, for example, reason, then 
there is no way of making it appeal. One 
who cannot or will not reason cannot be 
made to reason. Nevertheless, it is only 
to place oneself in line with the general 
tendency of the spiritual development of 
mankind in the broadest sense of this 
term as including science, literature, art, 



and religion, to appeal to reason as at 
least one basis for faith. In the historical 
development of religion itself that appeal 
has in fact not only always been made, 
especially by the great masters of the 
church who have formulated doctrine, 
but it has been made more and more fre 
quently as that development has pro 
gressed. Also, life in modern times, in all 
of its aspects, has come to be founded to 
an ever greater extent on reason. It is 
only in keeping, then, with both history 
and the spirit of the times to appeal to 
reason as at least supplementing tradi 
tion, emotional experience, or the will to 
believe, as a basis for faith. But one may 
have a knowledge of all the more impor 
tant facts of science, history, art, and 
literature, and one may reason on the 
basis of this knowledge, and still find the 
widest freedom for the ethical and aes 
thetic development and expression of 
one s personality with no conflict resulting 
between what reason shows and what 
is essential to faith. Reason in alliance 
with science discloses only certain limi 
tations to this freedom. 

In fine, the appeal to reason shows that 
there is a rational justification of faith, 
but it discloses also the rational demand 
for a wide freedom of belief, so that the 
non-rational nature of the personality 
may be satisfied, and for the recognition 
of the correlative principle of toleration. 



B 



The Love -Vine 



BY DOROTHY LIVINGSTON 



ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. M. BERGER 



E CAUSE the after 
noon was wet and dull 
and he had been left 
quite alone in the 
apartment, Strong, 
with one of his brown 
fingers, beckoned a 
book from the row at 
the back of his desk, opened it at random, 
jotted down the date, July 5, 1919, and 
wrote : 

VOL. LXXL 14 



"Viewing things now from the sixth 
floor of our New York flat, to her I must 
have appeared the perfect ass. The idea 
of a full-grown man, first officer of a 
sizable liner, grousing about the deck at 
five in the morning, sifting, to the best 
of his ability, deck-chairs, cushions, and 
sundry, seems absurd. But at the mo 
ment of our first meeting my mind was 
far from effects in heroes and heroine- wor 
ship." 



210 



THE LOVE-VINE 



He drew lines of disapproval through 
this much. 

"I ll begin where I met her and do pre 
liminaries some other time." 

As I secured the rope supporting the 
last group of chairs, a vision in pink, 
something she calls organdie, was blown 
around the corner of the for ard cabin. 
The vision smiled upon me through the 
ends of a veil, and some curls golden, 
but red where the sun shone upon them. 

"Have you lost a diamond necklace?" 
asked the vision, in a tone that convinced 
me she had been watching. 

"Only a passport," I said gracelessly, 
still free from the contagion of her. 

"I wonder," she remarked thought 
fully, and now I saw her eyes were ma 
rine-blue, moving one hand from behind 
her back, "if this is it?" 

I darted toward the green booklet. 

"For heaven s sake 

"Please! Everything is here." 

"I beg your pardon," I said, and 
meant it. 

"I m going to identify you, that s all. 
Now let us see: Age, 36; Height, 6 feet; 
Forehead, broad; Eyes, gray; Nose, 
straight; Mouth, large; Chin, square; 
Hair, black; Face, oval; Scar on left 
cheek; Occupation, traveller; Signature 
of bearer What s your name?" 

"Johnston Cunliffe Strong!" I had 
become anxious to prolong our conversa 
tion. 

" Right ! " She handed me the booklet 
and waited for me to say something. 

"I can t tell you what I owe you for 
this," I began. 

"A hundred thousand dollars!" Her 
face became closed like a bud with laugh 
ter. "And you are a most foolish youth 
to carry so much money so carelessly." 

I placed the notes she returned me be 
tween the visa leaves of the passport and 
pocketed all. Then I realized she was 
again waiting for me to speak. 

"When I was twenty-one," I explained, 
"I had saved twenty pounds which I put 
in an Australian bank; the bank failed and 
I lost all, and I have never since trusted a 
bank." 

" I don t blame you ! But how did you 
come to be in Australia?" 

So I told her how I had loved a certain 



actress of thirty-five, how she had al 
lowed my sapling adoration, and how 
upon entering the greenroom one day 
gods and ideals had smashed when she 
had said to the manager: "Ah, shut up !" 
How I had sought the sea for diversion. 
All this and many other things followed 
on the trail of a lost passport, yet I never 
realized how quickly she had become 
aware of most things that to the rest of 
the w r orld were a closed book. I knew 
only that for the first time since I was 
twenty I wished the society of one woman 
in particular. 

Going out from breakfast the purser 
drew me aside to allow some one to pass, 
and upon turning, I saw her, with a man, 
enter Suite A. 

"Who are they?" I asked my friend. 

"Robertsons. Bride and groom ! She 
is fascinating but he is rather a cad, I 
understand." 

"Because she is fascinating?" I said, 
and went to my quarters. 

We came up outside the islands. The 
Nirvana, sister of our Valhalla, had 
wirelessed reports of exceptionally bad 
weather. Our barometer predicted hurri 
cane weather, but the night was as clear 
and beautiful as any night I have ever 
seen. I admit that part of the loveliness 
was due to the idea that just below me 
she stood looking out upon the vast tropic 
glory of it all. By standing on the star 
board side of the bridge I could see her, 
and the fact that her husband was there, 
too, did not mar my pleasure. Strange 
what stuff a man s made of, after all ! 
. Discipline is slack in the South Seas, 
so when my watch ended I took a couple 
of turns up and down the deck, hoping 
not in vain for an invitation to the 
empty chair beside the Robertsons . A 
kind of friendship had sprung up between 
the husband and myself, for he was a 
likable sort of chap, possessed of all I had 
not: good looks, charm, polish, and an 
extensive education. All three of us had 
been to the same places, but our French 
was the greatest bond of all. 

The skipper sent for me. Robertson 
gave me his card and called after me he 
wished to arrange a party when we 
reached port. 



THE LOVE-VINE 



211 



"That ought to be about sundown of 
to-morrow," I said, and hurried away. 

As I went up the ladder I noticed that 
the wind had veered to due north, and 
that the sky ahead was overcast. I 
found the skipper in the chart-room. 

"Notice the weather? Barometer?" 
he asked. 

"Ominous?" 

"Bad," he replied definitely. 



groped blindly. . . . Mental eclipse, a 
blinding crash, cool, soothing water, then 
air ! Ah, how sweet it was ! Air ! 

I struggled madly but the vicious sea 
roared and dashed in ceaseless paroxysms 
of fury. I saw no trace of the vessel. 
I determined to float, and was tossed 
here and there. My ribs pained and at 
moments I was senseless, but the cool 
wa t er revived me . Something came upon 




Please! Everything is here." Page 210. 



By ten o clock we were well into it, but 
we had had time to prepare, and with a 
lusty crew and a ship like ours I had no 
fear. 

By midnight all the port life-boats had 
been washed away, the rail was gone, and 
the angry sea tugged untiringly at the 
for ard hatches. Manganese, too, is a 
nasty cargo. The skipper and I had been 
caught in the pilot-house. He held to 
me and screamed something into my ear, 
when, with a mighty lurch and an ob 
vious shifting of ballast, the Valhalla was 
tossed on her side and refused to right 
herself. 

Hellish din was in my ears, a moment 
of supreme agony when , breathing was 
impossible; the wheel pierced my side, I 



my wrist with a crushing force. Again 
and again it came. Mobilizing all my 
strength, I clutched at it, but it was some 
time before I found a hold. 

At dawn I scrambled on to the raft. 
Then I must have slept. 

When I came to, the sea had calmed a 
bit and I espied a speck it seemed half 
way to the horizon. 

I paddled, prayed, and willed myself 
toward the speck, but the sun was blind 
ing bright when I reached her. 

She wore a life-belt. I picked her up 
for dead. 

To see the sky the next day you would 
never guess it knew how to do anything 
but behave. We sighted land about 



212 



THE LOVE-VINE 



high noon. We were without food, but 
the contents of my flask a silver one- 
had kept us alive. She was very weak, 
and the energy the sight of land had 
called forth disappeared when we found 
all efforts to reach it were apparently 
futile. 

The storm had revolutionized even the 
currents. The surface of the water was 
alive with Portuguese men-of-war and 
sting-rays which pestered us every time 
we gave them an opportunity. Their 
stings are nasty, too. The constant sight 
of fish in the clear water nearly drove us 
mad, for we were starving. The sharks 
were thick about us; they seemed to know 
how far gone we were. It would be only 
a question of hours until we would have 
to give in. 

Some time in the night I realized we had 
struck a current of some kind. I hardly 
cared whether it took us ashore or to sea, 
so long as we moved. I wakened her, but 
her strength had already been overtaxed, 
and she received my news with a calm, 
tired smile. 

In the pitchy darkness that precedes 
the dawn, I smelt the stench of stale fish. 
We were near something, but I dared not 
paddle on account of the sharks. When 
day finally came we were but a stone s 
throw from shore. Beneath us were the 
Wonderful coral formations of the South, 
and tiny fish were everywhere. The 
sharks had deserted their prey. 

Making a fish-net of the back of my 
porous shirt I secured our first meal. I 
had to carry her ashore, but water from 
a fairly good spring soon revived her. 

Near by, two negroes, deaf mutes who 
understood nothing but their own signs, 
fished for a livelihood, and gave us cut 
tings of yam and sweet potatoes to begin 
a garden. I could not make them tell 
me anything about the surrounding 
country, and finally abandoned my at 
tempts. 

Soon after I had erected a kind of 
"benab" of bamboo, guinea-grass, and 
mud I contracted pneumonia. Our sol 
emn-faced black neighbors took me in 
hand. I was given a strong concoction 
of coffee, lime-juice, and rum, and my 
reed bed was placed in the sun. She was 
given herb sap with which to anoint me, 



and I convalesced under her constant, un 
tiring care. 

They kept poultices of wild-plum leaves 
on my head to bring down my temper 
ature, and I always managed to pull 
these well down over my eyes that I 
might watch her without her knowing I 
did so. Once, when I apparently slept 
overlong, she came near, so near the 
fragrance of her intoxicated me so that 
I caught her arm, but she gently disen 
gaged herself and arranged a new roll of 
grass beneath my head. 

She still had but the filmy white dinner- 
gown she had worn when I picked her up. 
She told me she washed it in a pool near 
by each night, and at sundown she would 
tie the pink sash about her waist, and 
laughingly called this "dressing for 
dinner." 

The tropics seemed to accentuate her 
ethereal loveliness; her hair was more 
brilliant. . . . She had become alarm 
ingly dear to me, and it was perhaps my 
utter weakness that caused me to forget 
all else, until one day she came to me as 
I sat propped up in the sun. 

"Johnnie," she said she called me 
Johnnie and I called her Valerie "are 
you absolutely sure my husband was 
killed? Couldn t he have been picked 
up as I was?" 

"No one could have lived in such a sea. 
There was no wreckage even that he 
could have held to, and you know we 
searched thoroughly." 

"Yes, I know! Of course I know; I 
can t think why I ask when I know " she 
answered hopelessly, looking out to sea. 

"What s the matter, Valerie? Aren t 
you happy here with me?" 

I don t know why I said such a thing. 

"Yes, yes, Johnnie; but poor Jim ! 
I sometimes always in the night, John 
nie, I seem to see him his eyes Oh, 
it is awful ! Always his eyes, imploring 
me to help him. Last night he called and 
called: I m not dead, Valerie; I m alive ! 
Help me! Help me!" 

That was the beginning. Before, the 
shelter in which we lived, the garden, the 
fishing had distracted her; but the time 
was now at hand when she had only the 
wreck of a man as companion, and the 
horror of the whole thing seemed to pos 
sess her. She lost interest in everything 



THE LOVE-VINE 



213 



and became listless, sitting always look- tation, so I struggled to the scene of the 
ing out to sea and waiting for assistance catastrophe. One look was enough, 
which never came. "Love-vine!" I announced. "Beastly 

thing ! Kills everything it comes in con- 

The black men prepared a fish for me tact with there is no escape ! Chokes 
and brought it with a yam one morning, all vegetation, anything, to have its way. 



ife , 

- 




I had to carry her ashore. Page 212. 



They were our advisers in everything. 
Later that morning she came into our 
"benab," her face ghastly, and dropped 
to her knees beside my bed. 

"The garden!" she sobbed. "Some 
thing has killed everything ! A vine is 
growing all over it!" 

I had seen a good deal of tropical vege- 



In some countries it is a criminal offense 
to have it found on one s property. Love- 
vine !" 

"Love-vine!" she repeated. : Yes, it 
must have its way always /" 

I wondered what she meant. 

Our neighbors were informed, and they 
stood, silent witnesses of our plans to 



214 THE LOVE-VINE 

escape starvation. We decided to offer lessness overwhelmed me as this realiza- 

them my watch and ring, with the hope tion took root. My fever returned, and 

that they would find a means of obtain- after long hours of battling with devils of 

ing food. They received the things and fancy, I lapsed into a twitching sleep, 

left the camp. The sound of footfalls on the shell 

beach awakened me in time to see our 

Things were getting pretty bad by the two neighbors tearing about in a frenzy 

fifth day. We had eaten the black men s of surprise. One burst into our quarters 

food, but this would give out in time. I and, with unearthly guttural sounds, 

could not sleep, and lay thinking. Sud- urged our attention toward the hill and 

denly Valerie burst in upon me from be- the sea. On the hill nothing was visible, 

hind the curtain of banana-leaves which but by laying his forehead to the earth 

separated our quarters. he tried to impart to me the knowledge 

" They are coming back over the hill !" that it would be only a matter of mo- 
she cried, and ran out to meet them. ments until there would be plenty to be 

I staggered after her. Sure enough ! seen there. But the sea offered a differ- 

those faithful souls were returning. And ent aspect. The moon divulged the fact 

their return meant two things: we would that almost within ear-shot a creature 

have plenty of canned food and beans, struggled in a death-grip with nature, 

and there was a town somewhere near. I boarded the raft and shoved off. 

God knows I was content enough here 

with her, and I felt that in time she would The supernatural had certainly had a 

overcome the nightmare about Robert- hand in bringing Robertson back to us. 

son. I had searched for him even when I knew a great gladness at his return, for 

I had abandoned all hope of finding him. his poor distorted face and blanched hair 

No one could have lived in such a sea told of his days out there in the great un- 

without a belt or spar to hold to; and she known. He had been sucked down by 

had assured me he had just secured her the sinking Valhalla, and ejected to the 

belt about her when the ship capsized. surface when the boilers exploded. A 

During the days at sea the friendship member of the crew in a salved life-boat 

between Robertson and me had waxed had picked him up. 

strong, and being then unaware of the Hunger had come gradually upon them 

greatness of my passion for her, no jeal- while they were becalmed near the scene 

ousy had marred that friendship. Even of the wreck. Then they had seen it 

those days of her mourning for her hus- floating, face down ; they had picked it up 

band failed to incite me with aught but and later: 

reverence and pity, and with the self- " My God, he was only thirsty !" Rob- 
assurance of an amateur I thought only ertson told us. 

time was necessary to make my suit sue- "His act seemed to turn his mind," he 

cessful. went on. "He drank sea water and went 

raving mad. I had to make an awful 

Our silent helpers carried me to the fight for it because he was a big brute, but 

shelter of our "benab." They are terribly he died died with threats and curses for 

superstitious about the potency of the all mankind. 

moon s rays, and it was now full. Recent "Then I came upon a cask of fresh 
events diverted my thoughts from sleep, water in the boat, not much, but it kept 
Recovery was a matter of honor; I was me alive, and from time to time flying- 
bound to take her to the town and ulti- fish lighted in the boat. Luck was with 
mat.ely to find a means of transportation, me, after all, you see ! And I got into a 
During those brief moments of reasoning current that brought me here." 
my enthusiasm dropped to zero. The 

thought of losing her and of a sudden At this point our neighbors directed our 

this became even probable as a thousand attention to several figures silhouetted on 

incidents arose in my memory to prove the crest of the hill. Our dilemma, how- 

her devotion to the drowned man and no ever, was short-lived, as the black men, 

particular interest in me. A weird hope- by trying to secrete the beans and canned 




"Love-vine!" I announced. " Kills everything it comes in 
contact with." Page 213. 



provisions, imparted to us the fact that 
the law was tracing them to their lair to 
discover how they had come by the watch 
and ring. 

"That will be easily explained," I said; 
but Robertson, with maniacal alacrity, 
grabbed up the sacks, slung them into the 
life-boat, and dragging Valerie down, in 
sisted upon her getting in. 

" Come on, Strong; no telling what may 
crop up !" 

"No !" I protested. "It will be easy, 
old man. Hold on!" 



But I saw the love-vine ! If the law 
travelled for two days to find a satisfac 
tory explanation only for their pains ? 
No, the law would be compensated for its 
clever ruse in tracing the two scamps. I 
had no idea in what country we were, and 
if it was of the Spanish-American variety, 
I realized our safety lay in our absence 
when the law arrived. The supplies 
would last, and we could explore the 
coast and return when we desired. 

There are things too big to understand. 

215 



216 



THE LOVE-VINE 



To these the Oriental bows. And one he 
calls The Great Destroying Power. 

Why half the world is distorted that a 
fourth may know more complete happi 
ness the other fourth is never heard of 
one cannot understand. Why is the 
fourth an unrecorded nonentity? We 
call it life, and are satisfied. 

With Robertson and Valerie, myself 
and the provisions sailed The Great De 
stroying Power. 

We were to take our turns as lookout. 
Action had imbued me with new strength, 
so I took first watch. Robertson slept. 
At sunset of the next day he awakened, 
and I suggested that he relieve me. He 
refused, so Valerie and I sat together 
through the night, with only the sea and 
moon and stars as companions while Rob 
ertson slept. This went on for days, he 
devouring all canned goods and refusing 
to watch or to eat the beans which we 
knew he should eat. 

"Look here, old chap," I ventured one 
day, "you d better lie low on cans and 
eat some of these, or the consequences 
may be serious. It s dangerous, Robert 
son." 

"You can darned well shut up on beans, 
because I won t eat them. When a man s 
been starving he will eat what he pleases ! " 
These were the first words he had said 
since we had shoved off. He sat always 
at the tiller, muttering to himself and 
cracking his knuckles. Sometimes a 
harsh laugh burst suddenly from him, and 
at such moments it seemed Valerie s nerve 
would snap. 

To prevent beriberi I wet both sacks in 
the sea, laid them in the bottom of the 
boat, and spread beans between them. 
These soon sent out sprouts which Valerie 
and I ate while we cruised about in search 
of land any land. Constant showers 
kept our thirst appeased. 

On the tenth day at sea Robertson 
struck his wife when she tried to induce 
him to eat. The same night he caught 
me by the throat and slit my back with a 
piece of tin. 

"Starve me, will you?" he yelled in 
my ear. " Starve me and take my mon 
ey?" 

But when I freed myself he dropped 



down exhausted. His fever rose rapidly, 
and by the time a whaler picked us up, 
he was a very sick man. 

"Same old owl!" the skipper told us, 
and I was glad Valerie was ignorant of his 
particular vernacular. "An I ain t seen 
none these nine year. The cans got im. 
But I ll be puttin inter Savanny fer per- 
visions, an we kin hope on." 

The old man acted as medical adviser. 
Valerie nursed him by day, and because 
his delirium was worse at night I sat with 
him then, although she came constantly 
to offer assistance and to see that all went 
well. 

The strain of the days through which 
she had passed, while not detracting from 
her beauty, caused a great sadness to fill 
her beautiful eyes, her face became wan 
and resigned, and where she went she cre 
ated an atmosphere of hushedness. Even 
the hard sinners in the crew offered their 
savage homage in various ways, and the 
skipper had given her his quarters, and 
entered always as a usurper for occasional 
clean linen or a chart. 

"But we ll do it, won t we, Johnnie?" 
she said one day when Robertson seemed 
worse. "We ll make him get well, you 
and I." 

And 

"When a man can command the sea to 
behave he can surely make another man 
obey! You make him, Johnnie dear!" 
and she placed both hands on my shoul 
ders and drew me down to her. 

" Lips please, big brother ! " And a bit 
of her old-time mirth returned, with its 
same old contagion. 

What a honeymoon she had had ! 

"Sure thing, little sister! We ll make 
him bully him until he recovers in self- 
defense." 

Sure enough, Robertson began to 
mend. Cooler days came, and presently 
he recognized Valerie. 

" Change your dress ! Where s Strong ? " 
he remarked, and dozed off. 

We sent for the skipper, but he failed to 
find it an occasion for rejoicing. He was 
a glum old customer. 

As we neared land, Robertson s condi 
tion improved. 

Land to the shipwrecked ! Only as 
one of the wrecked do I realize what this 
means, and words refuse to come. A big 



THE LOVE-VINE 



217 



lump fills my throat, quite like the one 
my flag never fails to produce ! 

"Johnnie!" A cool slim arm was 
slipped through mine as I stood on deck, 
hands in pockets, watching home come 
home. 

"Is he asleep?" I asked, without look 
ing at her. 

11 Johnnie!" she exclaimed. "You re 
crying!" 

"It s home, little sister." 

"Home !" she repeated quietly, and the 
little arm was withdrawn to find a hand 
kerchief. 

"Let s go down and tell him," I sug 
gested. 

He lay motionless in the dark room, his 
two thinarmsdropped,listless,on thesheet. 

"You tell him and I ll go." I felt my 
intrusion. 

"We want you, too, Johnnie!" 

"Johnnie ! What was that?" 

"The anchor." I now made as if to 



leave. Something was smothering me. 
I could not remain. 

"How it frightened me! It must be 
my nerves." 

"Johnnie!" Her scream arrested my 
retreating steps, and I ran back. 

"What!" I cried, and I did not recog 
nize the voice as my own. 

"He won t move." 

The skipper came in. 

"Just what I was afraid of," he said. 
"As the anchor goes down life goes out. 
Peculiarity of the disease ! " 

Beriberi. . . . 

Valerie would not marry me for more 
than a year, for, after her fever during 
which she seemed to forget all the horrors 
of our adventure she insisted upon let 
ting her hair grow thick before our wed 
ding. It the hair is all little golden 
ringlets now, and But there she is at 
the door! " 




" What !" I cried, and I did not recognize the voice as my own. 



The Classic Pattern 

BY OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR 

Author of "Educating the Binneys," "A Home of Her Own," etc. 
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR LITLE 




HERE was the usual 
difficulty in believing 
that the girl standing 
at the wicket could 
possibly have grown 
up so quickly. But I 
had her own word for 
it that she was Mari- 
belle Binney, and that, after all, she was 
only eighteen. A moment earlier I my 
self had belatedly descended into Circle- 
ville upon a stale cloud of smoke and cin 
ders. Outside the station, there had been 
nobody. Inside, there were hot, con 
cealing shadows, contrivances for selling 
chewing-gum, and Maribelle. But young 
girls, at least if they were Binneys, didn t 
composedly buy tickets and stow away 
time-tables at that time of night unless 
unless I had to speak to her. 

The tall young creature had smiled 
down at me a little disconcertingly. But 
she met all my meddling inquiries. They 
were taking the ten-three to Chicago. 
Her father was resting over in the corner 
opposite possibly he was even asleep. 
Seven or eight meetings every week, in 
strange places, did exhaust him, even 
now that Maribelle herself went along to 
see that he had enough to eat and got 
aboard the right trains and all that. 
"But perhaps you hadn t heard that 
father s carrying on what you might call 
a drive." 

"A drive?" The word seemed gro 
tesque. Wilbur Binney was diligent and 
single-minded; he was all piety and vir 
tue. But one couldn t help knowing it 
was his temperament to putter, and 
that as to all financial values he had re 
tained the innocence of paradise. 

"Oh, I don t mean he s raising money. 

That wouldn t be so hard, I suppose," 

the girl set forth with perfect simplicity. 

" It s missionaries that he wants to find 

218 



new ones. They ve given out at least 
among our own church people. People 
say it s because of the war. And since 
father isn t going back to India himself, 
he s arranged to do this instead. No, he s 
not strong enough to go about in this 
way. But, you see, when it s what he 
wants more than anything ..." 

There was no time to ask about re 
sults. And I felt that would have been 
indiscreet, anyway. There were in fact 
only three minutes in which to recall my 
self to Mr. Binney and to discover that 
ill as he looked, he had a new quality. 
Some urgent flame was searing him. 

I pretended I knew about what he was 
doing, and murmured something that 
must have sounded congratulatory. He 
laid his hand upon Maribelle s shoulder 
and looked at her with adoration. "She 
makes it possible," was all he said. 

Their train whistled and I went out 
side with them. 

"Oh, no, please at the other end," 
Maribelle called after me. I had started 
toward the sleeper with one of their bags. 
"We always take the day coach. It s 
quite comfortable, really." From this I 
knew that the bag I held must contain 
sandwiches for a succession of inadequate 
and clammy meals. 

The girl was all competence and ten 
derness as she got her father aboard the 
hot, littered train. Something held me 
there watching them till they were out of 
sight. Perhaps it was my sudden convic 
tion that the relationship of these two 
was of a peculiarly classic pattern. Pure 
ly the products of a new world, they were 
nevertheless the unchanged father and 
daughter of antique fable. 

To this new impression of the Binneys 
I was to find in a day or two that Circle- 
ville had its sharp correctives to supply. 



THE CLASSIC PATTERN 



219 



"Poor Mr. Binney," they called him 
now, in a tone that just stopped short of 
contempt if it didn t in the least stop 
short of patronage. They couldn t be 
lieve in him enough to praise or even to 
tolerate his single-handed effort to relieve 
the missionary shortage. And perhaps, 
in any case, frugal and prose-bound 
people that they were, they would have 
shrunk from seeing Wilbur Binney squan 
der that thin and scanty essence that was 
his life-blood in a cause that wasn t per 
sonal or domestic or visibly immediate. 
The idea that possessed him was the sort 
of thing at which their own bridled imag 
inations halted stubbornly. And to no 
body, of course, did the whole enterprise 
seem as fantastic and unnecessary as it 
did to Wilbur Binney s wife. 

The color of her opinion was in fact so 
easily imaged that I made no effort to 
see Leota. Rather the contrary. But 
within a week the missionary s wife and 
I were inevitably sharing a seat of an 
interurban trolley-car, with an hour 
ahead of us. It soon became clear enough 
that up to the moment of her skilfully 
shaped confidence I hadn t understood 
the situation at all. And it was only in 
directly that I seized it now only by 
translating what she said into the terms 
of my own understanding, supplying all 
the clews and annotations that my old 
knowledge of the Binney s furnished me. 

The thing that somehow everybody 
had omitted to tell me, that Maribelle, 
with that delicacy of hers, hadn t men 
tioned, Leota promptly told me now. 
She couldn t of course, in decency, stress 
it too inhumanly. But the rather dread 
ful truth was that she had secured her 
heart s desire. Nothing had been more 
frankly admitted between us, during the 
years that she had found me a sym 
pathetic confessional, than the fact that 
Leota dreaded a return to India, to the 
missionary life, beyond all human pos 
sibilities. Well, the fates had listened to 
her. And this is what the fates had con 
trived. 

Three months earlier the doctors had 
told Wilbur Binney, no longer that he 
must keep on postponing his return to 
India, but that he must never return at 
all. This was what I hadn t known. He 
was in the category of incurable chronic 



cases, and there wasn t any appeal. Had 
he been alone, a free agent, I could have 
my own secret surmises as to how this 
pronouncement would have affected him. 
The urge to fling himself, however feebly, 
upon the breast of that inert unchristian 
hemisphere he yearned for would, I sup 
pose, have been irresistible. But the 
husband of Leota Binney and the father 
of Leota s unnumbered lovely children 
was far from being a free agent. The 
luxury of dying outright for a cause was 
clearly quite outside his range of choice. 

He had had to betray, it proved, how 
much he minded. 

"It didn t seem reasonable of him to 
take it so." Leota spoke with singular 
mildness, but I saw that she was striving 
not to seem to exult in her own deliver 
ance. "A man with all that Wilbur has 
his pleasant home, and the children, and 
his easy, congenial work at the seminary. 
And they tell him that if he is careful 
and stays in this climate, he can easily 
keep the upper hand of his trouble. 

" You know he s never been in the least 
a moody man. Perfectly serene through 
all that struggle out in India, though we 
usually had a sick baby of our own to 
worry over. 

"But after that last interview with the 
specialist in Chicago, he came creeping 
home and scarcely spoke to any of us for 
a week, even Maribelle and I believe 
he s more attached to her than he was to 
Dorcas, even. You would think it had 
never occurred to him before, in all these 
years he has been ailing so, that things 
might turn out this way. He just groped 
about the house as if he somehow couldn t 
feel or see things any more. 

"Then one day I went into his study 
when he was out, and I saw he had un 
packed his hand-bag. 

"... You remember, I ve told you 
about it before. The bag that has always 
stood there strapped and bulging by his 
door ever since we came back from India 
as if he expected to start the next day on 
some sudden summons. Sort of a sym 
bolic comfort to him, I suppose, though 
he never said a word to explain it. But 
now, finally he d given in. The bag 
stood in his closet, empty." 

Leota paused and looked toward me 
for the usual comment. Then she turned 



220 THE CLASSIC PATTERN 

from my squirming silence and brightly the doctor, before he left the next morn- 
went on with her tale. ing, gave it his official sanction. 

"People saw how it was, and wanted "Think of Wilbur, in his weak con- 
to do things for him. But what could dition, racing through the Middle West, 
they do? He simply wouldn t talk about all through this hot summer, asking busy 
his affairs to anybody, not even to me. people to drop their own affairs and start 
And the little things that distract the out for tha.t impossible India ! It seemed 
rest of us don t distract him. As for the lunacy to me when he first proposed it, 
children, they might as well not have and it does now. But you can t take too 
been there except Maribelle. Mari- strong a stand against a powerful man 
belle is a girl that for my own part I don t like Doctor Pettigrew. 
understand at all, nowadays. But her " Still, I should have opposed this cam- 
father seems to. And Heaven knows how paign more forcibly if I had realized what 
he would have pulled through this sum- it entailed in regard to Maribelle. The 
mer without her. She s given up every- child hasn t been of the slightest help to 
thing, it seems to me, that a girl of her me all summer, and she hasn t made a 
age ought to have, and done everything, single preparation for going to college, 
almost, that a well-brought-up girl ought You know she enters the State University 
not to do. But I won t go into that now. in September." 

"Well, what I am getting to is that I seized upon this mention of Maribelle 

within a few weeks after the time I m as an excuse for shifting the theme. It 

speaking of, Doctor Pettigrew, who is al- was so much less uncomfortable to talk 

ways making those important sudden of Maribelle than of her father, even 

trips of his, or at least he acts as if they though from Leota s point of view the 

were important, in the interests of the radiant young creature was not without 

National Board of Missions, came out her definitely irritating qualities. In fact, 

this way and stopped overnight with us. I was to discover that ever since Mari- 

I had hoped that when the doctor saw belle had allowed her actual self to become 

how wretched Wilbur looked he d find at all apparent, it had been quite clear to 

something consoling to tell him. But her mother that in a newly grown-up 

that isn t the doctor s way. The first daughter almost any other type of per- 

minute we three were alone together, he sonality would have been preferable. Yet 

and Wilbur and I, he came out with this I saw she drew consolation from the fact 

serious news, of a missionary shortage, that Maribelle was lovely to look upon 

Up to this time they hadn t made it and that people praised her. 

public." My companion s tone became even 

Leota swiftly interpreted my blank conventionally maternal as she repeated 

look. to me the extravagant commendation of 

"Oh, well, I suppose that to you a Maribelle s teachers, and assured me that 

thing of that sort may not seem of much the girl expected to complete her college 

consequence. But perhaps you can guess course in three years, and so on. The 

how it would seem to Wilbur. It actually string of formulas began to rattle from 

frightened me to have him know it, in her lips like beads. 

that sudden way, now that he couldn t "With a mind like hers, they tell me 

go out to the foreign field himself. that the work will be nothing. And she 

"But the strange thing was that in a can manage the expense very easily, min- 
way it seemed to do him good stimu- isters daughters get so many discounts, 
lated him. Some people might think that Then she can earn quite a little- 
Wilbur s view of things is a little narrow. But here the glibly boasting mother 
And there s no doubt that he s too good, stopped short and blushed. Then she 
or too idealistic, maybe, to get on in the laughed a little. She had remembered 
world. But, anyway, his feeling was, as that perhaps I might remember, too. 
he told me afterward, that with a big "That is we did of course have an 
need like that existing, he had to rouse education fund for the children. I told 
himself to help meet it, at whatever cost, you about it years ago. But we ve had 
So he had his plan ready in an hour. And to borrow from it now and then. Oh, 



THE CLASSIC PATTERN 221 

mostly for Wilbur s sickness, though he such unnatural pursuit. To the need of 
himself doesn t know. And it took a good such a parent in such a cause they con- 
deal for Joshua s freshman year. He s not ceded no legitimacy whatever. 
as quick as Maribelle. . . ." On the other hand, there was the sur- 

As we separated, fifteen minutes later, prising fact, unspoken also, of Leota 

I thoroughly perceived how ineffectual, Binney s tremendously altered status, 

even more, how almost basely self-re- Extravagantly as Leota preferred Circle- 

garding, had been my wretched little ville, she had always in a sense been 

resolve, on coming this year to Circle- obliged to buy her way within it. Circle- 

ville, that I would allow a definite rift of villians had had their reserves about her. 

formality to develop between the Bin- This was partly snobbery because she 

neys and me. For after five days spent was a Snead, that is to say, a nobody, 

in the same community, here I was caught and partly the result of her not having 

up again as unreservedly as ver into had the warm humanity to compel their 

the current of this curious family. I had liking. 

to confess to myself that I really did care But all that was changed. Leota and 

what became of young Maribelle and Circleville were become closely, reckless- 

of her father. And since Leota had told ly, intimate. This almost ostentatious 

me that "the campaign" would be over social gesture in the direction of his wife 

in three weeks, and that her husband was was so far perhaps the only visible result 

already preparing for the final meeting, of Wilbur Binney s missionary campaign, 

to be held in Circleville, I knew that I Leota moved in an atmosphere of sym- 

should have to see it through. Already pathy quite new to her experience, and 

I felt as uneasy, as sensitive to an im- no doubt luxuriously sweet. And she 

pending crisis, as though the missionary reacted dramatically, simulating the tra- 

cause were mine also. ditional wife with a grievance, overbur- 

It proved to be all below the surface, dened, long-suffering. Not that she com- 

the agitated expectation of those few plained, publicly, except in the most in- 

weeks. direct and ladylike fashion. She didn t 

Though one caught brief sombre have to. I even heard somebody say she 

glimpses of Wilbur Binney, bent on his was "brave." 

apostolic journeys, yet one was far from And from Circleville s point of view 

hearing any shout of encouragement for there was, of course, a strong case against 

his weariness. Wilbur Binney. If the missionary s life 

But if the general silence was ever so was not his own, as his neighbors pas- 
faintly hostile, it was by no means inat- sionately believed, then it was true that 
tentive. From an unguarded source or he was seriously damaging the family 
two, a seamstress or some such non- property. With all Maribelle s care, he 
participant, I learned that it was well was growing thinner and yellower and 
known just where Mr. Binney was spend- weaker every day. He was taking liber- 
ing each day of each week, and precisely ties with the single source of supply of 
what measure of success he was attaining, an excessively large family. The collapse 
Rigidly withholding itself from open in- of a man of such responsibilities would be 
quiry, the town nevertheless succeeded an offense against the domestic code not 
in satisfying its curiosity in exact detail, readily to be condoned. 
I have no explanation of how this was I suspected that somebody must have 
accomplished. hinted something of this sort to Mari- 

Circleville was likewise elaborately belle, because her manner came to sug- 

aware, and in whispered concert it power- gest a certain mild defiance as their 

fully disapproved, of all that was implied coalition, hers and her father s, became 

in Maribelle s lieutenancy. Only a cold continually more close. It struck me 

occasional word or so was dropped, that it was with almost a retaliatory 

There was no vociferous disparagement, accent that she withheld herself from 

But one understood plainly that if Mari- that web of secular affairs in which her 

belle had been their daughter, she would mother was always trying to entrap her 

not have given up her summer to any between trains. And for the Circleville 



222 THE CLASSIC PATTERN 

frivolities with which all her contem- Maribelle was conscientiously bent over 

poraries were busily dallying, she had her steamy mass of plums. "Father did 

only an occasional bright look of angelic say something this morning about my not 

scorn. There was no real flattery in her giving up_ college. What really consoles 

coming to me for a quiet half -hour now him for my going,"- she looked up with a 

and then she merely knew I didn t queer little smile, " is that I ve promised 

share the prevailing attitudes. to take up Hebrew. It does seem a 

Now, of course, I am stricken by a little dull, but I don t mind. Then when 

sense of the meagre use to which those I ve learned enough, I can help him with 

precious intervals were put. I was older, that book he s been writing for so long. 

I had a certain prestige with her. I A sort of Biblical commentary, you 

might have preached to her a wholesome know." 

egotism that would have saved her. Or I looked at her flushed and charming 
I might at least have tried to do this, face and .wished I might dress her in 
For, after all, in any important issue, something exquisitely frivolous and send 
above all in any point involved in her her to a party. But I had repented the 
relationship to her father, I am by no wish in an instant. It was, after all, a 
means sure that I could have influenced mere ignoble sharing of the cause of 
Maribelle. Young as she was, she knew Leota and the other Circlevillians. For 
so well what she was about. And her I knew well enough what these would 
self-control was so complete that it was have done to Maribelle if they could, 
only through odd little omissions, now Strip from her her generosity and vigor 
and then, rather than through anything and intelligence, equip her with super- 
she actually said, that I acquired my ficial arts and a conventional wardrobe, 
curious suspicion in regard to the girl, and pack her off with the hope that she 
A suspicion that I shall never verify. I would "make" a desirable sorority im- 
shall never ask her now whether or not she mediately, and become engaged before 
has her secret reserves as to her father s the year was over to some son of a pros- 
propagandist doctrines. The time for perous father. Everybody knew that 
asking that is past. such was the provincial parent s view of 

Dropping in at the Binneys one morn- the possibilities of coeducation, 

ing, I had found the girl and her mother But though it was all very well to 

engaged in some dark and drippy process despise this popular ambition, you 

of preserving fruit. couldn t, whatever your point of view 

"Maribelle isn t going to college, after might be, feel at ease about Maribelle. 

all," Leota let fall, with elaborate care- There was something awesome in the 

lessness. I understood that I was being girl s resistance, in her strength. She 

called as referee into a situation already was in no danger whatever of slipping 

acute. Then, as nobody said anything, into one of the familiar easy grooves, 

she went on, with a hint of passion: But she was perhaps at every moment 

" She s simply getting to be her father s of her life exposed to some wilder danger 

slave!" something up to which that courage, 

Maribelle giggled at this, very youth- that perhaps fanatical loyalty of hers, 

fully. would lead her straight and unwavering. 

"He certainly needs one," she re 
marked cheerfully. And then, to me, For my own part, I wasn t in the least 
in explanation: "And that was, of course, committed to the wish that the citizens of 
why I had thought of staying at home, our town, even a handful of them, should 
I was afraid I couldn t do enough for spring forth to proselyte remote conti- 
him in the week-ends. He s so dependent, nents. Yet more and more I found it 
poor thing, since he has been such an sinister that Circleville at large, that 
invalid." nursery of foreign missionaries, that seat 

" You would think that with the house of theology and theologians, should 

actually bursting with children, some of exhibit so calculated an indifference to 

the rest of us might replace Maribelle a the fact that on a certain Wednesday 

little," Leota threw in. evening, rather early in September, the 




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224 THE CLASSIC PATTERN 

pious effort of Wilbur Binney was to "Oh, it s just that !" she breathed with 
reach its public climax. A few days later intensity. "He cares so much about 
the exhausted apostle, his conscience pre- rousing these especial people. If I could 
sumably appeased, would return to his only be sure they would understand- 
post in the theological seminary, and I hesitated: "They re generous. They 
Maribelle would enter college. Every- always give." 

body knew all this, and everybody still "Oh money!" She was youthfully 

pretended that he didn t. For that final scornful. "But they won t give them- 

output of energy and hope one could see selves. What he asks is that they drop 

that Circle ville had merely its cold rebuke their little lives and go I" 

in waiting. No hysterical response would She wouldn t pause or rest. Before 

the mistaken man elicit from this sane she left I had agreed to join their family 

and cool-headed group. group for the evening. It was Mari- 

I was still lingering on, in a state of belle s urgent idea. And I was glad, now 

fascinated dread, when the day of the that the moment had come, to make this 

meeting came. Just an ordinary dull slight public demonstration of loyalty to 

little evangelical gathering you would the Binneys. 

have supposed it to be if you had been So three hours later Maribelle and I sat 

passing through the town. But Circle- side by side in the slowly filling church, 

ville and I knew differently. Each additional presence was indescrib- 

The day itself I can still image clearly ably comforting. So long as people didn t 
a day of sickish, stationary heat. The stay away altogether, I felt that the 
earth was spread with a thick, tawny ordeal could be borne. Yet they were 
haze. Fences and trees seemed to lean drifting in with the air of leaves on a 
obliquely against each other in a dizzy light wind. There was an elaborate sug- 
unreality. The thick sweet odor of ripe gestion of having come by chance, and 
grapes, the strong pungent smell of mari- with no idea of what it was all about, 
golds in the near-by garden, reached me It was a nerve-straining matter wait- 
almost unconvincingly, as through inter- ing fully half an hour for an audience of 
polated screens. respectable size to assemble. At last the 

It was with a stillness like that of night church must have become quite half full, 

that the crisis of noon arrived and passed. The organ burst into a shrill sigh, and 

I suspected myself of a touch of delirium, kept on pumping drearily away, in de- 

For the afternoon seemed to swell, formi- spairing prelude, until Wilbur Binney rose 

dably, as I contemplated it. It was such a severely modelled, inelastic figure, not 

a hopeless sort of bigness. You felt there without a kind of dignity, 

could be no end to this hot, still, round Circleville may have had a right to its 

phenomenon. reserves, perhaps even to its sulkiness. 

At what I suppose must have been But it hopelessly missed the clew to the 

about four o clock Maribelle stopped in. grim desire in the look of the man who 

She had come, she said, to return some stood there facing us. He believed him- 

books. But she stayed on uneasily, self to have shirked sacred duties. I was 

Soon I saw that she wanted to talk about sure of that, and I was sure his soul was 

her father. There were so few people, sick from it. And the thing our eyes 

nowadays, to whom she could talk about were bent on, as though we had been a 

him. And she could at least count upon psychological clinic, and Wilbur Binney 

my understanding her. the exposed and quivering "subject," 

She was rather white, I noticed, and was the man s struggle to gain relief 

uncharacteristically nervous. from his miserable sickness. An unbear- 

I asked if Mr. Binney wasn t well. ably intimate spectacle, it seemed to me. 

"Oh, he s not ill," she said, "but he s I felt that the lights should have been 

rather strange. He has stayed shut up dimmed. 

by himself all day long. We ve never It was noticeable that he faced us 

known him to do it before. Do you sup- without books or documents. Such 

pose he is praying or wasn t the custom among Circleville 

"He feels it s so critical this talk?" preachers. It was understood among us 



THE CLASSIC PATTERN 225 

that only the superior and highly paid voice, through which a man so irrevocably 

city clergy, men with the expensive silver classified as Wilbur Binney could sur- 

tongues of angels, spoke without notes, prise or rouse them. 

But Wilbur Binney spoke in this fashion The Binneys themselves were sitting 

now. rigidly still, even the youngest of them. 

I hadn t expected to listen. In fact, I didn t, somehow I couldn t, look at 

I deliberately yielded him only a small, their faces. But as I sat staring straight 

blurred area of attention. ahead, a thin, very cold hand was slipped 

But before he had been speaking more into mine. It was Maribelle s. I allowed 

than a minute or so, a word penetrated myself an excessively slight pressure of 

to me. It was the word famine. He re- her fingers, still without facing her. 

peated it famine. He was speaking Yet I could almost have wondered how 

very concretely. My surprised attention it was that the girl had not long ago 

half surrendered, and I found I was squandered her emotional response. To 

following him closely when he finished this very argument, no doubt, she had 

with his first point, which had to do with listened almost daily for months. And I 

the impulse to relieve hunger. He was could feel no certainty that it intellec- 

being definite and a little startling. He tually convinced her. So why should its 

was even being "timely." final repetition affect her as profoundly 

Then he quickly changed his tempo, as those cold, trembling fingers told me 

"But it s another famine I m concerned that it did? 

with." He launched this in a slow, dis- Leota had all this time been sitting 
tinct voice that was still free from con- inexpressively at my other side. Now I 
ventional pulpit solemnity. "A famine felt a touch upon my arm. She was 
far more terrible a famine of holiness, offering me a fan. She was smiling faint- 
It is well to prolong the beating of the ly, the meaningless small social smile she 
eager human heart for a year, if you can, so often wore, and her face was flushed 
or for ten. But I am speaking of eternal from the warm atmosphere. The icy 
life. I am asking you to relieve a famine chill of sheer sympathy had not smitten 
among people who are hungry for eter- her. She was not even aware, I think, 
nity/" that there was an issue in the air. And 

There was an effectiveness in this. And for her, indeed, there was none. Should 

more effective even than the extrava- missionaries be evoked from nothingness 

gances he uttered were the look of the or should they not, she at least was safe, 

man himself and the sound of that odd India, and life itself, had remitted their 

recurrent rough note in his voice the menace. 

note of an unsubduable emotion. The The talk wasn t long twenty minutes, 

values he presented were so luridly real perhaps. Toward the end the speaker 

to him. He meant it all, so profoundly, halted a little uncomfortably. There 

And yet, I couldn t feel sure that the was a point not contained in the pro- 
human beings all about me were yielding gramme which honesty evidently corn- 
any quiver of response. Men easily pelled him to make, 
classified as professional churchgoers sat "You will not expect to find this work 
heaped within the outer corners of the easy. You will not expect to find it 
pews, so expertly balanced between sleep even safe. It is not safe. You will be 
and waking that they actually retained, facing danger, I must warn you, you will 
even while luxuriously half-unconscious, a be facing practically a certainty of some 
certain loose control of movement and degree of disease. 

expression. But they weren t thinking, "But the true worker in this field will 

they weren t feeling. Nor was there the always be glad to pay for his high privi- 

most delicate interruption of the trivial lege, whatever it may cost him." 

rhythm of those miniature fans oscillat- He paused as if he had finished. Then 

ing over chiffon bosoms. Above these, he came to the edge of the platform. I 

smooth, solid faces seemed to convey knew what was coming. There was no 

that there was no conceivable arrange- longer any question of listening or not 

ment of words, nor any modulation of listening. In fact, I listened so well that 
VOL. LXXL 15 




ARTHUtf. 

*. irue. 



She stood waiting hopefully for the sign that he should make. Page 227. 



226 



THE CLASSIC PATTERN 



227 



I can almost remember his exact words. 
They were something like this: 

"I have said enough. 

"Now I want those of you who have 
agreed with me, to prove it. I want you 
to pledge yourselves to go across the in 
tervening land and seas to relieve this 
famine I have told you of. I mean pledge 
yourselves here and now, with your 
brothers near you the pledge to go and 
do your utmost for seven years. 

"You will be tempted to think it over. 
But there isn t time for that. Your 
hearts should settle it. And you may 
say you are needed where you are. I 
take that for granted. There isn t one 
of you who hasn t an exigent household 
or a delicate little child or a responsible 
profession. But incomparably more than 
any of these can need you India needs 
you. ... I beseech you to pledge your 
selves now, openly. A dozen of you, if 
there are so many; two of you, if there 
are so few." 

The missionary sat down and covered 
his face with his hands. There was an 
intense stillness. Not even a fan was 
moving anywhere. But the silence was 
that of rigidity rather than surrender. I 
glanced furtively at the faces about me. 
They expressed nothing but complacence 
as if they were satisfied at last to demon 
strate to Wilbur Binney how useless his 
whole effort had been. "We could have 
told you weeks ago that there wouldn t 
be the slightest result from all this 
pother," proclaimed those unyielding 
shoulders, those obstinate chins. 

It seemed a long time that we waited 
in the challenging silence. But one 
couldn t measure it. Then Wilbur Bin 
ney rose again. 



"If there is no one His voice 
broke. The silence persisted. 

"Is there no one ?" came from him 
in a hoarse cry. 

But in a moment he had recovered him 
self. "Then I will commit this cause " 
he began. 

But as the first rapid words dropped 
from his lips Maribelle s cold hand left 
mine. In the same instant she sprang 
from her seat, sharply arresting her fa 
ther s speech with a sound you would 
have supposed too slight to reach him 
a spontaneous little sound of youth and 
lovingness. Then, without a look at her 
mother, at me, at any one, but hastily 
flinging her hat behind her, she reached 
with incredible quickness the aisle, then 
the open space below the pulpit. There 
she paused, and with a bright air of en 
couragement looked up into her father s 
dark and frozen face. 

She stood waiting hopefully for the 
sign that he should make. But one saw 
that he could make none. A man stricken 
by the horror that stood out upon his 
face had no longer words to utter, or 
any will behind the words. Though there 
had never been speech in that place so 
eloquent as his dumbness was. 

"I pledge myself," Maribelle began 
in a steady voice and went on, un 
prompted. Then she sat quietly down 
in the front pew. 

There was nothing more to wait for. 
Wilbur Binney could do nothing. Per 
haps the wisest and ablest of us could do 
nothing, then. In hasty, embarrassed 
fashion, without a look for the father 
and daughter we were leaving alone to 
gether, we found our way out of the 
church. 




Poking Fun at Grammar 

BY C. H. WARD 

I DID not see till recently the article in SCRIBNER S by Meredith Nicholson on 
" The Teaching of English." It seems to me likely to do a good deal of harm. It 
is of the same kind as a good many articles on education, resting on vague theory 
and not at all on facts and experience. Meredith Nicholson s prominence seemed to 
me to be likely to make this article especially harmful and I asked Mr. Ward, the head 
of our English department, to write something in the way of a reply. I enclose here 
with what he has written and hope that you will publish it. 

Our education is being attacked all along the line by those that think that hard 
work is out of date and that school ought to be made a playroom. People complain 
steadily of the dreadful results of our schooling and the illiteracy that appears in 
school and college graduates, and in the same breath say that grammar and all dis 
ciplinary studies are preposterous. They do not seem to connect the illiteracy with 
the fact that their own preaching has pretty well disposed of grammar and other 
disciplinary studies and that a large part of the results they deplore comes from the 
wide-spread adoption of the easy and the soft. The results of the whole campaign 
are painfully evident to one who has received boys from all over the country. One 
great difficulty is that the advocates of the alluring theories have the platform. They 
are heard and read everywhere and the general public are easily convinced. A few 
who are on the other side are hard at work teaching and are enduring with what 
philosophy they can the effects of the new inspirational methods. It is for this reason 
that I hope that you can use the enclosed article. 

Very truly yours, 

HORACE D. TAFT. 
THK TAFT SCHOOL, October 15, 19.21. 

POKING FUN AT GRAMMAR the perverting power of literal minds, 

would never suspect. Some thousands of 

MY DEAR MODERN NOVELIST: teachers and superintendents and peda- 

You have recently given pleasure to gogical experts will apply your merriment 

the public by picturing what you would to the whole body of actual teachers in actual 

do if you were a teacher of English. Your schools ; they will pass on to one another 

sketch is racy, persuasive, and true to the glad message that M. N. advises all 

life. You exhibit, moreover, a virtue teachers to discard grammar in all schools. 

which was never a constituent of any Incredible isn t it? that your plainest 

previous essay of this sort e. g., Milton s meaning will be turned topsyturvy. I 

" Education"- by poking fun at yourself adjure you, my dear M. N., as you wish 

for venturing into " this wide field where- well to American children, to aid me dur- 

in so many fools disport themselves." ing the rest of your life, whenever you 

You intimate at the outset that you have find opportunity, in upholding your truth 

received an invitation to express your against this comical distortion, 

opinion about grammar; you announce Stretch your novelist s imagination to 

that you are amusing us and yourself with conceive some of the false deductions 

your "benightedness." And throughout which educators will draw from your 

the article you continue in every sen- playful paragraphs. You say, "I doubt 

tence as scrupulously truthful and as ob- whether I could pass an examination in 

viously an entertainer. English grammar," and you thought the 

Yet your patent truthfulness will be purport obvious enough. But all the 

misunderstood in the strangest way a thousands of inefficient teachers to whom 

way which a novelist, unaccustomed to those words come will interpret thus: 
228 



POKING FUN AT GRAMMAR 229 

"Oh, goody ! I don t have to know any pletely as an instructor; you would have 

grammar. My kiddies don t have to every confidence that students would un- 

know any. The right kind of English derstand the point of any rules of usage 

teacher ought not to know any. Hur- to which you referred them. Surely you 

rah ! " You took it for granted that your have insisted sufficiently upon the un- 

phrase "the fury of the grammar reality. 

hounds" would be interpreted in terms In this respect you have done much 
of urbanity, but in fact it will be ren- better than your fellow author Milton, 
dered, quite apart from context, "Any who once made the same sort of venture 
one who advocates the study of grammar into the wide field where so many fools 
is a hound dog," or "a bloodhound on the disport themselves. Still a discerning 
track of little Elizas who are trying to reader has no difficulty in perceiving that 
escape into the blessed land of literature." Milton intended to portray a purely ideal 
Probably several hundred of your readers school. The teacher, for instance, is of 
have consulted the Century to get light on this sort: "He who hath the art and 
your quaint epithet and have decided proper eloquence to catch them with . . . 
that you imply " a mean, contemptible might in short space gain them to an in- 
fellow; a dastard; a poltroon; as, a low credible diligence and courage, infusing 
hound so low and dastardly in nature into their young breasts such an ingenu- 
that he would be willing to have grammar ous and noble ardor as would not fail to 
taught in the schools." Many a lazy make of them renowned and matchless 
teacher will be enamoured of you because men." You and I understand at once 
she supposes you to say that "grammar this hypothesis of an ideal condition. We 
makes a hateful mystery of English grant that if a Milton were privileged to 
speech," and "the sensible student casts gather about him a hundred and fifty 
grammar aside with disdain." Miltonieboys, he could perfectly succeed 
They, in their ignorance, will suppose in the programme he outlines. You, 
that you say such things. They will quite with your hatred of grammar, concede 
overlook the statement which qualifies instantly that a Milton, teaching young 
your whole delightful humor, and which Miltons, is correct in saying: "First they 
you supposed would need no emphasis : should begin with the chief and necessary 
"Having an intuitive sense of the proper rules of some good grammar." You know 
and effective manner of shaping sen- that a Cardinal Newman, teaching young 
tences, there would be no text-books in Newmans, could win his boys to a noble 
my schoolroom." You are describing ardor by the means of grammar, which he 
what your genius, in your school, with admired so much; he is a fellow poet, and 
your fertility of resource, your quick sym- you know that he could make of grammar 
pathy with youthful needs, would do. a kindly light. Of course you, teaching 
You never thought of advising all us in your Indiana school in 1922, would 
mediocre teachers in average schools to completely fail to win your boys by gram- 
emulate your high talent. No, there is mar, to season them to a love of virtue 
no excuse for misunderstanding you; you and true labor; but you know that Mil- 
frequently enough repeat that you are ton could have succeeded in Indiana, 
discussing simply what your special ap- You grant that all his lofty ideals would 
titudes would do if some sad fate obliged be realizable: " to inflame them with the 
them to labor in a small school composed study of learning ... to teach them 
of delightful and ambitious young Mod- geometry and trigonometry by playing 
ern Novelists: " This is what I should do . . . soon to enter upon the Greek tongue 
if I were responsible." You take pains by overcoming the difficulties of grammar 
to show that you are speaking of unreal ... to save an army by learning toman- 
conditions: you have written a poem and age a crudity ... to make both facile 
have read Greek; you sometimes make and pleasant Orpheus, Theocritus, Op- 
grievous blunders in grammar; you would pian, Nicander, Dionysius . . .to furnish 
exclude all inspectors and reformers; you them with proairesis, that they may with 
would leave the choice of subjects to the some judgment contemplate upon moral 
students; you would efface yourself com- good and evil ... to lead their young 



230 POKING FUN AT GRAMMAR 

and pliant affections through all the moral ligned the great poet. How, then, can 

works of Plato, Xenophon, Plutarch, you, judged by readers far less acute, hope 

Laertius, and those Locrian remnants to escape being classed as one of the fools 

. . . may have easily learned at any odd that disport themselves in the wide field 

hour the Italian tongue ... the Hebrew of education ? 

tongue at a set hour might have been If dull readers misjudge, you will not 

gained, whereto it would be no impos- be perturbed; for you are conscious of 

sibility to add the Chaldee and the Syrian the sound sense of your real meaning. I 

dialect ... to enable them to write per- am not pleading that you should care to 

spicuously, elegantly . . . would make evade slander, but that you should have 

them soon perceive what despicable affection for American youth. You have 

creatures our common playwriters and unwittingly prepared a damage for them, 

rhymers be, and what glorious use might a damage which will continue through the 

be made of poetry . . . forming them to coming years, which is great and will in- 

be able writers in every excellent matter, crease in proportion as your fame and our 

when they shall be thus fraught with an love for you increase. By the hope that 

universal insight into things." fame and love may prosper I conjure you 

Achievements like those are nothing to help me undo the harm. Deign to say 
for you and Milton. You know, as you publicly that you are not advising fifteen 
indicate in your essay, that it is easy to thousand high schools to abandon gram- 
learn Italian and to teach youth to write mar. Your witty literary mind will never 
well. You show us how you would tri- realize the need of such a disavowal, but 
umph without grammar. You would it can get an inkling if it will consult suc- 
register their vulgarities on the black- cessful teachers in Indiana. I suppose 
board to visualize them " as long as neces- you don t utterly scorn the professors of 
sary"; you would make it appear that English in the colleges of your most lit- 
clean and accurate speech is a part of erary State in the Union; you grant that 
good manners; you would efface yourself they have a bit of practical knowledge of 
completely as an instructor; you would education as it most lamentably is to-day, 
teach effective speech and writing by Gather their opinions of how your essay 
memorizing short passages; you would will turn to poison in our schools, 
make the English speech the most natural In order to persuade you that such 
thing in the world. There is no doubt consulting may result in great good, I 
that you and Milton could produce re- offer you the following facts, which can- 
suits which, compared with our school not be better introduced than by your 
results, are as heaven to ant-hills. You own words: "In these free States we are 
and Milton ! making no marked headway in the at- 

" Why," you will ask in bewilderment, tempt to improve spoken or written Eng- 

" should any practical educator expect lish." 

average teachers in ordinary schools to Do you know any particulars about 
copy the processes of me and Milton?" the depth of the evil in your own State? 
It is a hard question. The best answer Six years ago Professor Brown, of the 
is to show how so learned and astute a college that made you Litt.D., organ- 
critic as Samuel Johnson once did thus ized the administering of a simple test 
misapply Milton s plain meaning. He to all the college freshmen who matricu- 
dragged Milton s hypothetical school in lated that fall in Indiana; only half of 
the mire of reality by saying sceptically: them knew the difference between one 
" Every man, that has ever undertaken sentence and two sentences. Two years 
to instruct others, can tell what slow ad- ago the same kind of test was applied to 
vances he has been able to make, and how the freshmen of the University of Wis- 
much patience it requires to recall vagrant consin after they had been in residence 
inattention, to stimulate sluggish indif- a month; not a third could distinguish 
ference, and to rectify absurd misappre- between a whole sentence and a fraction 
hension." Johnson, you see, thought of a sentence. Seven years ago the Har- 
that Milton was boasting what he could vard School of Business Administration 
do in an ordinary school, and thus ma- (to which only college graduates are ad- 



POKING FUN AT GRAMMAR 231 

mitted) announced that only a fifth of investigating this region just as I sup- 

the theses submitted by students would pose you like occasionally to read about 

receive a passing grade if marked as fresh- Alaska or the planetesimal origin of the 

man composition. This year Yale tells earth. Perhaps you would find a place 

us in print that a sixth of its freshman even in your ideal school for the sort of 

class are "illiterate." The list of horrors grammar that is the only teaching device 

could be indefinitely extended. If you yet discovered for showing the average 

never went farther with us grammar literal mind the difference between one 

hounds than to publish with your nov- sentence and two sentences, 

elist s skill some of this record of illiter- You seem not to know that your dia- 

acy, especially as it flourishes in secon- tribe against grammar is all compact of 

dary schools, you would do a notable phrases and guesses that have been often 

service. repeated in these last two decades. They 

Do you know what remedy for illiteracy are trite, everywhere bandied about, 

is proposed in your State? What pro- everywhere popular. You show a na ive 

portion of the successful, experienced ignorance of present-day conditions when 

teachers do you suppose would agree that you say that you would exclude from your 

improvement can be hoped for by aban- classes " all principals and trustees and 

doning grammar? You must make clear insist on protection from physical mani- 

when you put questions to them that you festations of their indignation." There 

are not referring to Modern Novelists, are plenty of principals and trustees to 

You must cater to the lowly minds of in- guard you from the other party, and they 

structors by saying explicitly: " I am ask- would most zealously protect you without 

ing about all teachers, whose average of your insistence. You would daily receive 

intuitive skill is much less than mine; flowers and congratulations. You seem 

and about all students, whose average to suppose that the grammar hounds are 

capacity for profiting by literary examples in power and that you are the first cham- 

is infinitely less than mine." Thus you pion to appear against them ; yet all your 

will guard against wrong answers. You brave words of ridicule appear to experi- 

will discover that many excellent teachers enced teachers as merely a dull and late 

do not make grammar hideous, do not use addition to a chorus of ignorance. How 

it as a mechanical toy; but employ it happy must be that state of life in which 

with effective purpose to educate young a critic of education can originate all these 

people. concepts without a suspicion that they 

If your genius smiles sceptically at an are antique ! 

" effective " purpose in grammar, restrain And you are most happy in another 

its smile. In your happy ether of intui- regard. You have never been told that 

tive knack with composition you know among teachers of English the knowledge 

only one part of grammar, a part that is of grammar was never so slight as at 

not much taught nowadays and in which present, that in the schools there was 

there was never much faith. Indeed, the never so little grammar taught as now. 

"grammar" that you have in mind is a You do know, however, that ignorance of 

supposition. It exists only in such cap- the mother tongue was never^ so great 

tivating screeds as that written two years as now. Hence your reasoning true 

ago by an Amherst professor for a most enough, doubtless, for your ideal school 

literary magazine, and in another put will appear to logic hounds and base 

forth by a New York educator at the same practical people to be false, 

time in a most reverend review, and in Though you are so unacquainted with 

those frequent joyful skits, written in just the minor elements in our Tragedy of 

your vein, by a host of well-meaning peo- Poor Old English, you do know the cen- 

ple. One and all they inveigh against tral theme to wit, that our youth are 

grammar without knowing what it is. uneducated. About this you are much 

Grammar is not nowadays a matter of concerned; you cogitate it; in your 

rules for correct usage, but a body of anxiety you write an essay proposing a 

knowledge of how sentences are con- remedy. You do well. All teachers of 

structed. You might some time enjoy the mother tongue are grateful for your 



232 POKING FUN AT GRAMMAR 

interest. Can you not during the next To furnish reasons and testimony 
year try to learn what the best teachers would be bad form in such a literary 
have proposed as a remedy ? At first you magazine, where I am commenting upon 
will be disinclined to such "an investiga- such a literary essay as yours. But I may 
tion, for teachers must appear to you to be allowed to indicate where evidence is 
be pedagogic hounds of base degree. So to be found. In 1919 a literary-minded 
it may be in order to remind you that committee of the University of Wisconsin 
some of them could say of themselves English faculty formally announced to 
with a truth and modesty equal to your the world the creed that no adequate in- 
own "Having an intuitive sense of struction in composition is possible ex- 
how to construct sentences, grammar will cept upon the basis of familiarity with 
be the great engine to lift our youth out the facts of syntax. Their report was 
of the slough of illiteracy." There are published with approval in the Bulletin of 
secondary teachers who, like you, write the Illinois Association of Teachers of Eng- 
poetry; I know two of them. What do lish. (You will be glad to know that the 
you suppose they would do with grammar editor has an intuitive sense of how to 
if they built pedagogic castles in Spain? use his native language. At times in his 
They would use it for the mental and life he has, like you, been able to read 
moral and aesthetic upbuilding of pupils, several foreign languages.) The Wisconsin 
May I suggest to your catholic mind creed has been indorsed at the University 
which I am sure will welcome the informa- of Iowa. (By the way, the critical Mr. 
tion that there are university professors O Brien says that the literary journal of 
who can in all humble verity declare of that university has a higher average of 
themselves that they have an intuitive artistic short stories than any other pub- 
sense of using language. Would they ex- lication in America.) You can for your- 
clude grammar from their ideal schools? self easily learn what is thought about 
A few would. The great majority would grammar by the most intuitive minds at 
use it as the very basis of decent teach- Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, 
ing; for they have, as you most happily Minnesota, California, Washington and 
have not, an acquaintance with the work- as far as you choose to travel, 
ings of the average freshman mind, and a There is no need of travel. Just as the 
sense of how to direct it, and a knowledge poet, abiding at home, could see Pisa s 
of the only way in which it has ever been leaning miracle, so you can learn in In- 
led to proficiency in the use of English. diana that grammar is considered a ne- 
Do you notice that I keep insisting on cessity by the nation that is most literary- 
the average ? You must not impatiently minded and that has best established a 
judge grammar hounds by observation of universal respect for good use of its 
any one boy. Perhaps that boy has in- mother tongue. All is displayed for you in 
herited a charm of style and a scunner "How the French Boy Learns to Write," 
against grammar; he can be taught with- a book made in the very town where you 
out a knowledge of syntax formally were born. The author fervently be- 
schematized; indeed, he will teach him- lieves that the example of France applies 
self. So will about five per cent of our to American conditions, and that there 
most desirable young citizens. What is can be no proper teaching of English corn- 
more, about five per cent of our adults who position without a foundation of gram- 
might teach composition could succeed mar. When you have digested this book, 
without grammar; but these rare spirits ask yourself an entertaining question: 
never go into school work; they are to be "What must a French novelist think of 
found only in editorial sanctums and an American novelist and doctor of letters 
novelists studies. We must, since we who advises teaching the mother tongue 
are a democracy, consider always the without the aid of grammar ? ; Well, 
ninety-five per cent of students and what do you suppose he would think? 
teachers. So far as can be judged at pres- I can imagine fairly accurately ; but when 
ent, the ninety and five will inevitably go I try to fancy how he would express his 
to hideous ruin unless they practise the thought, how his Gallic wit would con- 
grammar method. vey the truth and still remain polite 



POKING FUN AT GRAMMAR 233 

then I have a great curiosity to see his the same sort of priceless service by de- 
deft contriving. riding a teacher in Worcester, a woman 
Oh, my dear Meredith Nicholson, let s who for thirty years has proved that there 
cut the kidding and get down to brass is no health in school English courses ex- 
tacks in this last paragraph. Can t you cept by way of grammar. You have 
see the evil you have done? Can t you merrily jeered at conscientious workers 
guess how incompetent teachers every- in the Northwest, who have for the past 
where like to excuse their ignorance and four years been planning to show the 
failure by quoting a literary fellow who teachers of their Inland Empire how to 
has poked fun at grammar? Can t you build upon grammar in this age of shifting 
guess how devoted teachers everywhere pedagogic quicksand. You have made a 
(those overworked and underpaid ones mock of serious efforts in Oklahoma and 
that you speak of so feelingly), builders Maryland and your own State to show 
of democracy in this time of stress, are young people the straight way to mastery 
discouraged and weakened by your jibes ? of their language. You have sneered at 
There is, for example, in Omaha a woman all that is most hopeful in our nation s 
who has for a quarter of a century fought hard struggle to improve instruction in 
the good fight of grammar, doing incalcu- the mother tongue. Aren t you ashamed 
lable good to her city, bringing immea- of yourself? Please help along a good 
surable help to thousands of boys and cause by publishing, just as soon as you 
girls by teaching them some skill in the can, an essay, not on what you would do 
use of English. This invaluable servant if the impossible happened, but on how 
of democracy you have scoffed at. You the best teachers have to proceed when 
have wantonly heaped opprobrium upon they actually labor in real classrooms. 

NOTE BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON 

There is always a keen pleasure in shooting an arrow into the air, knowing that 
it is bound to fall somewhere and in all likelihood upon the head of some one who 
is moved to shoot it back. Mr. Ward has a good eye and a steady hand : my arrow 
now reposes in mine own bosom ! Still I am consoled in my suffering by the knowl 
edge that I have elicited this interesting and forcible reply to my playful remarks 
on the teaching of English. I am grateful for the rejoinder, not more for its informa 
tion, so pleasantly communicated, than for its disciplinary rapping of my knuckles. 
Mr. Ward s courteous refusal to accept the invitation I generously extended to all 
masters of grammar to search my pages for infelicities reveals a spirit of good sports 
manship that I greatly appreciate. Several other critics, including an anonymous 
friend writing from Coblenz, have called me sharply to task for a bull that roars 
from the very midst of the article in question. A professional critic of the highest 
standing, having diligently searched the volume containing the offending paper, 
chalks up three errors against me, and seems rather tickled that the score is so low 
in the writing of one so obviously uninstructed as I am. While I confess to a de 
gree of astonishment that my paper should anywhere be taken seriously, I must in 
sist that not for much fine gold would I add a straw to the burdens of the teaching 
profession. I am not unaware of the perplexities and embarrassments of those who 
in these changing times undertake the instruction of indifferent or hostile youth. 
The method I so innocently suggested as a possible solution of the problem of better 
English would doubtless fail miserably. And so, having sauntered a little too 
blithely into a region that is best left to expert guardianship I beg for safe-conduct 
through the lines and beyond the gate to those familiar fields of complacent igno 
rance "where all is possible and all unknown." 

M. N. 



Empty Bottles 

BY T. WALTER GILKYSON 



S 



HE looked down from 
the windows of the 
Club dining-room, the 
spark from her ciga 
rette glowing like a 
belated firefly in the 
warm September 
dusk. The cautious 
murmur of waiters floated up, the soft 
shuffle of their feet across the stone flag 
ging; there was a flicker of candles above 
white cloth and shining silver ; beyond the 
terrace the dark foliage caught the dis 
solving globes of milky light that came 
from the lamps upon the balustrade. An 
echo of steps sounded below her, a run 
ning fire of talk and laughter; the wait 
ers scurried to their places as the party 
drifted toward the table. 

The girl left the window and walked 
to the mirror. She lifted her hands to 
her hair with a slow encircling gesture, 
"A Tangara in Ivory" she remembered 
she had been called that. The full gray 
eyes in the glass opened wide beneath 
dark lashes. As a description it rather 
pleased her. 

"Betty, I think I need a thrill," she 
said. 

"What s the matter with Jimmie?" 
responded Betty from the stool where 
she was struggling with a recalcitrant 
slipper. "I thought he was quite a ball 
of fire, Elaine ? " 

"He was, that s just it. Now he s 
worse than a husband. I m tired of 
Jimmie. I need something subtle and 
complex and inexhaustible !" 

"Something you can cerebrate upon 
for a long time," responded Betty 
promptly. "I don t blame you; we all 
do. Well here s hoping." She rose and 
smoothed her dress. "Jack brought a 
mild man from the West to-night. He s 
anything but interesting to me, but you 
might dig something out of him. Come 
on, old dear, we re late." 

The party settled into place around the 
table. Elaine looked casually about her. 

234 



There were no changes in the alignment, 
the same sleek heads swayed toward the 
same unblemished shoulders. Evidently 
there had been no quarrels in the last 
fortnight. It was a little disappointing. 
She caught a glimpse of her husband 
hovering with soft rapacity above the 
woman to his left. She could imagine 
him breathing heavily through his nose in 
the unpleasant way he had. So that af 
fair was still on ! Betty had heard it was 
off. She turned to the man next her. 

"What do you think of all this?" she 
said. 

"It ll do." His eyes swept the table 
with a far-away glance. "I suppose you 
have these parties every night?" He 
looked at her with distant directness, his 
face glowing like beaten copper against 
the light of the candle. 

"We do lead complicated lives, don t 
we?" she confided. "You must find it 
all very involved after the splendid sim 
plicity of the West ! Tell me about the 
West ! " she murmured with soft urgency. 

"I don t know as I could tell you all 
about it in one night." His smoke-col 
ored eyes seemed to place her in the back 
ground of some larger vision. " It s a big 
place, the West." 

" Yes," she breathed, " I know. I love 
to dream about it. We need wide spaces, 
we city dwellers we lead such feverish 
lives we re so difficult, and so complex ! " 

"You do crowd some. I ve noticed 
that," he answered. "About complex , 
I don t know." 

"Oh, but we are!" she exclaimed. 
"Don t you find us so?" 

He hesitated for an instant. "You 
think more about yourselves if that s 
what you mean. It isn t the same thing. 
With us we call that just childish. 
It s only the way we look at it," he added 
with gentle dignity. 

"Oh," she laughed, "how lovely ! Re 
ally" her eyes opened wide "I never 
thought of it that way before. Maybe 
we re not nearly so subtle as we think we 



EMPTY BOTTLES 



235 



are. It s a fascinating idea!" She 
looked at him with parted lips. "If 
we re not, then you are !" she exclaimed. 

"What?" he asked blankly. 

"Subtle full of wisdom." 

"Oh ! " he smiled tolerantly. " I didn t 
follow you." He looked about the table 
and then turned to her. " Ranching does 
give a man some wisdom, I suppose." 

"Yes," she murmured, "I think it 
does. Do you know" her shoulder just 
touched his sleeve "You re not a bit 
easy to understand. I imagine you must 
live alone, on a great ranch with only 
mountains for company. Do you?" 

For an instant his gaze cut like the 
edge of a knife, then its sharpness disap 
peared in a flash of humor. "I have 
twenty men in my outfit, and we handle 
about ten thousand sheep. That s plenty 
of company, even if you don t count the 
sheep." 

"Yes," she smiled, "I should say it 
was. You oughtn t to have any trouble 
sleeping with all those sheep to count. 
But a crowd isn t always company, is it ? " 

He shook his head. 

"I feel that so often." There was a 
note of self-pity in her voice. "We go 
through life strangely isolated from each 
other we can t even understand those 
who are closest to us." Her eyes were 
veiled and wistful as if she contemplated 
some melancholy vision hovering beyond 
the circle of light. "Tell me, do you 
still believe in women in the West ? " 

"Oh, yes," he answered in a matter-of- 
fact tone. 

"And protect them?" 

"When they need it," he said dryly. 

Her hands dropped lightly upon the 
table, and she fixed her gaze on the rose- 
colored flame that wavered so delicately 
within its silken covering. "I imagine 
your wife wouldn t need any protection." 

"I haven t any," he said simply. 

" You may be very fortunate. Perhaps 
it s a part of your wisdom. Look, Mr. 
Ross," she touched his arm, "that s my 
husband." At the moment Morris Pen- 
nington was engaged in fixing a comb in 
the hair of the woman next him; he gave 
her shoulder a little pat, arched his head 
with grotesque fatuity, and leaned back, 
breathing heavily. His face made a gray 
blotch in the subdued light. 



"Yes," said Ross, "I met him before 
dinner." 

A sudden beat of little drums, a plan 
gent cry of ukuleles, swept with a gust 
of alien sound across the chatter about 
the table. Some of the diners rose, and 
a young man appeared at Elaine s side. 
She glanced at her dinner companion. 
He was studying Morris Pennington with 
evident curiosity. 

II 

THE party stood in groups about the 
disordered table. A feeling of slight sus 
pense stirred in the air; Betty s eyes held 
the concealed preparedness of the hostess 
whose guests are about to go. Penning 
ton poured two drinks from the bottle on 
the table and pushed a glass in front of 
the woman at his side. Then he walked 
over to Elaine. 

"My dear, if you re going home with 
Jack and Betty, I ll go home with Edith." 

"You ll see that I get home, won t you, 
Jack?" asked Elaine sweetly. 

"Why, certainly we told you." 

"We ll take care of you, Elaine dar 
ling," interrupted Betty. "Don t worry 
about her, Morris, she ll be quite safe 
with us." She gave Elaine a little hug 
and smiled brightly at Ross. 

"All right," said Pennington. " Good 
night, Betty, it s been a fine party. 
Night, Sturges. See you later." He 
bobbed vaguely at Elaine and pursued 
his course to the other side of the table. 

It was fairly early and the terrace was 
still dotted with tables. Against the 
background of the night they shone like 
suddenly revealed interiors; the warm 
radiance of faces, the sheen of silver and 
white linen, glowed in concentrated bril 
liance within the enveloping darkness. 
One of the men, stretched far back in his 
chair, stared steadily with pale, insolent 
eyes at Ross. A woman at the next 
table leaned out and touched Elaine s 
arm. "Oh, my dear!" she said impres 
sively. Her glance swept the tall figure 
at Elaine s side; she felt him stiffen sud 
denly as if repelling an invasion of 
privacy; unconsciously his gait fell into 
the suspicion of a swagger. 

They threaded their way through the 
wide hall to the stairway. Betty and 



236 



EMPTY BOTTLES 



Elaine disappeared up the stairs and the 
two men went out to the driveway to get 
the car. 

The veranda was filled with a chatter 
ing, moving crowd; a line of motors passed 
the steps in halting procession, made the 
wide turn beyond the archway and shot 
in single shafts of light through the long 
alley of the trees. Ross watched the 
crowd with casual curiosity. He had 
always found Easterners in the West 
quite simple, inevitably giving themselves 
away in the face of problems he was ac 
customed to solve in silence. They 
seemed about the same in the East. 
They knew business, that was their game, 
but here they were laughing and pushing 
all over the place like a bunch of " dudes." 
His broad shoulders straightened, and 
the edge of his stiff shirt slipped out be 
yond the line of his waistcoat. He 
tucked it in with a sudden feeling of em 
barrassment that annoyed him. 

"Oh, here he is," said Elaine, at his 
elbow. "We thought you d be standing 
under the elk head in the hall. Do they 
still seem to crowd ? " She looked at him 
as if she had struck some subtle note of 
sympathy. 

"Yes," he answered, a little surprised 
at her intuition. 

"There s Jack !" said Betty vigorously 
making her way to the steps. "I m go 
ing to ride with you, Jack. Get in, chil 
dren." She jumped into the front seat 
beside her husband. 

The night was faintly pungent with 
the smell of falling leaves ; in the meadows 
beyond the roadside the mist lay in pale 
drifting folds upon the grass. A low 
moon shone dimly through a haze of 
ghost-like vapor; between the black shad 
ows of the trees, the road was splashed 
with silver. There was a damp, rich odor 
of corn in the air; a smell of browsing 
cattle and of water running between 
sedgy banks, the fragrance of shrubbery 
and cut grass and distant gardens. Dark 
well-oiled drives slipped suddenly from 
the road, plunged into foliage-shrouded 
tunnels, and swept in dotted lines of 
light toward the blank houses. On the 
horizon the lamps of the great city burned 
in an unwavering arc against the sky. 
To Malcolm Ross, seated by Elaine, it all 
seemed civilized and finished, breathing 



a secured contentment that seemed for 
the moment something desirable. 

"Do you live near the Sturgeses?" he 
said. 

"Yes," she answered. Her hands 
glimmered faintly against the robe that 
lay against her knees; she swayed toward 
him and the curve of her dark hair 
emerged from the shadow. 

"I love to ride at night ! Don t you? 
Do you feel the mystery of it, that strange 
sense of going on and on forever? I 
wonder if you do?" 

She seemed to reach out in some sub 
tle pervasive way; vaguely Ross felt the 
current of her presence, disturbing and 
unfamiliar. 

"Yes," he answered slowly, "I m used 
to it. We have a lot of riding to do at 
night." 

"Of course," she murmured. "And 
how you do ride, you Westerners ! I ve 
seen you. They say we don t under 
stand horses in the East, Is that true?" 

"You don t know them." He spoke 
with calm assurance. "They re a luxury 
here. With us they re a necessity. 
Every man rides. Have you seen them 
do stunts?" 

" Yes," she cried enthusiastically. " Do 
you know I m going out to the West 
some day ! I feel as if I craved it as 
one of your sheep craves salt." She 
lifted her hands suddenly from her lap. 
"Our lives are so smug and orderly, and 
regulated ! It s deadly ! We have no 
risks, no danger. Only the danger of dis 
integration, I suppose you d call it, and 
there " her voice dropped into a wistful, 
pathetic note, "we re not protected. It s 
different in your country, isn t it?" 

Betty turned her head. "What s all 
this I hear?" She twisted around until 
she could see Ross. "Temperamental, 
isn t she?" 

Neither spoke and Betty cheerfully 
turned her back on them. 

"She wouldn t understand," Elaine 
whispered, as if to herself. 

The lights of the car plunged into a 
black gulf; on either side of the road the 
woods stretched up, dark and silent. 
Sturges increased the speed, his back 
seemed glued to the seat. They swept 
round a turn, the lights caught the tree 
trunks, leaped forward, and shot suddenly 



EMPTY BOTTLES 237 

beyond a dark object moving in front "No, he just ran," sniffed Ross, with 
of them. The car ground to a slow stop reminiscent amusement. "He was pull- 
behind a man walking unconcernedly ing a bluff, you see." 
down the centre of the road. "And you called it, didn t you?" her 

As the car stopped, the man wheeled voice deepened with admiration. "My, 
about. Elaine s heart jumped, seemed how quickly you think ! You turned off 
to drop with a sickening descent. She those lights and jumped out of that car- 
gave a little shriek and buried her face I didn t know what you were going to do ! 
in the cushions. In the tingling black- You really saved us all from from 
ness before her eyes a figure, sinister, Oh !" she shivered "it might have been 
masked, with something dully gleaming very unpleasant ! I was frightened." 
in his hand, burned in livid outlines. She leaned toward him. "I m glad you 
She heard his voice, nervous, savage, were here. I d have been awfully fright- 
trembling with an odd note of despera- ened if you hadn t been. I m afraid I lost 
tion. She lifted her head, as if forced my nerve, didn t I ?" 
against her will. "You were a little scared," he laughed. 

"Quickly!" he shouted. The object "It came kind of quickly and it jarred 

in his hand flashed uncertainly in the you." 
light of the lamps. She slipped her hand within his arm so 

"All right," said Jack. His voice gently that he scarcely felt the pressure, 

sounded very clear and distant. "Get "It jars yet a little," she said. "I m 

out, Betty." not as brave as I thought I was. I didn t 

She felt a hand on her shoulder, think I d act that way. Did you?" 
"Don t be frightened," Ross whispered. "I didn t know how you d act," he 

With a sudden cat-like movement across answered. 

the seat he had turned off the lights and "Well, I hope you re not too disap- 

sprung out of the car. pointed in me. I want you to like me." 

There was a grunt of dismay in the He felt the faint pressure of her hand 

darkness, the thud of a small object fall- upon his arm. "We really know each 

ing upon the ground; then footsteps, other, after what s happened. You ve 

retreating up the road. They ceased, seen me at my worst, I guess. I can see 

and she heard a swift crashing through you now, putting out the lights and jump- 

the underbrush. ing out of the car, all in one swift beauti- 

Ross turned on the lights. " I wish f ul movement ! That s pretty talk, but 

he hadn t run," he said. it s true. I m not trying to flatter you 

Elaine drew a deep breath. Sturges you wouldn t know what it was. But I 

looked as if he had just dropped from a can t help it it is comfortable to know 

distance and found himself unhurt. He some one like you." 
eyed Ross a little sheepishly. He did not speak, and she sat in silence, 

"I thought the damn man might shoot watching the road that vanished into the 

us." His arm tightened around Betty, mist before them. They were passing 

Ross walked to the front of the car through an estate; on either side lay an 

and picked up the pistol. "Well, he unbroken line of wall, toned to a gray 

couldn t see in the light, and he couldn t similarity by the moonlight. Sturges 

see in the dark," he said reflectively, slowed down a little and then steered the 

"Considering the bad start he made, I car beneath an archway, 
should say he used good judgment." "This is where I live," she said. 
He weighed the pistol in his hand. Ross looked directly at her. She could 

" Some army kid, I reckon. I d like to see the grave lines of his face quite clearly 

have got the coyote just the same." in the moonlight. "Do you often come 

He put the pistol in his pocket. "All home without your husband?" he said, 
right back there, Mrs. Pennington?" he She held his arm in a light clasp and 

called cheerily. "Let s go, Sturges." then withdrew her hand. "I have to. 

"Did you hit him?" Elaine s voice If I didn t, I wouldn t get home at all." 

was a little awestruck, and her eyes shone The bitterness in her tone cut with a fine 

out of the darkness. edge. 



238 



EMPTY BOTTLES 



He was silent, his face impassive, in 
scrutable in the dim light. Apparently 
he was staring ahead. She leaned back 
against the cushions. 

"Will you come and see me?" 

He nodded. 

"To-morrow night for dinner? 1 

"Yes," he answered. 

The car swung deftly up to the broad 
steps and stopped. "Here we are, all 
safe and sound," cried Betty. 

Ross helped Elaine out. She ran to 
the front seat. "Good-night, Betty. 
It s been a real experience, hasn t it? 
Do you know, my knees are positively 
shaking! Night, Jack, old dear, take 
good care of her on the way home." She 
.held out her hand to Ross. "I m going 
to steal your guest to-morrow night, 
Betty. Do you mind?" 

When they reached the road again 
Betty looked back at Ross. 

"So you re going to dine with Elaine, 
are you ? " Her tone was that of pleasant 
inquiry. 

"Yes," he answered. 

She turned away, apparently quite 
satisfied. "Jack, I think Elaine must 
have hired that hold-up man," she whis 
pered. 

In the seclusion of his own room Ross 
sat and contemplated his discarded shoes. 
Meditatively he rolled a final cigarette, 
and stared at his bed. Some one 
knocked; without moving he shouted, 
"Come in." Sturges, dressing-gowned, 
put his head through the door. 

"Got everything you want, old man?" 

Ross jerked his head. "Come in a 
minute." Sturges walked to the mantel 
piece and looked inquiringly down upon 
him. 

"Nice party, Jack," said Ross thought 
fully. 

"Had a good time, did you?" 

"Yes; good lot, those men." 

"And women?" Sturges s eyebrows 
shot upward. 

"Oh, yes," said Ross nonchalantly. 
" Betty, she s a great little girl. Tell me, 
what do they do, the men?" 

"Oh, business mostly." 

Ross cleared his throat and looked 
around the room as if thinking of some 
thing to say. " What s Pennington do ? " 
he asked. 



"Nothing," responded Sturges cheer 
fully. "Takes care of his wife." 

Ross leaned down and picked up a shoe. 

"Does he work steady?" 

Sturges laughed. "Well, you see, she 
takes pretty good care of herself." 

"Oh, she does." His face was blank. 
"That doesn t leave him much of a job, 
does it?" 

"You re going there to-morrow night, 
aren t you?" He looked at Ross with 
sharp amusement. 

"Yes," said the other rising. "What 
time do we go to work in the morning?" 

Ill 

Ross became uncomfortably aware of 
his footsteps echoing across the polished 
hardwood floor. One hand went to his 
tie and then dropped with abrupt irrita 
tion. The man ahead of him led the way 
with a flat-footed obsequiousness that 
was somehow annoying. The delicate 
ordered precision of the hallway, its 
trim spaciousness, choked him a little; 
he squared his shoulders and fell into an 
easy swagger. His glance followed the 
stairway winding in a slim white spiral 
toward a shaft of orange light that fell 
from the West window. He heard the 
leisured click of heels upon the stairs, 
and then the sunlight leaped into a warm 
radiance about a white figure that stood 
smiling pleasantly down upon him. 

"Good evening, Mister Man," she 
said. 

Ross looked up with difficulty, as if the 
light confused him. 

"Good evening, Mrs. Pennington." 

She descended with an exquisite de- 
liberateness, and he stood waiting, his 
hand resting upon the mahogany railing 
of the stairway. He did not move even 
when she had reached the step above him. 
For a moment she paused, a little smile 
on her lips, as if she were aware of some 
thing hoped for, but not entirely expected. 
Her eyes were very gray and deliberate; 
she held out her hand, slowly, almost 
beseechingly. 

"It was good of you to come." 

He moved his shoulders with a sudden 
gesture of escape. 

" Feel all right to-day ? " he asked cheer- 
ily. 



EMPTY BOTTLES 



239 



" Not quite." She shook her head, and 
walked to the door without looking at 
him. "We re going to the Leicester 
Hunt for dinner. Come on." 

Ross helped her into the car, and then 
glanced at the porch. 

" Get in ! " she said impatiently. " You 
don t mind going alone with me?" 

The car swept with a crisp crunch 
around the circle of gravel in front of the 
Hunt. In the flagged doorway stood the 
steward, a discreet smile of welcome on 
his youthful face. Ross stretched his 
legs comfortably, Elaine s wrap trailing 
over his arm. There was an air of de 
lightful solitude surrounding the little 
house; its low white outline seemed a part 
of the countryside, as if it had grown old 
with the hills, and the blue mist-wreathed 
valleys that lay about it. Peaceful 
country, he thought, so settled and farm- 
like. And then this Club, with a man in 
a dress suit, put right down in the middle 
of it. Little one-horse homey place. 
What funny things they did in the East ! 
Banged themselves to pieces in big 
houses, and then came out to little farms 
like this ! His eyes followed the pale, 
gold-powdered purple of the hills that 
melted into a shimmering mist on the 
horizon. 

"Nice place," he said. "Seems quiet 
for a Hunt." 

Elaine laughed. "It s not always as 
quiet as this." She paused at the stair 
way. "I ll be down in a minute." 

Ross wandered about the living-room 
looking at the prints that covered the 
walls. They showed horses in extraordi 
nary action, large horses with red-coated 
gentlemen falling in impossible postures. 
The corners of his mouth dropped sar 
donically. The air of horse was every 
where, horse as an amusement, some 
thing to be enjoyed ! Sporting enough, 
but not useful. They ought to live on 
their horses; they wouldn t need any 
hunting, or pictures then ! A hot resent 
ment flamed up in him, he felt fiercely, 
proudly alien to it all, and yet, strangely 
covetous of something that lay behind it. 
He buttoned the single button of his 
dinner jacket, with unconscious fingers. 
It made him feel grotesque, and he undid 
it. 

Elaine s voice sounded from the stair 



way calling the steward. Ross turned, 
and she came toward him. "We re go 
ing to eat dinner outside. Burr will bring 
our cocktails there." She put her hand 
through his arm. "How do you like our 
little Hunt ? We have it all to ourselves 
this evening." 

The wind came softly through the open 
arches of the piazza; the candles burned 
with an uncertain radiance in the twi 
light. Beyond Elaine s face Ross could 
see the slow, subtle change of color in the 
encircling hills, the deepening folds of 
shadow that spread like a dark veil over 
the valley below them. A crescent moon, 
a pale shell of silver, lay against the dusky 
horizon; there was a smell of wood smoke 
in the air, pungent, breathing vaguely of 
unrest. The intimacy, the friendly iso 
lation of the little table pervaded him, he 
felt a sense of ease and comfort, as if he 
had known Elaine for a long while. 

She leaned forward and regarded him 
seriously, the smoke from her cigarette 
drifting in a blue cloud between the can 
dles. "It s odd being out here with 
you," she reflected. "I didn t know you 
before last night. You fit in somehow, 
don t you? I hate nervous men." She 
frowned and crushed the cigarette against 
her plate. "Tell me, what do you really 
think of me?" 

Ross grinned comfortably. 

"I hadn t thought. I m just enjoying 
myself." 

"But you must think," she exclaimed. 
"I m not always like this." She sighed. 
"I wish I were. Oh how simple life 
could be made ! " She leaned back in her 
chair and regarded him, her hands clasped 
behind her head. "Why do we get all 
tangled up in it?" There was a wistful 
perplexity in her face as if she sought 
some hidden source of injustice. 

Ross gazed beyond her into the moon 
lit valley. 

" We don t, some of us. Life s always 
been pretty simple for me." He dropped 
his eyes to met hers. "What s your 
trouble?" 

"Why should I bother you with my 
troubles? I seem to want to, though." 
She looked up quickly. "I don t know 
why I talk to you the way I do. It s 
positively queer." 

"No, it isn t." His voice was gravely 



240 EMPTY BOTTLES 

sympathetic. " I guess you have a pretty assortment of balls of fire coming from 

hard time of it." New York they ll expect to be devilled 

"I have a rotten time of it," she ex- within an inch of their lives." His florid, 

claimed bitterly; "I sometimes think heavily grained face had a challenging 

Oh well," she laughed, "it doesn t mat- smile. 

ter what I think. It isn t interesting to She flashed a sudden, unwilled re- 

you, anyway." She rose. "Come on, sponse, as if , instinctively, she caught the 

we ll go down to the kennels and hear the challenge, threw it back at him. 

hounds bark. Don t you want to hear "Well," she said, "it sounds interest- 

the hounds bark? " ing." 

Ross leaned over one of the candles and "It will be," he answered solemnly, 

lit his cigarette. Her eyes wandered toward Ross ; he had 

"You re a funny girl," he said. turned away, was staring at a picture on 

"Am I?" she smiled. "Will you the opposite wall; there was a suggestion 

please keep on thinking that as long as of uneasiness in the stiff, uncompromising 

you know me ? Promise me you won t set of his shoulders, 

ever think anything worse, will you ? " " Oh, .come on ! " broke in Hemingway, 

He touched her hair very lightly with impulsively. "You know you en joyed the 

his hand. " I won t," he answered. last party. This will be the best yet." 

Two shafts of light pierced the dark- "Morris going?" she asked, 

ness behind them, opened, fanlike, upon He nodded. 

the shrubbery, the grass, a sector of yel- "Mr. Ross!" Ross turned and she 

low gravel. They heard the sound of beckoned to him. " This is Mr. Heming- 

wheels, crunching to a slow stop before way and he wants you to motor over to 

the door of the Club; then voices and his farm to-morrow. Can you do it?" 

laughter. The door banged to, and the "I hope you can," added Hemingway 

windows in the lower room were suddenly cheerily. " Mrs. Pennington is coming." 

illuminated. Elaine paused, her lip Ross shook his head, 

caught between her teeth. She looked "I m afraid I can t to-morrow night." 

at Ross. "How about ^the next day?" Heming- 

" It s a party. Maybe we d better go way asked, 

in for a minute. What do you think?" For an instant Ross paused, looked at 

" I suppose so," he said impassively. Elaine as if seeking guidance. 

She hesitated, gazed for a moment at "I could then," he answered, 

the hills, nebulous above a pale lake of "All right," said Hemingway. "Come 

mist in the moonlight. Then she walked as early as you can." He turned to 

slowly toward the house. Elaine. "I ll expect you to-morrow 

A blaze of light, a wave of hot perfumed night " 

air, the greeting of many voices, met jy 
them. Betty s arm shone above a circle 

of clustered heads ; she crossed the room, IT was late afternoon, and Ross sat 

two men following her. alone looking out into the garden. He 

"We re just starting," she said breath- sat without moving, his lean hands pas- 

lessly. "To-morrow we re going to Bob sive upon the arms of the wicker chair. 

Hemingway s." She indicated one of The deep repose of physical well-being 

the men. "It s a big party; the Hulls enveloped him, gave a certain powerful 

and some Englishmen are coming over immobility to his attitude of waiting. As 

from New York. We called you up this a matter of fact he had been waiting for 

afternoon." Her eyes rested momen- Elaine nearly all day. For the thou- 

tarily upon Ross, standing a little de- sandth time he visualized her slow, ex- 

tached from the group. "You re com- quisite step, her slow, drifting motion as 

ing with us. Bring him along it ll do she came toward him. She seemed only 

him good." a face very clear and then a shadowy 

"We ll need you, Mrs. Pennington," image that drifted, indefinite, delightful, 

said Hemingway. "It wouldn t be a vague as the outline of a dream. Years 

party if you weren t there. Special ago, as a boy, he had watched clouds for 



EMPTY BOTTLES 



241 



long hours, against a clear blue sky; he 
had repressed the habit, and now, curi 
ously enough, it had come back to him, 
strangely humanized. He settled slightly 
in his chair, as if to reach, for the moment, 
an even deeper centre of repose. He felt 
no impatience; the passage of time had 
been short in his absorbing occupation. 

A voice behind him broke his day 
dream into iridescent fragments. His 
heart jumped, and he caught his breath. 
The thrill of actuality, more poignant 
than any dream, pervaded and stifled 
him. He rose deliberately. 

"Have you been waiting long?" said 
Elaine. 

He shook his head. 

"I ve been sleeping," she yawned. 
"When did you come?" 

"About eight o clock." 

She held out her hand. "Shame I 
didn t get up. We had quite a party last 
night. I wish you d been here." She 
looked reproachfully at him, still holding 
his hand. 

"I wanted to come. You don t know 
how much." He seemed to struggle in 
the apology; between his far-sighted eyes 
a little wrinkle grew with the focus of his 
glance. 

"It couldn t be done," he added, sim 
ply. 

You should have tried harder," she 
answered. " It iiight have been better 
for both of us." She put her arm 
abruptly into his. I m sick of parties 
anyway. Let s take a walk." 

Beyond the slope of lawn a country 
road vanished in glimmering whiteness 
through the green and gold of the sur 
rounding wood. Elaine walked toward 
the gateway that cut the low stone wall. 
" I m going to take you out into the coun 
try what there is of it," she said. 

Their feet padded noiselessly through 
the dust; it rose in a white cloud before 
them. Above the delicate tracery of the 
pine branches the sky shone with the 
deepening blue of late afternoon. It was 
very quiet, an acrid smell of burning brush 
was in the air, from the depths of the 
wood a bird s call echoed through the 
trees; burdened with a sustained and 
melancholy note of warning. 

Elaine stopped. "Listen that s the 
wood-pewee ! My father always said it 
VOL. LXXL 1 6 



was the bird that warned Ulysses on the 
Island of Circe. He was a quaint man, 
my father. Do you know about Ulys 
ses?" she added a little shyly. 

Ross shook his head. 

" He was a wanderer. Forever roam 
ing with a hungry heart. You under 
stand that, don t you?" 

"Yes," he answered. 

"Oh," she shook her head, "so do I. 
I get so restless ! It s like searching for 
something all the time, and never know 
ing quite what you want." She looked 
wistfully at him. " You seem so poised, 
so completely at rest. You never get 
upset over anything, do you?" She 
laughed. "You re what Bob Heming 
way calls an indifferentist. And yet" 
her hand slipped through his arm "I 
don t think you really are an indifferent 
ist, are you?" 

"I don t know what you mean," he 
answered. "Whatever it is, I guess I m 
usually too busy to be it." 

The edge of the wood appeared before 
them, a glimmer of light through the 
brown line of tree trunks. Beyond it the 
meadow dropped to a stream just visible 
between two rows of dwarf-like willows. 
They walked down the slope, Elaine wad 
ing luxuriously through the long grass. 

"It s the last of summer, isn t it?" 
She leaned down and pulled a handful of 
feathery blades. "It hovers about us 
for one last moment like to-day, and 
then" she threw the grass into the air 
"it goes, like everything else. I wonder 
where it goes. You re wise, do you 
know?" 

Ross smiled at her. "You run on like 
a stream, Elaine," he said, with amused 
tenderness. 

They reached the willows, and Elaine 
seated herself on the bank. "Let s sit 
here for a while and watch the water. 
Come on !" She patted the grass at her 
side. 

For a moment they sat in silence watch 
ing the rippling color that broke from the 
waves in tiny flashes of gold and orange. 
In the still pools above the current the 
light from the setting sun glowed in vivid 
crimson and yellow against the steel-blue 
reflection of the sky. A faint mist rose 
above the sedgy banks, blurring the 
stretch of meadow with its ghostlike 



242 



EMPTY BOTTLES 



breath. Elaine leaned forward, her chin 
upon her hands. 

"You d never believe we were any 
where near that awful house, would you ? 
Maybe you didn t think it was so awful ? " 
She smiled whimsically at him. "You 
would if you knew as much as I do." 

" Pretty bad, was it ? " he said seriously.. 

"Yes, it was pretty bad." Her gaze 
rested upon the still water that lay so 
tranquilly beneath its shimmering mirage 
of color. "Oh" she stretched out her 
arms with a sudden gesture of escape 
" the wearying, scattering distractingness 
of our life ! I wonder sometimes how we 
ever live it ! We scurry about from one 
little thing to another like driven animals, 
and we don t even know who drives us ! 
Altogether it s an odd performance!" 
she said, with a little twist to her smile. 

"You seem to enjoy it," he answered. 

" No, we don t," she said bitterly. "It s 
just habit, and a craving for excitement, 
that s all." 

"Tell me" her eyes were fixed on the 
water " are you ever sorry for things you 
do?" 

"Sometimes," he answered. 

" Oh, I do such foolish things, and then 
I hate myself, just hate myself!" She 
turned away and Ross caught the profile 
of her face glowing faintly in the reflection 
from the stream. " I don t know why I 
do them either." 

He touched her hair, a light touch, 
curiously awkward in its restraint. 

"I m beginning to understand how you 
all live. It isn t healthy, Elaine." 

"It isn t." Her voice" trembled. "I 
wish I could escape, but I can t. I was 
born into this life, it s eaten into my fibre 
so deeply it s become a part of me, I guess. 
If only " she stopped abruptly. 

"If what?" 

"Oh, I have no reason to complain. 
We re masters of our own fate. We 
make ourselves, day by day. Only"- 
she laughed bitterly "now and then we 
see what we ve made, and sometimes, my 
dear, we re not very proud of it." 

The eagle-like look in Ross face had 
gone, his eyes were more vague and far- 
seeing than ever. "I don t think women 
are always masters of their fate. I think 
men have a lot to do with that. It s 
always been my belief," he said decidedly. 



" Oh ! but you have so many beliefs. I 
think the West must be a land of beliefs. 
Tell me, Malcolm" she hesitated over 
the name "why is that?" Her face 
touched his coat, rested against it, as if 
for one instant she smelt the tang of rough 
homespun and tobacco. 

" I don t know that it s true," he said. 
"We can t trust everybody any more 
than you can. We ve got some bad men 
out there, and some bad women. They re 
kind of separated more from the others 
though. It s hard to explain." The 
wrinkle grew between his eyes. "You 
see, when we re bad why we re bad and no 
mistake. We don t think or talk much 
about it we just go ahead. There isn t 
any bluff that way with us. I guess it s 
the country," he said reflectively. 

"How is it the country?" she ques 
tioned, her eyes on his face. 

"Well," he continued in a slow voice, 
"you can t bluff wind and rain and cold 
the way you can people. That s what 
we re up against all the time. The 
trouble with you is you have too many 
people." 

" We re too civilized, you mean ? " 

He hesitated for a moment as if formu 
lating some expression for his thought. 
"It s not exactly my idea of civilization, 
not what I ve seen. It s too many peo 
ple and too much money all bunched to 
gether. A man gets soft. You know a 
man s got to be awfully wise before he 
gets soft, otherwise he s liable to just get 
rotten. I don t know whether you all 
are wise enough yet." He looked som 
brely out over the water and the lines of 
his face tightened. "I know I couldn t 
stand it," he said. 

Elaine leaned back, her hands clasped 
behind her head. 

"You think things out, don t you?" 

"I have to," he answered without a 
hint of self -appreciation. "You see, I 
wasn t educated much when I was a boy." 

"Was it hard, your boyhood?" she 
asked gently. 

"Yes," he said with a reminiscent 
smile, "I suppose it was." 

" Tell me about it," she pleaded. 

"Not much to tell, just what every 
body else had. Plenty of work and a 
little fight. It s that way now," he 
added in a matter-of-fact voice. 



EMPTY BOTTLES 



243 



"Plenty of work and a little fight," she 
repeated to herself. "I d like to tell that 
to somebody ! You re right we are so 
soft that we re absolutely rotten!" She 
stood up, and her fingers closed tightly 
against her palms. 

"Do you know, it hurts me to think 
that you could find it out so easily !" 

Ross got slowly to his feet. His look 
was humble, almost beseeching. "I 
didn t mean to hurt you, Elaine," he said. 
The dark color of his face seemed gray in 
the twilight. " I don t know how I came 
to do it. You understand I didn t mean 
to, don t you ? " 

For an instant she did not speak or 
move, only stood looking at him with 
eyes that shone quite unaccountably in 
the still pallor of her face. 

"I can t imagine your hurting any 
woman," she said. "You needn t apolo 
gize to me." She held out her hand. 
"Come on, I m going to take you back." 

Ross fingers closed about her hand, he 
looked dumbly at her as if incapable of 
speech or movement. She could imag 
ine that she heard the beating of his heart, 
that she could feel it pulsing through her 
in a current of deep inarticulate desire. 
For an instant she fought against an over 
powering weakness, an irresistible force 
that drew her toward him, and then her 
head drooped, she put out her hand, and 
reached blindly for his shoulder. 

"I wish you d take me away," she 
sobbed. 

His arms closed about her like the gates 
to some deep perilously sought refuge. 

"Away from everything?" he said in 
a steady voice. 

"Yes, from everything but you." 

V 

% 

Ross stood at the window looking out 
into the dusk. He was not given to 
visions, and yet in some unaccountable 
way he kept seeing Elaine s face, a pale 
and insubstantial image floating within 
the shadows that crossed the garden. It 
gave strength to his resolution, fortified 
him in the decision he had reached an 
hour ago when she had asked him to take 
her away. The conventions meant noth 
ing to him the fact that he would take 
her from someone to whom she belonged 



meant a great deal. It had happened 
now and then, within his observation ; he 
had always regarded it as a species of 
theft. Any punishment awarded was 
usually merited. But in her case it was 
different. She was dying spiritually, and 
she had appealed to him. That gave 
him the right to act, to fulfil the almost 
overwhelming desire which otherwise he 
would have beaten down mercilessly. 
The resolution had grown in his mind, 
had crystallized into a definite intention. 
He did not pick at it turn it over and 
over, as a weaker man would have done. 
His only concern now was one of method. 

He dressed leisurely, rolling cigarette 
after cigarette with steady fingers. There 
was only one way to do the thing, have it 
out, straight from the shoulder, with 
Pennington. A divorce could be ar 
ranged, people went to Reno or some such 
place. He remembered a lawyer, a man 
of unpleasant, oily manner, who had 
come through the country, hunting. He 
had put him up at the Ranch, and had 
listened, for one short evening, to stories 
told with a disgusting enjoyment. He 
would take care of all that himself 
there would be no stories told about 
Elaine in Reno, or anywhere else. A cold 
anger against Pennington swept over him. 
Pennington was an obstacle capable only 
of creating the semblance of indecency. 
A man like that had no right to any wo 
man, and the sooner he was told the bet 
ter. He dug his brush through his hair 
with vicious strokes. Pennington might 
as well be seen, and the whole thing set 
tled. 

His knock at the door brought Penning 
ton in the last stages of dressing. 

"Oh, hello," he said, standing in the 
doorway as if expecting Ross to state his 
mission. 

Ross merely nodded. 

"Elaine," Pennington called, over his 
shoulder. "Mr. Ross is here." He 
smiled affably at Ross. " Almost dressed 
let you in in a minute. How ve you 
been?" Beneath his lifted chin he com 
pleted the final touches to his tie. 

"Quite well," said Ross. 

"Have a good time here, don t you?" 
His pale eyes wavered expressionlessly in 
the vicinity of Ross face. "Get over, 
last night?" 



244 



EMPTY BOTTLES 



"No." 

Pennington cleared his throat. The 
difficulty of the conversation seemed to 
oppress him and he looked back into the 
room. 

"All right, Elaine?" 

"Yes," she answered. 

"Come in," he said expansively, swing 
ing the door open. 

Ross felt, rather than saw, a spot of 
vivid rose glowing beneath the shaded 
light that hung above the couch. Elaine 
was seated there looking at him. She did 
not speak, and for an instant he let his 
glance dwell on her, absorbing the color 
of her gown against the gray stuff of the 
couch, the exquisite pallor of her face, 
and the dark outline of her hair that 
rimmed her low forehead. He realized 
that her eyes were fixed on him with a 
startled, almost frightened look; for an 
instant it troubled him, gave him an un 
familiar sense of doubt and insecurity. 
He brushed it aside and turned squarely 
to Pennington. 

" I came to have a talk with you," he 
said. 

"Right 0! Sit down, won t you?" 
Pennington seated himself on the couch. 
"Have a drink," he said suddenly, as if 
he had forgotten something. 

Ross shook his head. 

Pennington waited, his fat white hands 
resting upon his knees. His eyes moved 
unhappily as if he were suffering from 
some internal disturbance, and he began 
to fidget with the buttons, of his waist 
coat. 

"Mr. Pennington," said Ross gravely, 
"I m in love with your wife." 

Pennington rubbed his chin, his face 
showed mingled relief and amusement. 

" You are, are you ? I wondered what 
you were so damn serious about ! Well," 
he said cheerfully, "I can t blame you. 
Lots of men have been in love with 
Elaine, although I don t know that any of 
them ever bothered to tell me about it." 
He smiled pleasantly and then looked 
around at Elaine. 

Her face was hidden, her eyes fixed on 
the carpet. 

"You don t get me," said Ross gently. 
"I want to marry her." 

The other looked at him with blank 
astonishment. 



"What!" he stammered. 

"I want to marry her," repeated Ross. 

Pennington s forehead puckered into a 
frown. He eyed Ross narrowly as if he 
had suddenly grown into something for 
midable and threatening. 

" How long have you wanted to marry 
her, may I ask?" 

"For some time." 

The muscles about Pennington s mouth 
twitched irresolutely, he continued to re 
gard Ross with a puzzled, almost fright 
ened air. 

"You know really I don t understand 
this at all ! " He turned sharply around. 
"Elaine, what s this all about anyway?" 

"He means what he says, I suppose," 
she said in a dull voice. 

Pennington breathed heavily through 
his nose. "Why, damn it all," he said 
feebly, "this sounds like a comic opera. 
We don t do that way here. Elaine," 
he almost shouted, "get up and tell me 
what in the devil this all means ! Do you 
want to marry this man ? " 

Elaine got to her feet, her eyes went 
from one to the other with a dazed, al 
most uncomprehending look. "I told 
him this afternoon I wanted him to take 
me away." She looked piteously at Ross, 
as if seeking his aid. 

"That s what I want to do," he an 
swered promptly. 

Pennington walked over to him. 
"Well, you can t do it, and I ll tell you 
that right now. This is a bit of damn 
foolishness, and nothing else. Elame 
doesn t want to leave me. She may think 
she does, but she doesn t. I know her 
much better than you do." He shook 
his head significantly. "This is a piece 
of acting, this is." 

Ross hands gripped the mantelpiece. 
He opened his mouth as if to speak, and 
then looked down. 

"You re wrong," he said quietly. 

"No, I m not," snapped the other. 

"You are !" His voice shook with an 
intense effort at control. "She s un 
happy here. I think she would be happy 
with me." 

" She d be unhappy anywhere," grunted 
Pennington. "I tell you you don t 
know her." He looked at his watch. 
"Let s stop talking nonsense and go down 
to dinner." 



EMPTY BOTTLES 



245 



Ross shot out an arm; a spasm of pain 
flickered over Pennington s face and he 
pulled himself away with unexpected 
agility. 

"Man, you ve got a grip/ he snarled. 

"Hadn t you better ask her what she 
thinks?" the other suggested in a polite 
voice. 

"I don t propose to ask her anything," 
said Pennington glaring at him. 

"Yes, you do," Ross replied firmly. 
"If you don t, I will." 

Pennington tossed his head as if to 
escape from the intolerableness of the sit 
uation. He turned to Elaine. "Do you 
want a divorce?" he said, with the sug 
gestion of a sneer. 

She twisted her handkerchief in a tight 
band about her fingers, and stared va 
cantly before her, as if at something that 
had unexpectedly arisen. 

A dizziness swept over Ross, a part of 
his brain seemed suddenly to turn over; 
he caught himself and took a deep breath, 
every nerve in his body tingling in an 
effort to give her support. 

"Do you want a divorce?" repeated 
Pennington. 

"I I hadn t really thought about it," 
she said in a frightened voice. 

"Well, think about it now," he an 
swered brutally. "If you want one, I ll 
give it to you." He waited, a glitter of 
triumph in his eyes. "Of course, you 
can t live here," he went on. "I don t 
suppose you ll mind that, though. I un 
derstand there s social life of a sort on a 
ranch." He looked in the direction of 
Ross. "What do you raise, sheep or 
dudes? " 

The knuckles of Ross hands upon the 
mantelpiece were white, and his face was 
still as a carven image. 

"If you want it you can have it," 
continued Pennington in a slow, purring 
voice. "I ll see Johnny Hutchinson to 
morrow. Give you alimony, pendente 
lite, or whatever they call it." He waved 
his hands graciously. "That s what 
Montie gave Lillian Margeson. She s 
living in the West somewhere, Indiana, I 
think. I suppose she s happy at any 
rate we don t hear much from her." He 



stopped in front of Elaine. "Well, what 
do you say ? " 

She sank down suddenly on the couch. 
"Oh, don t start to-morrow," she cried in 
a stifled voice. 

Pennington smiled contemptuously at 
Ross. " You re a good deal of a fool, my 
dear man," he said. "Grabbing me by 
the arm and telling me I don t know my 
own wife!" The anger in his eyes was 
evaporating, he breathed less heavily 
through his nose, and his face resumed its 
habitual look of mild and futile rapacity. 
"I d no objection to your seeing Elaine. 
I haven t now. Only" he glared inef 
fectually at Ross "you mustn t try to 
break things up. It isn t done." 

Ross looked beyond him to Elaine a 
crumpled, listless figure, pathetically re 
mote in its attitude of defeat. He saw 
the dim drift of her hair, the curve of her 
face, tragic, appealing, and yet, so inevi 
tably beyond his help. A savage impulse 
swept over him, to run to her, to carry her 
from the room; it beat within his brain, 
shot in sudden nervous spasms through 
the lean fingers that clutched the mantel. 
He looked steadily at her, but she did not 
lift her head. The impulse ebbed, gave 
way, he felt a sickening sense of paralysis, 
a soft yielding resistance, wrapping him 
in its folds, striking like a chill mist into 
his heart. He realized that he did not 
know her, that he did know the man who 
was standing before him, that he was, and 
always would be, hopelessly alien to them 
and all their kind. It came upon him, a 
sudden revelation, filling him with an 
anger that burned above a stark and 
aching loneliness. 

Elaine lifted her head; she looked at 
Pennington with a dull weariness, as if 
she contemplated something repulsive, 
inescapable, familiar to the point of dis 
gust. Her face seemed a little sunken, 
the lines of the mouth a little deeper, in 
the shadow of her eyes hovered a restless 
flicker of pain. She raised her hands to 
her hair with a slow encircling gesture, 
and then dropped suddenly on the couch, 
her head buried in her arms. 

Very quietly Ross walked from the 
room. 



The Present Hour 

BY MARGARET SHERWOOD 

I, WHO am God, being Love, 

Flowing through all the universe of space, 

Within, above, 

Petal and star obedient to my will; 

Forever present, though time veil my face, 

In struggling hearts, though alway baffled, still 

From all eternity a white desire, 

An upward leaping flame of fire, 

At all mankind waxed wroth. 

I, who had granted them joy for growth, 

Sorrow and pain whereby to find their way, 

Saw them betray 

The higher hope wherein their race had birth. 

The sons of God went crawling close to earth, 

Forgot the upward urge, crept down the slope 

Whereon I bade them climb; in lust and greed 

Betrayed the higher need; 

Forgot their fellows, leaving them to groan 

While each man sought his own, 

Broken and scattered, who had held high aim 

Of being one in me. Then, near and far 

Hot gleamed my rage, from star to molten star, 

A universe in my white wrath aflame. 



Alone, alone, for wrath is isolation, I 

Quivered through earth and air and sea and sky, 

Casting off man, knowing no hope for him. 

Then my might waxed dim, 

And mine omnipotence within me strove, 

Shot through with sudden dread: 

Were I not less than God in being less than Love? 

Should Love grow faint and frail 

The vast of things would crumble; world by world 

And sun by sun, in trembling ruin hurled 

A universe lie dead. 

Sudden my Godhead swept exulting back; 

My very self their lack, 

Breath of my being is the human wail. 

Enduring passion of creative power, 

I, in the creatures of an hour, 

Hope, bear, believe, endure, and may not fail. 



I bend mine ear 

Once more above the utter need of men, 
Striving to hear, 
As erst from all eternity, again 
The whispers faint that syllable my name. 
246 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



247 



From out a world of broken faith and promises forgot, there came 

Even now the word which sayeth all things, Love; 

The very word a prayer, 

The word a golden stair, 

Whereon the stumbling heart of man climbs to my heart above. 




ThE POINT OF VIEW 




JAM a great friend of little pilgrimages 
to shrines so obscure that even their 
most ardent worshippers would be sur 
prised to hear that they had drawn a single 
traveller over long roads. So these words 
were enough to start me travelling: "Ed 
ward Rose (died 1653), buried 
of Barnes outside the south wall of Barnes 
parish church, left a bequest to 
provide a constant succession of rose-trees 
to grow on his grave." I wanted to see 
whether Mr. Rose s rose-trees were still 
living. 

The last stage of the journey from Prince 
ton, on the D. and R. canal, to Barnes on 
the Thames, was not costly. An autobus 
took me, for the modest sum of sixpence, 
from Piccadilly to the edge of the borough, 
and as I walked across the common which 
separates Barnes frem its railroad station 
a vast field with grass so withered fro m 
the long drought as to suggest grave doubts 
about finding the roses of Mr. Rose in bloom 
my imagination was busy with his char 
acter. Had he been a sentimentalist who 
had loved roses all his life, tending them 
with his own hands so long as he was able, 
and leaving to all future generations a record 
of his tireless affection for them? Or was 
the bequest an illustration of another sort 
of passion strong in death; the tyrannous 
habit of an inveterate punster, playing his 
favorite game of juggling with words even 
in the face of the last enemy? I hoped 
vaguely that some answer to these questions 
would come to me beside his grave. 

The church of Barnes is concealed behind 
acres of those infinitesimal brick dwellings 
which abound in the suburbs of London, and 
suggest, by their refulgent door-knobs, their 
curtains white as hoar frost on the pane, and 
their yards as small and gay as colored 
handkerchiefs, the gratitude of women es 
caped from crowded tenements to homes of 



their own, managed on incomes as tiny as 
the buildings which house them. The older 
and probably the wealthier part of the bor 
ough, lies beyond the church, and I did not 
explore it; for I could not imagine that the 
house of Mr. Rose survived, and I was in 
tent on him. 

The parish church of Barnes is not large, 
and if all the dwellers in the multitude of 
little homes, whom I liked to imagine as 
happy as their houses looked pleasant, 
should.det ermine to attend it, let us say on 
the first Sunday of the year, surely they 
would have to come in many relays. Nor 
is the building in its present form very old. 
I noticed only the old brick of the tower 
those bricks of soft, warm red which, per 
haps, even more than the lines of the archi 
tecture, give its charm to near-by Hampton 
Court. But the little churchyard was 
crowded with old trees and old graves, snug 
gled up to the walls of the church as if 
their occupants had loved it in life and 
wished to lie close to it in death. I walked 
twice around the building looking for a 
rose-bush or the name of Edward Rose, 
while the murmurs of worship floated out 
through the open windows. My pilgrimage 
was at its height, my quest was incom 
plete, and then suddenly my ear caught the 
unmistakable sounds of the end of wor 
ship. The congregation was coming out! 
Should these pious folk find me lurking in 
the churchyard, plainly convicted of ab 
sence from morning prayer? Seized with 
sudden panic I fled, and Barnes knew me no 
more. 

That no highly floriferous rose-bush was 
visible .on August 14, 1921, in the yard of 
the parish church at Barnes that the name 
of Edward Rose is not there writ on any 
tombstone so that he who runs may read 
I can swear. But I cannot swear that be 
side a modest stone bearing half illegibly the 



248 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



name ROSE, a rose-tree, much depressed by 
drought, may not have been sturdily hold 
ing its own and waiting for better days to 
bloom. 

Yet my pilgrimage did not fail. I saw, 
indeed, no rose on the grave of Mr. Rose, 
but my spirit went out to search for his. I 
thought of him with pleasure and I was 
enough interested in him to wish very much 
to meet him. What more can one do for 
the most living of strangers? As for the 
impiety well, it was wise to avoid scandal 
to the most pious part of the people of the 
gentle borough of Barnes, but I fulfilled, 
after two hundred and sixty-eight years, the 
pathetically human wish of Edward Rose 
that he should not be forgotten and to 
carry out the last wish of the dead, is not 
that an act of piety? 

THEY are of all sorts and kinds our 
pet superstitions. Some of them we 
play with, and pretend to adopt, be 
cause we find them amusing; some, and 
those of the most senseless, we take seri 
ously. What, for instance, could be more 
utterly silly than the refusal to ac 
cept a black pin? And yet, only 
a few years ago I heard a woman 
who asked for a pin decline a black one, al 
though it was more appropriate for its des 
tined use than any other could be. She was 
a person who rather fancied herself, on 
account of her exclusive social position. 
"Oh no," she said, with a deprecatory apol 
ogetic smile, "I don t think I could take a 
black pin." In my childhood I had heard 
of that superstition, but didn t believe that 
it prevailed any longer among civilized 
people. 

Really, beside such puerility, you regard 
with respect the belief prevailing among cer 
tain savage tribes that a man s name (being 
an integral part of himself) must not be 
mentioned, lest it come into possession of 
an enemy who, by the aid of magic, may 
use it to work him harm. In fact, the be 
lief that one s name is a part of oneself can 
be understood by any one who has toiled 
over the naming of the characters of fiction. 
For truly the name is part of a fictitious per 
son, and must fit him if he is to seem to live. 
It is only in real life that you can live down 
an unsuitable name. 

Then there is our unlucky Friday. How 
many people there are who really do regard 
it with apprehension. But somewhere in 



the world each day in the week is unlucky. 
Why discriminate? Sunday, to be sure, is 
fortunate except in Christendom, where its 
bad luck is only a retribution for desecra 
tion; with one curious exception. Why 
should it be believed that if you fall ill on 
a Sunday you will surely die? And why, 
among good Christians, should a Sunday 
excursion in a sailboat be considered more 
ill-omened than, for instance, a ride or a 
drive? For that matter, the horse may 
need his rest, and you make him work. I 
don t know of any superstitions about 
motor-cars, but there might well be some. 

As to Monday: In Russia no one took a 
journey on Monday. In Germany one 
didn t enter a new building, make a mar 
riage, or send a child to school for the first 
time on that day. One doesn t know what 
they do now, but these superstitions are 
comparatively recent. Tuesday, as far as 
one can learn, seems to be comparatively 
free from ill luck, but one must look out for 
Wednesday. On that day witches were out 
and storms brewed and Judas betrayed 
Christ; and it was made one of the fast-days 
of the Church. Thursday has been un- 
luckiest of all. There was hardly anything 
you could do. You couldn t be married, 
or attend to your cattle, or comb your chil 
dren s hair. But there was one thing you 
could do. You could hold public meetings. 
Thursday was the day of judgments, since 
Thor confirmed laws with his hammer, and 
the other meetings followed naturally; inci 
dentally, our own college commencements. 
But Friday, our ill-omened Friday, seems to 
have been lucky, especially for courting and 
marriage and for games of chance. It was 
Christianity which, failing to eradicate the 
worship of Venus in the south and Freya 
in the north, on the one hand, preached that 
since Venus and Freya were devils, their 
day must be unlucky, and on the other 
hand laid stress on the memories of Christ s 
Passion; although the Eastern Church per 
sonified Friday and then turned her into 
Saint Prascovia (Saint Friday) to be 
specially venerated on that day. Saturday 
really seems to be the only all-round un 
lucky day, when you must cease from most 
kinds of activity. Yet if you are impious 
enough to begin to spin on a Saturday you 
must spin your spindle full, else the witches 
will get your yarn and make knots in it. 
But all these legends will never make any 
difference to you if Friday is your pet super- 



THE: POINT OF VIEW 



249 



stition. Better be on the safe side, you will 
say. 

The superstitions of the card-table are 
many. You laugh about them, play with 
them because they are picturesque, choose 
the pack from which you have drawn the 
deal, change your seat to get on the lucky 
side of the table, and perhaps, if you take 
your game quite seriously, you always slip 
into your chair from the right, and never, 
never from the left. 

The ballroom, too, has its omens. Once, 
sitting in the chaperons row of chairs be 
hind those of the dancers, I saw a girl walk 
across the room and seat herself in the chair 
of a young girl who used it only to hang her 
favors on, since she never stopped dancing. 
"Why does she do that ? " I asked my neigh 
bor, an Englishwoman. "She s Scotch," 
said my neighbor. "She thinks that a 
popular girl s chair will bring her luck. 
She hasn t been dancing much." I thought 
it would have been more to the point to 
have had the poor dear taught to dance 
better but there she was, she and her 
superstition. 

Quite recently I have encountered a new 
superstition, perfectly absurd and yet evi 
dently compelling to a large number of 
women. The other day I received a note 
from a friend, apologizing for the enclosure 
it contained. Her own copy had been sent 
to her by a woman whom she couldn t re 
fuse, and who, by the way, was the wife of 
a man in high official position. A well- 
educated woman, accustomed to the world. 
It was as follows: 

"The Endless Prayer Chain. God bless 
our Soldiers and Sailors and keep them in 
the hollow of His hand. This was received 
by me on May i6th, 1921. It is said to 
have gone around the world. Copy it and 
see what happens on the seventh day. It 
is said that all who write it will be taken 
care of, and one who breaks the chain will 
meet with misfortune. Send it to seven 
married women, and on the seventh day 
you will meet with great joy. Please do not 
break the chain. It was started on Flan 
ders Field. Sign your name in full." 

When one thinks how many groups of 
"seven married women" and I ll venture 
to say, without much thought of the Sol 
diers and Sailors have exclaimed impa 
tiently: "What an awful nuisance this is, 
and why did she send it ? I ve a great mind 
not to do it but one never knows; better 



be on the safe side," and with a thrill of real 
apprehension of the mysterious misfortune 
threatened by the breaking of the chain, 
have copied the missive and selfishly sent 
it on its troublesome way to seven times 
seven women well, when one thinks of 
that, one realizes that we are still in the 
bonds of superstition. 

As for me, I broke the chain. This was 
not my pet superstition. 



AL day it rained, and that, in a coun 
try which is accxistomed to reckon on 
a clock-work thunder-storm at noon 
and otherwise blazing blue sky and sun 
shine, is distinctly disconcerting. It was 
peculiarly disconcerting on the anniversary 
of the signing of the Declaration of 
Independence, when all Denver- 
and all Denver at this time of year 
includes a goodly proportion of the inhabi 
tants of the Eastern States had taken to 
the mountains in pursuit of that happiness 
which the Fourth of July guarantees us as 
an inalienable right. What did the signers 
of the Declaration mean by the pursuit of 
happiness, anyway? 

We, and most of the other inhabitants of 
Denver, started for home that afternoon 
down the Big Thompson. The Big Thomp 
son is the kind of canyon you have always 
dreamed about, if you are an Easterner, and 
never expected to see. A wild, brown river 
goes tearing through the heart of the hills. 
Great walls of rock rise up on either side. 
Whole mountains seem to block your path, 
and then, suddenly, the road doubles and 
you see the passage through. Pine-trees 
grow, apparently by faith alone, straight 
out of the rocky walls. Flying buttresses 
of rock, wine-red and brick-red and gold 
and green, project into the river and the 
river leaps and roars and tumbles, mile 
after mile of seething creamy foam. To 
day gray clouds sit upon the hills and all 
the rocks are terrible with rain. The river 
tears at the rocks, shaping and making the 
canyon as you watch. You are seeing Na 
ture at her work, you are gazing on creation, 
a sight almost too wonderful for the eyes of 
man. Is this what the signers of the Dec 
laration meant by happiness ? 

Our car, in second gear, slides down the 
red road cut into the side of the cliff. We 
hug the rock wall at the turns and send the 
warning notes of our horn echoing rau 
cously far ahead. Again and again we pass 



250 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



little plateaus, green and tree-shaded, 
backed by sheer walls of rock. Each one 
has a whole flock of flimsy wooden cabins 
conscientiously labelled with their names, 
"Mutt and Jeff," "Wildrose," or "Bidea- 
wee." For every settlement there is a 
store or two dispensing the necessities of 
life, gasolene and cigars and soda water; and 
for every other settlement, a dancing pa- 
villion where couples whirl to the strains of 
a hoarse Victrola. Is this, perhaps, what 
the signers meant by happiness ? 

There are other sheltered spots along the 
river where man has pitched his tent, a 
strange contraption of weather-beaten can 
vas attached to the stern of the family 
Ford. While father, in hip boots, whips 
the foaming stream with a fly-rod, mother, 
buxom but as unconcerned in khaki knick 
erbockers as her youngest daughter, is 
keeping up the camp-fire. Perhaps this is 
what the signers meant by happiness? 

Now we are out of the canyon and em 
barked on the countless miles across the 
plains to Denver. The driver has told us 
that the road is bad, but we, being Eastern 
ers, are unconcerned; we do not know what 
a bad road is. Endlessly it stretches away 
across the plains, twisting and turning, up 
hill and down, a boundless sea of mud; 
soft mud that slides and slithers under your 
wheels; thick mud that sticks and clings; 
winding, crisscross ruts, inches deep, that 
shake and pull you this way and that if you 
swerve by so much as a hair s breadth from 
their devious path; mud holes where you 
stall and must climb out again in low gear; 
little ponds which your car fords gallantly, 
its wheels churning up fountains of red spray. 
And all because of that unscheduled rain. 
In dry weather, and the weather is supposed 
to be dry, it is not a bad road at all. 

The cars stretch out along the road be 
fore and behind us as far as the eye can see. 
There are, at a cautious guess, two hundred 
of them. The pursuers of happiness have 
turned to the pursuit of home. Any mo 
torist east of the Mississippi would cast one 
glance at that expanse of mud and pro 
nounce the road impassable. If one man 
dared negotiate it he would be proclaimed 
a hero. But here they all plunge in with 
glorious unconcern, Fords and Marmons, 
limousines and touring-cars, sedans and 
trucks and roadsters. They are driven by 
skilled chauffeurs, by nonchalant, long- 
limbed men in wide-brimmed hats, by stal 



wart mothers of families, by little boys of 
twelve. And every car is loaded to the 
gunwales with camping equipment, with 
tents and frying-pans, with babies and bas 
kets and bird-cages. 

The rain slants down cold and gray. 
Night comes on and the search-lights flash 
out, each one fixed, as steadily as possible, 
on the lurching rear of the car ahead. 
Slowly, slowly, one after another we creep 
and slither and skid. Woe betide the mis 
erable few who are going in the opposite 
direction. There are not many places 
where the road is wide enough for two and 
they must wait in those places while scores 
of cars stagger past. Occasionally there is 
a break in the line, a stretch of harder road 
bed, and some bold spirit seizes his chance 
to dash, skidding madly, ahead and gains 
two places. 

A bridge is down, we must make a de 
tour we are travelling, let me tell you, on 
the Lincoln Highway and the detour takes 
us across the fields of a young farmer who 
stands at his gate and collects a quarter 
from each car, the easiest money he has 
earned in many a long day. A detour in 
this country, where the roads run parallel 
and very far apart, means three sides of a 
square and each side all of a mile long. 
Except for that there is nothing to choose 
between main-road and cross-road mud. 

Back on the highway again, but sud 
denly the whole line comes to a reluctant, 
jerky halt. Trouble up ahead, what is it? 
Three big ten-passenger motor-buses are in 
the ditch, and their scarlet bulk, gay even 
in the wet darkness, blocks the road. Men 
and boys clamber out of all the near-by 
cars, descend into the ditch, heave, strain, 
and push the buses out. Caked with 
mud, the men climb back into their ma 
chines and the long line of lights slides on 
again. Why did any Western member of 
the A. E. F. ever complain of the roads in 
France? 

There is an illusion here of the road to 
Verdun as the endless line of cars lurches 
through the blackness and the rain along 
the muddy track between the sodden fields; 
but those convoys travelled for a purpose, a 
matter of life and death and these are 
travelling in the pursuit of happiness. 

Whatever the signers of the Declaration 
think of our definitions of happiness they 
must feel satisfaction in the fact that we 
most certainly do pursue it. 






/art 



THE FIELD OF ART 



UP 

i:-f// i 



On the Making of Bronzes 

BY LOUISE EBERLE 



TO the ninety and nine the mystery of 
how a statue gets into bronze is far 
greater and more interesting than the 
mystery of how a sculptor, without the 
painter s advantage of color or background, 
or the illusion of distance, can produce a 
work of art that, equally with the painted 
picture, touches the 
heart and the im 
agination of man 
kind. 

A sculptor showed 
a friend the detailed 
process of making a 
cast, and the friend 
summarized this 
whole point of view : 

"Then all you 
had to do was to 
make the original 
model," was what 
he said. 

So this is the 
story of the cast 
leaving the sculp 
tor s interests to 
take care of them 
selves. 

When the sculp 
tor has conceived 
his idea and 

brought it forth, with infinite study and 
patience and labor, and it stands before him 
in perishable modelling wax or clay that 
any vagrant chance might ruin, the great 
man steps back and sends for that humble 




life-work to an intricate process that can be 
bungled more easily than most things, and 
that always includes a moment when the 
whole thing hangs over the abyss of possible 
total loss. 

We ll suppose the sculptor is modelling 
Psyche. Being small, she is in olive-gray 

plastiline (model 
ling-wax) in which 
minute detail can 
be obtained better 
than in clay. 
When she is fin 
ished, as far as 
the artist is con 
cerned, he hands 
her over to Tony or 
Francisco, or who 
ever is doing his 
casting, hands over 
all the subleties of 
his art, in soft ma 
terial that a touch 
would mar. 

Tony wraps her 
very gently in soft 
wet paper. Then 
he takes lumps of 



Original model and enlargement of " Alexander 
Hamilton," by James Earle Fraser. 



modelling-clay and 
rolls them flat, with 
some handy imple 
ment like an old beer bottle. From these 
sheets he cuts pieces which fit into every 
fold of drapery or around every turn of 
the figure, without overlapping and with 
out gaps. The coat of clay is from one to 



artisan, the plaster-caster, and places his one and a half inches thick, and the work is 
child s life in his hands, so to speak. And neater, even, than a pastry-cook s, the cast- 
it is curiously like the mythological tale of er s resemblance to whom is made perfect 
Ceres, to whom the child Triptolemus was by the white plaster dusting him and the 
intrusted, and who horrified the mother by square paper cap he often wears. When 
nestling the infant in a cosey bed of coals to the coat is done he takes a big bowl and 
make him immortal. The artist is sup- mixes just enough water and just enough 
posed to be temperamental, yet he grows plaster and just enough salt salt makes the 
accustomed to submitting each piece of his plaster harden quickly. Meanwhile he has 

251 



252 



THE FIELD OF ART 




"The Spirit of Life," by Daniel Chester French. 

fenced off a part of the now corpulent figure 
of Psyche usually he fences off half, so as 
to have two parts and onto the fenced-off 
part he pours his plaster mixture. When it 
has set he removes the fences, greases the 
edge of the plaster so that 
the next batch will not stick 
to it, and cuts nicks in it so 
that the pieces will lock to 
gether afterward. Then he 
pours on more of his mixture, 
and so covers the entire figure 
with a plaster shell. 

When this shell has set and 
is removed in its sections, 
Psyche s clay coat and the 
paper wrapping are taken off as 
carefully as they were put on, 
and Psyche goes back into her 
shell, which is held together 
immovably by still another 
coating of plaster, in a solid 
piece this time. And as the 
sectional shell was built close 
about the base on which the 
statue stands, with no interven 



ing clay or paper, the shell goes back in 
the same relative position as before, 
so that there is between the figure and 
the shell a space as wide as the thick 
ness of the clay coat the figure wore 
when the cast was made. All this time 
the caster has been heating over the gas- 
burner a pot of smelly and coarse gela 
tine which is glue, of course. When 
the mixture is just right it is poured like 
so much fudge filling in through a hole in 
the top of the shell till all the space be 
tween Psyche and her prison wall is filled 
and she herself is completely buried in 
warm glue. 

When this glue is about the consis 
tency of very stiff blanc mange, the plas 
ter shell is removed in its sections, and 
there is a mass of glue, a duplicate of 
what Psyche was in her overcoat of 
paper and clay. But what is to separate 
this kernel from its clinging seamless 
wrapping ? When one sees the caster 
take up a knife, one remembers the judg 
ment of Solomon, and is inclined to cry 
out for the preservation, at any cost, of 
the lovely thing within. But the knife 
makes a slit here and a cut there, and 
one discovers that the gelatine coating 
is highly elastic, for the cut parts are 
drawn back, and with a good deal of pulling 
and squeezing poor Psyche is extracted in 
shapeless hunks and dabs from her yielding 
jacket, and thrown in handfuls back into 
the plastiline bin. And now all that is left 




" Gittel," by A. St. Leger Eberle a bronze cast made by the 
" lost wax " process. 



THE FIELD OF ART 



253 



of the artist s conception and labor is a 
hollow shell of wabbly gelatine that may 
contain bubbles just where the subtlest bit 
of modelling was, and that is only good for 
two or three days at best, for the gelatine 
keeps on hardening, and is worthless when 
its pliability is gone. 

This empty mould is then cleaned kero- 
sened, alummed, talcum-powdered any 
thing to remove every suspicion of plasti- 
line from its inner surface, and then it is put 
back in its outer shell to keep it from 




Now that the plaster cast stands com 
plete, the result is only a beginning for the 
bronze caster. Off goes the figure to a 
bronze foundry where they specialize in the 
fine work that sculptors require. The figure 
is oiled, and a piece mould is made of it just 
as the piece mould was made of the padded- 
out Psyche, except that this mould is in 
many more sections. For a piece mould of 
a plaster figure must have no "undercuts" 
that is, pieces whose outlines double back, 
as under a fold of drapery or around a limb, 




Left. Painting the melted wax into the oiled piece mould. 

The front and back parts of the mould are then tied together, and enough of a stiffer wax is poured in to form a hollow 

mould of the figure. 

Right. The piece mould partly taken off the finished wax. 

Another wax and the plaster shell from which the mould was made are beside it. Note the " dowels " by which 

the^pieces of the mould are made to lock together. 



stretching anywhere, and is filled brimful 
of the same plaster mixture of which the 
shell itself was made. 

It is at this point that the artist can once 
more claim to be something in connection 
with his work of art, for, when the plaster 
hardens, the gelatine mould is pulled and 
coaxed off, and there stands the lost Psyche, 
restored to her creator in a form more per 
manent than the one in which he created 
her. 

The artists like this gelatine mould, for, 
besides producing good results, it may be 
used over again for two or three figures in 
the round, or for from five to twenty casts 
of medals, according to their simplicity or 
complication of design. This does not 
mean that only this limited number of casts 
from any figure, by the gelatine-mould proc 
ess, is possible. Casts may be made from 
the other plaster casts that came out of the 
first glue mould. But if copies are made 
from copies first, second, third, and so 
on outlines become blurred and sharp 
edges dulled. 



and that could not, consequently, be lifted 
off without injury either to the mould or 
the figure. When the whole statue is cov 
ered with the sections of a plaster shell that 
fit together perfectly with nicked edges, 
called keys, to lock them these are lifted 
off the statue (which is uninjured this time) 
and are put together again. Then coats of 
wax stiffened with resin are painted into the 
interior if it is accessible, or else the hot wax 
is poured in and out several times until 
there is a hollow wax shell about a quarter 
of an inch thick. This wax mould is not as 
sharp as the original, and seams appear on it 
wherever the pieces of shell joined each 
other. A number of these waxes are gener 
ally made, for especially if the statue is a 
small one it is probable that there will be 
several bronze casts, and a wax is necessary 
for each bronze. The sculptor retouches 
these waxes, using a heated metal tool with 
which he can work the wax into shape, and 
if he spoils one there is another to take its 
place. And, as it is necessary, even with 
the advantage of a piece mould, for the cast- 



254 



THE FIELD OF ART 



er to make a figure of any 
complications in sections, 
there is the amusing spec 
tacle of the artist sitting at 
work, surrounded by legs 
and heads and arms and 
bodies, welding them with 
his hot tool, and correcting 
any flaw in the wax. 

The perfected wax goes 
into the hands of the caster 
again, and then he does two 
of the most mysterious- 
looking of all the mysteri 
ous things in the process. 
The inside of the wax shell 
is filled with a core of plaster 
and cement and pulverized 
terra-cotta, for both the 
weight and the cost of bronze 
statue unfeasible. Then the 



brought to a common 
terminal near the base of 
the figure. They are 
called "gates," and when 
they are done the statue 
is covered with a very 
thick shell of the same 
mixture which went into 
the core, poured on solid. 

After this the whole 
thing is put into a special 
oven and the wax shell is 
melted out. The melted 
wax rods run out first, of 
course, and through the 
channels thus provided the 
rest of the wax is able to 
escape also, till there is 
nothing left but the core 

make a solid and the outer shell, which is a perfect, if 
caster sticks inside-out, duplicate of the statue. 




The artist s finished model (in 

plastiline), which is to be 

cast in plaster of paris. 




Left. Pouring the glue (or gelatine) into the shell and around the head which is inside. 
Centre. The shell open, showing the gelatine, which has set. The original model has been removed and the 

space it occupied filled with plaster of paris and water. 

Right. The plaster has set, and the gelatine mould is being pulled off. Notice its flexibility. Several plaster 

copies can be made from this mould. 



long iron nails into the statue in the less im 
portant parts, only four or five nails if the 
statue is small. These are not driven in up 
to the heads, but project on both sides, and 
their purpose is to join the core to the shell 
that is about to be made, so as to keep the 
two in unchanged relationship while making 
the final cast. The other mystery is the 
cutting and rolling of long rod-like pieces 
of the wax, which are stuck to the statue 
here and there, their loose ends all being 



After this double shell has been emptied 
the whole thing is buried upside down in 
the ground, for such protection alone will 
prevent the bursting of the shell when the 
bronze is poured in. Only the " gates " pro 
trude, and now their purpose appears, for in 
through them is poured the white-hot iri 
descent bronze which must reach every part 
of the statue at practically the same time 
so that there may be no failure of the bronze 
to form a perfect whole because of any dif- 




Left. Armature of laths being made for enlargement of statue. 
Centre. Armature partly filled in with plaster of paris, and showing the nails whose heads give the exact 

outline of the final statue. 
Right. -The plaster enlargement complete, showing also the original from which it was made. 



ference in temperature. When it has cooled 
it is unearthed, the terra-cotta shell is 
broken away, the core dug out, leaving a 
hollow bronze statue adorned with bronze 
rods where the gates were. 
When these are filed off, the 
statue is bathed in nitric 
acid, and is really done at 
last, all but the coloring of 
the bronze. 

So there is your bronze 
statue, and, considering it, 
one wonders how poor peo 
ple can ever become sculp 
tors, since the mere making 
of a single bronze copy has 
complication and expense 
every step of the way. Yet 
the process is a simple thing 
compared to the making of 
an enlargement. 

The large statue begins 
just as the small one did, 
from the artist s model in 
plastiline, as far as the plas 
ter cast. If the figure is to 
be more than life-size the 
small plaster cast with 
which it is to begin is gen 
erally cut in two, and half 
of the enlargement handled 
at one time. The artist 
goes over the small white 




"Armature," or skeleton, with 
figure partly set up in clay. 



plaster figure, marking with a lead-pencil a 
small cross on every tiny accent, even to the 
slightest elevation. These multitudinous 
marks are called "points," and it is from 
them that the name "point 
ing up" has been given to 
this process of enlargement. 
The pointing-up machine 
has two great steel pivots, 
which reach from floor to 
ceiling. They are set in 
sockets, and are connected, 
so that if one is revolved 
the other will revolve ex 
actly to correspond. To 
each pivot is attached a 
platform, one small and 
one large, and on the tiny 
platform, close against the 
pivot, the small figure is 
firmly fixed, while on the 
larger platform by the other 
pivot a few boards are set 
up to form a core for the 
skeleton or "armature" 
that is to be built. 

Directly over the small 
platform is a wooden arm 
that swings out at right 
angles from the top of the 
pivot, and then back again 
on a joint, so that it can be 
manipulated with perfect 

255 



256 



THE FIELD OF ART 



freedom. It terminates in a long metal 
needle, and when the point of this needle 
is placed in contact with the plaster figure, 
a larger needle, at the end of a longer arm, 
connected with the smaller arm by a series 
of levers, automat 
ically swings to a 
point in the air 
that exactly corre 
sponds, on an en 
larged scale the 
scale being set to 
whatever degree of 
enlargement is re 
quired. The ma 
chine is, in fact, an 
old-fashioned pan 
tograph, working 
in three dimen 
sions instead of 
two. With this 
infallible guide a 
lath-and-plaster 
figure is built 
about the wooden 
core on the large 
platform, looking 
for all the world 
like a cubist ren 
dering of the stat 
ue, enormously en 
larged. Not every 
shading of form is 
reproduced, but 
wherever there is 




Joseph Choate, by Herbert Adams. 



a decided projec 
tion in the statue there is one to correspond 
in the skeleton, but about two inches within 
what is to be the surface of the finished 
work. 

When the armature is complete the small 
needle is directed at a point marked on the 
small figure, and a nail is driven into the 
corresponding place in the wooden skeleton. 
Then the small needle is swung to touch an 
other of the points, and another nail driven 
into the skeleton. And so from point to 
point, until the big skeleton has become a 
porcupine, the heads of the nails represent 
ing exactly the surface of the large statue- 
to-be. 

Two destinies are possible for the porcu 
pine. If the figure is intended for tempo 



rary purposes, the spaces within the nails 
are filled in with plaster of paris, giving an 
exact enlargement of the statue. 

But if the enlargement is to be a bronze 
also, then the spaces are filled in with clay, 

and the work once 
again comes un 
der the sculptor s 
hand. No radical 
change is possible, 
of course, but the 
fact that he can 
pull out nails un 
der a surface he 
wishes to lower, or 
add on indefinite 
ly, means ample 
leeway. 

The sand-cast 
ing process is used 
for large figures 
(unless their detail 
is very involved), 
and for small 
things in which 
there are no un 
dercuts, such as 
medals and reliefs. 
A fine French sand 
is used which, 
when pressed into 
a mass, retains its 
shape. This is 
beaten onto the 
object in sections, 
somewhat like a 

piece mould, and these sections are then 
placed together with an iron frame about 
them. This frame does not have to be built 
anew for each cast, for since the shape of the 
outside of the sand shell does not matter it 
can be made to assume one of several general 
forms, and fitted into the iron frame that 
corresponds. It is then kiln-dried, which 
makes the sand quite hard, the bronze is 
poured in, the iron frame removed, the sand 
knocked off, and the statue revealed, com 
plete. 

There are other processes, but those 
described are in general use by that skilful 
group of men called casters who leave the 
sculptor nothing to do but to make the 
original mould. 



A calendar of current art exhibitions will be found on page 7. 




Drawn by Charles R. Kni^/il. 

NEANDERTHAL MAN KILLING A WILD BOAR. 

Short, stocky, and uncouth in appearance, the Neanderthal man shows unmistakably his primitive an- 
c <->try, and a comparison with the later types depicted in this article reveals him as a very lowly form of the 
human animal. Several practically complete skeletons of the Neanderthals have been discovered in various 
parts of central Europe, and all are singularly alike in their general make-up. They averaged about five feet 
two inches in height, with huge heads, projecting eye-ridges, and deep, receding chins. Broad in the hips and 
shoulders, short-waisted, and short-legged below the knee, these savage little men must have proved themselves 
doughty antagonists in their struggles with the more highly developed races which succeeded them. [P. 280.) 

" Mural Paintings of Prehistoric Men and Animals," page 279. 



258 






SCRIBNER S MAGAZINE 

MARCH, 1922 



VOL. LXXI 



NO. 3 



Leaves from My Autobiography 

RECOLLECTIONS FROM ABROAD MR. GLADSTONE AND HOME 
RULE LOWELL AND AMERICAN SLANG LORD ROSEBERY S 
TACT A CHANCE TO AVERT THE SPANISH WAR QUEEN 
VICTORIA S JUBILEE THE PRINCE OF WALES AT HOMBURG 

BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 

WlTH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PORTRAITS 



[FIFTH PAPER] 



RECOLLECTIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE 



I 



KNOW of nothing 
more delightful for a 
well-read American 
than to visit the 
scenes in Great Brit 
ain with which he has 
become familiar in his 
reading. No matter 
how rapidly he may travel, if he goes 
over the places made memorable by Sir 
Walter Scott in the "Waverley Novels," 
and in his poems, he will have had impres 
sions, thrills, and educational results 
which will be a pleasure for the rest of his 
life. The same is true of an ardent ad 
mirer of Dickens or of Thackeray, in fol 
lowing the footsteps of their heroes and 
heroines. I gained a liberal education 
and lived over again the reading and stud 
ies of a lifetime in my visits to England, 
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. I also had 
much the same experience of vivifying 
and spiritualizing my library in France, 
Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Holland. 

London is always most hospitable and 
socially the most delightful of cities. 
While Mr. Gladstone was prime minister 
and more in the eyes of the world than 
any statesman of any country, a dinner 
was given to him with the special object 



of having me meet him. The ladies and 
gentlemen at the dinner were all people 
of note. Among them were two American 
bishops. The arrangement made by the 
host and hostess was that when the ladies 
left the dining-room I should take the 
place made vacant alongside Mr. Glad 
stone, but one of the American bishops, 
who in his younger days was a famous 
athlete, made a flying leap for that chair 
and no sooner landed than he at once 
proposed to Mr. Gladstone this startling 
question : " As the bishop of the old 
Catholic Church in Germany does not 
recognize the authority of the pope, how 
can he receive absolution ?" and some 
other abstruse theological questions. 
This at once aroused Mr. Gladstone, who, 
when once started, was stopped with dif 
ficulty, and there was no pause until 
the host announced that the gentlemen 
should join the ladies. I made it a point 
at the next dinner given for me to meet 
Mr. Gladstone that there should be no 
American bishops present. 

At another time, upon arriving at my 
hotel in London from New York, I found 
a note from Lord Rosebery saying that 
Mr. Gladstone was dining with Lady 
Rosebery and himself that evening, and 
there would be no other guests, and invit 
ing me to come. I arrived early and 



Copyrighted in 1922 in United States, Canada, and Great Britain, by Charles Scribner s Sons. Printed in 

New York. All rights reserved. 

259 



260 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

found Mr. Gladstone already there, had appeared on the English stage and 
While the custom in London society then the merits and demerits of each. A 
was for the guests to be late, Mr. Glad- stranger listening to him would have said 
stone was always from fifteen minutes to that a veteran musical critic, who had 
half an hour in advance of the time set by devoted his life to that and nothing else, 
his invitation. He greeted me with great was reminiscing. He said that thirty 
cordiality, and at once what were known years before the manager of Co vent Gar- 
as the Gladstone tentacles were fastened den had raised the pitch, that this had 
on me for information. It was a peculiar- become so difficult that most of the artists 
ity with the grand old man that he ex- to reach it used the tremolo, and that the 
tracted from a stranger practically all the tremolo had taken away from him the ex- 
man knew, and the information was im- quisite pleasure which he formerly had in 
mediately assimilated in his wonderful listening to an opera, 
mind. He became undoubtedly the best- Mr. Gladstone was at that time the 
informed man on more subjects than any- unquestionable master of the House of 
body in the world. Commons and its foremost orator. I un- 

Mr. Gladstone said to me: "It has fortunately never heard him at his best, 

been raining here for forty days. What but whether the question was of greater 

is the average rainfall in the United or lesser importance, the appearance of 

States and in New York ?" If there was Mr. Gladstone at once lifted it above 

any subject about which I knew less than ordinary discussion to high debate, 

another, it was the meteorological condi- Mr. Gladstone asked many questions 

tions in America. He then continued about large fortunes in the United States, 

with great glee: "Our friend, Lord Rose- was curious about the methods of their 

bery, has everything and knows every- accumulation, and whether they survived 

thing, so it is almost impossible to find in succeeding generations. He wanted 

for him something new. Great books are to know all about the reputed richest 

common, but I have succeeded in my ex- man among them. I told him I did not 

plorations among antiquarian shops in know the amount of his wealth, but that 

discovering the most idiotic book that it was at least one hundred millions of 

ever was written. It w r as by an old lord dollars. 

mayor of London, who filled" a volume of "How invested?" he asked, 

his experiences in an excursion on the I answered: "All in fluid securities 

Thames, which is the daily experience of which could be turned into cash in a 

every Englishman." To the disappoint- short time." 

merit of Mr. Gladstone, Lord Rosebery He became excited at that and said: 

also had that book. The evening was a " Such a man is dangerous not only to his 

memorable one for me. own country but to the world. With that 

After a most charming time and dinner, amount of ready money he could upset 

. while Lord Rosebery went off to meet an the exchanges and paralyze the borrow- 

engagement to speak at a meeting of ing power of nations." 

colonial representatives, Lady Rosebery "But," I said, "you have enormous 

took Mr. Gladstone and myself to the fortunes," and mentioned the Duke of 

opera at Covent Garden. There was a Westminster. 

critical debate on in the House of Com- "I know every pound of Westminster s 

mons, and the whips were running in to wealth," he said. " It is in lands which he 

inform him of the progress of the battle cannot sell, and burdened with settle- 

and to get instructions from the great ments of generations and obligations 

leader. which cannot be avoided." 

During the entr actes Mr. Gladstone "How about the Rothschilds?" I 

most interestingly talked of his sixty asked. 

years experience of the opera. He knew "Their fortunes," he answered, "are 

all the great operas of that period, and divided among the firms in London, Paris, 

criticised with wonderful skill the com- Vienna, and Frankfort, and it would be 

posers and their characteristics. He gave impossible for them to be combined and 

a word picture of all the great artists who used to unsettle the markets of the world. 




From a photograph Av Samuel A. U alker, London. 

Mr. Gladstone in 1880. 



But Mr. 



could do this and prevent 



governments from meeting their obliga 
tions." 

Mr. Gladstone had no hostility to great 
fortunes, however large, unless so invested 
as to be immediately available by a single 
man for speculation. But fortunes larger 



than that of one hundred millions have 
since been acquired, arid their manage 
ment is so conservative that they are 
brakes and safeguards against unreason 
ing panics. The majority of them have 
been used for public benefit. The most 
conspicuous instances are the Rockefeller 

261 



262 



LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment, 
and the Frick Creation. 

Henry Labouchere told me a delightful 
story of Mr. Gladstone s first meeting 
with Robert T. Lincoln, when he arrived 
in London as American minister. Mr. 
Lincoln became in a short time after his 
arrival one of the most popular of the 
distinguished list of American represen 
tatives to Great Britain. He was espe 
cially noted for the charm of his con 
versation. Labouchere said that Mr. 
Gladstone told him that he was very 
anxious to meet Mr. Lincoln, both be 
cause he was the new minister from the 
United States and because of his great 
father, President Lincoln. Labouchere 
arranged for a dinner at his house, which 
was an hour in the country from Mr. 
Gladstone s city residence. Mrs. Glad 
stone made Mr. Labouchere promise, as 
a condition for permitting her husband to 
go, that Mr. Gladstone should be back 
inside of his home at ten o clock. 

The dinner had no sooner started than 
some question arose which not only in 
terested but excited Mr. Gladstone. He 
at once entered upon an eloquent mono 
logue on the subject. There was no pos 
sibility of interruption by any one, and 
Mr. Lincoln had no chance whatever to 
interpose a remark. When the clock was 
nearing eleven Labouchere interrupted 
this torrent of talk by saying: "Mr. 
Gladstone, it is now eleven; it is an 
hour s ride to London, and I promised 
Mrs. Gladstone to have you back at ten." 
When they were seated in the carriage 
Labouchere said to Mr. Gladstone: 
"Well, you have passed an evening with 
Mr. Lincoln; what do you think of him ? " 
He replied: "Mr. Lincoln is a charming 
personality, but he does not seem to have 
much conversation." 

Among the very able men whom I met 
in London was Joseph Chamberlain. 
When I first met him he was one of Mr. 
Gladstone s trusted lieutenants. He was 
a capital speaker, a close and incisive de 
bater, and a shrewd politician. When he 
broke with Mr. Gladstone, he retained 
his hold on his constituency and con 
tinued to be a leader in the opposite 
party. 

Mr. Chamberlain told me that in a 
critical debate in the House of Commons, 



when the government was in danger, Mr. 
Gladstone, who alone could save the 
situation, suddenly disappeared. Every 
known resort of his was searched to find 
him. Mr. Chamberlain, recollecting Mr. 
Gladstone s interest in a certain subject, 
drove to the house of the lady whose au 
thority on that subject Mr. Gladstone 
highly respected. He found him submit 
ting to the lady for her criticism and cor 
rection some of Watts s hymns, which he 
had translated into Italian. 

The British Government sent Mr. 
Chamberlain to America, and he had 
many public receptions given him by our 
mercantile and other bodies. On account 
of his separating from Mr. Gladstone on 
Home Rule, he met with a great deal of 
hostility here from the Irish. I was pres 
ent at a public dinner where the interrup 
tions and hostile demonstrations were 
very pronounced. But Mr. Chamberlain 
won his audience by his skill and fighting 
qualities. 

I gave him a dinner at my house and 
had a number of representative men to 
meet him. He made the occasion exceed 
ingly interesting by presenting views of 
domestic conditions in England and in 
ternational ones with this country, which 
were quite new to us. 

Mr. Chamberlain was a guest on the 
Teutonic at the famous review of the 
British navy celebrating Queen Victoria s 
jubilee, where I had the pleasure of again 
meeting him. He had recently married 
Miss Endicott, the charming daughter of 
our secretary of war, and everybody ap 
preciated that it was a British statesman s 
honeymoon. 

He gave me a dinner in London, at 
which were present a large company, and 
two subjects came under very acute dis 
cussion. There had been a recent mar 
riage in high English society, where there 
were wonderful pedigrees and relationships 
on both sides, but no money. It finally 
developed, however, that under family 
settlements the young couple might have 
fifteen hundred pounds a year, or seven 
thousand five hundred dollars. The de 
cision was unanimous that they could get 
along very well and maintain their posi 
tion on this sum and be able to reciprocate 
reasonably the attentions they would re 
ceive. Nothing could better illustrate the 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 263 

terrific increase in the cost of living than Apropos of the political situation at 

the contrast between then and now. the time, he suddenly asked me what was 

Some one of the guests at the dinner the attitude of the people of the United 
said that the Americans by the introduc- States towards Mr. Gladstone and his 
tion of slang were ruining the English Home Rule bill. I told him they were 
language. Mr. James Russell Lowell had practically unanimous in favor of the 
come evidently prepared for this contro- bill, and that Mr. Gladstone was the most 
versy. He said that American slang was popular Englishman in the United States. 
the common language of that part of He at once flew into a violent rage, the 
England from which the pilgrims sailed, rarest thing in the world for an English- 
and that it had been preserved in certain man, and lost control of his temper to 
parts of the United States, notably north- such a degree that I thought the easiest 
ern New England. He then produced an way to dam the flood of his denunciation 
old book, a sort of dictionary of that was to plead another engagement and re- 
period, and proved his case. It was : a tire from the field. I met him frequently 
surprise to everybody to know that Amer- afterwards, especially when he came to 
ican slang was really classic English, and the United States, but carefully avoided 
still spoken in the remoter parts of Mas- his pet animosity. 

sachusetts and New Hampshire, though One year, in the height of the crisis of 

no longer in use in England. Mr. Gladstone s effort to pass the Home 

The period of Mr. Gladstone s reign as Rule bill, a member of his Cabinet said 

prime minister was one of the most in- to me: "We of the Cabinet are by no 

teresting for an American visitor who had means unanimous in believing in Mr. 

the privilege of knowing him and the Gladstone s effort, but he is the greatest 

eminent men who formed his Cabinet, power in our country. The people im- 

The ladies of the Cabinet entertained plicitly believe in him and we are helping 

lavishly and superbly. A great favorite all we can." 

at these social gatherings was Miss Mar- It is well known that one after another 
got Tennant, afterwards Mrs. Asquith. broke away from him in time. The same 
Her youth, her wit, her originality and Cabinet minister continued: "Mr. Glad- 
audacity made every function a success stone has gone to the extreme limit in 
which was graced by her presence. concessions made in his Home Rule bill, 

The bitterness towards Mr. Gladstone and he can carry the English, Scotch, and 
of the opposition party surpassed any- Welsh members. But every time the 
thing I have met in American politics, Irish seem to be satisfied, they make a 
except during the Civil War. At dinners new demand and a greater one. Unless 
and receptions given me by my friends of this stops and the present bill is accepted, 
the Tory party I was supposed as an the whole scheme will break down. Many 
American to be friendly to Mr. Gladstone of the Irish members are supported by 
and Home Rule. I do not know whether contributions from America. Their oc- 
this was the reason or whether it was cupation is politics. If Home Rule should 
usual, but on such occasions the denun- be adopted the serious people of Ireland, 
ciation of Mr. Gladstone as a traitor and whose economic interests are at stake, 
the hope of living to see him executed was might come to the front and take all rep- 
very frequent. resentative offices themselves. We have 

I remember one important public man come to the conclusion that enough of the 

who was largely interested and a good Irish members to defeat the bill do not 

deal of a power in Canadian and Amer- want Home Rule on any conditions. I 

ican railroads. He asked a friend of mine know it is a custom when you arrive home 

to arrange for me to meet him. I found every year that your friends meet you 

him a most agreeable man and very ac- down the Bay and give you a reception, 

curately informed on the railway situa- Then you give an interview of your im- 

tion in Canada and the United States, pressions over here, and that interview is 

He was preparing for a visit, and so printed as widely in this country as in the 

wanted me to fill any gaps there might United States. Now I wish you would do 

be in his knowledge of the situation. this: At the reception put in your own 



264 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

way what I have told you, and especially called the Red Earl because of his flowing 
emphasize that Mr. Gladstone is imperil- auburn beard. He was a very serious 
ling his political career and whole future man, devoted to the public service and 
for the sake of what he believes would be exceedingly capable. He almost adored 
justice to Ireland. He cannot go any Mr. Gladstone and grieved over the grow- 
further and hold his English, Scotch, and ing opposition in the Cabinet. 
Welsh constituencies. He believes that The guests at the dinner were all Glad- 
he can pass the present bill and start Ire- stonians and lamenting these differences 
land on a career of Home Rule if he can and full of apprehension that they might 
receive the support of the Irish members, result in a split in the party. The earl 
The Americans who believe in Mr. Glad- asked me if we ever had such conditions 
stone and are all honest Home Rulers will in the United States. I answered: 
think this is an indirect message from "Yes." Mr. Elaine, at that time at the 
himself, and it would be if it were pru- head of President Harrison s Cabinet as 
dent for Mr. Gladstone to send the mes- secretary of state, had very serious differ- 
sage." ences with his chief, and the people won- 

On my return to New York I did as re- dered why he remained. Mr. Elaine told 

quested. The story was published and me this story apropos of the situation: 

commented on everywhere, and whether The author of a play invited a friend of 

it was due to American insistence or not, his to witness the first production and 

I do not know, but shortly after Mr. sent him a complimentary ticket. Dur- 

Gladstone succeeded in carrying his Home ing the first act there were signs of dis- 

Rule bill through the House of Commons, approval, which during the second act 

but it was defeated by the Conservatives broke out into a riot. An excited man 

in the House of Lords. sitting alongside the guest of the play- 

His Irish policy is a tribute to Mr. wright said: " Stranger, are you blind or 

Gladstone s judgment and foresight, be- deaf, or do you approve of the play?" 

cause in the light and conditions of to-day The guest replied: " My friend, my senti- 

it is perfectly plain that if the Gladstone ments and opinion in regard to this play 

measure had been adopted at that time, do not differ from yours and the rest, but 

the Irish question would not now be the I am here on a free ticket. If you will 

most difficult and dangerous in British wait a little while till I go out and buy a 

politics. ticket, I will come back and help you raise 

I had many talks with Mr. Parnell and hell." 

made many speeches in his behalf and The most brilliant member of Mr. 

later for Mr. Redmond. I asked him on Gladstone s Cabinet and one of the most 

one occasion if the Irish desired complete accomplished, versatile, and eloquent 

independence and the formation of an in- men in Great Britain was Lord Rosebery. 

dependent government. He answered: I saw much of him when he was foreign 

"No, we want Home Rule, but to retain minister and also after he became prime 

our connection in a way with the British minister. Lord Rosebery was not only 

Empire. The military, naval, and civil a great debater on political questions, he 

service of the British Empire gives great was also the most scholarly orator of his 

opportunities for our young men. Ire- country on educational, literary, and 

land in proportion to its population is patriotic subjects. He gathered about 

more largely represented in these depart- him always the people whom a stranger 

ments of the British Government than pre-eminently desired to meet, 

either England, Scotland, or Wales." I recall one of my week-end visits to 

Incidentally to the division in Mr. his home at Mentmore, which is one of 

Gladstone s Cabinet, which had not at the most delightful of my reminiscences 

this time broken out, was the great vogue abroad. He had taken down there the 

which a story of mine had. I was dining leaders of his party. The dinner lasted, 

with Earl Spencer. He had been lord the guests all being men, except Lady 

lieutenant of Ireland and was very pop- Rosebery, who presided, until after twelve 

ular. His wife especially had been as o clock. Every one privileged to be there 

great a success as the viceregent. He was felt that those four hours had passed more 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 265 

quickly and entertainingly than any in "I welcome you to my ancestral home, 

their experience. which I have rented for three months." 

It was a beautiful moonlight night and Though this temporary residence was 
the very best of English weather, and we very ancient, yet its hospitalities were 
adjourned to the terrace. There were re- dispensed by one of the most up-to-date 
called personal experiences, incidents of and progressive couples in the kingdom, 
travel from men who had been all over In the intimacy of a house-party, not too 
the world and in critical situations in large, one could enjoy the versatility, the 
many lands, diplomatic secrets revealing charm, the wide information, the keen 
crises seriously threatening European political acumen of this accomplished and 
wars, and how these had been averted, magnetic British statesman. It was un- 
alliances made and territories acquired, fortunate for his country that from over- 
adventures of thrilling interest and per- work he broke down so early in life, 
sonal episodes surpassing fiction. The 

company reluctantly separated when the A CHANCE TO AVERT THE SPANISH WAR 

rising sun admonished them that the No one during his period could surpass 

night had passed. Baron Alfred Rothschild as host. His 

It has been my good fortune to be the dinners in town, followed by exquisite 

guest of eminent men in many lands and musicales, were the social events of every 

on occasions of memorable interest, but season. He was, however, most attrac- 

the rarest privilege for any one was to be tive at his superb place in the country. A 

the guest of Lord Rosebery, either at his week-end with him there met the best 

city house or one of his country resi- traditions of English hospitality. In the 

dences. The wonderful charm of the party were sure to be men and women of 

host, his tact with his guests, his talent distinction, and just the ones whom an 

for drawing people out and making them American had read about and was anxious 

appear at their best, linger in their memo- to meet. 

ries as red-letter days and nights of their Baron Rothschild was a famous musi- 

lives. cian and an ardent lover of music. He 

All Americans took great interest in had at his country place a wonderfully 

the career of Lord Randolph Churchill, trained orchestra of expert musicians. 

His wife was one of the most beautiful In the theatre he gave concerts for the 

and popular women in English society, enjoyment of his guests, and led the or- 

and an American. I knew her father, chestra himself. Among the company 

Leonard Jerome, very well. He was a was sure to be one or more of the most 

successful banker and a highly educated famous artists from the opera at Covent 

and cultured gentleman. His brother, Garden, and from these experts his own 

William Jerome, was for a long time the leadership and the performance of his 

best story-teller and one of the wittiest of perfectly trained company received un- 

New Yorkers. stinted praise and applause. Baron 

Lord Randolph Churchill advanced Rothschild had the art so necessary for 

very rapidly in British politics and be- the enjoyment of his guests of getting 

came not only one of the most brilliant together the right people. He never 

debaters but one of the leaders of the risked the harmony of his house by in- 

House of Commons. On one of my visits viting antagonists. 

abroad I received an invitation from the Lord Rothschild, the head of the house, 

Churchills to visit them at their country differed entirely from his amiable and 

place. When I arrived I found that they accomplished brother. While he also 

occupied a castle built in the time of entertained, his mind was engrossed in 

Queen Elizabeth, and in which few mod- business and affairs. I had a conference 

ern alterations had been made. It was with him at the time of the Spanish- Amer- 

historically a very unique and interesting ican War, which might have been of his- 

structure. Additions had been made to torical importance. He asked me to come 

it by succeeding generations, each being and see him in the Rothschild banking- 

another house with its own methods of house, where the traditions of a century 

ingress and egress. Lord Randolph said: are preserved and unchanged. He said 



266 



LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



to me: "We have been for a long time 
the bankers of Spain. We feel the respon 
sibility for their securities, which we have 
placed upon the market. The United 
States is so all-powerful in its resources 
and spirit that it can crush Spain. This 
we desire to avert. Spain, though weak 
and poor compared to the United States, 
has nevertheless the proudest people in 
the world, and it is a question of Spanish 
pride we have to deal with." 

In answering him, I said: "Lord Roths 
child, it seems to me that if you had any 
proposition you should take it to Mr. 
John Hay, our accomplished minister." 

"No," he said; " then it would become 
a matter of diplomacy and publicity. 
Now the Spanish Government is willing 
to comply with every demand the United 
States can make. The government is 
willing to grant absolute independence to 
Cuba, or what it would prefer, a self- 
governing colony, with relations like that 
of Canada to Great Britain. Spain is 
willing to give to the United States Porto 
Rico and the Philippine Islands, but she 
must know beforehand if these terms will 
be accepted before making the offer, be 
cause if an offer so great as this and in 
volving such a loss of territory and pres 
tige should be rejected by the United 
States there would be a revolution in 
Spain which might overthrow not only 
the government but the monarchy. 
What would be regarded as an insult 
would be resented by every Spaniard to 
the bitter end. That is why I have asked 
you to come and wish you to submit this 
proposition to your president. Of course, 
I remain in a position, if there should be 
any publicity about it, to deny the whole 
thing." 

The proposition unfortunately came 
too late, and Mr. McKinley could not 
stop the war. It was well known in 
Washington that he was exceedingly 
averse to hostilities and believed the dif 
ficulties could be satisfactorily settled by 
diplomacy, but the people were aroused 
to such an extent that they were deter 
mined not only to free Cuba but to punish 
those who were oppressing the Cubans. 

One incident which received little pub 
licity at the time was in all probability 
the match which fired the magazine. One 
of the ablest and most level-headed mem 



bers of the Senate was Senator Redfield 
Proctor, of Vermont. The solidity of his 
character and acquirements and his 
known sense and conservatism made him 
a power in Congress, and he had the con 
fidence of the people. He visited Cuba 
and wrote a report in which he detailed 
as an eye-witness the atrocities which the 
government and the soldiers were per 
petrating. He read this report to Mr. 
McKinley and Senator Hanna. They 
both said: "Senator Proctor, if you read 
that to the Senate, our negotiations end 
and war is inevitable." 

The president requested the senator to 
delay reporting to the Senate. The ex 
citement and interest in that body were 
never more unanimous and intense. I 
doubt if any senator could have resisted 
this rare opportunity not only to be the 
centre of the stage but to occupy the 
whole platform. Senator Proctor made 
his report and the country was aflame. 

STORIES OF QUEEN VICTORIA 

I was in London at both the queen s 
fiftieth anniversary of her reign and her 
jubilee. The reverence and love the Eng 
lish people had for Queen Victoria was a 
wonderful exhibition of her wisdom as a 
sovereign and of her charm and character 
as a woman. The sixty years of her reign 
were a wonderful epoch in the growth of 
her empire and in its relations to the 
world. 

Once I said to a member of the Cabinet, 
who, as minister of foreign affairs, had 
been brought in close contact with the 
queen: "I am very much impressed with 
the regard which the people have for 
Queen Victoria. What is her special func 
tion in your scheme of government?" 

"She is invaluable," he answered, "to 
every prime minister and the Cabinet. 
The prime minister, after the close of the 
debate in the House of Commons every 
night, writes the queen a full report of 
what has occurred at that session. This 
has been going on for more than half a 
century. The queen reads these accounts 
carefully and has a most retentive mem 
ory. If these communications of the 
prime ministers were ever available to the 
public, they would present a remarkable 
contrast of the minds and the methods of 
different prime ministers and especially 









1/luU, WJMI ouU, Jfv 





Uu . 



<tku. u 



\xtftf 





"(J do Oil" 



ftsJjuutt uu. 





Facsimile of letter from Rothschild. 

those two extreme opposites, Gladstone nightly memoranda all his skill not only as 
and Disraeli. The queen did not like a statesman but as a novelist. The queen 
Gladstone, because she said he always also has been consulted during all these 
preached, but she had an intense admira- years on every crisis, domestic or foreign, 
tion for Disraeli, who threw into his and every matter of Cabinet importance. 

267 



268 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The result is that she is an encyclopaedia, the influence of the queen, more than any 

Very often there will be a dispute with other, which prevented Great Britain 

some of the great powers or lesser ones, recognizing the Southern Confederacy, 

which is rapidly growing to serious pro- Among the incidents of her jubilee was 

portions. We can find no report of its the greatest naval demonstration ever 

beginning. The queen, however, will re- known. The fleets of Great Britain were 

member just when the difficulty began, summoned from all parts of the globe 

and why it was pushed aside and not and anchored in a long and imposing line 

settled, and who were the principal ac- in the English Channel. Mr. Ismay, at 

tors in the negotiations. With that data that time the head of the White Star Line, 

we often arrive at a satisfactory settle- took the Teutonic, which had just been 

ment." built and was not yet in regular commis- 

I remember one garden-party at Buck- sion, as his private yacht. He had on 

ingham Palace. The day was perfect and board a notable company, representing 

the attendance phenomenally large and the best, both of men and women, of Eng- 

distinguished. While there were places Hsh life. He was the most generous of 

on the grounds where a luncheon was hosts, and had every care taken for the 

served, the guests neglected these places individual comfort of his guests. In the 

and gathered about a large tent where the intimacy for several days of such an 

royalties had their refreshments. It was excursion we all became very well ac- 

an intense curiosity, not so much to see quainted. There were speeches at the 

their sovereign eat and drink, as to im- dinners and dances afterwards on the 

prove the opportunity to reverently gaze deck for the younger people. The war- 

upon her at close range. The queen ships were illuminated at night by electric 

called various people whom she knew ligrTts, and the launch of the Teutonic took 

from this circle of onlookers for a familiar us down one lane and up another through 

talk. the long lines of these formidable de- 

When the luncheon was served the at- fenders of Great Britain, 

tendant produced an immense napkin, One day there was great excitement 

which she spread over herself, almost when a war-ship steamed into our midst 

from her neck to the bottom of her dress, and it was announced that it was the 

A charming English lady, who stood be- German emperor s. Even as early as 

side me, said: "I know you are laughing that he excited in the English mind both 

at the economy of our queen." curiosity and apprehension. One of the 

"On the contrary," I said, "I am ad- frequent questions put to me, both then 
miring an example of carefulness and and for years afterwards at English din- 
thrift which, if it could be universally ners, was: "What do you think of the 
known, would be of as great benefit in German emperor ?" 
the United States as in Great Britain." Shortly after his arrival he came on to 

"Well," she continued, "I do wish that the Teutonic with the Prince of Wales, 

the dear old lady was not quite so care- afterwards King Edward VII. The 

ful." prince knew many of the company and 

At a period when the lives of the con- was most cordial all around. The em- 

tinental rulers were in great peril from peror was absorbed in an investigation of 

revolutionists and assassins, the queen this new ship and her possibilities both in 

on both her fiftieth anniversary and her the mercantile marine and as a cruiser, 

jubilee rode in an open carriage through I heard him say to the captain: "How 

many miles of London streets, with mil- are you armed?" The captain told him 

lions of spectators on either side pressing that among his equipment he had a new 

closely upon the procession, and there was invention* a quick-firing gun. The em- 

never a thought that she was in the slight- peror was immediately greatly excited, 

est danger. She was fearless herself, but He examined the gun and questioned its 

she had on the triple armor of the over- qualities and possibilities until he was 

mastering love and veneration of the master of every detail. Then he turned 

whole people. Americans remembered to one of his officers and gave a quick 

that in the crisis of our Civil War it was order that the gun should be immediately 




l- rom a photograph by Hughes &- Mnllins, Ryde, I. II . 

Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales about 1862. 



investigated and all that were required 
should be provided for Germany. 

I heard a picturesque story from a 
member of the court of Queen Victoria s 
interest in all public affairs. There was 
then, as there is generally in European 
relations, some talk of war. The queen 



was staying at her castle at Osborne on 
the Isle of Wight. He said she drove 
alone down to the shore one night and 
sat there a long time looking at this great 
fleet, which was the majn protection of 
her empire and her people. It would 
be interesting if one could know what 

269 



270 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

were her thoughts, her fears, and her particularity, as if giving the details of 

hopes. the occurrence, that the messenger-boy 

The queen was constantly assisting the arrived at Windsor Castle during the 

government in the maintenance of friend- night and rang the front door-bell; that 

ly relations with foreign powers by enter- Her Majesty called out of the window in 

taining their representatives at Windsor quite American style, "Who is there?" 

Castle. When General Grant, after he and the messenger-boy shouted: "Cable 

retired from the presidency, made his trip for General Grant. Is he staying at this 

around the world, the question which dis- house?" I can only give a suggestion of 

turbed our American minister, when Gen- Alden s fun, which shook the whole coun- 

eral Grant arrived in London, was how he try. 

could be properly received and recog- One of the court officers said to me dur- 

nized. Of course, under our usage, he ing the jubilee: " Royalties are here from 

had become a private citizen, and was no every country, and among those who have 

more entitled to official recognition than come over is Lilioukalani, queen of the 

any other citizen. This was well known Hawaiian Islands. She is as insistent of 

in the diplomatic circles. When the am- her royal rights as the emperor of Ger- 

bassadors and ministers of foreign coun- many. We have consented that she 

tries in London were appealed to, they should be a guest at a dinner of our queen 

unanimously said that as they represented and spend the night at Windsor Castle, 

their sovereigns they could not yield pre- We have settled her place among the 

cedence to General Grant, but he must royalties in the procession through Lon- 

sit at the foot of the table. The Prince of don and offered her the hussars as her 

Wales solved this question with his usual guard of honor. She insists, however, 

tact and wisdom. Under the recognized that she shall have the same as the other 

usage at any entertainment, the Prince kings, a company of the guards. Having 

of Wales can select some person as his recognized her, we are obliged to yield." 

special guest to sit at his right, and, The same officer told me that at the 

therefore, precede everybody else. The dinner the dusky queen said to Queen 

prince made this suggestion to our minis- Victoria: "Your Majesty, I am a blood 

ter and performed this courteous act at relative of yours." 

all functions given to General Grant. " How so ?" was the queen s astonished 

Queen Victoria supplemented this by ex- answer. 

tending the same invitation to General " Why," said Lilioukalani, "mygrand- 

and Mrs. Grant to dine and spend the father ate your Captain Cook." 
night with her at Windsor Castle, which 

was extended only to visiting royalty. WITH THE PRINCE OF WALES 

I remember that the Army of the 

Potomac was holding its annual meeting During my summer vacations I spent 
and commemoration at one of our cities two weeks or more at Homburg, the Ger- 
when the cable announced that General man watering-place. It was at that time 
Grant was being entertained by Queen the most interesting resort on the con- 
Victoria at Windsor Castle. The con- tinent. The Prince of Wales, afterwards 
ventions of diplomacy, which require all King Edward VII, was always there, and 
communications to pass through the am- his sister, the dowager empress of Ger- 
bassador of one s country to the foreign many, had her castle within a few miles, 
minister of another country before it can It was said that there was a quorum of 
reach the sovereign, were not known to both Houses of Parliament in Homburg 
these old soldiers, so they cabled a warm while the prince was there, but his pres- 
message to General Grant, care of Queen ence also drew representatives from every 
Victoria, Windsor Castle, England. department of English life, the bench and 

One of the most delightful bits of hu- the bar, writers of eminence of both sexes, 

mor in my recollections of journalistic distinguished artists, and people famous 

enterprise was an editorial by a Mr. Al- on both the dramatic and the operatic 

den, one of the editors of the New York stage. The prince, with keen discrimina- 

Times. Mr. Alden described with great tion, had these interesting people always 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 271 

about him. There were also social lead- saying the prince was on the terrace of 

ers, whose entertainments were famous in the Kursaal and wanted to see me. The 

London, who did their best to add to the lights were all out, everybody had gone, 

pleasure of the visit of the prince. I met and he was sitting alone at a table il- 

him frequently and was often his guest luminated by a single candle. What he 

at his luncheons and dinners. He fell in desired was to discuss American affairs 

at once in the Homburg way. and become more familiar with our public 

The routine of the cure was to be at the men, our ideals, our policies, and espe- 

springs every morning at seven o clock, to daily any causes which could possibly be 

take a glass of water, walk half an hour removed of irritation between his own 

with some agreeable companion, and re- country and ours. This discussion lasted 

peat this until three glasses had been con- till daylight. 

sumed. Then breakfast, and after that Meeting him on the street one day, he 
the great bathing-house at eleven o clock, stopped and asked me to step aside into 
The bathing-house was a meeting-place an opening there was in the hedge. He 
for everybody. Another meeting-place seemed laboring under considerable ex- 
was the open-air concerts in the after- citement, and said: " Why do the people 
noon. In the evening came the formal in the United States want to break up the 
dinners and some entertainment after- British Empire ?" 
wards. I knew he referred to the Home Rule 

Both for luncheon and dinner the bill for Ireland, which was then agitat- 

prince always had quite a large company, ing Parliament and the country, and 

He was a host of great charm, tact, and also the frequent demonstrations in its 

character. He had a talent of drawing favor which were occurring in the United 

out the best there was in those about his States. 

table, and especially of making the occa- I said to him: "Sir, I do not believe 

sion very agreeable for a stranger. Any there is a single American who has any 

one at his entertainments always carried thought of breaking up the British Em- 

away either in the people he met or the pire. We are wedded to the federal 

things that were said, or both, permanent principle of independent States, which 

recollections. are sovereign in their local affairs and 

I do not think the prince bothered home matters, but on everything you 
about domestic questions. He was very call imperial the United States is su- 
observant of the limitations and restric- preme. To vindicate this principle we 
tions which the English Government im- fought a Civil War, in which we lost more 
poses upon royalty. He was, however, lives, spent more money, destroyed more 
very keen upon his country s foreign rela- property, and incurred more debt than 
tions. In the peace of Europe he was an was done in any contest of modern time, 
important factor, being so closely allied The success of the government has been 
with the imperial houses of Germany and so complete that the States which were in 
Russia. There is no doubt that he pre- rebellion and their people are quite as 
vented the German emperor from ac- loyal to the general government as those 
quiring a dangerous control over the who fought to preserve it. The prosper- 
czar. He was very fixed and determined ity of the country, with this question 
to maintain and increase friendly rela- settled, has exceeded the bounds of imag- 
tions between the United States and ination. So Americans think of your 
Great Britain. He succeeded, after many trouble with Ireland in terms of our fed- 
varied and long-continued efforts, in do- crated States, and believe that all your 
ing away with the prejudices and hostili- difficulties could be adjusted in the same 
ties of the French towards the English, way." 

an accomplishment of infinite value to his We had a long discussion in which he 

country in these later years. asked innumerable questions, and never 

I was told that the prince required very referred to the subject again. I heard 

little sleep, that he retired to bed late afterwards among my English friends 

and was an early riser. I was awakened that he who had been most hostile was 

one night by his equerry calling me up, becoming a Home Ruler. 



272 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

At another time he wanted to know rebellion and separation from the best 

why our government had treated the government on earth." He said much 

British ambassador, Lord Sackville West, more before the prince could stop him. 

so badly and ruined his career. The Sack- Elaine, with that grace and tact for 

ville West incident was already forgotten, which he was so famous, smilingly said: 

though it was the liveliest question of its " Well, Your Grace, if George III had had 

time. the sense, tact, and winning qualities of 

Cleveland was president and a candi- his great-grandson, our host, it is just 
date for re-election. Sackville West was possible that we might now be a self- 
the British ambassador. A little com- governing colony in the British Empire." 
pany of shrewd Republican politicians in The answer relieved the situation and 
California thought if they could get an immensely pleased the host. Lord Rose- 
admission that the British Government bery once said in a speech that with the 
was interfering in our election in favor of tremendous growth in every element of 
Cleveland, it would be a fine asset in the greatness of the United States, if the 
campaign, and so they wrote to Lord American colonies had remained in the 
Sackville West, telling him they were British Empire, that with their prepon- 
Englishmen who had become naturalized derating influence and prestige the capi- 
American citizens. In voting they were tal of Great Britain might have been 
anxious to vote for the side which would moved to New York and Buckingham 
be best for their native land, would he Palace rebuilt in Central Park, 
kindly and very confidentially advise At one dinner one of the guests of the 
them whether to support the Democratic prince suddenly shot at me across the 
or the Republican ticket. Sackville West table the startling question: "Do you 
swallowed the bait without investigation, know certain American heiresses " nam- 
and wrote them a letter advising them to ing them "now visiting London?" 
vote the Democratic ticket. I answered: "Yes" and naming one 

There never had been such consterna- especially, a very beautiful and accom- 

tion in diplomatic circles in Washington, plished girl who was quite the most pop- 

Of course, Mr. Cleveland and his support- ular debutante of the London season, 

ers had to get out from under the situa- "How much has she?" he asked, 

tion as quickly and gracefully as possible. I named the millions which she would 

The administration instantly demand- probably inherit. "But," I added, "be- 

ed that the British Government should fore you marry an American heiress, you 

recall Lord Sackville West, which was better be sure that she can say the Lord s 

done, and he was repudiated for his ac- prayer." 

livity in American politics. It was curi- He said with great indignation that he 

ous that the prince had apparently never would be astonished if any American girl 

been fully informed of the facts, but had could be recognized in English society 

been misled by Sackville West s explana- who had been so badly brought up that 

tion, and the prince was always loyal to a she was not familiar with the Lord s 

friend. prayer. 

One year Mr. James G. Blaine visited "All of them are," I replied, "but few 
Homburg, and the prince at once invited heiresses, unless they have come into their 
him to luncheon. Elaine s retort to a inheritance and can say Our Father, who 
question delighted every American in the art in heaven, will inherit much, because 
place. One of the guests was the then American fathers are very speculative." 
Duke of Manchester, an old man and a He continued to express his astonish- 
great Tory. When the duke grasped that ment at this lack of religious training in 
Blaine was a leading American and had an American family, while the prince en- 
been a candidate for the presidency of the joyed the joke so much that I was fearful 
United States, all his old Toryism was in his convulsive laughter he would have 
aroused, and he was back in the days of a fit of apoplexy. 

George III. To the horror of the prince, Once at a dinner given by the prince, 

the duke said to Mr. Blaine: "The most an old lady of very high rank and leading 

outrageous thing in all history was your position said suddenly to me, and in a 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 



273 



way which aroused the attention of the 
whole company: "Is it true that divorces 
are very common in America?" 

I knew that a denial by me would not 
convince her or any others who shared in 
this belief, then very common in Europe. 
Of course, the prince knew better. I saw 
from his expression that he wished me to 
take advantage of the opportunity. I 
made up my mind quickly that the best 
way to meet this belief was by an exag 
geration which would show its absurdity. 

Having once started, the imaginative 
situation grew beyond my anticipation. 
I answered: "Yes, divorces are so com 
mon with us that the government has set 
aside one of our forty odd States for this 
special purpose. It is the principal busi 
ness of the authorities. Most of these ac 
tions for divorce take place at the capital, 
which is always crowded with great num 
bers of people from all parts of the coun 
try seeking relief from their marital ob 
ligations." 

"Did you ever visit that capital?" 
asked the prince. 

"Yes, several times," I answered, "but 
not for divorce. My domestic relations 
have always been very happy, but it is 
also a famous health resort, and I went 
there for the cure." 

"Tell us about your visit," said the 
prince. 

"Well," I continued, "it was out of 
season when I was first there, so the only 
amusement or public occasions of interest 
were prayer-meetings." 

The" old lady asked excitedly: "Share 
meetings?" She had .been a large and 
unfortunate investor in American stocks. 

I relieved her by saying: "No, not 
share meetings, but religious prayer-meet 
ings. I remember one evening that the 
gentleman who sat beside me turned sud 
denly to his wife and said: We must get 
out of here at once; the air is too close. 
Why, no/ she said; the windows are all 
open and the breeze is fresh. Yes, he 
quickly remarked, but next to you are 
your two predecessors from whom I was 
divorced, and that makes the air too close 
for me. : 

The old lady exclaimed: "What a 
frightful condition !" 

Tell us more," said the prince. 

"Well," I continued, "one day the 
VOL. LXXL 18 



mayor of the city invited me to accom 
pany him to the station, as the divorce 
train was about to arrive. I found at the 
station a judge and one of the court at 
tendants. The attendant had a large 
package of divorce decrees to which the 
seal of the court had been attached, and 
also the signature of the judge. They 
only required to have the name of the 
party desiring divorce inserted. Along 
side the judge stood a clergyman of the 
Established Church in full robes of his 
sacred office. When the passengers had 
all left the cars, the conductor jumped on 
to one of the car platforms and shouted 
to the crowd: All those who desire di 
vorce will go before the judge and make 
their application. 

" When they had all been released by 
the court the conductor again called out: 
All those who have been accompanied by 
their partners, or where both have been 
to-day released from their former hus 
bands and wives to be remarried, will go 
before the rector. He married them in a 
body, whereupon they all resumed their 
places on the train. The blowing of the 
whistle and the ringing of the bell on the 
locomotive was the music of their first, 
second, or third honeymoon journey." 

The old lady threw up her hands in 
horror and cried: "Such an impious 
civilization must come speedily not only 
to spiritual and moral destruction, but 
chaos." 

Most of the company saw what an 
amazing caricature the whole story was 
and received it with great hilarity. The 
effect of it was to end, for that circle, at 
least, and their friends, a serious discus 
sion of the universality of American di 
vorces. 

The prince was always an eager sports 
man and a very chivalric one. At the 
time of one of the races at Cowes he be 
came very indignant at the conduct of an 
American yachtsman who had entered his 
boat. It was charged by the other com 
petitors that this American yachtsman 
violated all the unwritten laws of the con 
test. 

After the race the prince said to me: 
"A yacht is a gentleman s home, whether 
it is racing or sailing about for pleasure. 
The owner of this yacht, to make her 
lighter and give her a better chance, re- 



274 



LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



moved all the furniture and stripped her 
bare. He even went so far, I am told, 
that when he found the steward had left 
in his stateroom a tooth-brush, he threw 
it out of the port window." 

It will be seen from these few anecdotes 
how intensely human was the Prince of 
Wales. He did much for his country, 
both as prince and king, and rilled in a 
wise and able way the functions of his 
office. Certainly no official did quite so 
much for the peace of Europe during his 
time, and no royalty ever did more to 
make the throne popular with the people. 
I heard him speak at both formal and in 
formal occasions, and his addresses were 
always tactful and wise. 

While at Homburg we used to enjoy 
the delightful excursions to Nauheim, the 
famous nerve-cure place. I met there at 
one time a peculiar type of American, 
quite common in former years. They 
were young men who, having inherited 
fortunes sufficient for their needs, had no 
ambitions. After a strenuous social life at 
home and in Europe, they became hypo 
chondriacs and were chasing cures for 
their imaginary ills from one resort to an 
other. 

One of them, who had reached middle 
life, had, of course, become in his own 
opinion a confirmed invalid. I asked him : 
" What brought you here ? You look very 
well." 

"That is just my trouble," he an 
swered. "I look very well and so get no 
sympathy, but my nervous system is so 
out of order that it only takes a slight 
shock- to completely disarrange it. For 
instance, the cause of my present trouble. 
I was dining in Paris at the house of a 
famous hostess, and a distinguished com 
pany was present. The only three Ameri 
cans were two ladies and myself. I was 
placed between them. You know one of 
these ladies, while a great leader at home, 
uses very emphatic language when she is 
irritated. The dinner, like most French 
dinners, with many courses, was unusu 
ally long. Suddenly this lady, leaning 
over me, said to her sister: Damn it, Fan, 
will this dinner never end ? The whole 
table was shocked and my nerves were 
completely shattered." The great war, 
as I think, exterminated this entire tribe. 

I was delighted to find at Nauheim my 



old friends, Mark Twain and the Rev 
erend Doctor Joseph Twichell, of Hart 
ford, Conn. Doctor Twichell was Mark 
Twain s pastor at home. He was in col 
lege with me at Yale, and I was also 
associated with him in the governing cor 
poration of Yale University. He was one 
of the finest wits and remarkable humor 
ists of his time. Wit and humor were with 
him spontaneous, and he bubbled over 
with them. Mark Twain s faculties in 
that line were more labored and had to 
be worked out. Doctor Twichell often 
furnished in the rough the jewels which 
afterwards in Mark Twain s workshop 
became perfect gems. 

I invited them to come over and spend 
the day and dine with me in the evening 
at Homburg. Mark Twain at that time 
had the reputation in England of being 
the greatest living wit and humorist. It 
soon spread over Homburg that he was in 
town and was to dine with me in the 
evening, and requests came pouring in to 
be invited. I kept enlarging my table at 
the Kursaal, with these requests, until the 
management said they could go no fur 
ther. I placed Mark Twain alongside 
Lady Cork, one of the most brilliant wo 
men in England. In the course of years 
of acquaintance I had met Mark Twain 
under many conditions. He was very un 
certain in a social gathering. Sometimes 
he would be the life of the occasion and 
make it one to be long remembered, but 
generally he contributed nothing. At 
this dinner, whenever he showed the 
slightest sign of making a remark, there 
was dead silence, but the remark did not 
come. He had a charming time, and so 
did Lady Cork, but the rest of the com 
pany heard nothing from the great hu 
morist, and they were greatly disap 
pointed. 

The next morning Mark Twain came 
down to the springs in his tramping suit, 
which had fairly covered the continent. 
I introduced him to the Prince of Wales, 
and he was charmed with him in their 
hour of walk and talk. At dinner that 
evening the prince said to me: "I would 
have invited Mark Twain this evening, if 
I thought he had with him any dinner 
clothes." 

"At my dinner last night," I said, "he 
met every conventional requirement." 







From a photograph 6y Lock & IVhitfield, London. 

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. 
Photographed from life, July 17, 1876. 

Then," continued the prince, "I fore. Again Twain was for a long time a 

would be much obliged if you would get complete disappointment. I knew scores 

him for dinner with me to-morrow eve- of good things of his and tried my best to 

ning." start him off, but without success. The 

It was very much the same company as prince, who was unusually adroit and 

had dined with the prince the night be- tactful in drawing a distinguished guest 

275 




SfariMk. 







Facsimile of letl 



out, also failed. When the dinner was 
over, however, and we had reached the 
cigars, Mark Twain started in telling a 
story in his most captivating way. His 
peculiar drawl, his habit in emphasizing 
the points by shaking his bushy hair, 
made him a dramatic narrator. He never 
had greater success. Even the veteran 
Mark himself was astonished at the up- 
276 



roarious laughter which greeted almost 
every sentence and was overwhelming 
when he closed. 

There are millions of stories in the 
world, and several hundred of them good 
ones. No one knew more of them than 
Mark Twain, and yet out of this vast col 
lection he selected the one which I had 
told the night before to the same com- 




rom the Prince of Wales. 



pany. The laughter and enjoyment were 
not at the story, but because the English 
had, as they thought, caught me in retail 
ing to them from Mark Twain s reper 
toire one of his stories. It so happened 
that it was a story which I had heard as 
happening upon our railroad in one of my 
tours of inspection. I had told it in a 
speech, and it had been generally copied 



in the American newspapers. Mark 
Twain s reputation as the greatest living 
humorist caused that crowd to doubt the 
originality of my stories. 

Mark had declined the cigars, but the 
prince was so delighted that he offered 
him one of the highly prized selection 
from his own case. This drew from him 
a story, which I have not seen in any of 



278 



LEAVES FROiM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



Then I told him to roll a barrel 



thing, 
in. 

It was a great occasion, one of the 



his books. I have read Mark Twain al 
ways with the greatest pleasure. His 
books of travel have been to me a source 

of endless interest, and his "Personal greatest we ever had in the old State of 

Recollections of Joan of Arc" is the best Connecticut," continued Mark, "but I 

representation of the saint and heroine noticed that the guests left unusually 

that I know. early after supper. The next morning I 

When the prince offered him the cigar, asked the butler why they left so early. 

Mark said: "No, prince, I never smoke. Well/ he said, Mr. Clemens, everybody 

I have the reputation in Hartford, Conn., enjoyed the supper, and they were all 

of furnishing at my entertainments the having a good time until I gave them the 

worst of cigars. When I was going cigars. After the gentleman had taken 

abroad, and as I would be away for sev- three puffs, he said: "Pomp, you infernal 

eral years, I gave a reception and invited nigger, get me my hat and coat quick." 

all my friends. I had the governor of When I went out, my stone walk, which 

the State of Connecticut and the judges was one hundred yards long from the 

of the highest courts, and the most dis- front door to the gate, was just paved 

tinguished members of the legislature. I with those cigars." This specimen of 

had the leading clergymen and other citi- American exaggeration told in Mark 

zens, and also the president and faculty of Twain s original way made a great hit. 

Yale University and Trinity College. I met Mark Twain at a theatrical sup- 

" At three o clock in the afternoon my per in London given by Sir Henry Irving, 
butler, who is a colored man, Pompey by It was just after his publishing firm had 
name, came to me and said: Mr. Clem- failed so disastrously. It was a notable 
ens, we have no cigars. Just then a company of men of letters, playwrights, 
peddler s wagon stopped at the gate. In and artists. Poor Mark was broken in 
England they call them cheap jacks. I health and spirits. He tried to make a 
hailed the merchant and said: What speech, and a humorous one, but it sad- 
have you in your wagon ? Well, he an- dened the whole company, 
swered, I have some Gobelin tapestries, I met him again after he had made the 
Sevres china, and Japanese cloisonne money on his remarkable lecture tour 
vases, and a few old masters. Then I around the world, with which he met and 
said to him: I do not want any of those, paid all his debts. It was an achieve- 
but have you cigars, and how much? ment worthy of the famous effort of Sir 
The peddler answered: Yes, sir, I have Walter Scott. Jubilant,. triumphant, and 
some excellent cigars, which I will sell free, Mark Twain that night was the hero 
you at seventeen cents a barrel. I have never forgotten by any one privileged to 
to explain that a cent is an English far- be present. 

(To be continued.) 




x S ;/Xv /7 .. V 




Tin.- sketch by \\ . M. Berber s)io\vs a sen lion of the Pleistocene Hall with the actual skeletons of mammoths 
and mastodons; and above them a glimpse of two of the large murals in position 011 the wall. 



Mural Paintings of Prehistoric Men 
and Animals by Charles R. Knight 

[IX THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK CITY] 
INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY THE ARTIST 



THE painting of the large panels re 
cently placed on view in the Pleis 
tocene Hall presents many diffi 
culties, as a number of points must be 
taken into consideration before work on 
the murals themselves really begins. 
The whole scientific side of the question 
must, of course, be very carefully con 
sidered and the most characteristic types 
of animals selected for the various land 
scape backgrounds. The probable ap 
pearance in life of the different species pre 
sented, their form, color, and typical atti 
tudes, are all discussed in detail as well as 
the important question of a relative scale 
for the creatures throughout the entire 
hall. One must realize that the animals 
pictured do not exist at the present day, 
and the artist is obliged, therefore, to use 
his knowledge and imagination to the 
fullest extent in the recreation of so many 



varying types. When a decision has 
been finally reached upon all the fore 
going points, the question of the artistic 
composition and color scheme becomes 
paramount, and a number of charcoal 
sketches are made in order to arrive at 
some general schematic arrangement for 
the groups in question. The color 
sketches for the different panels are natu 
rally very important, as they are, after 
all, the original paintings from which the 
larger pictures are copied, and must there 
fore be very fully carried out, with due 
regard for the completed effect of the fin 
ished murals when placed finally upon the 
walls. It is safe to say that these sketches 
take up at least four-fifths of the time re 
quired to complete the entire work, and 
represent no end of laborious research 
and many abortive attempts to attain a 
satisfactory result. 

279 



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Hadji Hamid and the Brigand 

BY HERBERT E. WINLOCK 

Assistant Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art 
ILLUSTRATION BY H. R. SHURTLEFF 



Y 



natural 



OU say that you buy 
these things from the 
natives and the deal 
ers in Egypt, yes? 
But what I don t 
understand is how do 
they get them?" 

That is a perfectly 
and is put up to the 
again and again. He 



question 

museum curator 

knows that the romance of the picaresque 
and the illicit often attaches to objects 
which he has collected for their scientific 
value or their aesthetic virtue, and some 
times he gets a hint but usually only the 
vaguest of a story that makes bootleg 
ging sound as matter-of-fact and as hum 
drum as selling bonds. But even if he had 
the facts, a museum label would hardly 
be the place to give them. 

For instance, there are some gold and 
silver cups in the Metropolitan Museum 
that once were part of a treasure of the 
Great Rameses. It would fill the entire 
case they are shown in if a label were writ 
ten to tell the whole tale of how they were 
"found in 1906 in the ruins of ancient 
Bubastis." The story would have to be 
gin with some workmen digging a railroad 
cutting through the ruins, who turned 
over the treasure with their hoes, and 
then quickly covered it up again. It 
would have to go on with how that night 
they came back to dig their find up and 
then fell into such a row over the division 
that by morning it was the gossip of the 
whole town of Zagazig, and by night the 
police were fishing a golden pitcher out 
of the thatch of one house and a silver 
bowl from under the bed in another. And 
then it would have to tell how the next 
day every antiquity dealer in Cairo was 
on the spot bargaining for what had 
escaped the search. 

And even so, the story would not be 
complete. An affair like that, conducted 
with a lot of revengeful peasants looking 
for vicarious victims of their rage at the 



police, is one of the things in a dealer s 
life besides the lucrative and enjoyable 
pastime of levying tribute from the tour 
ist friends of Mr. Thomas Cook. 

That day at Zagazig one of the dealers 
was shown a silver goblet from the trea 
sure and was told to send his man for it, 
with the purchase money, the next night. 
The man came and paid over the money, 
but all he got for it was a broken head. 
Another dealer was given just one fleeting 
glimpse of a golden pitcher in the hands 
of the wily fellah who had succeeded in 
keeping it away from the authorities. Off 
and on for months those two haggled over 
the price until at last a bargain was struck 
and the dealer sent his trusted agent 
down to Zagazig to fetch away the pitch 
er. The fellah and the agent passed each 
other in a crowded market-place. One 
handed over a little bag of sovereigns and 
the other a bundle done up in a dirty old 
handkerchief, and they parted without a 
sign of recognition. But when the bundle 
was opened in Cairo, instead of the golden 
pitcher, out came a very battered silver 
one the dealer had refused even to con 
sider buying. 

"Sapristi," he said to me with a shrug, 
"I assure you, it is une des risques de nos 
affaires. I still bargain for it, and Inshal- 
lah, as the Arabs say . . ." but he never 
got that golden pitcher. 

Most of these tales are never told, 
and it is only a few that can even be im 
agined. Still, there are those rare times 
after some trade has been made and the 
coffee-cups and cigarettes are out, when 
a dealer will feel reminiscent. Once 
Hadji Hamid Mohammed Mohassib felt 
that way throughout a long hot after 
noon, and I sat deathly still for fear of 
interrupting the unexpected flow of mem 
ories. 

No, it s not as easy for us nowadays as 
it was when my father, Hadji Mohammed, 
was young. He used to take a bundle of 

287 













Drawn by U. R. Shurtlejf. 



288 



It was dark before we boosted the fat and puffy Mikhail up into his saddle and rode off 
through the narrow, black streets. Page 290. 



HADJI H AMID AND THE BRIGAND 289 

Hbdehs and tagiyehs you know those "By the life of the Prophet (upon 
little caps the fellahin wear under their whom be the peace) I am afraid to, my 
turbans? and go .up to Esneh and Edfu masters," he whispered to us. "If the 
and swap them for scarabs and little Omdeh of our village got news of this find 
bronze gods. The caps cost him a piaster he would take the half of it and then tell 
or two a piece, and the scarabs used to the Inspector that I had the rest. And 
bring him five shillings a pound or worse than that. If I started out from 
even two. Money was made easily and my house with that pot full of gold, our 
without any risk in those days, and long village brigand down there would take it 
before I was grown up my father was all from me, and I would be found on the 
known all through the Sa id and even in canal bank beaten half to death for not 
Cairo as a prosperous merchant and an sharing it with him before." 
honest one. It s different now with the Then he went into a long account of 
inspectors and all the other dealers and this brigand of theirs, Ahmed es Suefi, 
the peasants who always want cash, whom he called a real afrit with the very 
Often I have to go loaded with gold and devils for his gang. The police were after 
then I travel in the dark like the desert him for killing a village guard out of 
fox and pray Allah I meet no wolves, revenge, but how can the police catch a 
But sometimes I do. man who is the cousin of the Omdeh of a 

In the summer-time my father has the big town, when the very Omdeh himself 
servants put a wooden bench underneath is afraid of him ? The Omdeh may have 
the tree by our house, and hang a lantern hoped that some one would shoot this 
so that his friends can sit in the cool of the Ahmed in the dark and so relieve him of 
evening with him. One night some of his a very trying relative, but no self-respect- 
old cronies had been chatting there ing man could denounce his own uncle s 
Ahmed the dragoman, Abdel Megid the son to the police, even to save himself 
antiquity dealer, Sheykh Awadullah and from disgrace. So Ahmed es Suefi lived 
some others while the lesser people of in the sugar-cane and sent out word to 
the village had squatted on the edge of the Beys and the rich Copts who owned 
the shadows to listen to what the older the plantations that he would set fire to 
men had to say to each other. It was their cane unless they gave him a present 
late. They had gone home one by one every month. They always sent it. They 
and my father and I were about to go to knew that with a single match he could 
bed when we saw one fellow waiting to burn up thousands of pounds of their 
speak. He was a northerner a Beheri. profits. There he was, hidden by the 
You know you can always tell them from poor because he robbed the rich ; paid by 
our Sai dis. He came up to my father the rich to leave them alone, and free to 
and spoke to him very respectfully, telling waylay those who passed along the canal 
him how the fame of Hadji Mohammed banks and ease the purses of all who were 
Mohassib as an honest antika dealer had not his friends. 

spread even to his village, way down in "I can t bring that gold here, on my 
the Fayoum. Therefore he had come all honor," wailed the Beheri. "My wife s 
the way to Luxor to ask my father brother may God destroy his house 
whether he would like to buy some gold goes to the sugar-cane all the time and by 
coins which he had found. With that, he now Ahmed es Suefi knows everything 
fumbled in his turban and pulled out one about my gold except where I have hid- 
of those big Greek coins that weigh as den it." 

much as two or three English sovereigns. My father laughed, " W allahi. So you 
He said that he had dug up a pot full in want us to come instead so that this 
his garden and that in it there must be Suefi can rob us and split open our 
over five hundred. Naturally we showed heads ? " 

no great interest, because to do so would "May God forgive . . ."he began, but 
have been very bad business, and my we made much of the difficulties of the 
father told him that if he wanted to sell affair and refused many times to go be- 
such things to us he would have to bring fore we got down to the real business of 
them to Luxor. haggling over a price. At last he agreed 

VOL. LXXL 19 



290 HADJI HAMID AND THE BRIGAND 

to take their weight in sovereigns for the keys, and asking the way, and fussing 

coins, which meant a very good profit for about, it was dark before we boosted the 

us. But then, he couldn t spend the an- fat and puffy Mikhail. up into his saddle 

tika guineas in the market and he could and rode off through the narrow, black 

bring out English gold, piece by piece, streets. By that time we were sure that 

with safety and for us of course, there everybody who had seen us had put us 

was a great risk with no redress from any down as a Coptic merchant and his party 

one. going about some business to the south. 

So he shrugged his shoulders and said: Anyway no one was following us, and 
"Malaish it makes no difference. Only when we got to the outskirts of the town 
bring me cash, my masters bring me we made our way around among the gar- 
English sovereigns, and may God increase dens and the rubbish dumps to the big 
your prosperity." Then he told us how canal that flows northward, past the vil- 
to get to his village, how to find his house lage we were really seeking, 
and what day to come, after which he There was no moon we had chosen 
went away. the night on purpose for that and under 

Of course, my father is too old a man the trees along the banks it was as dark as 

for such a trip, and it is always my part inside the belly of a camel. We could 

of the business to travel on an affair like scarcely see each other as the donkeys 

that. He raised the money that we would ambled along. Nobody was about. The 

need, according to the Beheri s story peasants had left their farms long before 

well over a thousand pounds and I made and only now and then did we see a light 

all the preparations for the day that I was in some hamlet away off across the black 

to go, with this redoubtable Ahmed es fields. We rode for a long time that 

Suefi in my mind. night. How can I describe it to you ? 

You know the Copt, Mikhail, the , . . the darkness that seemed so empty 
Christian, who is my father s clerk, and and so quiet, except for the barking of a 
you know how fat and pompous he is? dog, at last, a little way ahead. We were 
Well, I bought him a new silk kuf tan, and sure that that meant our village was near 
when he was dressed up in it he looked and all of us began to feel so safe that 
like a very well-to-do merchant. Then even Mikhail began to get facetious and 
there was Abdullah Kheirullah, that whisper some joke about the Prince of the 
skinny, black Sudani servant that we Afrits himself being unable to see Abdul- 
trust with everything around the house, lah s black face on such a night and then 
and my wife s brother Seman. These two half a dozen shadows rose up between us 
and I myself went as the servants of the and the pale starlight reflected in the 
prosperous-looking Mikhail. Among the canal, and a voice bellowed out, "Peace 
four of us I divided the money so that be upo"n you." 

each of us carried nearly three hundred Even the donkeys stopped and our 

pounds in gold packed in belts under our hearts with them. We could scarcely 

clothes and I assure you that they were move our lips enough to gasp out, "And 

heavy. upon you be the peace; the mercy of God 

We took the train to Wasta and and His blessing" for we were all good 

changed for Medinet el Fayoum, with Muslims and even if there was to be mur- 

Mikhail always in the second-class com- der we could not refuse to greet the faith- 

partment among the omdehs and the rich ful. That is, we were all good Muslims 

farmers, and all of us, his servants, in the except Mikhail the Christian, but in any 

third-class with the fellahin. When we case he was too choked with fear to have 

got off the train in the evening, it was I answered at all. I myself could just find 

who ran and hired donkeys and asked the breath to begin the recitation of the Fatah 

way to a village which we knew was way in a fervent whisper, 

off to the south, while Abdullah and By the time we had answered their 

Seman stood around and addressed Mik- salaam the strangers had gathered close 

hail as "Excellency," and he made a great enough around us for me to see that each 

talk about going to the southern village of them, except one little bearded man, 

to buy cotton. What with getting don- had a shawl wrapped around his face, and 



HADJI HAMID AND THE BRIGAND 291 

one of those heavy sticks a naboot in nothing of great value." I was sticking 

his hands. The little man shoved through my hand into the wallet to get out what 

the others and came up to the quaking change I had. I drew out my check-book, 

Mikhail in the front of our party. and with it suddenly came the idea. 

"Greetings from Luxor, Hadji Hamid "But anyway I have often heard tell 

Mohammed," he said. of you. In fact, I had heard so much of 

"May God give you peace," replied your deeds that I praised God that the 

Mikhail, his fat bulk shaking so that the English had taught us poor merchants a 

little donkey under him almost rolled little cleverness. Do you think, my 

over. "But, my brother, ... I am no brother, I would be so foolish as to go 

Hadji Hamid ... I am Mikhail Effendi about your country loaded with gold 

Fakhouri, a poor cotton merchant of As- when I can write on one of these slips of 

siout. I do not know Hadji Hamid un- paper that the English call checks, and 

less he is a man we passed on the road an each will be worth hundreds of pounds at 

hour ago." the bank in Cairo ? Never in the world ! 

Even in the dark there was something I told the ignorant fellah I would only 

terrifying about the little man as he drew b,ring a check ..." but I could get no 

himself up and snorted out at one of the further. 

others, "Is he not here, thou dog?" and "May destruction smite thee! And 

that other came peering among us and these English beasts they are not of the 

finally pointed at me. children of Adam. Curses on all their 

"I am not Hadji Hamid. By the life kind and on their religion for teaching 

of our Lord . . . " I began, tmt the little merchants such tricks and ruining my 

man raised his hand and said very polite- livelihood." He raged and spat and 

ly: "Your Excellency does not know me shrieked evil things. I offered him my 

perhaps Ahmed es Suefi, your servant wallet with the few piasters in it and a 

and a robber of some reputation in these pearl-handled revolver (which would not 

villages here." shoot, by the way, because the firing-pin 

"Whatever is, is God s will," I mur- was broken), and a silver watch that was 

mured. "Yes, I have heard of you, usually wrong. Mikhail produced a sil- 

Sheykh Ahmed." ver ring with a red glass ruby in it and 

"That is better," he said, grinning at the others had a little money for the 

me. "Now I shall tell you what you are journey, but altogether I doubt if we had 

up to. You came to buy a pot of gold five pounds to give him. Still he let us 

coins from So and So, and I am here to go, for there was nothing else for him to 

get the money you have brought. So do. As he very plainly put it, we would 

hand it over and then you can go back be worth much more to him coming back 

and get some more. If you make no with the gold coins, 

trouble I will let you by the next time, All the time my money belt was pinch- 

and God will increase your prosperity." ing tighter and tighter under my clothes, 

What was the use of pretending any for I knew that if ever that brigand s 
more? Here, after all, was the brigand vitals began to cool off he would search us 
Ahmed es Suefi. He knew me and all of in spite of everything we had told him. 
my affairs, and his men had half a dozen But luckily there was no end to his rage 
thick clubs to crack our heads if we made at the English for inventing checks, and 
any fuss. And with broken heads what he was still cursing them in the dark as 
chance would we have to save those we went on our way. We, on the con- 
money belts ? Perhaps it was the thought trary, praised God for the cleverness of 
of one of those naboots coming down on those same English, while we drummed 
my pate that made my tongue go slower on our donkey s ribs to make them go the 
and my head work faster, searching for faster, 
an idea. The fellah was waiting for us at his 

" Sheykh Ahmed," I began, pulling out house. He produced his gold; we got out 

my wallet and untying the string, " there some scales, and each one stripped the 

is no use denying. I am Hadji Hamid money belt from his waist. For an hour 

and I have come to buy antikas, but or more we were weighing the coins and 



292 HADJI HAMID AND THE BRIGAND 

stuffing them into our belts as fast as we out, "Hadji Hamid ! Oh, Hadji Hamid, 

took the sovereigns out. We worked hard don t you know me ... Ahmed es Su- 

to hurry through the business. The efi?" 

peasant was trembling with anxiety to Sadik Bey and the mulahiz turned on 

get his new sovereigns buried before him drawing their revolvers, but I had 

Ahmed es Suefi should call upon him, and recognized the little old fellow and I 

we were dead-tired from fright and from laughed and stopped them and went over 

carrying those heavy belts all day. The to him, saying, "Of course I do. How are 

weekly market was to be held the next you, Sheykh Ahmed?" 

morning at Medinet el Fayoum and " In peace and prosperity, the praise be 

crowds of people would be going from all God s," he answered simply. He was a 

the villages. We borrowed the dresses pious man even with the chains clanking 

and veils of some women all but Seman about his ankles. He bore me no grudge, 

who was to go as the head of our family but he did want to know how I had 

and at daylight we were on the road escaped him on the way back with the 

again, safely hidden among the throngs gold coins. He chuckled when he learned 

of people and their beasts flocking to the that we had had to wear women s veils 

market. and he grudgingly admitted that I had 

After that we had no trouble all the been clever to have brought checks in- 

way back to Luxor, and in the end we stead of the money, 

made a handsome profit out of the affair. And then I told him about the money 

There were some rare coins which we sold belts. 

very well in Cairo, and the common ones I believe that was probably the first 
made a good business for us with the time in his life that he was ever really 
tourists for several seasons. In time we stupefied. A look of bewilderment and 
forgot our trip to the Fayoum, except amazement spread over his face, and his 
when old black Abdullah chuckled some- hands just dropped limp at his sides, 
times at " Mikhail Effendi, the poor mer- " On your honor ? . . . praise the Prophet ? 
chant of Assiout," and perhaps we never . . . this is not idle talk?" he kept saying 
really got over the way our hearts had over and over until at last a sort of re- 
sunk into our bellies under those money lieved look came into his eyes, and he 
belts. threw himself at my feet. " W allahi, my 

Then once, a long time afterward, I was master," he said, "at last I have met a 

in Cairo. Usually when I am down there man. If God is willing and if ever I get 

I go to Turah to pass an afternoon with out of here, I shall work for you as long 

my friend Sadik Bey, who is the Mamour as I live wages or no wages." 
of the penitentiary. It happened that 

that day he had an inspection to make of "And has he?" I asked finally, when 

the quarries where the most dangerous of it seemed evident that Hadji Hamid was 

the convicts make paving slabs. I went going no farther with his tale, 

along with him and when he stopped to "Not yet. I believe that he has still 

speak to the mulahiz in charge, I stood five or six years to serve." And then he 

waiting for him. added musingly: "But he would be a 

Suddenly a little bearded man bounded really useful man for me in antiquity 

up from among the prisoners shouting dealing." 



Germany after the War 

AS SEEN BY A FRENCHMAN 
BY RAYMOND RECOULY 

Formerly of the French General Staff; Author of "Foch: the Winner of the War" and "General Joffre and his Battles 



F 



OR a Frenchman noth 
ing is more essential, 
at the present mo 
ment, than to know 
exactly what the state 
of affairs and the 
trend of thought are 
in Germany. 
At the same time nothing is more dif 
ficult; for a Frenchman no matter how 
impartial he may be, nor how hard he 
tries finds it almost impossible not to 
have his view of Germany-at-peace dis 
torted by his recollections of Germany-at- 
war. During the four years of that terri 
ble conflict, the efforts which our country 
made, her sacrifices and her sufferings 
were too great for the world to ask that 
he forget, overnight, all that happened. 

It behooves each one of us, however, to 
watch carefully, uninfluenced by passion 
or prejudice, with detachment and cool 
ness, the events taking place on the other 
side of the Rhine. The best way of doing 
so is, as they say, to "go and see." And 
that is what I have tried to do, for my 
part. I have been in Germany three 
times since the end of the war. The first 
time was in 1919, when I made a long 
automobile trip which enabled me to get 
a good view of the country; the second 
time was in 1920, when I was on my way 
back from a journey through central Eu 
rope, and the last visit was one of six 
weeks, which I have just concluded, to 
Munich, Dresden, and Berlin. 

What struck me the most forcibly on 
my first visit in 1919, was the terrible 
food situation of the country. At that 
time much the most important question 
the Germans had to answer was whether 
they would have enough to eat. Well, a 
large part of Germany was far from hav 
ing enough to eat. In the best hotel in 
Frankfort they served us putrid meat. 
When I complained bitterly to the maUre 



d hotel, he said that he greatly regretted 
it, but that he absolutely had no other to 
offer us. In all the cities through which 
we passed, Eisenach, Leipzig, Hannover, 
etc., the food was everywhere simply un 
eatable. The bread was horrible, a sort 
of black putty, heavy and mixed with 
bran; eggs were unobtainable. The only 
place where we could get anything decent 
to eat was in Berlin at the Hotel Adlon, 
which was exceptionally well provisioned 
because it was the headquarters for all the 
inter-Allied missions. 

One can imagine, therefore, how greatly 
the inhabitants of the cities and industrial 
centres, especially, must have suffered 
from the war. The faces of the children 
were emaciated, the skin shrivelled. In 
the streets the crowds waited in long files 
before the delicatessen shops and the 
sight of a ham or a string of sausages 
literally petrified them with admiration. 

In two years this situation has been 
entirely changed. To-day one can state 
absolutely that Germany has enough to 
eat. There are poor people, of course; 
the laboring classes and, more especially, 
the small tradesmen, those living on re 
stricted incomes and petty office-holders, 
are in anything but enviable circum 
stances, for the cost of living has soared 
way beyond any increase in salaries or 
revenues. But this is true in all coun 
tries. On the other hand, we must re 
member that the number of the unem 
ployed is infinitely less in Germany than 
in England or America. 

Germany has managed, in short, to 
solve her difficult food problem much 
more rapidly and much more easily than 
one would have supposed possible. Her 
magnificent agricultural output furnishes 
her with part of her means of livelihood, 
and in exchange for her manufactured 
goods she procures from neighboring 
states the rest of the commodities which 
she lacks. 

293 



294 GERMANY AFTER THE WAR 

In 1919 Germany was far from being tions, and even in hotels, have almost 

safe from the danger of bolshevism. A ceased. 

communist government was set up at Such is the exact picture of Germany 

Munich under the leadership of Kurt as she is to-day. This return to order, 

Eisner, and only by the use of force, by upon the importance of which one cannot 

an energetic, even pitiless repression, was lay too much emphasis, exerts an influ- 

it overthrown. In Berlin the Spartacan ence both on the domestic political situa- 

uprisings took place. Men fought with tion of Germany herself and on the 

rifles and machine-guns in the streets of politics of the whole of Europe. In the 

the capital and before the imperial pal- interior nothing could be of greater ser- 

ace which still bears many marks of the vice to the cause of democracy. As long 

battle. The energy of Noske, then minis- as the working classes are occupied and 

ter of war, saved the situation. My quiet, as long as there are no strikes and 

friend, Theodore Wolff, editor-in-chief of street riotings, just so long will the reac- 

the Berliner Tageblatt, whom I went to tionaries be without any justification for 

see at his office, told me numerous details a coup d etat. 

of the affair. When I called on Noske I On the other hand, the Lenine and 
found the War Office surrounded by a Trotsky propaganda was extremely dan- 
triple barricade of chevaux de frise and gerous for Europe while there was reason 
barbed-wire, like a blockhouse on the to fear that Germany, Russia s powerful 
Hindenburg line during the war. Sen- neighbor, might be corrupted by it. This 
tinels, wearing trench helmets, mounted peril was greatest during the summer of 
guard in war-like fashion. 1920, when the red armies, by invading 

The Berlin streets, so admirably cared Poland and reaching the gates of War- 

for before the war, had taken on a look of saw, established direct contact with Prus- 

filthy untidiness that reminded me of the sian territory. From Germany the bol- 

Russian cities immediately after the shevist contagion might have reached 

revolution. At the slightest menace of Czecho-Slovakia, a country particularly 

a communist uprising, soldiers, armed favorable to its development, and from 

with machine-guns, barred the street, there spread to other lands, 

ready to fire on the insurgents. Now, on the contrary, Germany forms 

In two years the transformation has an unshakable barrier against bolshevism. 

been complete. Germany has become One may say that Europe has about 

once more as industrious, as strictly dis- ceased to feel any further apprehension 

ciplined, as orderly, as she was before the of " the red peril." The theories of Lenine 

war. The peril of bolshevism has disap- have absolutely no chance of spreading 

peared. Those who affect to fear it still to the west, but, on the other hand, it 

the Bavarian reactionaries, for example might easily happen that they should gain 

are simply pretending and are making ground considerably in the east in the 

political use of the danger to terrorize the Caucasus, in Asia Minor, and in central 

bourgeois class, attract to their standard Asia. Bolshevism, that evil, conceived 

as many adherents as possible, and pave and nurtured in semi-oriental Russia, 

the way for a return of the old order. where material and moral conditions have 

All the factories have started up again, helped to mature it, has been , definitely 

At the present moment Germany is the rejected by Europe. Either it must dis- 

country least affected by the economic appear of itself, like a fire that is extin- 

crisis. She has even profited by it to a guished for lack of fuel, or it must be 

considerable extent, because the drop in transformed, must evolute, must rid it- 

her rate of exchange helps her exports. self of its uncivilized, purely destructive 

The railroads are operating admirably, attributes and adapt itself to the needs 

trains departing and arriving on time. A of a normal form of government, 

genius for organization, General Groener, The majority of the French are in- 

has taken over the whole problem of clined instinctively to underestimate the 

transportation and reduced it to order strength and, even more, the sincerity of 

and efficiency. Robberies, which were the democratic movement in Germany, 

very numerous on the trains, in the sta- They believe, willingly enough, that Ger- 






GERMANY AFTER THE WAR 295 

many has assumed the republican form tranquillity, and its influence cannot help 
of government simply in order to "save but become greater and greater, 
her face," to escape, partially at least, the In summing up these forces, ranged 
consequences of her defeat; that every- more or less solidly on the side of the 
thing is camouflage in this so-called demo- democratic government, one realizes that 
cratic country which, at the first chance, they are far from negligible. They rep- 
will let fall the mask and reveal herself as resent the masses. But we must remem- 
she really is a Germany eternally reac- ber, on the other hand, that their adver- 
tionary, monarchical, militarist, and saries, if unquestionably less numerous, 
Pan-Teutonic. are terribly audacious and active. They 

To my way of thinking, we err in form- are, first, the former governing class, the 

ing such an opinion, and I never fail to Junkers, who have been stripped not only 

tell my countrymen so. The keen, un- of much of their influence but also of a part 

biassed, clear-sighted observer, after a of their fortune. Their investments have 

sojourn in Germany, carries away with not augmented in value, or very little, 

him the impression that the democratic while the purchasing power of their 

movement is extremely serious and grows money has become less and less, and the 

more so with each day. cost of living has increased out of all 

All the laboring classes, that is to say proportion. For centuries the civil, mili- 
20,000,000 men at the least, are firmly at- tary, and diplomatic representatives of 
tached to the republic. They are en- the state, especially in the case of Prus- 
rolled in organized unions, and are at their sia, have been drawn from among the 
beck and call. It is true they have no Junkers. It is with grief and anger that 
arms and it would be difficult for them they now see themselves superseded in au 
to fight against machine-guns, but they thority by entirely new classes of people, 
could at any moment declare a general nor is it astonishing that they are ready 
strike, stop all transportation, and para- to make every effort to regain the posi- 
lyze the economic existence of the coun- tion and power they have lost, 
try. Should some reactionary demonstra- More tragic, more desperate still, is the 
tion, some new "putsch," take place, situation of those officers who have been 
such as that of Kapp for example, every- dismissed from the army in consequence 
thing indicates that they would not hesi- of the reduction in the military forces, 
tate to have recourse again to those In France, following the return of 
drastic measures the efficacy of which is the Bourbons in 1815, we had what 
indisputable. was known as the demi-soldes "half- 

To the socialist working classes must be pays" poor, adventurous Bonapartists 

added the lower middle class, the small who detested the new regime and im- 

office-holders, and a part of the rural patiently "champed the bit." Balzac 

population, except in Bavaria. The has drawn them for us with powerful 

Clerical party, the Centre, which plays strokes in one of his greatest novels, "La 

an ever increasingly important role in Rabouilleuse." 

German politics, is far from being an- The German ex-officers are not even 
tagonistic to democratic ideas. The pres- demi-soldes, most of them having no 
ent chancellor, Wirth, a conscientious, pay at all. Many of them find it impos- 
sincere man, whose energy and good faith sible to adapt themselves to civilian life, 
are beyond question, is a Catholic. The They live, literally, on the fringe of so- 
papal nuncio at Munich, Monseigneur ciety. The band of adventurers that 
Pacelli, one of the foreigners who best poured into Bavaria in the wake of Lu- 
know Germany, where he stayed through- dendorff , was formed of these men, ready 
out the war, gave me many details con- for any bloody enterprise in which they 
cerning the important Catholic congress had nothing to lose and everything to 
held this last summer at Frankfort. The gain. It was from the ranks of these ad- 
chancellor was present and delivered an venturers that the assassins of Erzberger 
address, which was greatly applauded, were recruited. That murder aroused a 
The Catholic party, with its numerous commotion, a terror, throughout all Ger- 
affiliations, stands for order and social many that served to strengthen the gov- 



296 GERMANY AFTER THE WAR 

eminent of Wirth. Everybody realized war, protested against the errors and the 

that it was impossible to allow a handful crimes of Germany, 

of conspirators to assassinate, one after But, in spite of these retrogressive 

the other, the men of mark in democratic forces, it is by no means certain that the 

Germany, and a pronounced reaction in democratic government will not survive, 

favor of the government took place in all will not succeed in sending its roots deep 

parts of the country. Some time later into the soil of Germany. We must not 

the government of Berlin gave proof of forget that, for several years after the war 

its energy and power by obliging that of of 1870, the third republic had a hard 

Munich to suppress the state of siege struggle to firmly establish itself. It was 

and the objectionable government it was only after eight years, in about 1878, that 

maintaining, without excuse, in Bavaria, it succeeded in finally overcoming all the 

The majority of the higher officials are opposition of its adversaries. Up to that 

the enemies, more or less disguised, of the time it had led a precarious existence, 

republic. One of the most enthusiastic The same thing may happen in Germany, 
supporters of the democratic cause, M. 

von Gerlach, editor of the Welt am Man- It is certainly not astonishing that 

tag called my attention to a number of France watches with keen attention the 

significant facts in regard to the unfair- violent struggle going on between the 

ness of the magistrates especially. They political parties of Germany and the evo- 

are extremely severe on workmen who lution of her new government. She does 

have committed offenses and impose the so because she has tremendous interests 

maximum sentences on them, while to- at stake. France will be less fearful of a 

ward the " nationalists " and the reaction- counter-attack and a policy of revenge on 

aries they show the greatest clemency. A the part of Germany should she swing 

man accused of murder has a ridiculously toward the Left and the republic be defi- 

light sentence passed upon him, because, nitely established. If, on the contrary, 

it is set forth in the judgment, " he was the supporters of the monarchy and the 

not animated by dishonorable motives !" army come back with power, their return 

This scandalous casuistry is almost an in- will presage the resumption of armaments 

vitation to crime. and the preparation for war. 

To the reactionary forces we must add The material disarmament of Germany, 

the universities the professors and nine- which the inter- Allied commissions are ef- 

tenths of the student body. We have fecting to a greater or less extent, is evi- 

come upon a very curious and a very dis- dently of tremendous importance. But 

quieting fact here, for, whereas in other of far greater importance still is the moral 

countries, notably in France, the youth disarmament. As long as that has not 

of the colleges are eager to embrace new been accomplished in Germany, just so 

ideas, in Germany, on the contrary, they long will Europe not breathe easily, 

are fiercely reactionary and opposed to From the economic and financial point 

progress. of view, the situation of Germany might 

I had, during my stay at Berlin, an be expressed by this formula: the money 

interview of several hours with the dis- chests of the state are empty,, but those 

tinguished scholar Einstein. If, at the of a large number of private individuals 

present time, Germany has a genius of are full. 

whom she may be justly proud, it is cer- The depreciation of the mark was ob- 
tainly Einstein. Yet he himself told me viously the result of natural causes. The 
that "nationalist" students had tried to principal one is the necessity under which 
make noisy demonstrations in his classes ; the German government labors of buy- 
that he had receved threatening letters; ing foreign exchange to meet the first pay- 
that he was taunted with being a Jew; ments exacted by the treaty of Versailles, 
with having made himself a naturalized This, of course, amounts to saying that 
"Swiss subject because of his disgust with German money has fallen in value be- 
imperial Germany; for having refused to cause Germany has been conquered, 
sign the manifesto of the Teutonic sa- But along with the natural causes were 
wants; and for having, throughout the many artificial ones which the govern- 



GERMANY AFTER THE WAR 297 

ment at Berlin had the power, and even as some " big business " enterprise in Aus- 
the duty, of so regulating as to prevent, tria, Hungary, Italy, or Roumania at- 
or at least minimize, the lowering of the tracts his interest, he gets his powerful 
monetary unit. Now, such action was grip upon it, buys it with his so-called 
not taken. The government allowed the depreciated money, and gets away with 
paper currency to increase in alarming it from under the very noses of his French 
proportions. At the end of September, and English competitors. 
1921, it reached the astounding figure of Many Germans, since the cessation of 
88,000,000,000 marks. In the course of hostilities, have followed Stinnes s ex- 
one single week it was increased by ample. They have sent their fortunes, in 
2,800,000,000 marks. No currency in the part or in whole, out of the country. In 
world could stand such an inflation. consequence Germany has been drained 

The system of taxation, as it was con- of capital. 

ceived and put into operation by Erz- The Bourse of Berlin, far more than 

berger in 1920 and 1921, was also re- that of London, Paris, or New York, has 

sponsible for the continual depreciation contributed to the depreciation of the 

of the mark. Theoretically his system ap- mark. When the downward trend in the 

peared to be excellent. It levied a tax on rate of exchange began to get alarming, 

all fortunes over 172,000 marks. On the the public became panicky. There was a 

other hand, the public treasury is sup- mad race to get rid of the paper money, 

posed to have first deducted, by the which was no longer of any value, as 

" Reichsmotopfer," an assessment of from quickly as possible. Everybody, even the 

10 to 60 per cent. man in the street, sold his marks at no 

If all these taxes had been collected, the matter what price in order to buy for- 

state would have derived a large revenue eign currency. 

from them. Unfortunately, they have A veritable epidemic of speculation 
not been collected. This fiscal reform, so broke out over the entire country. As 
tremendous, so Draconian in appearance, the mark declined, valuable transferable 
has been purely fictitious in large part, securities and real estate, the price of 
In spite of these taxes, never have private land, of houses, stocks of banks and busi- 
fortunes nor luxurious spending been ness concerns, increased in inverse ratio, 
greater than to-day. In the cities it is The Germans have finally got to the point 
impossible to get a seat at a theatre, of classifying all valuables under two 
although they are very expensive in heads: first, "gold securities, "represented 
marks! In the cabarets, the night res- by something real, tangible shares of 
taurants (and heaven only knows how corporations or landed property; second, 
many there are !), where a bottle of Rhine "paper securities," which are bank-notes 
wine or champagne costs several hundred or government bonds. Everybody is try- 
marks, all the tables are reserved in ad- ing to get hold of the first and nobody 
vance ! wants the second. 

So it is evident that there are any num- There is no country in which the gov- 
ber of men in Germany to-day who spend ernment, if convinced in the slightest de- 
money right and left and who apparently gree of the wisdom of such a course, is not 
are not at all concerned over the deprecia- empowered to prevent, or at least limit, 
tion of the mark. Take the case of Hugo the sending of capital out of the country. 
Stinnes, one of the industrial magnates During the war all the countries involved 
of Germany. Nearly all his available took effectual measures to prevent that, 
capita] is in foreign countries in Holland, The purchase of all foreign securities was 
in Scandinavia, etc. During the war and under the control of the government, 
since the armistice he has taken good care which, on the other hand, by exercising a 
not to bring into Germany the proceeds strict surveillance over the banks, made 
from his coal exports. His fortune is in the sending abroad of large amounts of 
crowns, in florins, in pounds sterling. It capital impossible. 

cannot, therefore, be touched by the Nothing prevented the German gov- 

government. He, however, can easily ernment from enforcing the same regula- 

manipulate his great wealth. Just as soon tions. It would have been comparatively 



298 



GERMANY AFTER THE WAR 



easy, moreover, for her to have watched 
her exports, and assured herself that the 
value which they represented was re 
turned to Germany instead of remaining 
abroad. 

The Allies French, English, Italians, 
Belgians, etc., who are the creditors of 
Germany, can and should, through the 
commission on reparations, remind the 
government at Berlin of her sacred obliga 
tions. 

Unfortunately, none of that has been 
done, and the mark continues to decline 
in value. 

In spite of this depreciation, Germany 
is still a rich country. Her fortune is not 
in bullion, but in her prodigious industrial 
and economic power, in her genius for 
work which enables her to produce more 
cheaply than any of her neighboring com 
petitors and to dominate, in consequence, 
almost all the markets not only of Europe 
but of the world. Is it just, is it admis 
sible, that this potential solvency should 
not constitute, to a certain extent, a 
guarantee in the hands of her creditors 
who are anxious to make her pay the in 
demnities of a war which she alone pro 
voked, and which she waged with ferocity 
and a frenzy of wanton destructiveness, 
as the whole world knows ? 

If not, where would be the justice of 
it? Suppose that France could receive 
no indemnity, or almost none, from Ger 
many our country would be crushed 
under a triple burden: 

First, the absolute necessity of restor 
ing our devastated provinces, without 
which our economic existence would be 
menaced. 

Second, the necessity of maintaining 
an army sufficiently strong to prevent any 
further offensive on the part of Germany 
until, by her acts, she gives proof of her 
pacific intentions. 

Third, the payment of a domestic and 
foreign indebtedness much larger than 
Germany s. 

On comparing the two countries, one is 
impressed with the fact that, all things 
being taken into consideration, Germany 
is undeniably in a better situation than 
France. 

It is therefore just, indispensable, that 
Germany should pay to the limit of her 
power. The French are ready to promote 



all efforts, all arrangements that would 
tend to further this end. They gave proof 
of this when they sent one of their minis 
ters, M. Loucheur, to Wiesbaden to nego 
tiate with M. Walther Rathenau an agree 
ment concerning the delivery of, goods in 
payment to be manufactured by German 
concerns. 

This contract, ingenious and at the 
same time rather complicated, carries the 
impress of its two authors, who are both 
experts in economics. It attempts to 
regulate, to the satisfaction of both par 
ties, the practical carrying out of such ex 
changes. 

Public opinion in France not only en 
dorsed this contract but even welcomed 
it. It determined, as a whole, to take no 
notice of the opposition on the part of the 
French manufacturers. These, it must 
be conceded, are undeniably injured by 
such an agreement. French industry has 
been hard hit by the economic crisis which 
is felt all over the world. It no longer re 
ceives enough orders nor finds enough 
markets. In Europe, because of the dif 
ferences in the cost of hand labor and of 
coal, French industry is unable to compete 
with the German, and must rely there 
fore on domestic orders. It risks losing 
one of the most important of them all, the 
restoration of the devastated regions, to 
German captains of industry. 

One cannot be greatly astonished, 
under such conditions, that French busi 
ness men are not entirely pleased with the 
arrangements at Wiesbaden. The gov 
ernment, firmly supported by public 
opinion, has decided to go counter to their 
protests. It feels, and it is right, that the 
public good should take precedence over 
private interests. 

The public welfare demands that the 
devastated regions should be restored as 
quickly as possible, and that Germany, in 
order to pay off a part of her debt to 
France, should contribute in large mea 
sure to restoring what her armies have de 
stroyed. 

France, in short., expects two things of 
Germany: first, security; second, repa 
rations. 

During my visit to Berlin I saw a great 
deal of my old friend, General Nollet, 
head of the inter-Allied Militarv Mission, 



CARDINAL MERCIER 299 

charged to effect the disarmament of Ger- wehr" corresponds to a unit of the old 
many. This mission, which has worked imperial army; a company or a battalion 
zealously and continuously, is on the way represents a regiment, etc. As for mili- 
to obtaining about all the results humanly tary supplies, it doesn t signify anything 
possible. But results and this is an im- that the Germans have destroyed or 
portant point can only be approximate, handed over guns, machine-guns, and can- 
Marshal Foch said to me one day, in his non. Their numerous factories and their 
epigrammatic fashion: "One does not powerful industrial organization will make 
disarm entirely a people like the Ger- it possible except perhaps in the case 
mans!" He meant by that, that if of large cannon easily to replace those 
Germany ever wishes to she will always losses. 

be able, by more or less secret means, Who knows, furthermore, whether, in 
rapidly to get together a powerful armed another war, if unfortunately we have 
force. another, the same sort of armaments will 
An army is composed of three elements, be used? The products of commercial 
First, / esprit militaire the martial spirit chemistry, of which industry Germany is 
which animates it. This spirit will incontestably the leader, the gigantic 
remain for a long time still deeply rooted strides made in aviation, may possibly, 
in the German character. It cannot be thanks to new inventions, completely 
otherwise. Second, the regular forces, revolutionize the science of war. 
Third, arms and ammunition. The What is of the highest importance, 
"Reichswehr" has been brought up to therefore, is to know whether or not Ger- 
100,000 men. Only, at the express de- many really wishes peace. As long as 
mand of Lloyd George, and contrary to that question remains unanswered one 
the opinion of Marshal Foch, this army cannot reproach France three times in- 
is composed solely of regulars, enlisted vaded in the course of a century for 
for a long term. It could, therefore, taking every precaution and being con- 
easily furnish a corps of instructors and tinually on her guard, 
commissioned and non-commissioned of- And likewise can any one accuse our 
ficers a sort of concentrated military country of disturbing the peace, of up- 
broth into which the government only setting the economic situation of Europe, 
has to pour hot water in the shape of when she limits herself to demanding of 
reserves, which are never wanting in Ger- Germany a part, at least, of what she 
many. Each division of the "Reichs- owes us? 



Cardinal Mercier 

BY MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN ANDREWS 

THE incredibility of a tree of flowers ! 

If it never had happened, these thousand thousand Springs, 

We would never have thought it could happen; yet there they gleam, 

Apple-trees earth s white soul of a myriad wings; 

And never a human so dull but halts and sings 

A phraseless hymn of delight to the blessed things. 

The incredibility of a holy life ! 

Humanity mocks and sighs the dream away, 

Yet a face shines out of a shattered land, and a smile 

Dissolves all doubt as the sun melts night-fogs gray; 

And never a human but stands, in that flooding day 

With a surer hold on visions, the things that stay. 



James Gibbons Huneker 

BY NORMAN T. BYRNE 



L 



AST spring America 
lost, in the person of 
James Gibbons Hune 
ker, her most vital 
critic, and lost in him 
a writer whose influ 
ence on American let 
ters it is as yet quite 
impossible to determine. Born in Phila 
delphia in 1860 of stanch old stock, he 
grew up in an atmosphere fairly satu 
rated with all that is best in literature, 
painting, and music. His early education 
at the hands of Catholic priests was de 
signed to fit him for a clerical life, and 
there was much in his make-up to draw 
him toward the church. He was bashful 
and reticent; an oversensitive child pos 
sessed by a morbid love of his mother 
which manifested itself in a passionately 
sensuous devotion to the Catholic ritual. 
It was an aesthetic emotion prompted not 
only by an appeal to the sensations, but 
by that feeling of spiritual comfort and 
seclusion that the Catholic edifice gives 
to those who shrink from contact with 
reality a feeling neither religious nor ra 
tional, but both aesthetic and neurotic. 

But there were other forces. Intellec 
tually vigorous and curious, vital, having 
a keen sense and sincere love for all that 
is beautiful especially if it were new and 
strange and a bit bizarre, being innately 
inclined to give chase to each new star 
that showed itself on the horizon, he final 
ly wearied of the clerical repression and 
one after another tried the locomotive 
shops, law, and the pianoforte. 

Alone in Paris during what was the 
most impressionable period of his life, 
from 1878 to some time in the early 8o s, 
he dabbled in each of the arts and fairly 
drank in the culture and taste of the in 
imitable Paris of that period. A few ar 
ticles written during this time for the 
Philadelphia papers led to newspaper 
work on his return, and finally to his ad 
vent in New York as a reporter. The 
rest of his story is well known. His study 
300 



of Chopin (1899) established him firmly 
as a music critic, and "Iconoclasts" fixed 
him as firmly as a dramatic critic. His re 
maining work is for the most part a med 
ley of the seven arts, critical with the ex 
ception of two volumes of short stories 
done in the French style; "Melomani- 
acs" (1902) and "Visionaries" (1905); 
"Old Fogy," a critical farce which very 
well expresses Huneker s lighter vein; 
"Steeplejack," an autobiographical ram 
ble; and "Painted Veils," an attempt at 
a hybrid novel. 

Personally Huneker was enthralling. 
Quick and ready, he had an amazing flow 
of conversation that, although it was 
backed by an imponderable fund of in 
formation, leaped here and there, impres- 
sionably characterizing everything in a 
few salient words that were pregnant 
with meaning and never didactic. This 
same quality of lightness, of playfulness, 
of what sometimes seemed a lack of seri 
ousness, moulded not only his conversa 
tion but all his writings, and showed itself 
in his curious attitude toward life. With 
Flaubert he held to a philosophy of dis 
enchantment which says that " life is but 
a rope of sand," and that "all is vanity 
and vexation of spirit." Nearer ,to his 
heart was Jules de Gaultier s doctrine of 
the eternal pretense. Man is nothing 
but a series of masks which, consciously 
or unconsciously, he dons and doffs to 
suit his environment. Remember Oscar 
Wilde s horror of the human common 
denominator, and his interest in each 
man s pretense? But though sceptical 
and disillusioned, Huneker was never a 
pessimist. With Nietzsche he uttered a 
rhapsodic Yea to life. The meaning of 
life was just the living of it: an escape 
from the horror of ennui. Sceptical of 
everything, he fell back on a Dionysiac 
enjoyment of all that life has to offer 
the aesthetic escape. Nietzschian too was 
his egoism and his individualism, two de 
lightful components of his character. In 



JAMES GIBBONS HUNEKER 301 

all it made for subjective valuation, leni- Nevertheless, after paying his customary 
ency, a freshening zest for life that was pence to the bulwarks of convention, he 
pagan in spirit, and a passionate love for acted and wrote much as if he were corn- 
art that was almost religious. pletely subjective. He scorned the idea 

Interesting in what it reveals is a sim- of objective criticism. "In art, as in life, 
pie chronicle of a man s likes and dislikes there is no absolute," he wrote; and fur- 
his prejudices, in short. Hunekercon- ther, "The didactic spirit ever fails to 
sidered Velasquez the greatest harmonist interpret." The critic s function then is 
in colors, Vermeer the greatest painter of " humbly to follow and register his emo- 
daylight, and Rembrandt the profoundest tion aroused by the masterpiece ; " neither 
interpreter of the human soul. Among to praise nor to blame, but to relate his 
musicians Chopin was dearest to him, own prejudices. To escape utter freedom 
Bach was his master, and he bowed before he required of the critic sympathy and 
the genius of Beethoven. Flaubert was sincerity, a complete cosmopolitanism, a 
his greatest novelist and Gaultier his "catholicity of taste and judgment," and 
favorite philosopher, although if it had not even more than that, " an artistic tempera- 
been for the "Antichrist," another might ment and a credo." But the critic, Hune- 
have been. Critically he acknowledged ker held, was the most necessary nuisance 
Remy de Gourmont as his guide and mas- after women in this world. "Art is 
ter, although, again, he took his aesthetics art and not nature, criticism is criticism 
of music from the German. His regard and not art." Oscar Wilde s creative 
for his own ego was overwhelming, for critic is a dream. The critic really is an 
Pilsner almost as much so, while women interpreter between the artist and the 
and the Jews came in for their share. He public, a vulgarizer, a middleman. Let 
had a perfect mania for catchy phrases him ply his pen modestly and amiably, 
and quotations, in turn bejewelling and Undoubtedly, Huneker was blessed 
besplattering his work with them. with an artistic temperament, but the 

The list of his dislikes is longer and aesthetic credo which he himself required 
even more enlightening. He fairly hated of any critic is not so apparent. Of 
Kipling, while the later works of Wells course, he held art to be non-moral 
bored him, as did the earlier ones of Ar- some place he asks us to "consider the 
nold Bennett. Cognac was too much for uneasy moral itch from which Ruskin and 
him; he preferred the pale beverage of Brunetiere suffered." He declares that 
Bohemia. Player-pianos, music-boxes, there is no hierarchy of the seven arts, 
the Shavians, the Ibsenites, new religions, Pater s inviting argument being an "ami- 
socialism, altruism, or universal brother- able heresy." Nor is there possible any 
hood he abhorred them all and never commingling of the arts; they are of dis- 
f ailed to deride them. Art theories he crete substances; and Wagner was pos- 
mistrusted. Programme music flayed his sessed by an "aesthetic nightmare." 
nerves. American hypocrisy and pseudo- Music should be absolute music; but, just 
national taste were the bane of his life, as Huneker continually mingled the seven 
Metaphysics, logic, and philosophy he arts in his critical works, he did not scruple 
fled from. "Throw metaphysics to the to enjoy music that was not absolute, 
dogs," he says in "Steeplejack," "unless Lastly, the anathema of art, for him, was 
you like a tortoise pace in a labyrinth and the didactic, the doctrinaire, the propa- 
leading nowhere." Of Bergson s duration ganda; and he pointed successively to 
-"It s magnificent, but it s metaphys- Tolstoy, Gorky, and Bernard Shaw, 
ics"; and again, "All metaphysicians are 

mythomaniacs," and "Henri Bergson is a Naturally the above facts left an in- 

mystagogue." delible trail across his works, sometimes 

for good, and yet other times for ill. If a 

Critically Huneker hailed from France, critic considers himself one of those rings 

He had too vital an appreciation of the in the series of interpreters that lie be- 

beautiful to follow Brunetiere, but he was tween the enrapt muse and the public, 

frightened by the freedom of the impres- his work is apt to become presentalive, 

sionistic methods of Anatole France, sketchy, somewhat immature, and of the 



302 JAMES GIBBONS HUNEKER 

nature of those popular versions of Ein- he could not be fair, nor quite fair to the 

stein. It will lack depth. It will be too man that held them, although he did 

humble. More dangerous still to his crit- esteem his art. His articles on Oscar 

ical work was Huneker s hatred of theory, Wilde and James Joyce might be cited, 

his ignorance and disdain for philosophy, while of Nietzsche he wrote: "He used 

his scorn for the intellectual. Not only the battering-ram of a rare dialectic skill, 

was he sceptical of the theoretic activity, and crash go the religious, social, and ar- 

but by his own confession he was com- tistic fabrics reared ages since. But when 

pletely unable to deal with it. It left his the brilliant smoke of his style clears 

entire work singularly lacking in balance, away, we still see standing the same ven- 

profundity, or finality, as you will. The erable institutions." Quite as unwar- 

articles on James and Bergson are utter ranted is the persistency with which he 

failures from even a presentative stand- uncovers the shadow of the cross. Of 

point, while the same lack of complete Gorky he wrote that "He shakes his fist 

mastery shows itself too often throughout at the eternal stars and makes the sign 

his entire works. He was continually in- of the cross." Perhaps Gorky did, but it 

consistent, not with the superb indepen- is certainly too much to repeat the same, 

dence of Emerson, but rather from care- in substance, of George Moore, Anatole 

lessness. The same carelessness resulted; France, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Shaw, and 

too, in a disconcerting number of misquo- James Joyce. 
tations, unacknowledged quotations, un- 

authentic data and utter falsification. If one were to choose one word that 
Mistakes were of little concern to him. was to sum up all of Huneker s virtues, 
Thus his dates are often given from mem- one would say that he was refreshing. He 
ory, gossip is given for fact, while he calls was an inestimable breath of fresh air 
Nietzsche anti-Semite, and says that the that deranged the musty rooms of a criti- 
" Antichrist" was written after the ner- cism grown didactic and lifeless. Life 
vous breakdown. "Promenades of an and vigor were typified by his style- 
Impressionist" and several articles are a sheen of sparkling phrases set in a 
almost ruined by the continual lack of rhythmical prose that borrowed much 
authentic material. He tells us that there from his musical training. He was well 
is not one original idea in Bernard Shaw, versed in the seven arts, and if his knowl- 
repeats the same of Nietzsche, and a score edge of some of them was not always pro 
of others, while his eternally accusing found, his love of them was sincere, and 
every one of plagiarizing all of their ideas the manner in which he criticised each 
grows exceeding tiresome. One has only one in terms of the other is a continual 
to glance through modern French crit- delight to his reader. His taste, entirely 
icism to learn how successfully Huneker European in character, was rarely at 
himself could reorchestrate other men s fault. He was taken in by some things 
ideas. that were ephemeral, yet he rarely failed 
Into his work, also, crept that irra- to notice each rising star of genius. His 
tional element of his life, dominated per- defense was fearless and his article always 
haps by the mother imago, that held him, stimulating. Never didactic, never pe- 
however loosely, yet safely, within the dantic, if he was found wanting in philo- 
bonds of the established church.^ He al- sophical ballast he did possess that sense 
ways gave his religion as Catholic of aesthetic value that the scholar too 
though in many ways he was sceptical, often lacks and that the critic must have. 
It was an unreasoning, inescapable re- That was Huneker s forte his taste and 
spect for established authority, for vener- his verve. 

able institutions, for time-worn reputa- Although his critical tenets made his 

tions : a thing that, although held in check work presentative, they also excluded the 

by all the natural vitality and genius dogmatic moralistic judgments that were 

of the man, nevertheless would out. In- the curse of the last century. Subjective 

explicable except in view of the above is in character, his criticisms were attempts 

the touch of sentimentality that he some- to get at artistic values and not moralistic 

times uncovered. To anti-Catholic ideas or intellectual values. Take any one of 



ON LIVING NEXT TO JAMES HUNEKER 



303 



his better articles in "Iconoclasts," or 
"Egoists," or "Ivory Apes and Pea 
cocks"; take his entire volume on Chopin 
in it there is a sincere attempt to un 
derstand the artist, to appreciate his at 
tempt. He does not bother to rate or 
censor ; he is not much concerned with an 
analytic disintegration. An expression of 
the initial impression, the emotional thrill 
that a work of art gives to the sensitive 
spectator, an expression in terms that 
themselves are fairly pregnant with life- 
it is more than America could boast before. 
Huneker s chief value lies, then, it 
seems, not in his works, which with the 



exception of the study of Chopin will 
probably be forgotten comparatively soon, 
but in his having, in the freshness of his 
method, paraded before the American 
public his ideas on an art of which they 
were all but totally ignorant. As com 
mentaries or studies his articles lack body; 
as stimulating introductions they are un 
paralleled. The part he played in the in 
troduction of modern European art to 
America and in the attack on pedantic 
criticism will perhaps only be under 
stood and appreciated by later genera 
tions and in the light of more mature re 
sults. 



On Living Next to James Huneker 

BY LAURA SPENCER PORTOR 




DID not know the 
late James Huneker in 
the sense of presenta 
tion, acquaintance, or 
friendship; yet, in an 
other sense, I feel now 
that I knew him well; 
and there was a time 
when he gave me some most uncomfort 
able quarters of an hour. 

My sister and I had, in those years, a 
studio next to his, high up in a tall apart 
ment-house in which the top floor only 
was given over to the arts or would-be 
artists, with the additional occupancy of 
a janitor and his wife. In the studio on 
one side of us lived a man and his wife 
who were painters; on the other though 
his identity was for quite a long time hid 
den from us the immortal James Gib 
bons ! In the little apartment just 
beyond him lived the aforesaid janitor 
and his wife. 

We were altogether new to New York 
and New York studio life, my sister and 
I, but not unfascinated by the indepen 
dence of two rooms, a really marvellous 
view, a scant but sufficient amount of 
furniture, including a piano, and dreams 
galore. 
We were neither of us musicians we 



meant rather to be writers but we were, 
of old, lovers of music. From early years 
we had taken piano lessons, as a matter 
of course, from the old family piano pro 
fessor who had taught our older broth 
ers and sisters, just as we had taken 
dancing lessons from the family dancing- 
master. No one, I am sure, charged with 
our educations, ever seriously intended to 
make finished musicians of us; but in 
those days which lacked victrolas, a cul 
tivation of a certain type which was in 
our family tradition required that we play 
the piano at least moderately well and 
that we read piano music at sight. 

With the latter end in view, my sister 
and I had since early years read duets to 
gether. Beginning with overtures to 
"Norma," "William Tell," "The Barber 
of Seville," and the like, we had accumu 
lated speed and a musical library, until 
we had attained to a four-handed ar 
rangement of the Beethoven sonatas. 
We intended some day to play the Bee 
thoven symphonies ; meanwhile the sona 
tas were our delight. 

I am obliged to confess we played them 
very badly. When we became too pain 
fully aware of this, we reminded ourselves 
that it was only as a matter of practice 
in reading that we played them at all. 



304 



ON LIVING NEXT TO JAMES HUNEKER 



Nevertheless we found the greatest plea 
sure in attacking their manifold difficul 
ties of tempo and notation. 

Generally, I began my performance in 
the treble, then, when we had labored 
through the last page and had met val 
iantly on the last chords, we would ex 
change places at the piano, and each 
would then proceed to show the other 
how the part now attacked really should 
have been played. 

I do not mean that we ever quarrelled. 
We never did. But rivalry and love of 
conquest are deep-rooted in the human 
heart. I am inclined to think it was 
something as fundamental as these which 
made it so difficult for us to keep pace 
together. One or the other of us was for 
ever straining ahead. 

If my measures were simple when my 
sister s were difficult, nothing was easier 
than for me to accelerate the tempo, and 
vice versa. This resulted in occasional 
appalling disharmony, not a few discus 
sions, and even at times some hardness 
of feeling. 

As a means of forestalling argument, 
we had numbered with a pencil the 
measures. When matters became too 
acute, I would stop and say icily: "Well, 
7 am at number twenty-three. Where 
are you?" Or my sister would say in a 
loud voice, as she continued to play, not 
deigning to break off the measure: 
"Twelve! Twelve! I m at twelve! 
You re behind ! Thirteen ! Fourteen ! 
It isn t ! That s a half note ! " 

So it was that often, like the fabled 
cornetist, we played not so much by note 
or by ear as by main force, and came to 
our destination by sheer unabated deter 
mination and persistence; grace-notes, 
trills, sixteenth notes, thirty-seconds, 
sometimes whole measures and platoons 
falling by the way. 

Yet, dear me ! the pleasure we had of 
our performance ! I can still feel a lift of 
the heart remembering how, having fin 
ished and laid aside other matters, we de 
cided we would play a Beethoven sonata; 
settled ourselves in our chairs in front of 
the piano, turned the pages, agreed ami 
cably on which sonata it should be, settled 
ourselves for the fray, held our hands 
ready, glanced at each other, nodded for 
a sign, and began ! 



The heart has a native habit, I believe, 
of high hopes. We had played those 
sonatas very often and made havoc of 
them, yet we started in as freshly hope 
ful each time as though the Muses stood 
at our elbows. 

Meanwhile events, impressions, sus 
picions, and confirmations went forward 
as to our neighbor in the next studio on 
our right. 

That he was a musician was plain, or 
say rather a lover of music. For, though 
he played a great deal, yet he never by 
any chance practised at all. I never heard 
him play scales or any of those customary 
repetitions of various flexibilities known 
as "exercises." Here was no "Gradus ad 
Parnassum." Indeed, no ! He played 
always from Parnassus. You would be at 
your task, or eating your salad, and sur 
prisingly he would begin, as though sud 
denly Ariel had alighted. 

I can give you no idea of the abrupt 
ness, the ease, the charm, the beauty, of 
the performance. Flying measures for 
the most part, wisps of smoke if smoke 
were harmony, breaths of breeze that 
fainted and melted into nothing, if breeze 
were music, bursts of beauty and delicate 
force, then fairy-like recantation and ab 
rupt stillness, and a beginning again of 
joy, delicate and wonderful as my ears 
have been witness to from nowhere else 
in the world but the throat of a canary. 
You held your breath ! You did indeed ! 
You forgot to eat your salad. So much 
of the temperament of the man there 
seemed to be in his playing. I can still 
hear, too, those full rich measures that 
would later break off abruptly; or he 
would play a nocturne, or the movement 
of a concerto almost to the end, then sud 
denly drop the whole lovely matter, not 
as it were through weariness, but as 
though lovelier forms still floated just be 
yond his touch. 

We listened enraptured, and were not 
slow as to conjecture. We pictured him 
very young in our first imaginings, young 
and lithe and poetic oh, yes, poetic; and 
wrestling alone with some great sorrow or 
heartbreaking experience; above all dis 
contented, unsatisfied, with a certain ir 
remediable disgust of the life he obviously 
loved and appreciated so much. 

All this we built up out of three facts, 



ON LIVING NEXT TO JAMES HUNEKER 305 

namely, his unwillingness one would of my young romanticism, and came to 

almost have said inability to play any appreciate, in a measure at least, the 

composition to its end; his unceasing de- meaning of that powerful, wonderful, al- 

votion to Chopin, and his persistent, repe- most gross, distinctly cynical mask, under 

titious infatuation with the Chopin Revo- which the restless, unsatisfied delicacy of 

lutionary fitude. his spirit walked the streets disguised; 

I never knew any one who knew him; the massive stalwart tree, so to speak, in 

I have never come upon an intimate de- which that Ariel he so powerfully com- 

scription of him, and I have read com- manded was imprisoned, 

paratively few of his writings; but I could Shocked as we were at first to find him 

swear from this evidence alone that he so far from what we had imagined him 

was a man of profound but disappointed to be, yet, from the vantage of older 

sensibilities; of a splendid dream, but years, I know well enough now how much 

compromised attainment; something of better is fact than fiction. The restless- 

a rebel spirit fighting, fighting unreason- ness of his playing; its forever fragmen- 

ingly, and finally by sheer habit, to the tary character, its extraordinary facility, 

last; an iconoclast who alternately loved those delicate moonlit Chopin measures, 

and hated the image he broke. those marvellous patterns of exquisite 

But the Chopin Revolutionary fitude irregularity, and these suddenly broken 

that he loved was, like all the rest, in his into arbitrarily by the passionate almost 

hands only a fragment. He never played crude crash and thunder of the Revolu- 

it to its finish. He would begin it pas- tionary Etude; as though shaggy Pan 

sionately, feverishly, determinedly, were to enter suddenly, terribly, on fantas 
tic fairy revels, beating down fairy things 

"Te turn, te TUM 7 with his hoofs; or as though Lear were 

(Te Turn, te turn-turn /) to present himself mad, and calling on the 

Te tum-tum-te TUM ! heavens, in the midst of the most deli- 

(Te turn, te turn!}" cate measures of "Midsummer Night s 

Dream" these things, I now believe, were 

So he would carry it on splendidly, the better than biography, an indisputable 

left hand taking its powerful determining index and an interpretation. This which 

part magnificently, but always either was his style of playing this was the 

midway, or toward the last of his almost man. 

fiercely satisfying performance, he would Well, I know that now; I had not fully 
tire; disappointment, disgust would re- grasped it then ; nor should it be forgotten 
turn upon him; he would either cease that at the time of which I write we did 
playing altogether, or he would enter on not know his name. But the mere fact 
some crashing transitional harmonies; that he was so much a musician had its 
and presently these would be again, as by effect on our playing. However corn- 
incredible fairy magic, wisps of smoke, if mendable might be our efforts to play 
smoke were harmony; breaths of wander- Beethoven "four-handed" as a means of 
ing breeze, if breeze were music; the learning to read music, must they not be 
miraculous trill and fluting of some sweet- somewhat excruciating to the ear of a 
throated bird; then, abrupt silence. man already a finished musician? So we 

I can see now how inevitably the man s adopted a continuous soft pedal, and al- 

spirit was portrayed in all this, but it re- lowed ourselves .no fortes or f ortissimos, 

mained yet for us to know what body that sfortzandos, or crescendos. We played 

spirit wore. the "Kreutzer" like pickpockets lifting 

One day coming out of our studio, I shillings, or the " Moonlight " like thieves 
saw him coming out of his. He was in stealing treasure in the night; like Bot- 
no way the ideal young poetic person we torn, we roared through the most stormy 
had pictured him. I remember being not passages "as twere any nightingale. : 
only disappointed but shocked. His face But even so we had our misgivings; 
and build are too well known to the pres- even so our music, we conceived, must 
ent public to need description. I am wear upon the fine sensibilities of the tern- 
thankful to say that I later outgrew some peramental musician next door. There 
VOL. LXXI. 20 



306 ON LIVING NEXT TO JAMES HUNEKER 

were times when I could have believed patience with each other. Like love 

the Revolutionary Etude was hurled at snatched under the shadow of the sword, 

us. Then, one day, we learned who he our performance, snatched under the pos- 

was. Marry ! Alack ! and good heavens ! sibility of his return, took on keener value. 

So this was James Huneker ! And we in I no longer stopped and said icily: "7 am 

our ignorance had played our Beethoven at sixteen ! Where are you ! " My sister 

sonatas miserably in the near neighbor- no longer shouted: "Twelve! Twelve! 

hood of those acutely judicial ears ! How You re wrong ! Thirteen! Fotirteen ! " as 

could our ragged music have been less she played and pedalled furiously. We 

than excruciating to a man of his type! grew gentle: "My dear, I don t believe 

high-strung, nervous, of course, irritable we are together!" "I believe I m out; 

even, as could be guessed from his char- let s begin again ! " Ah, the softening, 

acteristic playing. the sweetening uses of adversity ! How 

Moreover, we had our own interests at we played the "Moonlight" sonata now* 

heart. We were but unknown and new- How it dripped from our fingers with 

comers. The janitor was of the usual satisfaction and sentiment ! We could 

New York disconcerting type. He had play it to the full, and as badly as we 

given us a bad turn or two in correcting pleased ! He was not there ! 

several of our initial mistakes. Had we Sometimes, when we were in the midst 

not put empty milk-bottles out in the of it, we would hear the elevator and the 

area way at a too early or too late hour ? heavy sound of his step returning. Then 

Had we not ventured adventurously onto we would break off our measures as ab- 

the roof at dawn one day, to view with ruptly as ever he did his, to wait until 

awe the surrounding splendor the city another day. 

lying asleep, wearing "like a garment" So matters went on for a long time, and 
"the beauty of the morning," whereas, we then the inevitable happened. We grew 
were soon informed, the roof was not in- careless, forgot the danger of our ways, 
tended for our delight, but only for maids were not as keen and acute in our watch- 
hanging out laundry ! Might not the jan- ing as I suppose we should have been, 
itor appear some day with a terrible knock- Oh, we were not purposely rash! We 
ing at the door, like Banquo s ghost, and thought we had heard him go out, as I be- 
inf orm us that our "banging" (he was pre- lieve we had; but we must have missed 
cisely of a type to have called our musical his home-coming. 

efforts " banging ") was objected to by the It was, I remember, a chill afternoon in 

musician next door, and_]we and our piano February. It was the "Kreutzer" that 

would better be seeking other fields and we attacked. We found a good deal of 

pastures new ? difficulty in keeping together, and were 

So we knew that as we valued peace obliged often to recommence. Then 

and the possession of our studio we must finally we determined to see the matter 

take no further risks. We even shud- through by main force, each to play her 

dered a little, remembering our first reck- part on to the end without stopping, come 

less playing. Not that our fears abated harmony or disharmony. Character and 

our desire to play the sonatas ; by some determination should be given preference 

fundamental law, little understood, it over aesthetics. 

rather increased it ; but discretion was I have no idea at what part of the per- 
still the better part of valor, and we de- f ormance we had arrived when we became 
termined to play only at such times as we aware of a storm bursting in the hall out- 
knew that James Huneker was not at side at a little distance, and the voices of 
home. James Gibbons Huneker and the janitor 

When we heard him sally forth, then, raised in terrible and angry altercation, 

like mice when the cat is securely away, Ah, we knew then, like the Lady of Sha- 

we would fly to the piano, select our lott, that our downfall had come upon us ! 

sonata, and begin. Indeed, we were We had tempted fate too often ! Those 

on these occasions so pleased to be play- tender sensibilities and delicate irascible 

ing together and without the soft pedal musical nerves had borne their utmost 

that we developed more than our usual and snapped at last. As the past flashes 



ON LIVING NEXT TO JAMES HUNEKER 307 

on the eye of a drowning man, so the fu- Well, never mind ! Never mind, we 
ture flashed now on ours. Could we hope were saved ! Not our miserable playing, 
to compete in tenantableness with the im- not the Kreutzer sonata, but the thermo- 
mortal James Gibbons ? Hardly ! The meter at fifty in James Huneker s north 
studio we so much loved, its delights, its studio had caused all this ! 
marvellous view, stolen journeys to the Well, so be it ! We were weak in the 
roof, all these were falling in the general knees, almost hysterically relieved, and 
ruin of ourselves and the Kreutzer sonata ! though we did not know it exactly at the 
Needless to say at the first sounds of the moment, we were permanently cured of 
storm we had stopped playing ! My sis- the "Kreutzer." I remember that we 
ter sat petrified at the piano, her hands made strong tea, rehearsed the happening 
frozen to the keys. I flew to the door to a dozen times, and giggled a great deal, 
stand in horror, with my ear to the crack, Well, looking back, of course from older 
to catch what I could of the miserable, years, I have little doubt that it was the 
sordid altercation outside. What I "Kreutzer" after all. The cold alone 
caught immediately was the furious but would, I feel sure, have been tolerable, 
hardly exaggerated statement in James (I know that north studio of his well now, 
Gibbons s most leonine roar that the jani- and he must have endured cold in it 
tor was a miserable drunken blackguard, often.) But the cold and, at our hands, 
who drew his pay and did not attend to the Kreutzer sonata were too much for 
his duties, and the hurled retort that Mr. him. He had, as I know now, a kind of 
Huneker had better go to hell, for an fundamental sympathy with young 
" all-fired crank !" people like ourselves who were learning 
So ! I waved wildly to my sister at the to be writers. He had looked cynically 
piano ! So, it appeared, the janitor was always yet not unkindly in our faces when 
taking our part ! Was this due to the we met in the elevator from time to time, 
last grudged tip we had given him; or, Reading there that we had no intention 
having no music in his soul, did he enjoy of worrying him or anybody, that we were 
our music ? Here I saw our studio saved in short harmless, rather shy and laugh- 
to us perhaps, for janitors are powerful ter-loving people, living like sparrows 
people ! Let them corroborate who know, here in a vast city, with the hope of pick- 
There followed, however, a new burst ing up some crumbs of success, I doubt 
which conveyed that Mr. Huneker had very much if he would ever have objected 
most important work to finish for his to our playing, trying as I have no doubt 
publishers and meant to hold the janitor it must have been to him. But the cold 
responsible ! gave him his excuse. By a sort of trans- 
Oh, why the janitor when it was our- ferrence, not unknown to psychologists, 
selves ! It seemed to me there was noth- he shifted to the janitor the fury he very 
ing for us to do now but open the door probably felt toward ourselves, 
and meet the full fury, and take the entire From then on, somehow, my zest for 
blame. But just then new confusion Beethoven four-handed sonatas was gone, 
and amaze ensued. For it turned out My sister, more hardy than I, would have 
suddenly that they were after all not risked the "Moonlight" from time to 
talking about us and our playing at all, time, suggesting that we each keep only 
but rather storming about the thermome- one ear on the music, and the other very 
ter. The latter, it seems, registered (this sharply on the elevator door. But no ! 
in Mr. Huneker s infuriated and purple Somehow I could not. The performance 
tones) a bare fifty ! He was cold to the was likely to be too nerve-racking, not so 
tips of his toes and fingers! and janitors much to him as to ourselves. ^So^ there 
of the drunken inefficient type of this one was less and less music of any kind in our 
ought to be taken by the collar and studio, and, it seemed, more and more in 
thrown down ten flights of stairs as he his. More and more of that ease, that 
had half a mind there to throw him. charm, that beauty of performance. Ex- 
Here I heard the voice of the janitor s quisite flying measures, escaping into 
wife adding her shrill opinions to the nothing but sheer loveliness, harmonies 
fracas. that swayed and rocked and wavered, 



308 ON LIVING NEXT TO JAMES HUNEKER 

then bursts of brilliant beauty and mem- still come back to that old studio of his, 

orable force, then fairylike recantation and find, as of old, the memory of his 

and abrupt stillness. I have waited for music there, fresh and unspoiled, 

that pause and delicate breakage many a My sister wrote him concerning some 

time, and I like sometimes to believe that matters, within the last few years, and 

a little of that evanescent beauty may received from him, she tells me, a letter of 

have subtly and slenderly influenced some warm courtesy, with a recollection at the 

of the things I wrote in those days. Yes; last of it of the old days when we were 

I like to think so; but of one thing I am neighbors. Since those years I myself 

certain some passion or force in the man, saw him only once at the distance of a 

magnificently evident in his persistent car s length in a crowded subway. It was 

attacking of the Revolutionary Etude, but a little while before his death. I 

had its influence on me, though I cannot noted again that powerful mask which 

say exactly how. defended and protected truthfully and 

I have no words to convey the mean- cynically enough all the delicate sensi- 

ing or power of that impassioned music, bility of his nature. I even recognized, 

breaking in again and again on my with a certain pleasure, a characteristic 

thought. I only know that something way he had of carrying his cane, letting 

very direct and very precious was re- it hang, important but useless, from one 

ceived by a young and growing spirit (to arm. 

speak only for myself) from that inter- Many still read his books and owe him 

pretative music falling often from the much in the way of enlightenment and 

hands of that spirit older and more ex- a certain delicate but almost bitter plea- 

perienced. Some cultivation of taste and sure, and those who were his friends write 

deepening of sensibilities must also have of him with warm intimacy. I have no 

resulted; the power and force of the man such message to bring concerning him; 

carrying you with him, whether you but I have seen the sun set over the city 

wished or not, into the clearer spaces that while he played, and again and again 

his own fine taste had attained. through the day I have had my own 

It seems strange to me now that I who thoughts directed to beauty by that 
knew him not at all save for those occa- music of his, interpreting better than any 
sional inconsequential greetings when we words the moods that moved him, Cho- 
chanced to meet in the hall or elevator pin above all, it should be remembered ! 
should yet in one sense know him so well. Delicate irregularities of loveliness; chang- 
Af ter some years he moved out of the old ing forms, emerging, passing, vanishing, 
north studio into the larger south one, and forever sweeping again into view; 
which the two painters had vacated, and restlessness of a godlike, half -divine order, 
then not very long after that he went chained to vast immutabilities; visiting 
away altogether. Meantime, I moved moonlight of the changing fickle moon, 
into the north studio myself. Where falling on faithful forests of the centuries; 
his piano stood and however less ade- beauty of stillness and magic and enchant- 
quately my writing-table now stands; ment. Then suddenly all this swept 
and the books on my book-shelves take away, demolished, routed, lashed, by some 
the place of what must have been his. deep power almost cynical; and then, 
Though I have wandered often and far that magnificent determined attack, once 
from it, though I have even allowed more, of those first measures of the Rev- 
others from time to time to live in it, I olutionary Etude. 



The Gumbo Lily 

BY BADGER CLARK 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLARENCE ROWE 



I 



NEVER knew but 
one event to happen 
in the big Bad Lands, 
and that was the one 
that I got in on. 
Nothing ever happens 
there. Oh, of course, 
a coyote catches a cot 
tontail now and then, or a rattlesnake 
bites a horse on the nose, but generally 
the march of events keeps to the smooth 
prairie outside, for the Bad Lands are no 
parade-ground. I don t know why heaven 
decreed that my high and hopeful heart 
should be wrung beyond recognition 
against that wild and peculiar back 
ground, but heaven did, and my heart 
was. 

I was down in the Bad Lands with 
Prof, helping him dig out all that was 
mortal of a Megacerops robustus. The 
Megacerops robustus was bedded down in 
gumbo, so it took a whole lot of pecking 
and scratching to clear away the dra 
peries of his couch without breaking his 
bones, and we had been a couple of weeks 
on the job. Prof held honors from some 
great universities toward the rising sun 
and was steeped in Eastern culture, yet 
he wasn t effete, and he showed me proper 
respect as a high school senior, which is 
more than I can say for some roughnecks 
in my own native hills. 

The other two men in the party had 
no intellectual endowments, taking no 
interest in science except to look up long 
names in Prof s books and spring them 
on each other as cusswords; but in the 
evenings at the ranch-house where we 
boarded, while those untutored minds 
were playing pinochle on the kitchen 
table, Prof and I would talk geology, and 
he would unroll before my attentive gaze 
"the eternal landscape of the past," as 
Tennyson has it. Prof could take a piece 
of fossil bone, assemble the rest of the 
skeleton around it, dress it in muscle and 
hide, and then turn it loose so I could 



almost see the Lower Oligocene beast 
snorting around outside where the sum 
mer moonlight silvered the Bad Lands 
pinnacles. 

But the Bad Lands have been pretty 
shy on society ever since late Tertiary 
times, so we were- glad, one day, when 
somebody phoned out from town that a 
party of Sioux from the reservation, on 
their way to the hills for the Fourth, were 
going to hold a war-dance that night. 
Prof knocked off the day s work at three 
o clock, and we all shaved and put on our 
neckties and went to town for the spec 
tacle. 

It was truly a weird and beautiful 
scene. The drums thumped and the 
lithe braves leaped and yelped in the fire 
light, while the women at the edge of the 
dance bent their knees in time to the 
music and sang the songs of the blood 
stained long ago. The warriors had on 
a whole lot less clothes than those girls 
that the church ladies objected to at our 
high school hops last spring, but the 
Ogallalas always seem able to get away 
with that kind of stuff at their dances. 

It was a hot, black evening, and the 
sky had been flickering and rumbling ever 
since dark, but the light and noise that 
the Indians furnished were so much more 
interesting that nobody paid any atten 
tion to the weather. Then, all of a sud 
den, a corkscrew of lightning split the 
brooding night in two above the depot, 
and Gitche Manitou, the Mighty, as 
Longfellow has it, upset the rain-barrel. 

The very first sprinkle seemed to be a 
stratum of water about six inches thick, 
and after that it came in fairly solid 
formation, with no noticeable slips or 
faults. I lost Prof and the fellows in the 
scattering, and as the burg was mostly 
vacant lots, I ran quite a ways through 
the torrential obscurity before I hit some 
thing solid and bounced off. Another 
coruscation of lightning showed me that 
a one-room shack had crossed my path, 

39 



310 THE GUMBO LILY 

and I found the door and dodged in with- Something about my words made him 

out any formality. The shack was darker draw himself up with savage pride as he 

than the outside world, and I fell over a answered: "I m Flying Thunder. Who 

chair, sat up again, scratched a match on are you, white boy ?" 

the floor and with that dim and flicker- He might have left off the "boy." In 

ing light dawned the sweetest and saddest my eighteen-dollar laced boots I stood 

experience of my life. nearly as tall as he did, and I drew myself 

My physical being was at her very feet up with civilized pride as I said: "Harry 

as ah me ! my soul has kept right on B. Pine, a high school senior from the 

being to this very hour. Her hair was Hills, at present assisting Professor 

reddish-gold and her skin was creamy, Drake s paleontological researches in 

and her startled eyes were like jewels as Corral Draw. Pleased to meet you, Mr. 

she blinked and tried to make out what Flying Thunder." 

kind of an animal had butted into the There was a fine dignity in my account 

shack. She was a storm refugee like my- of myself, if I do say it, and Flying Thun- 

self, and had arrived at this tin-roofed der relaxed and grinned a little as he 

haven only a few seconds ahead of me, shook hands. 

for she still held a suitcase in her hand. "And now," I went on, sweeping off 

I have been accused of fussing seven dif- my Stetson and turning to the bright 

ferent girls in my junior year, but there vision, "may we ask the pleasure of the 

are times when the readiest tongue is lady s name we owe to which whom the 

mute. Even in that first glimmering in- goddess Fortunatus has thrown de- 

stant I knew that it was all off, and though posited in our midst ? " 

my open mouth said nothing, my heart I got some snarled up on that, but I 

rang with the words of Prince Geraint in defy any man to look into such eyes for 

Earl Ynoil s hall "Here, by God s rood, the first time and do better, 

is the one maid for me." "I m Elaine Truitt," she replied, mod- 

Wordlessly I rose up to the full height estly turning her eyes away from Flying 

of my not contemptible stature, and lit Thunder s stringy but stalwart form, 

a kerosene lamp on the table. Word- while her soft red lips twitched bewitch- 

lessly I was searching my not contempt- ingly at the corners, " and I m right glad 

ible mind for words, when there came a to see you both. It was creepy here 

thumping on the board-floor behind me, alone in the dark. Did you ever see such 

and I turned to confront another, but far a rain?" 

different, apparition. He was a good six " Elaine the fair," sang my heart, 

feet tall, as most Ogallalas are, a man of " Elaine the lovable, Elaine the lily maid 

about fifty, and skinny. His skinniness of Astolat ! 

was prominent because he didn t have " It doesn t rain here as of ten as in the 

much on but his war-bonnet and moc- Hills," said I out loud, "but when it does 

casins, and a sort of horsetail bustle rain it precipitates cats and dogs and 

that stuck out about eighteen inches be- Megaceropsrobustuses. You re a stranger 

hind him. The best part of his make- in this country, no doubt." 

up, though, was his paint. He was bright "Not especially," smiled the fair girl, 

green from head to foot, with small, pink "I was born within fifty miles of here." 

polka-dots. He looked like something Think of it ! I had lived all my life 

that had just crawled out of the Age of within a hundred miles of such a girl and 

Reptiles, or like a cartoonist s idea of never suspected her existence. I ought 

some awful disease. to have felt it in the air. How could such 

"Howgch!" he grunted aboriginally, a creature spring from the dead, barren 

shaking the rain-drops off of the feathers soil of the Bad Lands country? Then I 

of his war-bonnet. "Plenty rain to- bethought me of the dainty gumbo lily 

night, I guess." that blooms in beauty on bare slopes 

"Miohippus crassicuspis ! " I ejacu- where no blade of grass could support a 

lated, thankful to science for helping me stultified life, and I thanked great Nature 

relieve my nerves in the presence of a for her miracles. I was thankful for lots 

lady, "What are you, anyway?" of things at that minute. I blessed the 








Drawn by Clarence Rowe. 

The drums thumped and the lithe braves leaped and yelped in the firelight. Page 309. 



312 



THE GUMBO LILY 



war-dance, and the storm, and the shel 
tering shack, and all things that had 
caused this lovely lily to bloom in my 
dim life. I even blessed the ghastly 
Flying Thunder, whose reptilian presence, 
as a kind of chaperon, might make her 
easier in the strange situation and pro 
long the interview for a few minutes. It 
was a scrubby interview, though, for 
again I stood wordless. Again I combed 
my not contemptible intellect for hon 
eyed words that would nail her attention 
to me forever, but they eluded me like 
wet soap, and I had to let my eyes speak 
for me. And the moments were so 
precious ! Soon she would go, and never 
know. When the rain let up she would 
drift away like the rain-cloud, leaving my 
life dark and drenched and slimsy, and 
those nifty little shoes with the gray mud 
on them, which I would have given worlds 
to wipe away with my handkerchief, 
would tread distant ways where I could 
not follow. 

"Listen!" she said suddenly, holding 
up one white hand. " Is that the train ? " 

Through the patter of the rain on the 
tin roof, which was growing lighter, we 
heard a locomotive bell clanging mourn 
fully at the depot. 

"I must go, rain or no rain," she said, 
picking up her suitcase with enchanting 
determination. "I came a long way to 
catch that train." 

"I m afraid you can t catch it now," 
said I, jerking open the door and seeing 
the red tail lights. "It s pulling out." 

"Oh, it mustn t!" she cried, running 
to the door and giving me a thrilling little 
jostle with her shoulder. " But yes, it is. 
It s gone ! What can I do ? I ve got 
important business in Rapid and must 
be there to-night must ! must ! must ! 
Mr. .Pine, will you help me hunt up some 
body in town with a car? " 

Would I? An opalescent wave of joy 
surged up in me, and I clapped on my 
Stetson for a dash through the rain when 
Flying Thunder, who had been listening 
with one mottled leg thrown over the 
corner of the table, spoke up. 

"I got a car," he said with primitive 
simplicity, "and I ll get you to Rapid or 
bust it." 

"Noble old serpent!" I rejoiced, slap 
ping his polka-dot shoulder. "Flying 



Thunder and I will count ourselves hon 
ored to serve you, Miss Truitt. Com 
mand us! When do we start?" 

Her jewel eyes rested upon us a mo 
ment before she answered. We were 
some hard-looking pair for a beautiful 
girl to trust herself with on a long, dark 
road, but the jewel eyes must have read 
the manly hearts beneath the green paint 
and the flannel shirt, for she flashed us a 
smile that made me catch my breath. 

"Thank you both a thousand times," 
she said, " and we can t start any too soon 
for me." 

"All right," said the variegated Ogal- 
lala with aboriginal brevity. " Let s go." 

I blew out the lamp and we threaded 
the dusky mazes of the mud toward the 
place where the candles in the Indian 
tents made glimmering yellow squares 
against the dark, and on the edge of the 
camp Flying Thunder stopped beside a 
car. He stowed away his war-bonnet in 
the top somewhere, put on the chains as 
if he had worked in a garage all his life, 
slipped on a coat over his coat of paint, 
and then, pulling his horsetail bustle 
around to one side, slid in under the steer 
ing-wheel. "All ready," he announced, 
and Elaine and I climbed into the back 
seat, and the car buzzed out into the road. 

"Do you think we ll ever make it?" 
sighed the silvery voice beside me in the 
dark, as the wheels slithered and sloshed 
through the sticky gumbo. 

"We ll make it like a shot, gentle lady," 
I soothed, with sublime confidence vi 
brant in my tones. "We may not be an 
airplane or a limited train, but that 
which we are, we are 

" One equal temper of heroic hearts," 
she interposed, " made weak by mud and 
fate, but strong in will." 

We both laughed with the delicious 
freedom of kindred souls. How many 
girls could blaze away offhand with quo 
tations like that? I thanked my stars 
for the hours I had given to immortal 
verse in school, though the mathematics 
instructor often intimated they should 
have been plugged in on plane geometry. 
I thanked my stars for it all for the wild, 
wet wind that swept the dark road, for 
the happy chance that had borne me 
away from the Megacerops robustus into 
fiercely pulsating life, and for the sinewy, 




Drawn by Clarence Rome. 

"And now, . 



may we ask the pleasure of the lady s name?" Page 310. 



313 



314 



THE GUMBO LILY 



speckled savage whose unerring hand 
gripped the steering-wheel and left me 
free for higher thoughts. I sang: 

"What is the moral? Who rides may read 
When the night is dark and the tracks are 
blind 

She interposed again: 

" A friend at a pinch is a friend indeed 
When he keeps a poor girl from losing her 
mind." 

She desecrated Kipling, but I loved it, 
and again thanked the wheeling constel 
lations for this wonder girl, whose per 
fumed breath almost fanned my cheek 
in the ambrosial gloom, whose white hand 
lay so close to mine under Flying Thun 
der s horse blanket. For this charmed 
hour had I lived all my long eighteen 
years. After all the fussings and philan- 
derings, the dreaming and disillusionment 
and despair of my wasted youth, now, at 
last, I read life s glorious meaning in the 
stormy sky of that Bad Lands night. 

And so we "fled all night long by glim 
mering waste and weald," and the strong, 
exultant throbbing of the aboriginal car 
was even as the throbbing of my heart. 
Only once did it cease the car, I mean. 
The hind wheels skidded into an abysmal 
chuck-hole on a hill, and there, after a 
furious convulsion or two, Flying Thun 
der killed his engine. He used exactly 
the same word that the proud Anglo- 
Saxon uses at such times. Then, in the 
sudden silence we heard the noise of an 
other motor from afar on the wind, and 
down the back trail we could see the men 
acing eye of one lamp, a yellow eye with 
a green eyebrow over it. 

" Oh, dear ! " cried the mellow voice be 
side me, and I felt the rounded shoulder 
quiver against mine. " I know that light. 
They mustn t catch up with us or it 
means trouble, trouble, trouble for me. 
And we re stuck ! Oh, do something, Mr. 
Pine, quick!" 

Glorious chance ! It was the work of 
a palpitant instant for me to leap from 
the stalled car, rip a board off of some 
body s pasture gate with the strength of 
a great love, rive it asunder over the top 
of a fence-post, and stick the pieces under 
the hind wheels. I was behind the car 
when Flying Thunder tried to start and 



had to take the consequences from the 
spinning wheels, but I cared not. The 
wheels soon gripped, the chains bit into 
the boards, and then, dashing the mud 
from my eyes, I sprang to the running- 
board with a ringing laugh of triumph. 
In the queen s service ! 

"Forgive my nerve," said I as the car 
moved on up the hill, "but are the people 
in that car after you, sure enough?" 

"They are that," she replied, with 
unmistakable terror in her accents. 
"They ve been watching me for weeks. 
If I had caught that train to-night I could 
have beaten them, but now things look 
pretty blue for me." 

The cold hand of a grisly suspicion for 
a moment clutched my heart. What, 
after all, did I know of this fair creature 
at my side? I had heard of beautiful 
murderesses, beautiful bandit queens, 
even oh, sacrilege ! beautiful bootleg 
gers. I thought of Merlin and the lis 
some Vivien, and of all the mysterious 
mazes of a woman s heart. 

"We don t seem to be gaining any," 
she went on anxiously, gazing back at the 
baleful eye of the pursuing car. "They 
guessed my plans some way, and they 
must have been in town by the time we 
left it. If I can only get to Rapid half 
an hour ahead of them if I could only 
get that much of a lead, they can t stop 
me." 

"Don t you worry, Ted-hair girl," said 
our warrior-driver over his shoulder. "I 
got the best car on the Reservation. 
Now you watch him go." 

The simple, unquestioning faith of the 
noble green-red man whelmed me with a 
wave of scarlet shame for my suspicions. 

"Thank you, Flying Thunder," she 
said gratefully. "I know I m a horrible 
nuisance, but this deal means so much to 
me. I m telling you men that every 
thing about it is straight and square, but 
the thing is so important to me, and I ve 
kept it under cover so long that it is hard 
for me to explain it even now 

"Not a word ! " said I, laying my hand 
lightly on hers under the blanket. " We d 
believe you against the whole United 
States Supreme Court. We ll get you 
safe to where you want to go if we have 
to take turns carrying you. Trust us ! 

The thing was plain enough, after all, 



THE GUMBO LILY 



315 



and I inwardly cursed my soaring imagi 
nation for my distrust. The world shall 
hear of my imagination in years to come, 
but now there are times when I wish I 
could throw the thing out of gear. I 
remembered, unimaginatively, that for 
years the country had been full of men 
and women taking up homesteads, and 
races to town on land-office business were 



to the top of a high table where the road 
was sandier, and now Flying Thunder 
jammed his moccasined foot down where 
it would do the most good, and began to 
live up to his name. He taught me a 
thing or two about speeding that night. 
You might say he rode his car bareback, 
with a rawhide string around its jaw, as 
his ancestors rode their ponies. His 



-J 




I was behind the car when Flying Thunder tried to start. Page 314. 



common. Nor did I like her less for 
being a homesteader. The tender grace 
of olden days mixed with a modern girl s 
eye to business made her even a rarer 
treasure. 

You re mighty good to me," she said 
simply, " and I m gladder than ever that 
I happened to meet you both." And 
though she gently drew her hand away 
from mine under the blanket, the thrill 
ing sweetness of her voice held in it no 
reproach, no rebuff. 

We had climbed out of the Bad Lands 



driving was primitive, elemental, pas 
sionate, and under his hands the machine 
began to pitch and plunge like a thumbed 
bronc. Elaine s excitement seemed to 
rise with the figures on the speedometer 
as the car swooped across the flat, and I 
could see, even in the dark, that she was 
a true daughter of the West. 

"Powder River! Let er buck!" she 
cheered, the old cowboy yell sounding 
delicious from her lips. "Look back, 
Harry. Just look back ! " 

Dizzy with joy at hearing my name ut- 



316 



THE GUMBO LILY 



tered in such a dear familiar way, I looked 
back and saw that the baleful yellow star 
behind us was farther away. 

" What did I tell you ? " said I. " Trust 
Flying Thunder and me, and you ll make 
town with oodles of time to spare, and 
win your claim." 



for the humblest, homeliest woman. For 
the most ordinary freshman girl I would 
spend time and treasure to save her from 
distress: for you, my life!" 

She made no reply. How could she? 
What girl of her quality could let herself 
be won so easily? To slack off the ten- 




IIc taught me a thing or two about speeding that night. Page 315 



The last words slipped out accidentally, 
and I bit my lip. It sounded as if I was 
guessing at her business, but she took it 
kindly with a luscious little giggle. 

" My claim ? That was a centre shot," 
she laughed. "It s no common claim, 
Harry, but one of the best stock-raising 
propositions in the Hills no desert claims 
for mine. And if I win it I ll thank you 
forever!" 

"Oh, you needn t," said I in earnest 
undertones. " Chivalry isn t really dead, 
girl. Any true man would do as much 



sion of the moment, she leaned forward 
and spoke in Flying Thunder s ear. 

"Wass-te, Flying Thunder," she praised. 
"Big medicine! You re beating them." 

Flying Thunder gave a joyous howl, 
such as his grandfather might have turned 
loose when he was shooting arrows right 
and left into a loping buffalo herd. 

"Best car on the Reservation," he 
chanted. " Here comes a downhill. Now 
watch him go. Ee-e-ahoo!" And then 
for a minute I thought the forward fend 
ers would climb the air like the wings of 



THE GUMBO LILY 



317 



an airplane and lift the car clean away 
from the dull earth. 

Would that I might close my weary 
typewriter at this point, at the hour when 
Flying Thunder s car was bearing me 
forward on glad wings into the dawn of a 
triumphant love. But such hours never 



man who was slowly pacing along the 
sidewalk with bowed head. 

The man jumped at the sound of her 
voice and came toward us hurriedly. He 
had a cowpuncherish swing to his shoul 
ders, but his clothes had a swell cut and 
were quite correct, except for a pippin of 




/ 



last, save in the wistful dreams of one 
who has breathed in their glories for one 
divine respiration and then bidden them 
farewell forever. As I droop by this 
table, supposedly writing editorial stuff 
for our high school annual, it all comes 
back to me the rush of damp air, the 
wild dance of backward-fleeing fence- 
posts on either hand, the pungent aroma 
of the horse blanket in the enchanted 
darkness, and the consciousness of the 
dear presence at my side but the mem 
ory shivers along my nerves with a sense 
of exquisite pain. Bear with me, there 
fore, if I hasten on with swift fingers and 
a heavy heart. 

The car lived up to Flying Thunder s 
brag. On, on we flew, by cactus flat and 
creek bottom, by far-flung pasture fence 
and slumbering ranch-house, until at last 
we lifted over a low divide and saw the 
town, a bed of sparkling lights at the foot 
of the looming hills. The baleful yellow 
eye behind us had long been out of sight, 
and in her gladness Elaine sang songs to 
which I faked a tenor. Oh, that glad, 
swift hour ! All too soon we hit the town, 
and Flying Thunder was hurling his car 
madly and unlawfully through the empty 
streets. As we turned a brightly lighted 
business corner my lady suddenly put her 
hand on the shoulder of the reckless brave 
and told him to stop. 

"Is that you, Harve?" she called to a 



a fuzzy sombrero that must have cost 
about thirty dollars. 

"You ! " he exclaimed when he saw her 
face. " Good leather ! How did you 
make it, sister?" 

" Well, I missed the train " she began. 

"7-deed? You don t say!" inter 
rupted the stranger, laughing. "I ve 
only pestered a long-distance operator to 
death and worn out a pair of shoes walk 
ing the streets since train time." 

"Well, anyway, there s no time to 
lose," resumed Elaine. "That old one- 
eyed car showed up behind us just after 
we started, and it isn t any too far behind 
now." 

"So?" said the stranger, suddenly get 
ting sober. "They re next, then. Wait 
half a second till I go into the hotel and 
phone." 

He dashed away and, in a few brief 
moments, during which Elaine sat quiet 
but with her breath coming quick, he 
dashed back again and jumped into the 
seat beside Flying Thunder. 

"Two blocks straight ahead and three 
to the left," he snapped with an air of 
command. , "Once we get there, they 
can bring on all the one-eyed cars in the 
State." 

There was something about this man 
that changed the atmosphere. My glad 
ness evaporated in his presence, and I felt 
a strange, supernumerary sensation. At 



318 



THE GUMBO LILY 



Flying Thunder s speed, though, there 
was hardly time to think this much be 
fore we stopped at a house with one light 
in the up-stairs window. 

"Come on in, boys," said the dicta 
torial unknown, hopping down to open 
the door for Elaine. "We ll need you a 
few minutes longer." 

Light flashed up on the lower floor at 
the stranger s ring, and the door was 
opened by a man in a bathrobe. At the 
top of the bathrobe was a shiny clean 
collar and white bow tie, but below I 
could see the wrinkled bottoms of a pair 
of pajamas and bedroom slippers. 

"Pardon the informality of my garb," 
he said, "but your statements over the 
phone regarding haste were so posi 
tive " 

"You re perfectly all right," cut in the 
man of the fuzzy sombrero. "What we 
want is speed, not form, as I told you this 
afternoon. Please shoot as fast and 
straight as you can, for they re after us, 
and we want to head off any chance of a 
row. The sooner the quicker." 

We had gone through the hall into the 
living-room while he was talking, and 
there the man in the bathrobe instantly 
backed Elaine and the stranger up against 
the piano and began to say heavy words 
in solemn tones. My stricken heart ! It 
had all been so cruelly swift that I scarcely 
had an inkling of the blow before it fell. 
My cup of dreams was dashed roughly 
out of my hand and shattered on the 
cabbage-roses of the parsonage carpet, as 
the minister began to roll out the words 
of the marriage ceremony. 

Strange are the workings of a dazed 
mind as it staggers under a shock like 
that. When Flying Thunder, as the rite 
began, stealthily sneaked out and as 
stealthily sneaked back a few seconds 
later, arrayed in all the feathery glories 
of his war-bonnet, I could have smiled 
like a disinterested bystander ! While 
the minister was speaking the terrible 
words that took her out of my life forever, 
I gazed dreamily at his feet and wondered 
if all the clergy wore such loud pajamas. 
My reeling brain recorded nothing of the 
ceremony except the trifling detail that 
it ended with an "Ay-men" rather than 
an "Ah-men." 

The parson offered formal congratula 



tions, and was pulling some papers out of 
his bathrobe pocket when a heavy step 
resounded on the porch, and a stocky, 
bow-legged man in boots strode storm- 
fully into the room. His wind-swept 
mustache was red, but it was the homely 
kind of red. It seemed to bristle with 
rage as he addressed Elaine. 

"And I got you, young lady," he 
jawed. "I knowed I would when they 
told me you missed the train. You re a 
nice daughter, ain t you, now? Here 
I ve raised you and fussed over you and 
piled the education onto you till you re 
fitten to marry at least a congressman, 
and here you try to run off and get hitched 
to Harve Caswell, a common, stock- 
wrastling pin-head just like me. Besides, 
how many times must I tell you that his 
dad done me out of eleven head of steers 
one time, and I ain t got no use for the 
breed? I won t stand for it ! You 

He died away suddenly and scanned 
his superb offspring more closely. She 
did not shrink. On the contrary, stand 
ing by the man in whose keeping she had 
just placed her beautiful life, she smiled 
at her acrimonious parent kindly. 

"What?" he barked, turning to the 
minister. "Are they spliced already?" 

"They are united," said the reverend 
gentleman, "for better or worse." 

Truitt raised one hand to his wind 
swept mustache and stared foolishly. 
Then his sharp blue eyes, which had been 
mostly riveted on Elaine, slowly wan 
dered over us all, pausing at my sad, 
mud-smeared face, at the minister s bath 
robe and pajamas, and finally lingering, 
fascinated, on Flying Thunder s lean but 
powerful polka-dot legs. A convulsive 
shudder seized his sturdy frame and he 
sank into a chair. 

"Jerusalem crickets!" he gasped. 
"Some weddin party!" and he buried 
his face in his hard, brown hands. 

In an instant Elaine was on the arm of 
his chair, with one soft hand caressing 
his leathery neck, while she murmured in 
his ear. 

"Go way from me!" he growled. 
"I ve done got shut of you for good, I 
hope. You always were a hard-mouthed 
little outlaw, and I m glad you re off my 
hands. Go way, I say. I don t want 
nothing more to do with you." 



THE GUMBO LILY 



319 



Yet even as he finished this ungentle 
speech he wound his left arm around her 
waist and held out his other hand to 
Caswell. 

"There it is, you cub," he said. 
"Shake it! I m glad that there thor 
oughbred milk stock of yours is in the 
family now, anyway." 

All this time I stood among them as 



the library. And if that girl, the girl, 
is hard-hearted when you meet her, send 
her to me, and I ll tell her something. 
For thou" -she smiled with agonizing 
roguishness as she spoke the words of that 
other, unhappier Elaine " For thou art 
a knight peerless." 

Sad as I was, I felt glad that the pain 
of the moment was all mine, that no shaft 




, . And finally lingering, fascinated, on Flying Thunder s lean but powerful polka-dot legs. Page 318. 



one in a dream. When the papers were 
finally signed amid light-hearted laughter, 
T sacrificially attached my name beside 
Flying, Thunder s as a witness, and spoke 
10 word. I heard Elaine praise Flying 
Thunder, taking his greenish-red hand in 
both of hers, heard CaswelPs offer to pay 
him munificently for his night s work, and 
saw him wave the money majestically 
aside. Then, in a moment, heavy with 
sadness yet infinitely sweet, her jewel 
eyes were raised to me, and her hand 
rested warm in mine. 

"Harry," she said, "you must come 
and see us when we get settled on the 
ranch. There ll be saddle-horses in the 
corral, trout in the creek, and poetry in 



or splinter of the sudden love that had 
transfixed my heart during oar wild night 
ride had touched hers. She looked up 
at me with the clear eyes of a sister, and 
I vowed she should never know that for 
one mad, glorious hour I had thought of 
her in the other, sweeter way. I could 
not speak a word, though. My lips were 
sealed, but they were not utterly inca 
pacitated. Tenderly, reverently, though 
a little too far to one side in the agita 
tion of the moment, I kissed the bride. 
Then, with the primordial Flying Thun 
der, I went out into the dim dawn, back 
to the dreary daily round, to the Bad 
Lands, and Prof, and the Megacerops ro- 
biistus. 



Europe at Work 

BY WHITING WILLIAMS 

II. FRANCE YESTERDAY S HABIT TO-DAY S HOPE 

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 




S mayor of this village, 
I was the first into the 
town after the boches 
left my wife was here 
in their hands." So 
the keeper of the little 
bar-room assured me 
when I stopped in to 
rest on my walk back into Lens from the 
suburban mine where I had tried to get a 
job. "It is not possible to describe it. 
Nothing but winding paths across the 
dusty wastes of fallen bricks fallen 
bricks that once were the little homes of 
my neighbors and myself." 

Whether one should cry or swear or 
merely roll up his sleeves and go to the 
work of rebuilding that has been the 
problem there at Lens, as also pretty 
much throughout all France. 

Unlike the city which suffered years of 
bombardment, the mines were destroyed 
as a part of a definite programme to de 
stroy enemy industry both during and 
after the war. 

Shaft No. 13, for instance, bore the 
name of the company s founder, M. Elie 
Remaux. A man well over seventy, he 
was taken when the town was captured in 
the fall of 1914. One morning he was in 
vited to attend a ceremony at his beloved 
shaft. Naturally he had to accept. With 
all the dignity of his white hairs and a 
life of achievement as the organizer of 
France s most successful coal company, 
he stood in the midst of his captors at a 
safe distance from the huge and handsome 
tipple and outworks. Then while the 
crowd about him grinned, an officer 
touched a button. With an earth-shaking 
roar, the hundreds of pounds of high 
explosive which had been distributed 
throughout the buildings and machinery 
threw them high into the air to fall in ten 
million pieces before the eyes of the aged 
and unhappy prisoner. In the same way 
320 



other tons of "h. e." reduced the splendid 
steel surface structures of all the neigh 
borhood s forty shafts to nothing but 
heart-breaking thickets of twisted, crum 
pled girders and mangled plates of boilers 
upturned at every angle as though in 
mute appeal for mercy. 

To let the water into every one of the 
square miles of the dark galleries below 
ground required very little powder. 
Throughout the district the pits are inter 
connecting and all are beneath the level 
of the numerous subterranean streams. 
No shaft is sunk in the Lens locality with 
out first freezing the ground at this level 
and then lining the shaft with iron cais 
sons so as to keep the water from pour 
ing in. One explosion at this level was 
enough. 

I saw a sort of blackboard on which 
some officer had put down with calm ex 
actness the figures showing the metres and 
centimetres of height to which the water 
had attained on each inspection date. 
Month by month the level had risen satis 
factorily. Finally came the last notation 
with a sort of "O. K.," as if the inspector 
had been happy to finish the job. The 
water had filled every one of the pits up 
to the level of the surface ! 

"One pump has been working since 
November, 1920. It raises 180,000 cubic 
metres or tons of water every twenty-four 
hours, holidays and Sundays unceas 
ingly. We are installing others of the 
same type as rapidly as they can be se 
cured. With them all going and with 
each raising its quota of 180,000 tons we 
shall not get all the water out until the 
end of 1923 !" 

A real problem has been to find enough 
natural channels to carry off this volume. 
I wondered why it might not be used for 
irrigation. I learned why when I went 
down into the upper levels which had 
been pumped into a slimy dryness. I 




The hospital at Lens before the war. 



was also consoled for my failure to get a 
job working in them. The invaders had 
made of the mines, during the four years, 
the cesspool of the army ! In many cases, 
too, the bodies of horses and of enemy 
dead had been thrown in. The resultant 
collection of gases, in addition to those 
carried by the naturally sulphurous water, 
made even visiting the pits dangerous. 
The same careful programme was ap 



plied to the entire occupied district of 
France. The details are given in a rive- 
hundred-page report sent during the war 
to every Chamber of Commerce and every 
economic and commercial organization in 
Germany " For the purpose of giving all 
a view of the results which will probably 
follow for us after the destruction of cer 
tain branches of the industry of our en 
emies." Prepared in February, 1916, by 




The hospital and streets of Lens after its years of bombardment on the front line. 
VOL. LXXL 21 



321 



322 



EUROPE AT WORK 



two hundred scientists and economic ex 
perts, it gave minute information as to 
the exact extent to which each industry 
had been destroyed and the resultant 
number of years and months in which it 
would give no competition in world mar 
kets. Also as to the exact kind of ma 
chines which had been destroyed and 
which would, therefore, be desired by 
France for the reconstruction. It ex- 



trenches. " With the money given us by 
the government in expectation of reim 
bursement by Germany we are rebuild 
ing as rapidly as possible and with the 
newest and most modern equipment 
throughout. Luckily our American blast 
furnaces, installed just before hostilities, 
managed somehow to escape serious 
harm." 

The report also helps make plain why 




Laborers from all over the world arc cleaning up the bricks of Lens and laving the rails. 



pressed the hope thai following this lip 
exactly these particular types would hap 
pen to be on the market when the war 
was over ! It took care to state, also, 
whether this or that particular industry 
was damaged mainly by the ordinary 
mishaps of war or by the far-sighted eco 
nomic mandates of ihe government. 

Incidentally this document with the 
help of a sight of Lens and other ruined 
cities suggests why the particular sum 
total of reparations required of the van 
quished invader happened to be arrived 
at. 

"A total of more than three thousand 
shells of various calibers exploded within 
our gates," according to the superinten 
dent of a plant close to the front-line 



the attack came through Belgium. Three- 
fourths of the country s normal coal pro 
duction of forty million tons lay in the 
region under or near invasion. Three- 
fourths of this three-fourths, or more than 
one-half of all, was, throughout four 
years, in enemy possession. Nine-tenths 
of the tolal iron production and consider 
ably more than one-half of its steel was 
in the same hands from August, 1914, to 
November, 1918. 

The marvel of the war is that France 
could somehow continue to fight. It is as 
if we here in America were forced to re 
pel an invader who held New England 
and the State of Pennsylvania ! 

What mystic source of energy and in 
spiration enabled industrial France not 



EUROPE AT WORK 



323 



only to "carry on" but also to meet vic 
toriously the crucial strains of the war 
under these amazing conditions? 

The answer appears to me to have been 
suggested in our first article. France s 
strength lies in the effectiveness of that 
long-established "habit habit and cus 
tom, m sieu ," and the training it has 
given the French people in the art of ac 
complishing much with little. 



that has been characteristic of the French 
temperament for a long time. Thanks to 
this, the French worker, the French farm 
er, and the French shopkeeper also his 
wife are able, under apparently any and 
all conditions, to show themselves well 
nourished and well groomed in body, 
alert and contented in mind, and active 
in spirit active though conservative. 
The same holds true, also, for the French 




Already the new tipples and outworks for the shafts are rising above the ruins caused not by bombardment 

but by the laying of high explosive by the invaders. 



"In most of our mines we make great 
use of compressed-air pumps," the en 
gineer explained down in one of the upper 
levels of the mine from which about one 
hundred tons were being got out in place 
of the three thousand tons daily in pre 
war times. " As you see, these pumps are 
very small. To help them we French are 
famous for giving them grease. Imagine, 
m sieu , for three years it was here in the 
water, yet now, as you see, it is doing its 
work as good-heartedly as ever. We 
French are trained to watch the little 
things and to help them when we can, is 
it not so?" 

The habit of making things go and 
go comfortably on a narrow margin- 



employer at least it has held true up till 
Armistice Day, 1918. 

"This plant, messieurs, has served us 
and served us well for seventy-five 
years," an employer explained proudly to 
a group of visiting steel men from another 
country as they stood in the midst of an 
extremely tumbled-down plant. One of 
the visitors was not able to deny himself 
the pleasure of inquiring: 

"How long do you think it would take 
to tear it down and build yourself and 
your workers a proper one?" 

For the employer, as for all the others, 
the margin of profit has been a narrow 
one as compared with America. The 
chief reason is to be found fn French 



324 



EUROPE AT WORK 



geography and geology and the compara 
tive meagreness of the raw materials they 
furnish. 

Take the matter of coal, for instance. 
Down in the old industrial centre of St. 
Etienne there are some rather limited 



connection with the notice I had read up 
outside just before taking the "cage" 
down: 

"In view of the explosion resulting in 
forty deaths a few weeks ago in a mine 
a few miles from here, every worker is 



are some 

seams with the surprising width of thirty begged to exercise the utmost care, etc., 

or fifty feet. In the larger fields of the etc." 

north, however, I saw hundreds of men The necessity of earning either wages or 

working in seams not thicker than eigh- profits under the restrictions of such con 



ditions leads, I sub 
mit, to that "pro 
tective behavior" 
which tries always to 
soften the sharp 
edges of a narrow en 
vironment with the 
padded gloves of 
"habitude." And 
such conditions typ 
ify the general state 
of France s material 
and industrial equip 
ment throughout the 
period which has 
seen the blossoming 
of the world s indus 
trialism since, say, 
1870. Such condi 
tions have not 
favored France s 
being more than a 
fairly dim light in 
the industrial firma 
ment. Such condi 
tions have favored 
France s adaptation 

level of timbers to another until finally we to her environment with the help of cor- 
were ready to work where the coal fell ner-cutting but comfort-securing thrift 
away from our picks down the rough and conservatism. 

chute of planks into the darkness below, a With the loss of the iron ore of Alsace- 
distance of seventy-five feet ! Just above Lorraine just as it was becoming most im- 
our heads were the planks of a chute into portant, came also the spiritual blow. Its 
which the coal fell from men above us an- "repercussions," as the French say, have 
other thirty or forty feet ! Their lights been carried into every field of the na- 
through the timber cracks kept making tional life by all those born into what is 
me think that I was looking into the attic called the "generation of defeat." As 



teen inches ! An 
American operator 
would at least leave 
them till later if he 
did not ruin them 
getting at thicker 
deposits beneath. 
To increase the dif 
ficulty, these little 
veins have often 
been so disarranged 
by nature that they 
are not only on an 
extreme incline but 
also turned upside 
down! Sliding down 
the seam on its roof 
lying on your own 
back is like de 
scending a glacier. 
One day I worked in 
a seam less than 
three feet wide 
which stood exactly 
on its end, vertically. 
We had to make our 
way up from one 




The comparatively slight unemployment in France 

is indicated by the number of women still 

employed above ground by the mines. 



with individuals so with nations; un 
ceasingly the mainspring desire to enjoy 
one s self-respect and the approval of 
some group causes the testing of this or 
that sector of its " Western Front " in the 

my companion s sweaty back three effort to find finally the right spot for 
feet away also so potentially explosive making the "break-through" into the 
that my mind kept running on to the dif- longed-for satisfaction and recognition, 
ficulty of hanging my lamp securely, in So when France was divested of the raw 



of a house lighted by the outside day 
above until I recalled that between us 
and "outside" was the continuation of 
the seam and rock for a full 1,800 feet! 
The dust was so thick that I could hardly 
see 




These girls and boys push the cars of coal from the top of the hoist onto the screens, where it is distributed 

into the cars for shipment. 



materials necessary to achievement in 
the sector of practical or commercial real 
ism, she inevitably made an effort to 
leave at that point of the line a minimum 
of energies while she directed the full re 
serves of her aspirations against some 
point of lesser opposition and restriction. 
The resultant attainments in the sector 
of the aesthetic and the ideal have helped 
to establish the national conservatism of 
habitude by giving it, as it were, a spiritual 
flavor and justification. 

Thus has been achieved a high degree 
of comfort, contentment, and all-round 
enrichment of life in spite of what we 
Americans would think a very limited 
amount of either economic or social op 
portunity. As always, also whether 
with individuals or nations the con 
scious recognition of the restriction of 
Opportunity serves to call out increased 
pressure in the sector of Security. Will 
you "hold fast what I give thee"? It 
depends on how easy it is to get something 
else. 

As one sign of the French emphasis on 
security, take the attitude toward the 
business man. If he does not play safe 
and avoid all possible risk, he is likely to 



be looked upon as a speculative climber. 
His good citizenship is hardly accepted at 
face value because his future, in the nature 
of the case, is highly uncertain. He is 
evidently a little careless in this highly 
important matter of "holding fast." On 
the other hand, the functionary who pos 
sesses a federal job at one-fifth the com 
mercial risk-taker s present earnings- 
has a solid social prestige which nothing 
can break. The reason is that nothing 
short of scandal can cause him to "let 

go"! 

Throughout the life of France the 
thought of the future s security stands in 
line ahead of the present s opportunity 
and makes it wait just as at the town 
post-office you must not rush to buy your 
special delivery or registry stamp until 
vour neighbors have handed over to the 
clerk the monthly instalment that builds 
up the pension or "retreat" for their old 
age. Checks are slightly used in France, 
so it is the post-office which gives the 
crowds of citizens that in America would 
be transacting business at the ordinary 
bank. The government itself, like all the 
rest of the country, must depend upon 
that same narrow margin of resources to 

325 



326 EUROPE AT WORK 

maintain its army and its navy for the According to one paper s morning 
desired the indispensable maximum of "novelette," the father reported financial 
national security. More than a few misfortunes just as his son married a 
French private businesses are loath to stylish young girl. For years, accord- 
make too good a showing, for fear the ingly, the young couple worked almost 
government might think seriously about double shift in order to lend the father 
taking them over as an additional source money. Under the strain the young hus- 
of national revenue. The result of all this, band finally broke down and died. On 
in turn, is further to lessen the human op- the way back from the funeral, the old 
portunities of business by lessening both gentleman spoke to his daughter-in-law 
the scope and the efficiency of the coun- as they sat in the carriage with the father- 
try s commercial facilities. less grandson: 

Last year, in spite of France s extreme "The little fellow will never need to 

shortage of funds, the state-operated tele- want both your future and his are well 

phone system showed a deficit of two assured. Yes, it is so I can tell you 

hundred and twenty million francs ! To now. You see, all that I have said about 

this should be added another three- my trouble was untrue. It was only in 

quarters or a full billion of francs lost in order to make sure that you two young- 

the way of profit which might have been sters with all your spirits and am- 

gained by the business men of France if bitions should not live so extravagantly 

they could have used an efficient service, that the cupboard would be left bare for 

Whereas America has one telephone for my grandson here and his future" ! 

every eight inhabitants, young and old, The mingled feelings of the poor widow 

France comes far down toward the bot- may be imagined yet several of my 

torn of the list with only one and that an French friends have said, that the story, 

unsatisfactory one for every one hun- while exaggerated, is true, after all, to the 

dred and forty-three ! underlying French emphasis. 

The billion and a half or so of francs "You see I could not marry that is, 

needed for improving the equipment will marry well a woman of family until I 

probably have to wait a long time in view had made my career in business. I had 

of that earlier mentioned antipathy to wait till I was thirty-five. Only then 

against direct taxation felt by the French had my business become an established 

citizen in general and the French farmer and secure success," was the way a busi- 

in particular. ness man put the same problem of gaining 

Contributions indirects is the label both economic and social certainty, 

borne by the packages of tobacco and The English-speaking stenographer I 

cigarettes for which the citizen pays to finally succeeded in finding in Brussels 

the government monopoly two or three for a little copying gave another angle on 

times their usual price in near-by coun- the same thing: 

tries. Some of the tobacco provided is "Before the war I was engaged to a 
hardly calculated to inspire patriotism, young relative. But the war and the 
When the same plan of indirect taxation invasion completely ruined my family, 
puts a forty-centime stamp upon every My father died in the ruins of our home 
large advertising poster, the result would near the front ! So my fiance has had 
seem to be a still further lessening of to marry another girl because his father 
business opportunity and, therefore, a needs her dot her money. His son 
still further emphasis upon security, and I are still in love but I shall never 
Consistent with it all, too, is the marked see him again. No, he could not marry 
tendency of the comparatively few cap- me. He is twenty-five years old but 
tains of industry to pass the executive marrying me meant quitting his father, 
management of their businesses on down and this he could not do. That would 
to the son or nephew instead of to some have meant too much risk for his future- 
more capable executive who might prove, and ours. I will probably have to marry 
in the long run, perhaps, decidedly more a young man of little means whom my 
beneficial to both the business and the mother has picked out." (Business of 
family. wiping tears from the wryest of faces !) 



EUROPE AT WORK 



327 



So the institution of marriage, like 
many others in French life up to 1918, 
at least has had to throw up its hands 
and surrender before the insistent de 
mands for social and economic security 
as made upon it by the public opinion of a 
people long organized on a narrow-mar 
gined economy. Under the circumstances 
wife and husband cannot afford to risk 
their futures simply for the privilege of 



his work comparatively little of the en 
ergy which the American would put into 
developing the full possibilities of his 
business. Where the first is able to find 
little chance for the satisfactions of over 
coming obstacles and solving problems, 
the other sees the opportunity that chal 
lenges his entire physical, mental, and 
spiritual capacities. The one s future is 
already made, the other s waits. The one 




Husky steel-makers and their active Bessemer "converter" in a north France steel plant where 
more than 3,000 shells were delivered by the enemy. 



being in love with each other. If one of 
them has social position and the other has 
money, that is enough. The result is 
likely to be the "mariage a quatre." That 
leaves both husband and wife free with 
the help of two outside friends and a cer 
tain amount of discretion to maintain 
a secure and respectable domestic es 
tablishment without being too much 
bored with each other. Under such cir 
cumstances the position of the husband 
is decidedly different from that, say, of a 
young American business man. As a 
federal functionary with a b fehold on his 
highly honorable position and married to 
a comfortable income, he need expend on 



will, therefore, be interested in finding 
some new and challenging sector in which 
to obtain the satisfactions of fresh vic 
tories. The other will have found it. 
Something like that appears to me to be 
the origin of the art seen so generally in 
French life the art of philandering. It 
is a development in the field of morals out 
of that same national narrowness of ma 
terial resources and economic opportu 
nities. 

In much the same way I found here in 
America that among the laborers the nar 
rowness of opportunity for self-expres 
sion and achievement on the job caused 
an increased interest in the possibilities 



328 



EUROPE AT WORK 



for them offered in the field of sex rela 
tionships. Among the French working 
men, naturally, marriages are not ar 
ranged upon the basis of economic se 
curity. But even there the problem of 
morals is complicated by the social per 
missions and approvals which make en 
tirely commonplace a bit of gossip re 
garding the highest government officials 
and their mistresses. 

All these social concomitants of eco 
nomic conservatism undoubtedly help to 
create France s most serious problem 
namely, the narrowness of the margin be 
tween the births and deaths of her popu 
lation. In one morning paper I noticed a 
list of the families which had received a 
gold medal for the number of children. 
The list was too long for counting the 
total exactly. I found, however, that it 
contained 136 lines, each line averaging 
sixteen and five-tenths children. A total 
of 2,234! And that was for only two of 
France s eighty-odd departments ! Re 
cently many groups of employers have 
united with the government in not only 
aiding the mother in connection with the 
birth of children but in adding a family 
supplement to the wages of familied 
workers according to the number of chil 



dren. My mason friend at the boarding- 
house was naturally quite unhappy that 
in the building industry the supplement 
had not yet come to him and his seven 
youngsters ! 

All of these characteristics appear to me 
to be those of a people well into, if not 
past, maturity placed there partly be 
cause of the centuries of history in which 
there has been comparatively little for 
eign blood put into the French veins and 
partly because the originally limited nat 
ural resources had by war and use 
been reduced to a state which counselled 
the conservatism and contentments the 
statics of middle age. Such a diagnosis 
serves also to explain the French attitude 
toward certain matters in which we see 
sex but in which old people everywhere 
see nothing but physiology. Likewise it 
explains the surprising width of the gap 
between the French workers and their 
employers, the " bourgeoisie," in a demo 
cratic country. This, in turn, is largely 
accountable for those extremist philoso 
phies among otherwise conservative work 
men. To carry across the gap the efforts 
at class betterment must have a maximum 
of power and "punch" in order to ac 
complish the same result that can be ob- 




These little gleaners in the fields near Lens are typical of the thrifty spirit of France also of the hopeful 
ness of the new generation now in possession of a wider-margined France. 




No one who has seen the combination of demoralized actuality and devoted aspiration pictured at ruined 
but reviving Lens can be anything but optimistic about France s future." 



tained here in America by a much less 
aggressive programme. Class lines are 
generally the result rather than the cause 
of limitation of opportunity. They can 
not harden where changes from one level 
to the other are so frequent that they are 
shown powerless to restrain the spirit of 
individual achievement. 

But all this applies only to the France 
that this generation has known the 
France of the miner s unceasing and un 
tiring pick-strokes made possible by dec 
ades of "habit habit and custom." 

And that France is gone. The war has 
erased it. In its place is the France that 
stands upon an entirely different plat 
form of material equipment the France 
of hope. 

"All during the war we Frenchwomen 
lived here at Lens as in a prison always 
our houses falling in upon us. Once for 
six days and six nights the bombardment 
lasted. B-r-r-r bang! bang! always 
like that. With our hands over our ears 
we hid in our cellars. But we smiled, too. 
When this is finished/ we said, they will 



be here, our husbands, our brothers, our 
sons ! Finally it stopped. We brushed 
off the dust and waited. But they did not 
come ! No, they did not come ! Then we 
said to each other : Up till now we have 
always hoped, but now we will never 
hope again, no, we will never hope 
again! Yet there is my husband, he 
that plays the bass viol there. So one 
should always hope and keep hoping; is 
it not so?" 

A half-dozen thoughtful-looking French 
citizens gathered together after the day s 
work of rebuilding Lens, practising with 
their fiddles in one of the one-story 
wooden barracks built among the wreck 
age these struck me as typical of the 
spirit of Lens and of all present-day 
France. 

" When our mines here are opened up 
again we shall make enormous quan 
tities of coke and by-products. In ad 
dition, we shall send our by-product gas 
for lighting and heating Lille and other 
northern cities. Besides supplying elec 
trical current for the canal here, at Lens, 
we shall also send it, at a pressure of 

3 2 9 



330 EUROPE AT WORK 

120,000 volts, to users of power as far day stand in her way or help her to fulfil 

distant as Paris." -the hopes of to-day and to-morrow? 

The sight of the hopefulness of ruined "Yes, with us habit is strong and 

Lens makes it easy to believe the report even with our horses," a fellow miner was 

of the government that of France s de- recounting as we walked back to the 

stroyed factories, employing twenty men boarding-house together. "When we had 

or more, well over 75 per cent have al- our last strike here some months ago they 

ready been restored. took the horses up out of the pits. One 

"Right there, m sieu , I used to see the of them had for years hauled out its cars 

dead soldiers lying line upon line just to the parting (switch) six times each 

like those sheaves of wheat there ! Since day and six times only. The first day 

then it has been dangerous to farm, and also every day after, Mister Horse 

for many shells explode treacherously, yes, m sieu , it is quite true as I tell you 

Nevertheless, the wheat is beautiful, is refused to make more than six trips with 

it not ? " the plough across the field. Another had 

Meanwhile there appears only a mini- each day pulled a car fifty metres and 

mum of such grumbling as that of the then turned around for another. And 

citizens of one town who wrote the mayor they could not make him go farther than 

that unless the roofs of the tiny shacks fifty metres without giving him a chance 

were mended they would have to sleep to turn around!" 

the whole winter with umbrellas over Nothing means more to the workers of 

their beds! France than the answer to our question: 

Such a spirit makes it easy to be even Can France, for instance, expand her 
more hopeful than the two judgments so ideas of business so as to build up an in 
frequently encountered: ternational selling organization which will 

"We French are mortally wounded be able successfully to sell this new and 

we can never recover !" sudden volume of twelve or thirteen mil- 

" France is badly wounded we can- lion tons of steel ? On the answer to that 

not come back to normalcy within fifty question may depend the length of time 

years!" to be spent in France by the present 

Yes, France will "come back." Her thousands of laborers from the Algerian 
time-tried habit of persistent effort and and Moroccan colonies and from Poland, 
unceasing capacity for doing much with Italy, Spain, and elsewhere. It is con- 
little this can be trusted to carry on ceivable that, as many of the French 
until by its sheer momentum it satisfies themselves think, the selling of this great 
its hope. output will drift into the hands of the 

But the real question is this: Will Belgians, Germans, or British who have 

France be able to take the greatly en- long been organized for effective world- 

larged position in the industrial and com- wide selling. Certainly France is seri- 

mercial world which her present post-war ously handicapped by her lack of experi- 

supply of raw materials now offers her ? ence in international finance, such as has 

In the whole field of European and, in- always proved so helpful to the British 

deed, of world industry the most outstand- salesmen. Within the past few months 

ing fact is this: by returning Alsace-Lor- one of the few French financial enter- 

raine, the war has so increased France s prises of international proportions the 

supplies of iron ore that she now stands Industrial Bank of China has suffered 

next to the United States as a potential disaster. 

producer of the world s steel. France is It is, of course, probable that produc- 
now the "Iron Queen of Europe." In tion will remain in French hands whether 
addition, she now has the great potash the selling does or not. Her habits of 
deposits of the same provinces and, last thrift in the use of fuel, for instance, are 
but not least, the coal of the Saar. helping to the spread of her furnaces in 
Will these new riches enable her to be- this country. The results, nevertheless, 
come a first-rate instead of a fourth-rate of subordination to promotion by out- 
industrial power ? Will those long-estab- siders would not fail to be felt in various 
lished, close-margined habits of yester- subtle and indirect ways by the working 



EUROPE AT WORK 



331 



men of France. In both fields success will 
require a serious and a steady adaptation 
of the traditional French spirit to one 
more favorable to operation upon the 
basis of large scale and of inevitable 
risk. 

"The war and the suddenly increased 
earning powers of our working women 
brought and established firmly in all 
classes the movies, silk stockings, and 



question: " If the war did not change these 
people so very much, what is there in the 
world that can?" 

A real difficulty in the path of com 
mercial expansion is the French news 
paper. The most successful of the metro 
politan dailies carry only four pages. Of 
the two pages left free of advertisements, 
several columns are devoted to some 
short story. There remains only fifteen 




On all sides the farmers are rebuilding. 



perfumery," according to a noted ob 
server. "The peace can hardly provide 
any difficulties which we cannot master." 
By many it was believed that the influx 
of soldiers from not only America but 
Canada and Australasia would suffice 
to turn the French attitude in favor of 
greater freedom between the sexes. In 
the manufacturing towns I saw signs of 
this in the street dancing of the public 
concerts given by the municipal bands. 
In general, however, the expected revolu 
tion in this connection has hardly hap 
pened. Perhaps it is too soon. The 
pendulum may swing again back from 
the present conservative reaction. Nev 
ertheless, in France as in other parts of 
Europe, one finds often upon his lips the 



or sixteen columns of news regarding 
France and the entire world. 

" That is because the French are not in 
terested in actuality. They care less for 
the event than for its interpretation. Af 
ter reading about the happening in five or 
six lines to-day, they wait until to-morrow 
when some famous deputy or noted citi 
zen will tell its meaning, especially its 
meaning to France." 

That is one observer s explanation. 
Here is another: 

"We French business men do not yet 
believe in advertising. You see adver 
tising means risk. When we get business 
we make sure first to hold onto it before 
we take risk to get more. Our friends, too, 
are likely to say: What has gone wrong 




"Besides supplying electrical current for the canal here at Lens, we shall also send it, at a pressure of 
120,000 volts, to the users of power as far distant as Paris." Page 329. 



with Henri ? Do you notice that he is ad 
vertising? 

Take your choice. In any event, the 
papers are forced either to a minimum of 
space or a maximum of subsidy at the 
hands mainly of the government. When 
this last happens, it strengthens the cir 
culation figures of the radical papers 
which the workers can feel are honest even 
though extreme. In any case, those fif 
teen columns are sure to increase for 
France the difficulty of her relations with 
the outside world. One cause of Britain s 
success as a salesman and purveyor in the 
world s markets is undoubtedly to be 
found in the amazingly varied news and 
comment carried by her newspapers re 
garding the commercial and political situ 
ation of the entire world. 

Ever since the war France has been 
worried with the fear that the French lan 
guage might give over some of its prestige 
as the language of world affairs and diplo 
macy to English. Along with that is the 
fear as to the maintenance of France s in 
tellectual and scsthetic prestige among 
the nations. Her newspapers seem to me 
largely to have justified those fears; they 
provide for the eyes of the French citizen 
the same limitation as that provided by 
the cotton so generally seen in the French 
332 



working men s ears. In addition, the thin 
ness of the morning daily is perhaps a 
cause of the surprising importance given 
by French citizens, and especially French 
working men, to the spoken word with 
the result that the most successful labor 
leaders are likely to be not so much the 
best planners and strategists as the most 
forceful orators. It remains to be seen 
whether the newest of French unions, 
the " Brain Trust," or Federation of In 
tellectual Workers, including for the 
most part writers, will thus play into 
the hands of the talkers rather than the 
thinkers. 

In peoples as in individuals no trait is a 
mere "happen-stance." Each is part of 
a consistent whole. But the backbone 
that yesterday held a consistent France 
together is gone now that raw materials 
are there in plenty. The French people 
are far from lazy and far from inept in the 
fullest possible utilization of all its re 
sources. It has demonstrated that it can 
hang on to a spiritual ideal when any na 
tion of a different training might have 
given up. No one who has seen the com 
bination of demoralized actuality and de 
voted aspiration pictured at ruined but 
reviving Lens can be anything but op 
timistic about France s ability to meet its 



EUROPE AT WORK 



333 



newest possibilities and fulfil them. It is try and commerce to an extent unequalled 
only necessary for her friends or her en- by any other nation. We have found that 
emies to be patient. She has been sorely spirit in business because we have had to 
wounded and sorely wearied. She has not find it somewhere and we have not been 
yet recovered from the shell-shock of her interested to look anywhere else. The 
testing at the very centre of the world s French have found it outside of business 
worst wrenching. The idealists who went because they did not care to find any- 
through the war are perhaps spend- thing in business except what was neces- 
ing too much time endeavoring to de- sary to existence. It would be immensely 
termine with exactness whether France s helpful to the world s peace if the " gen- 
wounds are to be called mortal, chronic, eration of the victory" in France could 
or merely temporary. Meanwhile, in the avail to combine the practical and the 
young men born too late to see full ser- ideal in a new and higher species of 
vice at the front there is appearing the business technic. That might go far not 
" generation of the victory." Instead of only toward solving the labor problem but 
devoting themselves to cinching the also toward avoiding the warlike spirit 
honorable and permanent honorable among the nations a spirit which can 
because permanent position of a federal be fostered even during naval holidays 
functionary, they are insisting upon going by the knife-points of cutthroat competi- 
into business. That is causing trouble in tion. 
the families, but it will be the families that 
will give way and not the youths. For it 
is they who have on their side all the 



thrust of France s future. 



In all this, however, one thing is to be 
remembered. Without this one thing, 
nothing in post-war France can be 
understood. Present-day France like 
There is a real possibility that these pretty much all Europe has always to 
young men will give to the factory of- plan her immediate future under a sky in 
fice and the banking-room exactly that which she sees upon her eastern horizon 
touch of idealism and spiritual beauty a cloud the size of a man s hand a hand 
which business so much needs. It is this which France believes is a clinched fist, 
that we Americans have put into indus- About that in our next article. 

[The third article by Whiting Williams on " Europe at Work will appear in the April number.] 




Most of the cities of France lucky enough to be near a river have these public washeries. 



is"- 8 

i^V " * V i 5J < * ^ 

fij l i p 




This was the winter hogan; . . . built of logs and plastered with mud. Page 335. 



A Day with a Navaho Shepherd 



BY W. R. LEIGH 



ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR 



H 



^> 

fi 



E was not very big to 
be the guardian spirit 
of a herd of three 
hundred and thirty-six 
goats and sheep, with 
only the aid of two 
mongrel dogs and a 
pinto burro. 
In fact, he was only about seven years 
old (his parents were not sure whether it 
was seven or eight corn-crops since his 
advent) and not big for his age. 

Neither did he seem in the least as if 
he might by any chance be capable of 
such serious work, for in the wild, rugged 
reaches of the Painted Desert, where his 
home was, there were difficulties and 
dangers to be reckoned with. 

Doubtless his work accounted for a 
quaint seriousness in his bearing; seldom 

334 



betraying the child," he was like a tiny 
little man, with a businesslike way of at 
tending to duties, and forgetting no part 
of them. 

His nearest approach to play consisted 
in practising lasso-throwing with a piece 
of clothes-line; the burro who was minus 
all of one ear, and half the other, the 
same having been amputated as punish 
ment for breaking into the corn-field- 
was too easy. His mother scolded and 
threw things, and his ten-year-old sister 
had no sense of humor. Also the baby 
was as much out of the question as was 
his grave and austere father, Hosteen 
Naeshja (Mr. Owl). Of course the goats 
and sheep and the dogs were all right, but 
the brindle cat who was minus half of 
each ear and part of his tail from frost 
bite called for real skill. 



A DAY WITH A NAVAHO SHEPHERD 



335 



The hogan stood in the midst of a 
sage-covered, treeless waste, dominated 
by Navaho Mountain, the original home, 
from which, according to Navaho tradi 
tion, the race had sprung. Near by a 
low sandstone up-cropping constituted 
the reason for the selection of the site; 
its undulating surfaces, all seamed and 
grooved by eons of erosion, held deep 
pockets, some of which retained rain 
water for long periods. 

At the edge of this formation a corn 
field, enclosed within a rude fence made 
of cedar and pinon logs and limbs, sup 
plied as well squashes and melons. 

Besides the hogan, there was a sun- 
shed, under which Madam Naeshja had 
her loom, and made excellent blankets. 
Also, very near, for better protection 
against coyotes, was the corral, likewise 
constructed of pinon and cedar logs and 
limbs, which had been brought from long 
distances with great labor. 

This was the winter hogan; for al 
though it was early in September, the 



nights were growing cold and there would 
soon be frost. The winter hogan was 
built of logs and plastered with mud; the 




"\ * 

A 






He was not very big to be the guardian spirit of 

a herd of three hundred and thirty-six 

goats and sheep. Page 334. 



The burro who was minus all of one car, 
and half the other. Page 334. 



summer hogan, on the opposite side of 
the sandstone ridge, was made of loose 
brush only. 

In the chill, gray light of dawn when 
Hosteen Naeshja emerged from his house 
followed by his son,-Natsilid (Rainbow), 
they were the only things astir save the 
darting and diving bats, and a bird away 
off somewhere who sang a glorious song 
that was never heard except at dawn. 

The father, with a nicked and battered 
axe, reduced a cedar log with difficulty, 
and the shivering lad started a fire. 
Next the mother, carrying green corn in 
a gunny sack, came from the hogan, fol 
lowed by her ten-year-old daughter car 
rying the baby. 

The mother thrust ears of corn in the 
shuck into the coals, and all the family 
huddled about the fire, for all were 
lightly clad. Even the baby squeezed in 
between the rest with commendable en 
terprise, and dug his toes luxuriously into 
the heated sand. 

Soon the odor of roasting corn began 
to permeate the air, the dogs uncurled 
and sat up, the cat crept out from under 
the wood-pile, and the burro woke up; 
he directed his soulful eyes toward the 
source of the fragrance and indulged in a 
heart-stirring salutation, whereupon the 
bird, as if despairing in face of such com 
petition, ceased abruptly his warbling. 



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Surrounding the water were many sheep, goats, . . . and cattle. Page 338. 



Meanwhile, in the midst of a wall of 
delicate lavender on the eastern horizon, 
a dot of ardent red appeared; above the 
wall a fan-shaped saffron radiance spread, 
across which a thin wisp of dazzling gold 
was hung. 

The red dot rapidly developed into a 
disk of living carmine, which presently 
336 



climbed up and, peeping suddenly over 
the lavender wall, shot long rose-gold 
shafts of horizontal light through the 
opalescent air, painting the top of each 
gnarled sage-bush, each aged and weath 
ered rock, each wrinkle in the sand, with 
a splash of glory. 
The humble hogan was clothed with 



A DAY WITH A NAVAHO SHEPHERD 



337 



magnificence, and the old bent bucket, 
turned upside down and sitting ridic 
ulously tilted on its top, gleamed like a 
golden crown. The searching rays lit up 
the interior of the hut, entering through 
the door, which was built, as are all ho- 
gans, facing the rising sun. 

The lambs and kids in the corral walked 
up the sloping timbers of the fence, until 
many of them stood poised on the top 
most rails, as if the better to view the 
gleaming orb. 

Their mothers and fathers, huddled in 
a dense mass below, blinked up at them 
philosophically, and grunted. 

Around the fire the squatting Indians 
dragged out half-cooked ears of corn, 
which they proceeded to gnaw, the baby 
alone excepted. This member, with ad 
mirable self-protective in 
stinct, set up a lusty 
squall, whereupon the sis 
ter, at a word from the 
mother, seized a tomato- 
can, and the brother his 
clothes-line, and the two 
proceeded to the corral. 

The boy, with a deft 
fling of his rope amid the 
scurrying mass of animals, 
hauled an unruly old 
nanny out of the thick 
dust-cloud, and gripped 
her by the horns. The 
girl proceeded to milk the 
beast; but lest the kid be 
robbed, only a small quan 
tity was taken, and other 
nannies were captured, until the tin can 
was full. 

The burro came to feast on the dis 
carded cobs and shucks, and then, break 
fast over, was conveniently captured. 

The pile of brush closing the entrance 
to the corral being removed, the mixed 
herd streamed out in a long line, the kids 
and lambs performing acrobatic leaps into 
the air and chasing each other in circles. 

By the time the carmine disk had risen 
above the cloud-bank and become a blind 
ing ball of fire the shepherd was mounted 
on the burro, without bridle or saddle, but 
with a stick and his rope and a piece of 
dried goat s-meat in his pocket. 

The dogs at his heels, the burro, with 
a whack on his back as reminder, took 
VOL. LXXL 22 





The grave and 
Hosteen 



Madam Naeshja. 

his place behind the herd, and in this 
order the procession headed for the rough 
country. 

An old pinto nanny wearing a bell led ; 
she nibbled as she moved, 
but moved briskly, and all 
the three hundred and 
thirty-five followers nib 
bled, and stamped to drive 
off the flies, and kept a 
cloud of dust in the air 
which moved with them. 
The bell-nanny did not 
proceed aimlessly; she 
made for the rocky slopes, 
where amid the boulders 
there was good browsing, 
and toward the canyon, 
where the water-hole was. 
To all appearances the 
little shepherd had prac 
tically only to follow, but 
in reality there was always 
danger of a coyote making a try for some 
straggling lamb, or unwary kid, and so, if 
he was not on his burro, he was on some 
vantage-point where he could overlook 
the herd, ready to start the dogs provided 
they did not give the alarm first. The 
dogs chased rabbits and prairie-dogs oc 
casionally, but they knew the chase was 
futile unless the quarry be surprised a 
long way from its burrow. 

By nine o clock the air was all aquiver 
with heat waves, and not a single cloud 
to be seen in the whole vast dome of blue. 
Hawks skimmed over the sage-brush in 
their unending quest for prey; ravens 
prowled about the edges of rock-crags. 
Mingled with the ceaseless bleating of 
the goats and sheep was the chirping of 



austere father, 

Naeshja. 



338 A DAY WITH A NAVAHO SHEPHERD 

prairie-dogs, together with the low hum, was the result. It extended back into a 

made up of the tramping of many small troughlike groove a hundred feet deep, 

feet, the nibbling of many small mouths, gouged out and worn smooth by count- 

and the rustling of dry, unyielding vege- less ages of erosion. Down this trough 

tation. tumbled the water from above, after each 

By ten o clock the herd was moving rain, keeping the pond filled during most 

more rapidly, as thirst increased and the of the season. Surrounding the water 

proximity of the water-hole, magnet-like, were many sheep, goats, burros, horses, 

drew more insistently with each stride of and cattle. Mounted on tough little 

the panting beasts. Weird rock-forms, mustangs, Navahos, with red handker- 

like gargoyles and giant mushrooms chiefs about their heads, silver bracelets 

turned to stone, or fluted like the pipes of and earrings, and belts of silver disks, 

an organ, were passed by as things com- shouted and swung their lariats as they 

monplace and familiar. herded their ponies and steers. Boys and 

The sand stretches were growing in girls, each guarding a band of goats and 

extent; they were only sparsely dotted sheep, ran hither and thither, and dogs 

with dead or dying scrub that, grim and barked. 

naked, looked like the last desperate de- The animals, in their eagerness, rushed 

fenders on the field of a lost battle. Oc- into the water until they were half sub- 

casional defunct cedars sprawled like merged. 

whited skeletons in the fiery heat. Liz- The water was muddy and warm and 

ard and snake trails crisscrossed the pow- full of alkali and salt and countless wig- 

dery sand, together with the tracks of glers, but it was also wet and incompara- 

many nocturnal prowlers; the jack-rabbit bly desirable. For many yards around 

and cotton-tail, the badger, the skunk, the pool every vestige of vegetation had 

and the trade-rat and kangaroo-mouse long since been trampled out of existence, 

all telling their stories to the keen-eyed When the burro had drunk his fill the 

child. boy drew him into a second winding re- 

Presently the bell-nanny disappeared cess in the rocks that grew narrower until 

over the top of a yellow dune, and the it ended in a shallow grotto, at the foot 

whole herd, abandoning further attempts of a wet-weather waterfall. Here was a 

to snatch a mouthful here and there, seep-spring; the water oozes out, drop by 

broke into a run. The burro was urged drop, from the sand-rock. A shallow 

into a trot, and amid a babble of mothers basin had been cut in the rock to receive 

calling to stray progeny and a suffocating the precious liquid and preserve it from 

cloud of dust, the caravan plunged down contamination by the animals. 

the long, steep incline, where drifting It was cool in the cove, and around the 

sand at this point made descent into a little pool formed by the overflow from 

canyon possible. In the bottom, and de- the basin desert plants bloomed. A 

scending tortuous trails on the opposite humming-bird darted dow T n and hung sus- 

side of the ravine, other herds were seen pended before first one and then another 

approaching the water-hole. A break- flower. After a few moments the boy 

neck descent of hundreds of feet brought mounted, and began separating his flock 

our herd to a wilderness of hard clay pin- from the rest of the herd. This was gen- 

nacles, freakishly colored in bands of ma- erally an easy task, as the animals know 

roon, ochre, pink, and dove-blue; some their friends and relations and hang nat- 

were sharp-pointed, others capped with urally together; but there are exceptional 

dizzily balanced boulders. cases, and this was one. 

In and out among the pinnacles, along In the herd was a very large and pow- 

narrow ledges, and up and down over erful he-goat, against whom another large 

deep gullies and sharp ridges, the herd buck in another herd had a grudge of long 

bounded and scrambled and slid until, standing. They never met, save occa- 

wheeling into a huge cleft in the rock wall sionally at this water-hole, but this was 

of the canyon, they came suddenly to the one of the times. Why the grudge none 

water. An arroya had been dammed by but the two knew, but a well-developed 

the Navahos, and a pond of some size grudge it evidently was, for the strange 





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The summer hogan, on the opposite side of the sandstone ridge. Page 335. 



buck made a sudden rush without warn 
ing at the shoulder of his enemy, and the 
latter, apparently unaware of the danger, 
seemed doomed to defeat. But a frac 
tion of a second before the blow landed he 
arose on his hind-legs, so that the shoulder 
that the strange buck was aiming at was 
not there to be hit when he arrived. Un 
fortunately for him, however, his own 
neck, just back of the ear, was there, 
when the adversary descended with a 
sharp, snappy blow, like a short-arm 
punch from a pugilist. 

The stranger rolled over and scrambled 
to his feet again covered with dust and 
bristling with rage. All the nannies and 
ewes stood still and stared; the horsemen 
reined up their mounts to watch. 

The stranger, shaking his head, backed 
off for another assault ; his adversary eyed 
him contemptuously ; they had . met be 
fore. When the other started he leaped 
forward to meet him. They met with a 
crash that left one wondering how horns 



and skulls could possibly stand it. The 
big buck dropped to his knees for a mo 
ment, dazed; the stranger flew back sev 
eral yards and landed upside down, half 
stunned, and kicking convulsively in the 
air. 

A great shout of laughter arose from 
the Navahos. The stranger struggled to 
his feet in wabbly fashion, and stood jerk 
ing his head from side to side as if to 
ascertain whether it was still there on 
his shoulders; his enemy could have 
killed him now, but instead he allowed 
him to go his way. 

By this time the fight infection had 
spread and the dogs were snarling and 
snapping at each other, much to the de 
light of the horsemen, who did all in their 
power to urge them on. Confusion re 
sulted; frightened and bewildered lambs 
and kids ran hither and thither, hysteri 
cally calling to mammas, who rushed in 
every direction, wildly calling to off 
spring; the horsemen, who had paused to 



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The lambs and kids in the corral walked up the sloping timbers. Page 337. 



339 



340 



A DAY WITH A NAVAHO SHEPHERD 



watch the fight, had meanwhile neglected 
their herds, and these had promptly 
started off in wrong directions, scattered, 
or mixed with other herds. 

It took much patience and hard work 
before little Natsilid could extricate his 
band from the others and get them 
started up the toilsome sand-slope; when 
the summit was gained at last shade was 
the thing longed for most by man and 
beast. As many of the animals as could 
find room took refuge under the edges of 
a cliff full of deep holes and overhanging 
ledges. 

The boy clambered to a vantage-point 
where he could rest and also see the herd, 
while the dogs crept under sage clumps. 

In the scintillating atmosphere over 
head there was the low yet shrill hum 
of countless insects, whose lightning-like 
flight and microscopic proportions ren 
dered them quite invisible. Swallows 
had built shelf-nests of mud against the 
overarching walls; in a fissure was an 
accumulation of cactus, yucca, and sage, 
cut off and dragged thither by rock-rats. 
The boy munched leisurely at his piece 
of dried meat, watching the while an in 
quisitive little horned toad who climbed 
up his leg and sat on the ragged knee of 
his old blue overall with a comical ex 
pression. 

Suddenly there was a stampede; it 
started with one old ewe and spread in 
an instant, until the whole three hun 
dred and thirty-six animals, in a mad 
plunge, fled like a wave receding in a 
cloud of dusty spray. The dogs were up 
in a flash; the boy leaped to the ground. 
What was it? Nothing unusual was in 
sight; yet there certainly had been some 
reason for the behavior of the herd. 
Perhaps the old ewe had been startled by 
the shadow of a passing eagle; perhaps a 
cliff-squirrel had frightened her. Or pos 
sibly she had caught a glimpse of a bob 
cat, or coyote, or who could tell a wolf, 
even a cougar, might have been skulking 
along the brink of the precipice; it was 
improbable, yet within the range of pos 
sibilities. The animals, after halting, 
showed no disposition to return; that 
looked suspicious; it was the part of pru 
dence to quit the place immediately. 

The caravan, with its cloud of dust, 
moved off into the open country and 



came to an arroya, whose clay walls af 
forded narrow strips of shade here and 
there. 

By three o clock the withering heat had 
sucked so much moisture from the pant 
ing beasts that another trip to a water- 
hole was imperative. But this time the 
shepherd headed his flock for a different 
hole; it was a huge expanse of flat rock 
where there were several deep pockets. 

This place was reached after passing 
through a strip of pinon forest, and ne 
cessitated passing by an old deserted ho- 
gan; this was a chindi (evil) hogan. A 
man had died in it long ago, of a dire 
and mysterious spell put upon him by a 
secret enemy. The boy had often heard 
his grandfather relate the story in graphic 
language, while the family huddled about 
the fire in the centre of the hogan on 
stormy winter nights. The unsteady 
light accentuated and distorted the nar 
rator s gnarly features, and as the huge 
black shadows of the group swayed back 
and forth on the rough background of the 
hogan walls, in response to the wavering 
of the flames, they seemed to the enkin 
dled imagination of the child like uncoutli 
spirits that bobbed and dodged with 
grotesque glee as the story progressed. 
And as the wind moaned and howled 
without he fancied the sprites and fiends 
were howling and gnashing their teeth. 
And the powdery snow, drifting silently 
in through crannies beside his bed, sug 
gested ghostly fingers reaching reaching 
toward him. 

In the daytime he dared to pass the 
chindi hogan, at some distance, with 
bated breath and nerves aquiver. It 
looked so ominously still, so terribly dead; 
where the mud had been weathered off 
the naked and rotting timbers resembled 
bleaching ribs and vertebras of some mon 
strous beast; the very weeds that choked 
the gaping and ruinous doorway had 
something uncanny and sinister about 
them; nowhere else did weeds grow so 
rankly. 

Even after the hogan had been passed 
he still cast backward glances, as if half 
expecting to see some demon emerge 
through the hole where part of the roof 
had caved in. 

There were no extra pockets or ruts in 
the rocks, save those the animals drank 



A DAY WITH A NAVAHO SHEPHERD 



341 



from, so the boy had to drop on his 
stomach and drink with them; this was 
one reason why the place was not resorted 
to more than it was. 

The rocks ended at their farther edge 
as the brink of Piute Canyon; three thou 
sand feet below, on the floor of the great 
gash, the extensive corn-field of the Piutes 
stretched along either side of the central 
stream, and the hogans dotted about ap- 





ers, eating a lunch of crackers and canned 
tomatoes. 

Tales of battles between Piutes and 
Navahos, of treacherous ambushes and 
murders done in lone places, of thefts of 
cattle and horses, and women and chil 
dren. Stories of how these Piutes fre 
quently killed their own offspring to avoid 
the trouble of rearing them, of how they 
stole children from neighbors to make 




But lest the kid be robbed, only a small quantity was taken. Page 337. 



peared no bigger than peas. Here and 
there little wisps of dust were visible, 
and tiny brown and white specks that 
moved; they were herds of cattle and 
horses. 

In the afternoon sunlight, one wall a 
series of huge broken purple shadows, the 
other a succession of rose-pink buttresses, 
split and gashed and carved into a thou 
sand ornate spires and knobs, the canyon 
wound off into the blue distance like 
some fabulously stupendous varicolored 
serpent sprawling across the landscape. 

The child looked down upon this scene 
with awe and apprehension; many were 
the tales he had heard, when with his 
father he had visited the trading-store to 
barter hides and wool for groceries, and 
they had sat on the ground in the shade 
of the building, with the assembled loiter- 



slaves of them. Anecdotes of how these 
slaves were bought and sold, or killed, as 
the master saw fit, of how they labored 
incessantly and starved perpetually. 

And the child knew full well that these 
were -no idle gossip tales, for he had seen 
the scars of terrible wounds, and the fear 
and hatred and the deadly earnest in the 
faces of the narrators, and he had heard 
his father tell of his own experiences. 
And so, as soon as the animals had drunk 
their fill, he started them back through 
the pinon forest toward the open coun 
try. A great owl began hooting as he re- 
passed the chindi hogan, and a sudden 
terror gripped the heart of the little boy; 
but no demons came out of the ruin, and 
no Piute marauders dashed after him 
through the woods, and in spite of his 
fears he saw that the burro and the dogs 



342 v BURIAL BITTERNESS 

and the entire herd proceeded calmly and With the first glimpse of the hogan 
leisurely along the trail. the burro pricked up his half ear and 
The shadows lengthened gradually, voiced his joy in accents doubtless de- 
and the old bell-nanny led the nibbling lightful to himself, whereupon Hosteen 
hosts slowly but surely ever nearer Naeshja paused in his work of chopping 
home; a jack-rabbit loped across their wood with which to cook a goat s-meat 
course, and the dogs chased it a little stew for supper, and shading his eyes 
way; a rattlesnake caused a slight stir, contemplated the returning caravan, 
until it disappeared in its hole; two Nav- And as the animals filed obediently into 
ahos chasing a wild horse dashed through the corral and the ten-year-old sister 
their midst and scattered the herd, but aided in closing the entrance, the fam- 
they soon reassembled. ished dogs hastened to gather up such 
As evening drew near, the bull-bats, scraps as the preparation of the meal had 
high in the zenith, swooped and dived resulted in scattering. The brindle cat 
with bellowing sound; Navaho Mountain snarled and hissed at the intrusion, and 
was bathed in a lavender and gold-dust the dogs growled and bristled up their 
radiance; the distant buttes, which had backs and the frightened baby squalled, 
been a bleached monotonous white all whereupon Madam Naeshja adjusted the 
day, now shimmered with a magical, rose- difficulty with a well-aimed stick of wood, 
lilac lustre, like the walls of some poet s Supper was announced ready by lifting 
palace in dreamland. the pot off the fire. As the family squat- 
Always before sundown the herd had ted in a circle once more, as the bats be- 
to be within the corral, and this, from gan their quest for insect prey again and 
long habit, the animals knew quite as beetles hummed by in clumsy flight, the 
well as the shepherd, so that by common fiery ball descended and touched the 
consent all wended consistently in and western edge of the world, and the full 
out of the gullies and over the boulder- round moon rose in the east, a shield of 
strewn ridges, nibbling at a brisk but even wondrous salmon-pink in a field of opal 
pace homeward. and pearl. 



Burial Bitterness 

BY GERARD WALLOP 

I LAID you down and did not close your eyes; 
In the long grass I put no mantle o er you, 
Nor hid your death from the unblenching skies.- 
They and the lark were all who ever saw you. 

At dark we made the careless earth your sheet; 
Four stars from the black girdle of the night 
Were hung aloof to triumph or defeat, 
Your vaulted chamber s guardian taper light. 

When you stood out across the midnight seas, 
In bitterness I did not shed one tear, 
Only I thought God slept with labored ease, 
And mumbled in his dreams with troubled fear. 



The Wind Witch 



BY JOHN BIGGS, JR. 

Author of "Corkran of the Clamstretch" 
ILLUSTRATION BY STANLEY M. ARTHURS 




[TTLE LOVE LANE 

possesses innumerable 
countenances, and I 
think that I have 
never seen it twice the 
same. It is a short 
street, but broad 
broad enough to 
cover most human experience. The Lane 
touches the Delaware River at Deepwater 
Point, and is the single way of the tiny 
fishing village of Vinelopen. In the face 
of the grim reaches of water before it and 
the terrible whip of the Delaware tide at 
its feet, its name, Little Love, seems 
ironic. 

Vinelopen at its greatest never con 
tained more than two hundred persons, 
but these were diverse. There were 
Italians (heavy-figured, swart, little men, 
but veritable kings of fishery); Sicilians 
(quick of movement, dangerous, vivid); 
there were Flemings, Greeks, even cock 
ney English, and a few families of more 
strict American parentage ; but fishermen 
all. 

For three months of the year, those of 
winter, the village stands deserted, but 
as the mating shad begin to run the river 
in the spring, Little Love Lane returns to 
life. The shacks receive their occupants; 
small fishing yawls and sloops are pulled 
from the winter racks. Patched yellow 
sails, once white, are spread to slim 
masts, and at dawn some cold spring 
morning a fleet sets down the river to 
spread its nets in the broad jaws of the 
Capes. Dusk brings them slowly beating 
back again. Cargoes of fish, wet, glisten 
ing, still struggling, are dumped upon the 
wharf. The women, stripped to petti 
coats and blouses, approach the haul and 
aid the men in clearing the holds of the 
vessels. The scene that follows is nause 
ous. Like veritable mulla-muggars they 
scrape and scale, and as the dusk deepens 



fires are lighted, so that the toiling bodies, 
silhouetted against the smoke and glare, 
seem to be taking part in some rite of 
unclean sacrifice. Raucous laughter and 
high-pitched cries add to this semblance. 

The unloading ends, however. The 
larger fish are taken in baskets, which 
slowly drip water, to waiting trucks for 
the Wilmington and Philadelphia mar 
kets. Then from the wharf come the 
workers, their hands and forearms black 
ened and odorous, bits of shining fish 
scale clinging to their clothes and skin. 
A period of quiet follows, and thereafter 
the Lane comes into its own. Groups 
gather before the^ shacks; old Rudelotto, 
the village headman, struts down the 
street. Comes the rollicking note of a 
melodeon, piercing the gossip of the vil 
lage crones. There is the shuffle of feet 
in a fiery dance, love-making in the shad 
ows, an occasional dangerous fight, 
laughter, singing, sudden passion, peace, 
but always the Lane seems to follow the 
river in its moods, a reflection in perplex 
ing life of the surging tides. 

Beyond the Lane the land rises. The 
lean soil, mixed earth and sand, changes 
to heavy loam, and there ensues a series 
of great fields, which throughout the 
spring and summer are emblazoned with 
flowers. These fields run to a small 
graveyard of the time of the Revolution, 
which, in turn, meets the gardens of a 
country estate. 

Carmen d Asisse lived in the first 
shack, as you count from the river, in 
Little Love Lane. She possessed a father 
and mother and a herd of younger broth 
ers and sisters. These latter defied all 
counting, and I have always believed that 
they had been born by battalions. Mother 
d Asisse was a slow-moving, heavy-footed 
dwarf of a woman, dull to soddeness. 
Carmen, however, was vastly different, 
and in her the diluted Sicilian strain 

343 



344 THE WIND WITCH 

seemed to have purified itself and was Their talk was never of love, but of the 
running again in hot, fresh blood. She river surging at their feet, of the blue line 
was passionate, languorous, self-willed, at of the distant Jersey shore, of the infinite 
times incredibly audacious. Her temper variety and strange ports of the vessels 
was a thing to marvel at and remember, that passed before them. Of this mul- 
She went from slow, indolent smiles to titude of ships Andrew spun stories, 
flaming, dangerous rage, and throughout Here would come a British tramp, stolid 
her ran a strange mixture of arrogance and respectable; next a dingy, rat-hold- 
and humility, which rendered her, in the ing "square rig," manned by Chinese, re- 
alternate, intolerably cruel or perplex- calling coolie smuggling and the opium 
ingly gentle. trade. Now a ghostly fruit steamer would 

At nineteen she was unmarried, and appear; painted white, she seems to be 

for a Sicilian girl this requires explana- the embodiment of long, dazzling days 

tion. To marry Carmen it would have spent in the swell of the Southern Pacific, 

been necessary to subdue her arrogance Next would come a destroyer, moving 

and yet have won her gentleness. No down-stream like the drifting wind. Its 

man had been capable of all of this, but of high bow is like the hood of a cobra. It is 

her suitors, two were favored, one of her gray as the water, villainous as war itself, 

kindness, one of her ardor. and as effective as the death it carries. 

The first of these was of the same age Silently it passes. 

as herself, the son of the gardener of the But when the yellow sails of the fishing 
estate that joined the fields of Little Love yawls had appeared upon the river, Car- 
Lane. He was a quiet boy, a shadow be- men would bid young Andrew good-by, 
side her vividness. Highly imaginative, and the boy would wander slowly home 
he possessed a natural talent for speech, through the fields, blindly yearning, fear- 
An untutored poet was hidden within his ing for her because of her passion and im- 
gangling frame. By station he was petuosity, wishing that he might draw 
slightly above Carmen d Asisse, and his daring to his spirit and herculean strength 
father, old Andrew, the gardener, re- to his body, whereby he might attract and 
garded his son s affection with raging in- hold her. He was stricken beyond relief, 
tolerance and disgust. but always was he amazed that she would 

Carmen dominated the boy ; he followed not accept his rival. 

her in adoration, and this though she was This was a young Italian, the son of 

lacking in any quality of exalted spiritu- Rudelotto, the headman, whose shack, 

ality. His thoughts were constantly of the largest in the village, was directly 

her, though he knew that he did not pos- opposite that of the d Asisses . Joseph 

sess the qualities of manliness that could Rudelotto and Carmen had grown up to- 

win her. From the first he was hopeless, gether, and, following the Sicilian cus- 

but he never gave up hope. This was not torn, had been betrothed at an early age. 

determination, but a far deeper, less con- The families of both many times had at- 

scious instinct. Carmen pitied him, and tempted to thrust them into marriage, 

treated him more kindly than any other Joe had been intensely willing; Carmen 

man. had flatly refused. 

In the late afternoon, before the home- "I don want him," she said . "I don 

bound fishing fleet was sighted, the two want no man." There the matter had 

would meet upon the high banks above ended. 

the river, and, lying in the yellow grass, In the evening, when the work of the 

would talk. Rather young Andrew talked Lane was finished, Joe would go to the 

and Carmen listened, and herein was d Asisse shack, and, from under the 

irony, for I think that she never fully un- beaming and hopeful eyes of Mother 

derstood a thing that he said. Moreover, d Asisse, would take Carmen for a walk, 

the boy realized this. He talked because The two would go down the Lane amid 

it was his sole means of holding her in- clucking tongues, and through the open 

terest, a substitute for the animal mag- fields until they reached the graveyard, 

netism to which he knew she would even- The spot always selected by Joe for the 

tually succumb. tale of his love was so ridiculous as to 



THE WIND WITCH 



345 



touch the sublime. It was a high- 
mounded grave, flanked by a quaint 
stone, the time-worn surface of which was 
cut with a cherub s head. This cherub 
wore a diminutive, fluted, seventeenth- 
century wig, proving paradise abreast of 
fashion. Beneath the cherub was the 
chill and perfect inscription: "Mr. George 
Henry, Son of Mr. William Henry, De 
ceased July Fourteenth, 1775 " a formal, 
heavenly calling-card, which its owner 
might have carried to heaven in his two 
hands and have presented at the gate 
with the words: "Peter, tell the other 
saints I m here." 

This formal Whig grave was the re 
cipient of outpourings of fisherman s love. 
Joe s passion was primitive, abysmal, of 
startling silences and volcanic utterances, 
of sudden clinchings, generally rebuffed, 
of strange posturings and great gestures, 
the heroic futility of which even he real 
ized. One would have expected the very 
gravestones to have melted before the 
heat of this onslaught, but to him Car 
men always returned the same answer: 

"I don want you now an I won t 
never." 

Rage and hate would then sweep him. 
He would alternately plead and threaten, 
but never could he cause her to fear him. 
She greeted his most desperate actions 
with laughter. 

After watching the unfavorable prog 
ress of this affair for many weeks, Mother 
d Asisse, taking counsel of her husband 
and urged on by old Rudelotto, decided 
upon extreme measures. She therefore 
killed two of her best fowls and took them 
at dusk to the hut of Goodwin s Dotey. 
She laid them upon the sill, and, having 
knocked at the door, retreated in terror a 
little distance into the dusk. 

Goodwin s Dotey was a woman who 
surpassed the imagination. She was with 
out explanation, without circumstance. 
Her very name was a mystery; what it 
meant or how it had been fastened upon 
her, no one could say. Her origin was 
unknown, and no inhabitant of the Lane 
could tell for how long she had lived upon 
the river. 

Her appearance was fantastic. She was 
a tall woman, slight, frail, always in 
finitely drooping. Her hair was like fine 
drawn silver wire, tarnished and filthy, 



and the face beneath was delicate, but 
very worn and dirty. The fingers of her 
hands were like long whisps of grayish 
bone, seemingly without flesh or skin, and 
she always carried her left arm across her 
breast, the hand gripping the shoulder- 
blade, absurdly as if she held herself to 
gether. Her age could not have been 
guessed, though she seemed weighed 
down with painful years. 

Her speech and enunciation \vere ex 
cellent for short periods, like those of a 
person gently bred. At other times she 
spoke with slurred letters and vulgar 
idioms. Always, however, her speech 
was foul, and she was the most blasphe 
mous person upon the face of earth. Such 
torrential sacrilege as she uttered would 
cause her hearers to look to see her sucked 
into the earth before their eyes ; yet upon 
her was a smothered gentility that noth 
ing might eradicate. 

By the villagers she was believed to be 
a witch. They hated and immeasurably 
feared her, for she was thought to be mis 
tress of the river winds and to control the 
tides. From this she had gained the name 
of the Wind Witch. Her stock in trade, 
however, was the dispensing of love-lo 
tions, maledictions, that the accursed 
might wither and die, and various cures 
for human and animal ills. In these she 
showed monstrous avarice, extracting 
from her customers every cent that she 
might hope to gain. Her hut had once 
been near the village, but there she had 
been stoned, and had removed to a greater 
distance, where she shivered in fear at the 
approach of a crowd. 

Mother d Asisse waited in trepidation 
for her oracle to make its pleasure known. 
At length the door of the hut slowly 
opened, and Goodwin s Dotey peered 
forth. For an instant she glanced swiftly 
about her, and then seeing that mother 
d Asisse was alone, stepped forth snarl 



ing. 



Hell s sister!" she shrieked, seeing 
the two chickens. "Didja want me to 
work fer two rup-eyed sparrers!" She 
seized the chickens by their limp necks, 
and, having tenderly felt them, flung 
them behind her into the hut, where they 
fell with a soft flop to the floor. 

Mother d Asisse smirked and bobbed 
politely. 



346 



THE WIND WITCH 



"My Carmen and Rudelotto s Joe- 
she began, but was interrupted. 

"Hell and futility!" screamed Good 
win s Dotey. "Of course they ll marry. 
Leave em be. Leave em be ! " She 
slammed the door shut, and Mother 
d Asisse, distinctly heartened, was left 
alone in the darkness. 

She padded back to the village, and 
told the news to Carmen, who received it 
with a scornful grimace. Nevertheless 
the report went swiftly through the vil 
lage, where, like all dicta of the Wind 
Witch, it was received as fact. 

"Carmen s goin t marry Rudelotto s 
Joe Goodwin s Dotey says so ! " passed 
from the lips of one crone to the next, 
until even Joseph Rudelotto had heard 
the report. He seemed to doubt its 
truth, however. 

The month passed and still the expec 
tant village waited. Old Rudelotto, who 
had made himself headman by reason of 
calm brutality and barbarous temper, his 
quick pride touched by the continual re 
fusal of his son by Carmen d Asisse, de 
sired to place himself at the head of a 
party of fishermen to force Goodwin s 
Dotey to fulfil her prophecy. He was 
deterred in this only by his fears for the 
safety of the fleet. 

Joe, under the stares of his neighbors 
now more than ever gawking and curi 
ous, became sullen. His love had been 
hawked broadcast before, but never had 
it received such publishing as this. He 
was very tired. He desired, though un 
successfully, to forget his hopeless pas 
sion, and this he made plain to his father 
in an unexpected manner. 

The Rudelottos had been at supper. 
The old headman sat at the end of the 
table, within easy reaching distance of 
the stove, and conveyed bread with mixed 
macaroni to his mouth with both hands 
and a precision that was automatic. In 
the midst of a prodigious mouthful, he 
spoke as follows: 

" So she will not marry thee, eh ! that 
Carmen. . . . And thou art a man with 
two hands and cannot take her ! And 
Goodwin s Dotey ! For why is she a 
witch, if she will no work ! But I show 
her ! I show her ! " He made a gesture as 
if he were stretching a neck. " Eeeh !" 

This last was a squeal of astonishment, 



for his son had dashed the pot of maca 
roni upon the floor, and had rushed out 
into the Lane. 

Thereafter Joe s walks with Carmen 
ceased. He avoided her and was shunned 
in turn. 

This simulated indifference was ap 
parently without effect upon Carmen. 
This was not true, however, and her moth 
er s rasping comment drove her to vol 
canic rage. Young Andrew was first to 
note the gradual change in her. Little by 
little she became moody, distrait, seem 
ingly a prey to her own conflicting emo 
tions. She would sit for hours upon the 
river bank, and gaze with level, unwink 
ing eyes at the distant line of shore. At 
such times young Andrew was afraid to 
speak. 

She began to subject the boy to strange 
tyrannies of temper, which gradually 
grew worse. Yet he felt that this rage 
was not meant for him, but for Rudelotto, 
upon whom she was unable to vent it. 
Miserable before, he was now unspeak 
ably so. 

He saw that when the sails of the fish 
ing fleet appeared far down the river, she 
would watch their approach with breath 
less interest. Therefore, one day, he 
spoke that which was plain to his eyes. 

"You love Joe Rudelotto," he said 
gently. "I can see that." 

"I don !" began Carmen passionately, 
springing to her feet. " I hate him! 
Hate him ! Oh ! " She stopped with a 
gasp, and, seizing Andrew in an embrace 
that might have crushed a man, she 
kissed him. Then she ran down the bank. 

The boy went blindly through the dusk 
toward his home, and was met at the gate 
by his father. 

"You ain t comin in this house again," 
said the old Scotchman bitterly. "Day 
on day you ve been layin up with that 
huzzy on th high bank. Don t y come 
back here til yer cleansed !" 

Young Andrew returned to the vil 
lage and asked Joseph Rudelotto for 
work. The Italian, naturally kind- 
hearted, granted it, and thus Andrew 
went to work upon the river and on the 
sloop of the Rudelottos, the largest of 
the fleet. 

The long roll of the ground-swell, the 
smell of oil, the gasping fish, sickened 



THE WIND WITCH 347 

him. He burned his hands until the before. The water is close-packed with 

blood ran from his palms the first time he glimmering, white bodies, 

attempted to set a stake rope. It seemed By the invariable custom of Little Love 

as though he might do nothing correctly. Lane the night before the dawn upon 

Yet, as he persisted in the arduous work, which the men of the village depart to net 

Joseph Rudelotto aided him, protected their portion of this final school is given 

him from the headman s wrath, and in over to a great dance. Many days are 

time began to regard him with affection, spent in preparing for this event. It is 

This the boy returned. the climactic point of the labors of Lit- 

The fishing year had been an unusually tie Love Lane. For it mothers bedeck 

prosperous one, and Little Love Lane their daughters with great care, hoping 

came into unaccustomed luxuries. Chief that at this time they will get themselves 

among these was a vast quantity of fiery husbands, and for this purpose many 

Bacardi rum for the fisherman, when young girls come to visit relatives in the 

possible, is an exquisite in his vices village. 

smuggled into the village from Jamaica Thus came Vachelo Campinini some 

returning vessels by old Rudelotto, in days before the solstice to the shack of 

anticipation of the spring equinox, now old Rudelotto, whose niece she was. 

nearly at hand. Vachelo was a tiny girl of infinite capa- 

The equinox marked an event of great bilities for trouble-making; nor could the 

importance to the village. The first run ablest psychologist have told whether 

of shad usually occurs about the last of this was intentional or not. At times one 

March, and this is a thrilling thing to thought her animated by a small demon 

watch. From a high point upon the of perversity and inconsistency. She was 

shore, if the day be clear, one sees the as light as thistledown, and as easily 

gray water, furrowed with myriads of blown about by her own mental gusts, 

tiny indentations, as if small knives were She seemed to dance before men s eyes, 

cutting the smooth surface. The area, always intangible, always elusive, always 

thus marked, is startlingly definite, and delicately flirtatious, 

moves with invincible rapidity up the In her treatment of Joseph Rudelotto, 

stream. If a steamer intercepts it, it whom she ardently desired, she proved 

parts, but joins again upon the further her consummate skill. At the very first, 

side. Steadily, irresistibly it moves on. as was necessary, she delicately tempered 

Its speed is greater than a man can run. her methods to his mood. Whereas Car- 

Behind this first area come others and men had compelled, she led. She showed 

still others, stretching farther back than herself tender-hearted, confiding, subtly 

the eye can reach. Each area comprises consoling. She made plain in some soft 

many thousands of shad bound for the feminine manner, as intangible as air, 

up-stream spawning grounds. and without a word that might have 

Throughout the spring and early sum- driven him to her rival s defense, that she 
mer the runs continue. School upon considered Carmen because of her hard- 
school of shad pass up the river, and from heartedness and lack of discrimination, as 
these the fishermen reap harvest, but as something less than a woman. In this 
the weather begins to grow hot the runs she touched his vanity, which sorely 
decrease in size and number. Whole needed awakening, and brought it to her 
days will pass without a school being aid. 
sighted; the season is nearly done. As a coy fish answers to the fly that is 

At about the time of the solstice, how- held just beyond the reach of his leap, so 

ever, as if the invading legions which responded Rudelotto; at first, with a lazy, 

have already passed into shallow water almost scornful indifference; at the last, 

were calling desperately for reinforce- with a whole-hearted, rushing voracity, 

ments, comes a final run, which surpasses Great was the honor of the little fisher- 

in size any of the others. This run is of ten man, for she took care to parade her 

so large as to seem to draw every fish from catch before the entire village, and in 

the deep. The leaping stragglers press particular before Mother d Asisse. 

upon the backs of those which have gone The latter, when she spoke of this to 



348 



THE WIND WITCH 



Carmen, lapsed into tearful and whining 
incoherency. The scene that followed 
drove the d Asisse family into the street. 
So fearful was Carmen s rage that veri 
table madness seemed to have taken pos 
session of her. 

At dusk that evening, when at last she 
emerged from the shack, there was flung 
at her out of the darkness the barbed 
taunt: "Carmen s goin t marry Rude- 
lotto s Joe Goodwin s Dotey says so!" 

Carmen had sprung forward to tear her 
tormentor to pieces, but the woman had 
vanished, and from this time on the girl 
was never able to appear upon the Lane 
without a sibilant, half-concealed ripple 
of laughter at her heels. 

The day of the solstice dawned with a 
faint, blue haze hanging low over the 
water of the Delaware, a certain presage- 
ment of very hot weather. Gradually 
this fog was pulled against the shore by 
the outgoing tide, where it was dispersed 
by the morning sun in rolling billows like 
steam. One would have said that the 
river was on fire and was burning to its 
banks. 

As the day advanced the earth seemed 
to be held in the mouth of a caldron. 
Radiations of heat danced over the crests 
of the fields. The dust lay very hot and 
still upon the roads. The sun, that eve 
ning, set in a copper sky, unstreaked by 
any cloud, and the river seemed molten 
gold beneath the slanting rays. 

A little after dusk there arrived at the 
Lane a messenger with the news that the 
expected run of shad had been sighted 
within the Capes. 

That which followed was inflexible pro 
cedure, hallowed by custom. Old Rude- 
lotto, like a bronzed and bearded triton, 
appeared before his shack with a large 
horn. This he blew again and again. 
The bellowing notes echoed through the 
village. There followed the sound of 
running feet as the people gathered. 

To them old Rudelotto made a speech 
which, without the change of a word, he 
had used for years. 

"Th shad, he come ! We pray, amen ! 
I bring da rum !" 

As ants about a sugar lump, so swarmed 
the villagers about the casks. The first 
drink, as of right, went to the old head 
man. 



"Uuumm!" shouted the old fisher 
man as the fiery liquid regurgitated down 
his bull-like throat. " Good drink ! By 
damn!" 

A great fire was lighted, which flamed 
straight up toward the torrid sky. The 
flickering light threw the shacks into high 
relief against the dark background of 
field, tinging them with red, seeming to 
glide and linger over the angles of roof 
and beam. 

The drinking went forward swiftly. 
The first cask was finished, and another 
and still another was broached. The 
merriment of the crowd increased. Men 
and women jostled each other in the lines 
before the casks, and passed comment 
upon those who were so fortunate as to 
precede them. 

"Oh, mother, an offer!" shouted a 
burly fisherman to an ancient beldame, 
who, lingering at the bung-hole, drank far 
more than her share. "An offer to thy 
marvellous mouth. Thou shalt drink the 
rising tide, and so keep the water level !" 

"Shh, children," said the old woman, 
rolling her head upon her shoulders, as 
the last fiery drops bit upon her palate. 
"This is not drinking. Come to me at 
midnight, and you shall see me drain nine 
casks at a sip !" 

It was very late when a cask was 
broached at the wharf s edge and the 
dancing began. 

There was no breath of wind. So calm 
was the river that the tracery of piling 
beneath the wharf seemed embedded in 
some solid substance of dense opaques. 
Only the soft hiss of the outgoing tide, as 
it swept along the timbers, showed that 
the water was in motion. Upon the outer 
edge of the wharf pressed the bows of the 
fishing-boats, their slim masts jutting up 
like the spears of an invading army. 

Against this background the villagers 
arranged themselves. A sort of chorus 
was formed, which stamped feet in time 
to the music, clapped hands, shouted, 
adjured the dancers to wilder exertions. 

In the centre of the open space formed 
between these ranks were the musicians, 
three fiddlers. The leader performed his 
duties of direction by prodigious contor 
tions of his face and body, since he could 
not lift his hands from his instrument. 

About the musicians moved the danc- 



THE WIND WITCH 349 

ers. The music was slow at first, allur- fusion. Faster and faster grew the move- 
ing, languorous, softly caressing; yet ment, engulfing individuals in a dashing 
through it ran a note of fire, a scarlet pool of bodies, throwing out a crest of 
skein, drawn by the wailing of the violins, whirling arms like spray, and through 
To it the dancers turned, touched hands, which the dresses of the women flashed in 
and turned again. The steps were taken iridescent froth. 

with a slow, poised grace, a ripple of Very suddenly, at that end of the wharf 

movement that went forward and back, nearest the shore, all movement ceased, 

pausing for a balanced instant here and Little by little this strange stillness passed 

there, but ever gliding softly on. It was throughout the crowd. The music ceased ; 

an ancient folk-dance, handed down silence ensued, 

through generations of fisher people. Then the crowd, eager to inspect this 

The light of the distant fire shone upon diversion, pressed toward the dock s end. 

the moving figures, making crimson the There followed the pointing of fingers, the 

dresses of the women, changing silk of clucking of tongues, and a little laughter, 

yellow, scarlet, green, or blue to the color Down the wharf came old Rudelotto, 

of flame. The gleam of fire turned cheeks and he dragged behind him, with her two 

to the blush, caused the crude jewels of a wrists locked in the tight embrace of his 

hair ornament to glitter for an instant great hands, Carmen d Asisse. 

like a falling star, touched the delicate The old headman s face was flushed, 

curves of breast and waist with transitory Across his cheek was a jagged scratch, 

shadow. which still dripped blood. He reeled as 

In the centre of the dancers, upon the he dragged the struggling girl behind him. 

arm of Joseph Rudelotto, was Vachelo. Straight through the crowd he came, 

Dressed in red silk, a tiny dress that the onlookers giving way before him. In 

stopped at her knees, she was like a puff the centre of the wharf, before Joseph 

of scarlet down. Slowly, tantalizingly, Ruselotto and Vachelo, he stopped and 

she danced before her partner, turning released the girl. 

with small stampings of the crimson heels Carmen shivered slightly, as if from 

of her tiny slippers. Rudelotto, fasci- cold; but this passed, and thereafter she 

nated, was unable to lift his eyes from held herself erect, motionless, though 

her face. even the men shrank from the blazing 

His apparent devotion did not pass un- fury of her eyes. Only once during the 

noticed. Comments were freely made to ensuing scene did she speak, and then in a 

the old headman. voice so low, so tense, as to seem the mere 

" The little Vachelo holds him hand and shadow of sound. 

heart !" cried one ancient crone, smirking "A knife !" she begged. "Throw me 

at the headman. " Twill be a handsome a knife ! " 

pair." Old Rudelotto made a gesture of 

Old Rudelotto grunted drunkenly. drunken rage. 

"And what of Carmen?" went on the "Da music!" he shouted, and one of 

woman sententiously. "Has the tide the fiddlers struck up a trembling tune, 

ebbed, and a new tide set in?" "Both arrre here. He shall make choice, 

The headman looked through the now!" And he pushed Carmen forward, 

crowd, but was unable to find the girl. so that she stumbled, almost falling at 

"She hides da head," he said, glower- his son s feet, 

ing. "She is shamed an hides." For an instant Joseph Rudelotto hesi- 

As the hours passed, the fiery rum tated. Then, as if to bring the bitter 

worked more and more upon the brains scene to a close, he took the hand of 

of the villagers. Men danced with men, Vachelo and led her through the first 

jigging like bears. An old woman per- balanced measures of the dance, 

formed a whirling fandango, spinning like Carmen turned and left the wharf. 

a top until she fell exhausted. The spec- Her eyes were hidden by a scarf which she 

tators, a tide which nothing might check had drawn about her, and none could see 

or stay, careened through the figure of the her face. As she passed into darkness 

dance, throwing all into a welter of con- beyond the smoking fires a figure ran 



350 



THE WIND WITCH 



after her, and this was thought by some 
to be young Andrew. It was observed, 
however, that him she stopped and bade 
go back. 

This was an hour before the dawn, and 
at the first faint streakings of light in the 
east the fleet sailed. Those who reported 
upon the actions of Joseph Rudelotto say 
that throughout this hour he was like a 
man stupefied. 

The day that followed has been long 
remembered in the annals of the Lane. 
After the falling of the dawn breeze, 
which carried the fleet far down the river, 
the stifling calm, which had been upon 
land and water throughout the night 
and previous day, returned with re 
doubled heat. The exhausted fisherwives 
dragged themselves past the blackened 
embers of last night s fires to their shacks 
upon the Lane, and thereafter slept as if 
they would never wake again. Through 
out the morning Vinelopen lay as if dead. 

With the afternoon came change. The 
sky, which during the morning had been a 
liquid blue, seemingly so hot that it must 
melt, gradually darkened. Little by little 
and over a period of hours, as if some 
strange ingredient were being stirred into 
heaven s crucible, it became an enven 
omed copper-color. As time passed this 
deepened, until at last the whole rim of 
the sky seemed enclosed in a heavy bowl 
of dull brass, which pressed ever tighter 
upon village and river. 

Now came a slight wind, which seemed 
blown from the mouth of a heated pit. 
It came, and passed, and came again, 
sullen, fitful, of evil transiency. 

Of that morning Carmen d Asisse can 
tell little. She remembers, though dimly, 
the first rays of the rising sun, and that 
from the high bank above the river she 
watched the passing of the fishing fleet. 
Thereafter, crazed, she wandered through 
the fields above the Lane. She could not 
see, and the sounds that came to her ears 
seemed faint and far-away. It was as if 
she moved through a world so blind, so 
dumb, that nothing might penetrate it. 

At times there returned to her a mea 
sure of consciousness. Intolerable pangs of 
rage and shame then tormented her, and 
from the dull pounding of blood in her 
ears words formed themselves which, 
though she attempted to thrust them out 
with her fingers, she needs must hear. 



The first of these was old Rudelotto s 
call upon the dock, his deep, rolling shout 
for music. Immeasurable rage swept her 
at this memory. The second phrase, 
reiterated until it seemed that it must 
wear away her brain, was the village cry: 
"Carmen s goin t marry Rudelotto s 
Joe. . . . Carmen s goin t marry Rude- 
lotto s Joe ! " and this she felt was written 
upon her in blazing letters, the epitome 
of her shamed love. 

Yet, as her strained nerves refused to 
respond further to the stimulus of emo 
tion, out of her pain emerged a fury so 
intense, so poignant, as to render her 
breathless and aching, the fury of re 
venge. And now a certain cold calmness 
came upon her, and, her thoughts at 
rest, she lay down and slept. 

She awoke at dusk and found herself 
upon the river bank. Above her was a 
strange cuprous sky, through which the 
sinking sun shot like a jet of blood. Un- 
noting, straight up the beach she ran to 
where the river whimpered into a little 
cove. At her feet in soft, recurrent tur 
moil moved tidal debris as the water 
swept over it. Logs, there were, like 
bloated saurians, rotting driftwood, and 
here and there a spar beckoning gently 
with the current. 

Beyond lay the tiny hut of Goodwin s 
Dotey, and from its small chimney went 
up a twisting spiral of smoke. 

Carmen went swiftly to the door and 
knocked. For a time there was silence, 
then the soft rustle of garments upon the 
floor. The door slowly opened, and 
Goodwin s Dotey peered forth. 

"Whatja want?" she asked. 

"Mother," said the girl suddenly, "I 
want wind awful wind ! " 

"Fer what?" inquired the -old woman 
harshly, her bright eyes fastening upon 
the girl. 

Carmen did not answer. The old 
woman laughed. 

"I know!" she cried triumphantly. 
"I ve heard. Yer lover s on th fleet. 
... I know him. I know you ! . . . 
Come in!" 

The interior of the hut was like an oven, 
its air so fetid that scarcely could it be 
breathed. On the hearth slumbered a 
fire that cast a path of light across the 
earthen floor. Upon this fire driftwood 
was now thrown, causing it to blaze high. 




"It s done!" cried the old woman. "It s done!" Page 352. 



Quickly the girl looked about her. She 
saw a wooden table in the room s centre 
and upon it an agate bowl, seeming to 
contain herbs, and a jar of water. 

The old woman began to speak in a 
pleading whine. 

.4 

me, 
yer a big 



"V,V*,V*i.l A \\ illilt 

"Now, deary, yer goin t pay 
ain t you? ... I can t make yer a 



wind fer nothin . Tain t right. ... I 
never sold a love-philter or even a wart 
cure fer less than ten dollars. ... A big 
wind s bound t cost. . . . Look at th 
work that goes in it. ... Gimme twenty 
dollars an I ll make y a wind that ll pull 
th water over on th land ! . . . Fer 
twenty dollars ! . . . " 



352 THE WIND WITCH 

"Get on with yer spellin !" cried the movement, cast its contents upon the 

girl wildly. " Get on with it ! I ll give fire, which was instantly blotted out, 

yer everything I ve got ! . . . I ain t goin leaving darkness, and as she did so a 

t wait. . . . Begin it, or gust of wind, the forerunner of the break- 

The old woman moved swiftly to the ing storm, lifted itself like a solid thing 

table, seized the bowl, and, throwing the and swept hissing down the chimney, 

herbs from it, filled it with water from swirling the ashes out upon the floor, 

the pitcher. Then from the drawer of the Through the outside darkness a blue spear 

table she drew a knife. of lightning shivered and passed. The 

With this she slowly scratched a crude ensuing clap of thunder seemed to engulf 

circle upon the earthen floor, and into the the hovel, hurling the old woman to the 

centre of this she drove the knife. Be- floor. Carmen, screaming, rushed from 

side it she placed the bowl of water. Tak- the hut. 

ing the girl by the sleeve, she began to Up the beach she ran, shrieking, sob- 
pull her gently forward. bing, praying to heaven for the safety of 

" Get into the ring," she whispered. Joseph Rudelotto, whom she had wished 

"Get into the ring." to destroy. The storm fought her like- a 

Guided by the pressure, the girl obeyed, maddened animal with talons of wind and 

"To your knees," whispered the old rain. Upon the high bank, disclosed by 

woman. the lightning, which pointed the black- 

With a forefinger like a long gray bone ness like a jabbing finger, she saw gath- 

she began to stir the water in the bowl, ered the village women in small groups 

Gradually the liquid fell to motion, froth- that milled about like cattle. Up the 

ing and foaming against the agate sides, a bank struggled the girl, clutching at bush 

wild, tumultuous little sea. or rock that might keep her from being 

"Water to water," chanted the old swept from its face, and at the top looked 

woman. " River water to river water as out over the river. 

it is, so let it be ! " Her vision was circumscribed by mist, 

The fire was dying fast. Its tongues of gray in the darkness, dashed by the wind 

flame had subsided to small flickerings. against the shore, but far out upon the 

"Now blood to blood, and blood to stream, in a welter of foam and spume, 

water!" chanted the old woman. Her she perceived the broken ranks of the 

voice had the timbre of a small cracked fishing fleet. Rudelotto s sloop was at the 

bell. head of the line, in a white aura of dashing 

She seized the knife from the floor and spray, and far behind it lay the rest of the 

grasped the girl s forefinger. Holding it vessels. So dim was the spectacle, so 

tightly, with a movement of incredible washed by rain and mist, that it seemed 

swiftness, she slit the skin at its tip, and to vanish before her eyes, 

jerking down the knife, lay bare a por- There followed a lull. It was as if the 

tion of the flesh, as one might peel a fruit, storm paused to take breath. The light- 

The girl screamed in agony and fell for- ning for a time ceased ; the rain died away, 

ward, half fainting. The blood spurted There was no sound except the beat of the 

in small, quick jets, forming light-colored surf upon the shore, 

bubbles in the dust. A column of flame towered into the 

The old woman drew the girl s arm, sky, seeming to touch the very rim of 

now limp, toward the bowl and per- heaven. It wriggled upon itself, mounting 

mitted the blood to stream into the water, ever higher, so quickly as to surpass the 

Thin scarlet lines, like the delicate ten- imagination. It was stark, clear white, 

drils of some strange vine, began to flower the white of leprous silver. It seemed a 

in the liquid. These thickened; then, like solid thing, hardened fire. For seconds it 

bursting veins, seemed to cast their con- hung above the girl, stunning her with its 

tents throughout the water, turning it to lambent ferocity. It spread out into the 

pale crimson. open sky, a molten rose-color. Two fiery 

"It s done!" cried the old woman, lips drooped down and sucked it up. It 

" It s done ! " hissed with gigantic sibilancy and was 

With both her hands she lifted the bowl gone. The ensuing thunder-clap shook 

high above her head, and, with a swift the earth. 



THE WIND WITCH 



353 



"Th* sloop s hit!" shrieked one of the 
fisherwomen. "Th* sloop s hit!" 

Upon the middle of the river, smothered 
in the wrack of the storm, a red fire 
glowed and faded out. It reappeared 
larger, a blossom of destruction. Again 
it died down, this time to a pink smould 
ering. 

Carmen flung out her arms to the 
women in a wild appeal for help. 

"Come!" she cried. "To th wharf. 
We go save them! Run! Run!" 

The women s wailing rose above the 
noise of the storm, but none moved to 
ward the river. Upon the nearest, a huge 
creature, the girl rushed and began to 
pull her toward the bank s edge. The 
woman whimpered and covered her face 
with her hands. Carmen struck her a 
stinging blow. 

"Fool!" cried the girl. "Come! 
Come!" 

The woman, cowed, permitted herself 
to be pulled down the bank to the shore 
below. 

The red glow heightened, spreading 
outward and upward. The wind seemed 
not to touch it. It sat upon the water, a 
fiery growth, enhancing itself by drawing 
on its own inward vitals of flame. 

Back upon the beach was a fisherman s 
dory. To it Carmen ran and endeavored 
to break it from the sands. The woman, 
now working as desperately as herself, 
aided her, and together they launched it. 
Grimly they fought their way to the 
burning sloop. The blaze, heightening, 
seemed to arch over them, making the 
sky run molten, hideously incarnadined. 

Closer and closer they drew to the 
hulk, the rising tide pulling it swiftly up 
the river. The fire sprang from the 
timbers, caulked with hemp and pitch, 
long soaked in drip of fish-oil, and this 
tracery of flame was incredibly delicate. 
It was like some finely flowering plant 
that blossomed into dripping red fruit. 
The clusters joined one another, leaping 
to the fabric of rigging, gathering fire as 
they went, rushing back upon them 
selves, ever rushing up, piling at last into 
hot, bellowing flame that seemed to 
sear the clouds. 

From the untouched lee side of the 
sloop was suddenly flung a large box, then 
nets, baled and hung with cork. None of 
VOL. LXXI . 23 



the crew were visible, but as the flame 
sucked down there appeared at the rail 
old Rudelotto, unmoved and untouched 
by the searing torrent behind him. He 
held toward Carmen a small, white kit 
ten. She saw the tiny creature s legs 
move up and down, clutching at the rail. 
Its pink mouth was distended in a sound 
less mewing. Rudelotto seized it by the 
hind legs, and swinging it around his 
head like a strand of rope flung it at her. 
A tiny splash marked the spot where it 
had plunged into the water, and a second 
later it reappeared, swimming strongly, its 
tail erect like a small mast in the waves. 

Old Rudelotto disappeared. A white 
tongue of flame shot out, hissing as it bit 
upon the water. A gradual settling move 
ment took the sloop. 

Upon the rail at the stern shot up a 
man, his arms waving wildly. For an 
instant he balanced and then flung him 
self into the river. Others of the crew 
followed him, springing out from the 
sloop like strange jumping-jacks. Swim 
ming strongly, they clambered into the 
dory, which lurched and slewed under 
their sudden weight. 

Seven men Carmen counted, but as 
yet there was no sign of young Andrew or 
the Rudelottos. Frenzy took possession 
of the girl. 

"Joe!" she screamed. "I m here. 
Jump. Jump! Quick!" 

Again and again she called, but there 
was no answer. 

Then from out of the torrential flame 
walked old Rudelotto as calmly as Abed- 
nego emerging from the blazing furnace. 
He was draped in oilskins and the great 
bulk of his body beneath these indicated 
that he had put on all available clothing, 
for the old headman had a horror of water 
ever touching his skin. Upon the palm 
of his right hand, as a waiter might hold 
a tray, he balanced a large cage contain 
ing a green parakeet, the sloop s mascot, 
which screeched and screamed in rage. As 
if he expected the water to uphold him, 
the old headman walked into the river and 
instantly sank from view, only the tip of 
the parakeet cage remaining above the 
surface. Thereafter he reappeared, mov 
ing toward the boat. His motion was not 
that of a swimmer, but rather of a man 
walking with great vehemence and rapid- 



354 



THE WIND WITCH 



ity. His followers drew him into the 
dory, where he shook himself like a dog. 

" She go-a bang in a jiff !" he bellowed 
genially. "Plum bang to-a hell. . . . 
Ballast take er down. . . . Good-a-bye ! 
Goddamn!" 

Carmen drew herself across the thwarts 
to him. 

"Where s Joe?" she screamed. 
"Where s Joe!" 

The old headman cast a quick glance 
over the men in the boat ; then sprang to 
his feet, the parakeet cage clattering to 
the thwarts. 

"Jo-e-e-ey!" he bellowed toward the 
blazing hulk. " Jo-e-e-ey ! " 

The pillar of flame mushroomed sud 
denly at its top. A streak of bright yel 
low appeared upon its wavering spine. 
The sloop fell to pieces before Carmen s 
eyes. Its deck swirled meltingly down, 
like lines erased from paper. A deep in 
dentation, into which she looked down as 
into a pit, appeared on the face of the 
water. There was a great roar and two 
high white geysers as the bulkheads ex 
ploded far beneath the surface, and this 
noise seemed to precede the strange, deep, 
sucking sound of the river as it drew the 
sloop into its depths. 

Carmen, moaning, clung to the side of 
the dory as it slewed over the crest of a 
giant wave. 

There followed a great cupping sound, 
like the opening and closing of a huge 
mouth, seeming to come from the bed of 
the river. 

"Lookit! Lookit! Lookit !" screamed 
the fisherwoman suddenly. 

Following her pointing finger through 
the darkness, Carmen was able to make 
out the outlines of some object upon the 
water. A faint struggling seemed upon 
it. 

"Joe ! Joe ! " she cried, and dived over 
the edge of the dory. 

Debris was beginning to sweep up from 
the river bottom. In dar^, broad bub 
bles, like bulky sea monsters, objects 
lifted themselves through the surface and 
fell back with strange sounds. A baled 
net, hung with cork, a keg, and finally a 
hatch, shot up, spinning. 

Carmen swam swiftly. As she reached 
the thing she sought and clutched it, the 
watchers beheld her unencumbered right 
hand swing up in a gesture of surprise. 



At that instant, gliding swiftly up through 
the water, arose the sloop s mainmast, 
like a great silver spear. Seemingly it 
impaled her, lifting her and the object of 
her search clear of the water, and the 
headman perceived that this was young 
Andrew, who clutched in his arms the 
unconscious body of Joseph Rudelotto. 
There was no sound other than the hiss 
of the spar as it cut the water. 

The old headman, roaring like an angry 
sea-lion, flung the fishermen from the 
dory into the river. 

"Quick-a they ; sink!" he bellowed, 
and, seizing an oar, began to drive the 
boat forward with great strokes. 

Carmen, dazed by the blow of the spar, 
struggled wildly as the first of the rescu 
ing fishermen attempted to relieve her of 
her burden. They jvere forced to break 
the grip of her hands so that they might 
lift Joe into the boat. Young Andrew was 
next removed from the water, and last of 
all the girl herself. 

The journey to the shore was immeasur 
able in length, though old Rudelotto, his 
son clutched tightly in his arms, drove 
his men to their utmost. Young Andrew 
was silent, and Carmen seemed unaware 
of his very presence. The burly fisher- 
woman, now exhausted, lay upon the 
bottom of the boat and moaned faintly. 

As they neared the shore, where the 
women of the village had gathered, 
Joseph Rudelotto, slowly reviving, called 
for Carmen. 

"I want you now," he said. "An I 
don never want anybody else." 

And old Rudelotto, hearing this, urged 
the boatmen to greater efforts. 

Joseph Rudelotto and Carmen were 
married upon Sunday, for every good 
Sicilian girl desires this to be her wedding- 
day. The festivities were most unusual 
so I am assured by the village crones 
and lasted for over twelve hours. At six 
o clock in the evening old Rudelotto, who 
had drunk beyond even his Gargantuan 
capacity, was carried in state to his 
dwelling. However, before this untoward 
accident occurred he had expressed him 
self as well pleased with the match. 

Several years after the events above 
recorded I called upon Joseph Rudelotto 
and his wife and asked for the where 
abouts of young Andrew. 

Carmen had almost forgotten him. 



The Problem of the Superfluous 

Woman 



BY CAROLINE E. MAcGILL 



T 



HE problem of the 
superfluous woman is 
twofold ; in a sense also 
it is two-edged. It 
must be solved for so 
ciety, and it must be 
solved for the indi 
vidual ; if it is not 
solved for the individual it becomes dan 
gerous for her and she becomes dangerous 
to society. The problem has a pictur 
esque sound; it makes and has made good 
material for the lively journalist, for the 
glib writer upon any and all subjects. 
Like the popular music shows, the name 
rouses anticipations of something "snap- 

py." 

Yet statisticians tell us that it is as old 
as humanity. It is true that for every 
one hundred births of girl infants there 
are one hundred and five boys born, but 
of those belonging to both sexes remain 
ing alive at the end of the first year, there 
are one hundred girls alive to ninety-five 
boys. Moreover, the ratio of survival in 
creases slightly in favor of the girls 
throughout life. Therefore at all age- 
periods there is a more or less decided ex 
cess of females over males. 

Primitive man found this out for him 
self, without the aid of mortality tables 
or adding-machines. He met the problem 
in his own naive fashion, according to 
taste, by drowning the extra babies, 
selling them into slavery, or letting them 
grow and practising polygamy. 

Adequately to discuss any problem, its 
terminology must be definitely estab 
lished. What do "they" mean by the 
"superfluous woman"? From what 
point of view is she "superfluous"? It 
is in a sense odd that the word and the 
point of view which it represents should 
have persisted so far into the twentieth 
century. For it assumes that the only 
use upon this planet for the human female 
is the reproduction of her kind. There is 



no such discussion of the male who for 
any of a hundred more or less private 
reasons remains unwed. He is not grieved 
over and worried about because he is a 
"superfluous man." Yet many of him 
are just as really a menace to the social 
order and very many more of him just 
as really a benefit, even a necessity. 

The war, and its resultant disturbance 
of the normal sex equilibrium, is arousing 
many in this country and abroad, per 
haps especially in England, if one may 
judge by the papers, to much thought 
and pity over the condition of the woman 
who is racially superfluous; in other 
words, the woman whose destined hus 
band lies "somewhere in France." Isaac 
Watts, were he still alive, would be 
tempted to remind them of his famous 
line about Satan and idle hands or 
minds. Doubtless there is a problem of 
the superfluous woman, but it lies in the 
domain of social psychology, not in the 
world of things as they are. 

The fact is that there are many more 
humans born into the world than ever 
can have the opportunity to perpetuate 
their kind, or who ought to. That is a 
general biological fact. It is not confined 
to mankind. It is true of practically 
every species. Many produce millions 
more than are needed every year. Such 
seems to be the way of nature, to produce 
lavishly, and to extinguish individuals 
with nearly equal rapidity. 

If all men and women were able to 
reproduce themselves to the highest ca 
pacity, particularly to-day when the 
checks upon population are so weak, 
there would not long be standing-room 
only, even. It would seem therefore the 
merest commonplace to say that it is for 
the good of society that many both 
men and women will never mate. Here 
we come against several ancient opinions, 
set deep into the inherited stock of the 
race. One is that all men and all women 

355 



356 THE PROBLEM OF THE SUPERFLUOUS WOMAN 

"ought" to marry. Probably this is de- the percentage of those who do falls very 

rived from some paleologic period, for it low. Tattling, even upon oneself, may 

goes counter to experience, and in many be eradicated from the loosest-hinged 

instances to all religious belief. The su- tongue by a sufficiently robust public 

perexaltation of matrimony is Jewish, or opinion. Just at present public opinion 

Chinese, or Greek, or Mohammedan, but is by no means robust, and the tempta- 

Christianity, nominally at least the re- tion to pose in the limelight proportion- 

ligious basis of Europe and America, does ately increased. Probably, though I am 

not teach it. Both Gospels and Paul- not prepared to admit it as a matter of 

ine epistles hold the unwedded estate in dogma, we all do have certain emotional 

high honor. In the last four hundred needs. But that these needs can or must 

years Western Christianity has adopted be expressed in only one way is a terrible 

this ought, to a considerable extent, graft- slur upon the inventiveness of nature, 

ing it perhaps from the influence of Greek As a fact, very few outside the extreme 

ideas during the Renaissance. Freudian school and their more devoted 

It is a large task to prove that many followers will either claim or admit any 

men and many women ought rather not such thing. Again the common experi- 

to marry, either for their own good or ence of mankind furnishes the best proof 

that of the race. It can be but suggested, to the contrary. There are an almost in- 

The commonest instances lie within the finite number of ways in which men and 

experience of all. There are countless women may reach their highest capabili- 

men and women who should never have ties, quite exclusive of any emotion relat- 

married, either for their own happiness, ing to sex. Indeed, the highest reaches in 

or for that of their partners, or that of any art or profession are generally com- 

their children, or of society. And, con- pletely exclusive of sex emotion. For- 

versely, we waste a lot of unnecessary merly this was held by the commonalty 

and unwanted pity upon many "lone" to be true only of men, utterly ignoring a 

women or bachelors of our acquaintance, mass of evidence to the contrary. The 

because they are unwed. Of course there derided "sexless women" of an earlier 

may be many instances where a given day are now seen merely to have been 

man or woman would be in every way and to be women whose life-forces seek 

happier, but the chances are against it. expression in other fields. In the past 

This side of the problem, the emotional, they have often been wives and mothers, 

seems to be particularly disturbing to however ill fitted for their jobs. But it 

sundry good people in England. . was the only one honorably open to them, 

That consideration is peculiarly the and we none of us like starvation. It will 
product of our overdeveloped, psycho- be a long day in advance, not only for the 
analytical age. Previously men and wo- race but for society, when we recognize 
men were taught to discipline their emo- that "normalcy" is not confined to a 
tions, not display them. The heroine who single type of man or woman, 
pined away into an early grave because The non-reproducing man, the man for 
her lover was lost in the wars was con- whom sex is by nature or choice a thing 
fined to ballads and other fiction, or to a apart, has always been accepted as a 
very small class in the community. The necessary and desirable part of civiliza- 
daughters of the people, in country or tion. Yet every non-reproducing man 
city, whose lovers happened to fall in increases by one the number of non-re- 
battle either got themselves new ones producing women! In primitive socie- 
with great placidity, or busied themselves ties the warrior and priestly castes are 
in some useful occupation. They shut likely to be largely non-reproducing, often 
their emotional experiences if they had wholly so. Undoubtedly the fundamen- 
any decorously up within their own tal reason is social. The man upon whose 
breasts. It is quite likely that they had survival a family depends cannot take 
just as many as the women of the present, the risks incident to professional duties. 
Whether one tells the secrets of her heart He is a poor warrior who must be always 
depends mostly on the receptivity of the thinking of his own safety, even if there is 
bystanders. When it is not good form abundant justification for his self-protec- 



THE PROBLEM OF THE SUPERFLUOUS WOMAN 357 

tion. And Saint Paul put the exclusive of the worker, perhaps yet more often be- 

demands of religion succinctly in the first cause the opportunities are not offered to 

epistle to the Corinthians, when he said: men handicapped with private ties. The 

"He that is married careth for the things outposts of science must be manned with 

of the world, how he may please his wife." soldiers able to give time and strength 

"He that is unmarried careth for the freely and continuously, with no danger 

things that belong to the Lord, how he of interruption, even if necessary, to the 

may please the Lord." sacrifice of life itself. 

In the days of its great missionary ac- The same thing is true of the industrial 

tivity, the Christian church discovered world. Some companies have gone so far 

the practical truth and wisdom of Paul s as to compel young men entering their 

words. The unmarried man was greatly service to sign contracts to remain un- 

superior to the married man as a mission- married so long as they are on the com- 

ary, because of his freedom to go at once pany s pay-roll. In other concerns it is 

wherever he was needed. The risk of tacitly known that marriage means dis- 

death was frequent, martyrs were many, missal; in others that only unmarried 

and the church could not employ men men have a chance for any of the big 

whose deaths left helpless families to be things in the work. A man who refrains 

supported. Hence, the incorporation of from marriage often knows that he will 

celibacy into her discipline. This limita- be pushed along over the heads of his 

tion of the freedom of the individual fellows who have been so imprudent as 

made one of the great appeals of the to encumber themselves. 
Reformation, but, curiously enough, the There are reasons for all these policies 

very churches which then repudiated it on the part of employers, however one 

are beginning to revive it owing to eco- may regard them from the social point of 

nomic necessities. view. It is true that an unmarried man 

By the close of the middle ages life in makes an infinitely better worker for a 

Europe had lost much of its missionary good many classes of work. He is willing 

character, the stimulus and the likelihood to give more of his time to the company, 

of martyrdom were gone, and greater eco- in proportion to his wage. He is willing 

nomic comfort made pioneer discipline to move around more readily, and at 

irksome. But to-day, in those regions shorter notice; he can be sent on a dan- 

where conditions still partake of the gerous contract to South America or the 

frontier, whether economic or ecclesias- Arctic Circle, with no chance of a tearful 

tical, the demand is great for unmarried widow appearing later to harrow up the 

men. In our own West, church after feelings of the president and the board of 

church advertises for an unmarried pas- directors, or put in a more practical claim 

tor, frankly admitting that they cannot for a pension or other compensation. In 

offer a support to a family man, and ap- other words, to paraphrase Saint Paul, 

pealing to the primitive missionary spirit the unmarried man thinks more of the af- 

to put the needs of the Gospel above per- fairs of the company, how he may please 

sonal comfort and happiness. Missionary them. Yet each of these industrial celi- 

boards for foreign lands receive the same bates adds one more to the number of 

call. One denomination is seriously con- matrimonially superfluous women, 
sidering the matter of binding all men There has always been, and always will 

and women sent to foreign fields to give be, a place and a need for the extra-mat- 

at least five years of service in the un- rimonial man. Though there [have al- 

wedded state, because it costs too much ways been yet more extra-matrimonial 

to pay the travelling expenses of a mis- women, their need and place has not al- 

sionary, plus a year s training in the field, ways been so clearly recognized and 

and then either lose the recruit by mar- awarded. The Christian church, whose 

riage, or have to provide him with addi- advent made such a fundamental change 

tional salary for the care of a family. in the position of women, and gave to it 

In the scientific fields the larger part a lustre and dignity scarcely possessed 

of the pioneer work can only be done by before even in the best days of the Roman 

unmarried men. Often this is by choice woman of the patricians, gave to the ex- 



358 THE PROBLEM OF THE SUPERFLUOUS WOMAN 

tra-matrimonial woman a place of service, nor left to starve. He was too poor to 

dignity, and power in the earliest days, pay for their keep in elegant idleness, and 

For fifteen hundred years the "super- besides realized that idle hands were 

fluous woman" found a place where she neither happy nor good; so he solved his 

had at once a home and sphere in the problem by setting up what was virtually 

numerous religious houses which existed the first textile factory, 

for the women of all classes. Those who What would happen to-day if the army 

entered them were by no means the dis- of women in industry, business, social ser- 

carded, the lovelorn; in most cases they vice, teaching, etc., etc., were suddenly 

were the more independent, the women of removed ? Their places could not be 

keener brain, capable of intellectual and filled. It is no case of a competition be- 

industrial achievement. The lady of tween sex and sex, it is a common-sense 

high birth and station ruled convent or condition which confronts us. Every 

monastery, which often gave her as much Jack has not his Jill, any more than every 

power as her prince-brother. She had as Jill has her Jack. Very many neither 

much or more education than he ; in fact, want nor need marriage. Nor does so- 

was often the peer of the greatest scholars ciety need that every human being should 

of her time. Under her, in various indus- marry and reproduce. The earth could 

trial capacities, were hundreds of women not sustain the offspring. Moreover, the 

of lesser social station, finding in the con- business of the world, in every depart- 

vent such freedom and congenial occupa- ment, certainly does need the mobile 

tion for hand and mind as they never labor of the unmarried. The difficult, the 

could have possessed in the world out- pioneer, the highly specialized, intensive 

side. To quote Mrs. Emily James Put- work of the world, that which requires 

nam s book "The Lady": "The decay of unremitting attention, strain, freedom of 

the aristocratic monastery was doubtless mind and body, must ever be done by 

a step in advance in the history of men, them. To inject into the situation a fear 

but it was a calamity for the lady, who for the effect upon sex morality due to the 

was reduced to the old dilemma of the presence of a large body of unmarried 

home or outlawry. Luther had a thor- women is, first, to be ignorant of the fact 

oughly Mohammedan notion of a wo- that there has ever been such a body, of 

man s status only as a wife and mother spotless reputation, and is, second, un- 

had she a right to exist. Her education sound psychologically, because ignorant 

became a matter of no importance and of the fact that sex emotion is not always 

virtually ceased." present in high degree nor by any means 

Three hundred and fifty years of sacri- impossible to control, 
fice are a long time. The right to an edu- It is a curious fact, which many wo- 
cation, to the possession of a mind of her men know but seldom express, because of 
own, was won by women at first largely public sentimentality to the contrary, 
by the specious plea that it would not that neither sex emotion nor desire for 
damage them as wives and mothers. It motherhood inspires sundry of their sis- 
has been used ever since, to bulwark every ters marital willingness. It is merely 
diffident effort to obtain for the extra- the unfortunate development of what 
matrimonial woman a place in the sun Mrs. Putnam calls the Mohammedan 
besides outlawry or domestic slavery. ideal of womanhood, so that they do not 

Things have been slowly improving in dare confess that they neither want mar- 
the last fifty years. But as a matter of riage nor offspring, lest the world ostracize 
fact, the war has brought no new condi- them. As a consequence, inevitable in 
tion. It is largely the acute self-con- the case, there are hundreds of unhappy 
sciousness of our time that must mull husbands, saddled with wives who did 
over the extra-matrimonial woman as if not really want them at all, and thousands 
she were a brand-new phenomenon. She of children borne by women fitted neither 
isn t. Xenophon, when he came back by nature nor grace to rear them. And 
with his Ten Thousand Greeks, found a in both cases women dwarfed, twisted, re- 
large number of " superfluous women " in bellious, and thoroughly disgusted with 
his household, who could neither be sold life, because they have put themselves, 



WHY DO WE LAUGH? 



359 



not, indeed, of their own free will, into a 
false position. That is one good that may 
be done by the Freudians. They have 
been showing up the fact that countless 
cases of wifely invalidism are merely the 
result of marriage for which the woman 
was temperamentally unfit. Invalidism 
was but the effort of the subconscious 
to evade the disagreeable facts of exist 
ence. Or perhaps, the man was the tem 
peramentally unfit. It makes no special 
difference. The results are the same 
disaster, good human material spoiled by 
bad usage. 

What is the answer, then, to the ques 
tions gravely and seriously propounded 
by the thoughtful if rather overanxious 
folk, here and abroad, who fear the in 
creasing excess of unmarried women is a 
menace to the social order? Merely a 
few incontrovertible facts. There always 
has been such an excess. It has not 
worked to the harm of society in the past. 
It is much less likely to work harm to so 
ciety in the future, because, first, women 
have now large and greatly increasing op 
portunity to fulfil their best possibilities 
outside of marriage, and, second, the 
world needs their labor, and will more and 



more as civilization develops. It surely 
cannot be counted a harm to marriage if 
the number of unhappy marriages is de 
creased. The greatest number of marital 
shipwrecks which land in the divorce 
courts show that the cause is lack of men 
tality and reasonableness, not a surplus. 
Surely any one has a right to refuse 
marriage and parenthood if he does not 
want them. And equally surely there are 
many cases where the greatest good to 
society demands such refusal. Special 
talent, special service, the highest of bene 
fits to mankind, often make social welfare 
the debtor of individual continence. The 
truth is confined to neither sex. As in 
countless other affairs, the more securely 
and openly we recognize the fact, and the 
less we seek any abnormality in it, the 
more surely we shall find that whatever 
adjustments are needed will come. There 
seems to be a certain health in human re 
lations that flourishes best, like growing 
children, under a wholesome neglect. 
Too scrupulous care and restraint intro 
duce a hothouse element of self-con 
sciousness, fatal to that hardihood and 
self-discipline which make for personal 
and civic righteousness. 



Why Do We Laugh ? 

BY WILLIAM McDOUGALL 

Author of "Is America Safe for Democracy?" 




AUGHTER of man 
presents a problem 
with which philoso 
phers have wrestled in 
all ages with little suc 
cess. Man is the only 
animal that laughs. 
And, if laughter may 
properly be called an instinctive reaction, 
the instinct of laughter is the only one 
peculiar to the human species.* 

* Mr. Max Eastman, in his recently published "Sense 
of Humor" (Scribners), states a theory of laughter which 
comes near to agreement with the view presented in this 
article. I venture to think that, though Mr. Eastman s 
book is an important contribution and makes a distinct 
advance on previous theories, the present article carries the 
biological explanation to a deeper plane, 



Almost all of the many writers who 
have discussed laughter have regarded it 
as an expression of pleasure; and most of 
the so-called theories of laughter have 
been endeavors to explain the source of 
the pleasure which is supposed to be the 
cause of the laughter. Thomas Hobbes, 
for example, saw this source in the feeling 
of "sudden glory," which he supposed all 
men to experience on seeing another man 
cast down. Many others have vainly 
pursued this false scent in other direc 
tions. That it is false becomes clear at 
once, if we ask ourselves the simple ques 
tion Are we pleased by the things we 
laugh at? Is the ridiculous, the ludi- 



360 



DO WE LAUGH ? 



crous, the absurd essentially pleasing? 
Obviously not the things and situations 
that provoke our laughter are not pleasing 
in themselves, but rather the contrary; 
they are things that would annoy us, if 
we did not laugh. 

Herbert Spencer s theory was that 
laughter is merely an overflow of surplus 
nervous energy. There is an element of 
truth in this view, which I shall indicate 
presently. But it is not an adequate 
theory. Laughter involves a very com 
plex and nicely co-ordinated system of 
movements, which complex co-ordination 
is provided for in the innate organization 
of the nervous system. We all laugh in 
much the same way, without instruction. 
Such a complex organization can have 
been evolved in the species only if it per 
forms some service, secures some biologi 
cal advantage. A mere overflow of ner 
vous energy can be, and is, effected 
through any of the other motor mecha 
nisms; as we see in the restless fidgeting 
of the child under restraint. Nature 
therefore had no need to devise and con 
struct a highly complex nervous mecha 
nism especially for this service. 

The celebrated theory of Professor 
Bergson merely tells us that laughter 
serves the ends of social discipline, be 
cause we naturally laugh at whatever in 
behavior is stiff, clumsy, or machine-like. 
This no doubt is true and involves an ad 
vance on the "pleasure theory" of laugh 
ter. But it also is very partial and inade 
quate as a theory of laughter. We can 
hardly believe that this complex co 
ordinated reaction was evolved by Nature 
to perform primarily this social service. 
And that is the first and fundamental 
question to be answered by the true the 
ory namely, What biological service 
does laughter perform? What advan 
tage does it bring ? What is its survival 
value ? 

We find the key to the true theory, if 
we ask What does laughter do for us? 
What are its effects or consequences? 
Well, obviously we enjoy laughter; it 
does us good to have a good laugh. The 
fact is notorious. And when we feel de 
pressed and moody, we welcome and seek 
the situations, objects, or persons that 
will make us laugh. Laughter prevents 
(for the moment at least) gloomy think 



ing and melancholy brooding, no matter 
how it is induced. How does it achieve 
this beneficial effect ? In two ways one 
purely physiological, the other more psy 
chological. Physiologically its immediate 
effect is to stimulate the respiration and 
the circulation, to raise the blood-pres 
sure, and to send a fuller stream of blood 
to the head and brain; as we see in the 
ruddy face of the hearty laugher. Psy 
chologically it works by breaking up 
every train of thinking and every sus 
tained activity, bodily or mental. Here 
presumably Spencer s theory finds a par 
tial and inverted application. The ner 
vous channels of laughter drain off energy 
from all others; but they do not serve 
merely as channels through which surplus 
energy may be got rid of as a waste prod 
uct; rather, they were created or evolved 
in order that, by draining off energy, they 
might prevent its application in other 
directions. Laughter is essentially re 
laxation from all effort, a relaxation 
whose mechanical effects bring speedy 
recuperation of energy, and which en 
ables us to start afresh on life s tasks 
briskly and undismayed, unharassed by 
the past. This being so, it is obvious why 
we seek the objects and situations that 
make us laugh; we seek the ludicrous, 
the grotesque, the absurd, the ridiculous, 
not because they are in themselves pleas 
ing, but because they make us laugh; and 
laughter does us good, makes us feel 
better and brighter, frees us from de 
pression, prevents our thinking of de 
pressing things. 

The perfectly happy man in a perfect 
world does not laugh; for he has no need 
of laughter. But he may smile. One of 
the errors of nearly all writers on laughter 
has been to identify the smile with the 
laugh, or to regard it as a partial and in 
cipient laughter. The smile is the natural 
expression of the satisfaction that attends 
the success of any striving. The victor 
smiles the smile of triumph; but he does 
not laugh. The mother smiles as she 
soothes and cherishes her healthy infant. 
We smile as we discover a long-sought 
secret or the solution of a problem with 
which we have wrestled. We smile as we 
contemplate any well-completed task in 
which we have been absorbed; the mere 
anticipation of success makes us smile. 



WHY DO WE LAUGH? 361 

Note one extreme and significant contrast that they are secondarily pleasing to us, 
between the smile and the laugh the when displayed by others, because they 
smile is beautiful, the laugh is ugly. Why make us feel our own superiority. A far- 
then does laughter so often die away in fetched explanation, indeed ! Are we not 
smiles ? A fact which is no doubt at the sometimes filled with admiration for the 
root of their false identification. The clever clown, even while he provokes us 
answer is that laughter, freely indulged, to roar after roar of laughter by his 
gives rise, like all other successful activi- grotesque antics and mishaps ? If we look 
ties, to satisfaction, which expresses itself at the ludicrous situation or action more 
in a smile. The smile into which laughter directly and simply, we see that the ludi- 
so often subsides is the smile of the satis- crous is essentially personal, human or 
faction brought by laughter; and it is only quasi-human. An arrangement of inert 
when the smile is blended with the sub- objects may be ludicrous, but only in so 
dued laugh that laughter is redeemed far as it suggests some human relation or 
from ugliness and may even be beautiful, the human action which produced or 
If, then, laughter produces these bene- might have produced it. The behavior 
ficial effects, how shall we define the of animals is sometimes ludicrous; as 
ludicrous? What is it that is common to when a dog plays wildly with children, 
all ludicrous objects and situations, be- or with other dogs; but then it is only in 
yond the fact that the contemplation of so far as we sympathize with the dogs, 
them makes us laugh? Certainly it is and appreciate their sudden evasions, 
not that they are in themselves pleasing, their feints, their failures, their tumbles, 
Consider the types of the ludicrous. The their surprises and disappointments, as 
man sitting down on his own hat, or pur- we should those of romping children, 
suing it down the street before the breeze; There are, then, two features essential 
the clown who falls with a resounding to the ludicrous. First, it always involves 
thud, lets fall a pile of crockery, or whacks some maladjustment, something inap- 
another with loud blows and slaps, these propriate, which, if we contemplated it 
are basic examples of the ludicrous, without laughter (as do some persons 
Rather less crude are all the instances in who seem incapable of laughter), would 
which men fail in some stroke of skill; as displease us, as every lack of harmony and 
the golfer who cuts up the turf and drives order in nature displeases us. Secondly, 
his ball but a yard or two; or the man in every case, the ludicrous situation or 
who lands in the ditch, instead of clearing action is one which, if we ourselves suf- 
it. More refined are the instances of the fered it or performed it, would be mildly 
ludicrous provided by those who "make distressing to us; and it is one which as a 
fools of themselves " through lack of tact matter of fact is mildly distressing to the 
or social adroitness, by the man who person who suffers or performs it, except 
"can t open his mouth without putting in the case of the clown who acts the part 
his foot in it," by the man who boasts or and finds satisfaction in the success of his 
lies, without seeing that his hearers under- efforts to provoke laughter. Now, if we 
stand him. Another great class of things had no capacity for laughter, in virtue 
ludicrous are awkward, defective, or bi- of the primitive sympathetic tendency we 
zarre modes of attire, of address, of should, on contemplating these dishar- 
speech, of gait, of eating. We laugh at monies of action, share in some degree the 
all these things; and our laughter serves, distress, the embarrassment, the disap- 
as M. Bergson says, the ends of social dis- pointment or the humiliation, in short the 
cipline; but do we always or usually laugh pain and depression, which accompany all 
in order to discipline the fool ? How failure of action. That is to say, a human 
about the clown on the stage ? Do we being, deprived of the capacity for laugh- 
desire to discipline him ? Can we suppose ter, but otherwise normally constituted 
that Nature has given us this strange ugly and leading a normally social life, would 
reaction for this purpose ? And are these suffer very frequently from sympathetic 
ludicrous objects pleasing to us? Are pain and depression. For the pain of 
stupidity, clumsiness, tactlessness pleas- every little embarrassment, disappoint 
ing? Surely not. Hobbes would have it ment, failure, and mishap of all those 



362 WHY DO WE LAUGH? 

about him would be sympathetically and occasions of laughter. Let us look at 
shared by him. We are saved from this some of the more special forms of laugh- 
multitude of small sympathetic pains and ter and some facts which at first sight 
depressions by laughter, which, as we may seem difficult to reconcile with the 
have seen, breaks up our train of mental theory. 

activity and prevents our dwelling upon There is a form of laughter which con- 
the distressing situation, and which also forms to Herbert Spencer s theory; that 
provides an antidote to the depressing in- is to say, it is a mere overflow of surplus 
fluence in the form of physiological stimu- nervous energy; for the motor mecha- 
lation that raises the blood-pressure and nism of laughter, having been created, 
promotes the circulation of the blood, serves on occasions, as any motor mech- 
This, then, is the biological function of anism may, as a mere channel of over- 
laughter, one of the most delicate and flow. Such is the nervous laugh which is 
beautiful of all Nature s adjustments. In merely a form of fidgeting. Closely al- 
order that Man should reap the full bene- lied to this is the laughter of " high spir- 
fits of life in the social group, it was neces- its," when our nervous energy is so abun- 
sary that his primitive sympathetic ten- dant that it seems to spill over in a 
dencies should be strong and delicately variety of movements, and laughter oc- 
adjusted. For without this, there could curs without assignable cause or occasion, 
be little mutual understanding, and only just as we may shout or leap or run. This 
imperfect co-operation and mutual aid in is the most elementary form of play, 
the more serious difficulties and embar- There is laughter at our own mishaps, 
rassments of life. But, in endowing Man This is the essential basis of all humor, 
with delicately responsive sympathetic It presupposes the development of the 
tendencies, Nature rendered him liable to capacity to stand aside and contemplate 
suffer a thousand pains and depressions oneself and one s minor mishaps in the 
upon a thousand occasions of mishap to same way that we contemplate those of 
his fellows, occasions so trivial as to call our fellows. Humor is essentially laugh- 
for no effort of support or assistance, ter at ourselves, one s own individual 
Here was a dilemma whether to leave self, or oneself as included in humanity 
Man so little sympathetic that he would at large or some group or class; it is 
be incapable of effective social life; or to laughter "at our own expense," as we 
render him effectively sympathetic and say; we turn our own minor misfortunes 
leave him subject to the perpetually re- into benefits by laughing at them. Not 
newed pains of sympathy, which, if not every laugher achieves this level of de- 
counteracted, would seriously depress his tachment; and, by a subtle complication, 
vitality and perhaps destroy the species, lack of this power becomes itself ludicrous 
Nature, confronted with this problem, to the onlooker. 

solved it by the invention of laughter. There is a strange type of laughter 

She endowed Man with the instinct to which has puzzled and shocked many 

laugh on contemplation of these minor who have experienced or witnessed it; 

mishaps of his fellow men ; and so made namely, the laughter sometimes provoked 

them occasions of actual benefit to the be- by the recital of a catalogue of human 

holder; all those things which, apart from disasters. This occurs when disasters 

laughter, would have been mildly dis- are recited which are great and horrible, 

pleasing and depressing, became objects but which affect persons so remote from 

and occasions of stimulating beneficial us in time and place, so unfamiliar, that 

laughter. their great mishaps affect us only in the 

This I suggest is the true theory of same mild degree as the minor mishaps 

laughter;* it assigns its biological func- of those nearer to us. 
tion, its raison d etre, and explains why Why do we laugh when we are tickled ? 

we laugh and are pleased at that which is This is a crucial question for any theory 

essentially displeasing; and it is capable of of laughter. Note first that, though we 

taking account of all the many varieties can tickle ourselves, or can be tickled by 

, a stray hair, or by a fly, such tickling is 

* I first proposed this new theory of laughter m a letter to 11. i \ i j i 

"Nature," vol. 67, 1993, merely disagreeable and does not provoke 



THE SHIP O DREAMS 



363 



laughter. The tickling that provokes 
laughter is the playful tickling by another 
person. This shows the essentially psy 
chological, rather than merely physiolog 
ical, nature of the process. I suggest that 
laughter on being tickled is the crudest 
and earliest form of humor; it is laughter 
at oneself; oneself appears ludicrous, 
because the trivial attack of the other 
person produces so much discomfort and 
disorder of movement. Normally both 
the tickler and the tickled laugh; and 
the occasion is the same for both; both 
laugh at the discomposure of the tickled 
one; and in so doing they intensify and 
prolong their laughter. For laughter is 
no exception to the law of primitive sym 
pathy; but rather illustrates it most clear 
ly and familiarly; the infectiousness of 
laughter is notorious and as irresistible as 
the infection of fear itself. That is to 
say, the expressions of laughter are them 
selves keys which unlock laughter. This 
fact, perhaps, justifies the ranking of 
laughter with the instinctive reactions, 



and the classing of the disposition to 
laughter as an instinct. If we class it 
with the instincts, we must recognize that 
it differs from all other instincts in that 
its impulse seeks no end beyond itself, 
but secures its satisfaction by means of 
bodily processes which effect nothing in 
the outer world. 

What kind of persons are the great and 
ready laughers? If Hobbes s theory of 
" sudden glory" were true, they should be 
the proud and disdainful, the scornful 
and the envious. But, fortunately, the 
harsh and hideous laughter of such per 
sons is comparatively rare ; and we hate to 
be laughed at by them. The great laugher 
is the person of delicately responsive 
sympathetic reactions; and his laughter 
quickly gives place to pity and comfort 
ing support, if our misfortune waxes more 
severe. Such persons are in little danger 
of giving offense by their laughter ; for we 
detect their ready sympathy and easily 
laugh with them; they teach us to be 
humorous. 



The Ship o Dreams 

BY ISABEL J. ROBERTS 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY WALLACE MORGAN 



s 



HE was very young, 
hardly more than a 
child, when she first 
became acquainted 
with the world. It 
was the fashionable 
world from Annette s 
workrooms. She ran 
errands and matched samples. And she 
was very proud when Annette told her she 
was old enough to feed the bird. That 
was always a promotion. Anybody that 
fed the bird could run in and out of the 
fitting-rooms and see the young debs and 
the sub-debs (otherwise the "flappers") 
with their mothers or their maids and 
sometimes both select their hats and 
gowns. They were wonderful these 
young women of high society. She tried 



to imitate their ways and when she was 
alone would say, "Thank you very 
much," with that cool lift in the voice; 
and "I m sorry," that was like a slap in 
the face. And she picked up " I m crazy 
about it" and "wonderful" and "adora 
ble" and "My Gawd!" And she prac 
tised walking across the floor just the way 
they did, one foot over the other their 
skirts were so narrow they couldn t walk 
any other way. At first she d get all 
mixed up with her feet; but after a bit 
she learned how to walk like a lady with 
careful pointed steps just as if she were 
going to start off dancing. 

She watched everything they did how 
they got up and sat down how they ate 
and drank; for if the fitting was long 
they would have a cup of tea or an ice 



364 THE SHIP O DREAMS 

while they stood on the fitting platform in-the-corner" and "ring-around-a- 
with one arm resting in the swinging rosey" as liabilities incurred by mother- 
cushioned ring and a silk kimono madame hood and had not shirked her duty; but 
always had on hand over their smooth when they put her on roller-skates and 
white shoulders. Julie, that was the she had fallen and sprained her ankle she 
name of the girl who fed the bird, couldn t said she was "through" she must find 
get over the beauty and grace of these another playmate for the children. She 
wonderful creatures. And one day An- made it plain to Julie that she didn t have 
nette had her to put on a model gown for to know a thing but how to play, for al- 
a sub-deb and walk up and down before though the girl was undoubtedly clever 
everybody. And after that they always she would probably balk at anything that 
let her act as manikin for the "flappers," smacked of books. 

as these beautiful young things liked to It was shortly after this that Julie and 
call themselves. When another year went her four small charges, with Mrs. Paget 
by they let her take her place in the reg- bringing up the rear, looking as if the 
ular fashion parade. She liked the dis- party ahead was no affair of hers, boarded 
play and the excitement of it. She liked the Santa Fe train from New York, 
walking with mincing steps to heavenly Their ultimate destination was some- 
music along the " runner " of green velvet where along the northern Pacific coast, 
carpet hemmed in on both sides from the but for sentimental reasons Mrs. Paget 
crowd with plants and flowers; and soon was making a wide detour to take in San 
learned to be as calm and self-unconscious Pedro. It was May and the little semi- 
as if she were a wax figure in a show- tropical seaport would probably have al- 
window. Once \vhen she was showing a ready taken torrid weather in its stride; 
fluffy little garden-party frock and hat but she had a vague dream of a happy 
she forgot the eager eyes looking on and childhood on the wild coast and wanted 
stooped to pluck a rose, glancing shyly up her little brood to see the rocky heights 
when a sudden burst of applause broke from which their grandfather, of revered 
forth on all sides. After that Annette al- memory, had painted his pictures. And 
ways made a feature of a girl in garden- Julie always laughed off everything ! 
party costume plucking a rose. That girl ! And so well able to take care 

It was an understood thing that the of herself ! She recalled with a grin the 
manikin should have the gowns she wore discomfiture of the young man who had 
on parade, and often had made to her tried to scrape acquaintanceship with 
measure, for a mere nominal sum; more- Julie at the station by asking if he might 
over, she was given outright her shoes and not carry her bag; and her cool reply: 
gloves. So when Julie came in for her gar- " I suppose you are all right but where s 
den-party dress she remarked that she had your red cap ? " The instinct of self-pres- 
all but the garden-party; and it was the ervation was probably more highly de- 
same with her riding-coat and breeches veloped in girls of her class pretty, 
she had all but the horse. She might as smartly attired, and earning thereby a 
well have been a lay figure for all there clean honest living than those dependent 
was to it. When she took off her cos- on less brilliant and ephemeral charac- 
tume she was like Cinderella when the teristics. She was like some rare gayly 
clock struck twelve. plumaged bird which, conscious that its 

But it was while she was showing her color betrays it, keeps itself screened 

riding-habit, and lightly flicking her pol- from view, Julie s screen being an im- 

ished top-boot with her crop, that she penetrably cool aloof and sophisticated 

caught Mrs. Paget s eye. manner that could hardly be taken un- 

"That girl has personality," said the awares. Yes, Julie could be trusted to 

lady. "I ll bet she could play with the take care of herself, 

children." It so happened that they found San 

Now it was Mrs. Paget s opinion that Pedro a good deal cooler than New York 

anybody could teach children, but not so drenched with fog, in fact, that wood- 

everybody could play with them. She fires were lighted in open fireplaces, 

had taken "blind man s buff" and "puss- Julie must be bored to death. She had 




At first she d ct all mixed up with her feet. Page 363. 



365 



366 THE SHIP O DREAMS 

kept the children amused and interested beans scattering about as some bag burst 
from coast to coast; and even at night as it was swung on shore. On a spit of 
there had been no let-up, for the young- land were the huddled huts of a Japanese 
sters had insisted upon taking turns in fishing village. And outside, sitting as 
sharing her berth. So Mrs. Paget told firmly as a house-and-lot, was her dream- 
her to go long; she didn t want to see her ship, a Japanese cruiser with all its Orien- 
face again till dinner-time. It was cool tal flags flying. A host of craft, from trim 
enough for Julie to put on her spats and power-launches to fishing-smacks and row- 
she looked up from her buttoning to say: boats, were careening about in true holi- 

" Whenever I put on my spats some- day spirit. On the small dock was a crowd 

thing is sure to happen. They ll take me of Japanese men, women, and children, 

anywhere." They were carrying flowers and little 

"I guess it isn t only the spats, my gifts done up neatly in white paper and 
dear," and then not to be too obvious she marked with the black characters you as- 
asked what was madame s price to her sociate with your laundry. Ferry-boats 
customers for Julie s costume. and launches were running between shore 

"Two hundred and fifty for the suit, and ship; and the visitors on dock were 

Mrs. Paget, and twenty-five for the hat patiently waiting their turn. The ship s 

it s very simple, you see." tender sped across the water and a Japa- 

"Well, go long, child. Don t let the nese officer stepped snappily on shore, 

spats run away with you." He looked around inquiringly and spying 

Julie was turned loose on what seemed Julie, trim and trig, standing a bit above 

to her a very far-away portion of the the throng, he made straight for the cloth 

globe. And she liked it all the funny spats. He bowed and said something in 

little brown town with its narrow streets; what he evidently mistook for very plain 

the fruit-stalls crowding one off the side- English. But as Julie only smiled and 

walk; and its chollas and its Japanese made no move he said more briefly: "You 

fishermen. And when she looked out to come, pliz." 

sea she wondered what was behind that The crowd parted and Julie found her- 
curtain of mist. She stopped at the little self being ceremoniously helped into the . 
old Italian church of St. Anthony of power-boat flying the ship s colors. 
Padua as she went by to claim the three .Young Dinwiddie was on the deck of the 
wishes to which one is entitled on a first cruiser pointing his camera toward shore, 
visit. But as she knelt in her smart The last time he had climbed aboard a 
tailored suit and cloth spats in the cool battleship it was with hammock bag and 
nave heavy with the scent of flowers and baggage swung over his back. He was 
freshly extinguished beeswax candles she a "gob" then; now he was a reporter 
couldn t think of another thing she on a Los Angeles newspaper, and his 
wanted. She was just about to give over pack a good-sized camera. The tender 
in a spirit of largess her three wishes to a drew alongside; four bluejackets stood at 
kneeling figure in a shabby mantilla when rigid attention and Julie, sandwiched be- 
the curtain of mist lifted and she saw tween two midshipmen, came up the 
through an open door a strip of gray sea ship s ladder. Dinwiddie snapped her 
and a battleship on parade lying at just as she stepped aboard in her dis- 
anchor offshore. To go aboard that ship tinctive costume (spats hadn t got to the 
with its ring of smoke as big as a motor- coast yet). He had been sent down to 
truck tire hanging over it like a halo write up the visiting battleship. He be- 
who wouldn t wish it ! And she wished gan to whistle softly. Unless he was 
her wish three times, and if she had had as greatly mistaken he could get a first-page 
many more she would have hazarded them masterpiece out of the lady with the 
all in a breath on the one chance. She spats. He saw her conducted to the ad- 
went down the steep street to the water- miral brown-skinned and wonderfully 
front. They were emptying a boat-load effective in his gold braid and impressive 
of tuna and yellow-tails at the wharf. A insignia. He saw him bowing low before 
cargo of soy-beans was being unloaded his guest and waving an apologetic hand 
from four holds at once, the small yellow toward the quarter-deck where the loose 




"We are the only white persons on board. Please don t leave the ship without me." Page 368. 



end of a flapping canvas showed a flower- 
bedecked table and the remains of a ban 
quet. It was easy to understand she was 
some person of importance who had evi 
dently come on board too late for the feast, 
and the tawny little man was a thousand 
times sorry. Dinwiddie snapped Julie 
just as the admiral was kowtowing be 
fore her for the third time. She was put 
in charge of a young midshipman one of 
the graduating class of the Imperial Naval 
School, a fine upstanding lad of about 
twenty. The admiral was justly proud of 
his ship the distinguished visitor must be 
shown all over the Tokiwa. The young 
midshipman s English was not all that it 
should be, but from the antiaircraft guns 
mounted on the turrets to the smooth 
bores of the twelve and fourteen inch guns 
most things explained themselves. Julie 
frowned at the fourteen and eighteen inch 
torpedoes lying below like sinister beasts 
of prey. How beautiful she looked in that 
dark frame of war ! That is the way Din 
widdie had it down, for he had abandoned 
his camera for his note-book. He was 
seeing a war-ship from the angle of a 
young society woman not a bad caption 
for his "story." 



There was a crowd six deep amidships 
officers, midshipmen, and bluejackets- 
all so intent upon what w r as going on with 
in the cleared space that they did not see 
Julie approach with her guide. He wished 
to make room for her but she drew back. 
He was persistent and she allowed him to 
help her up on an empty box where by 
craning her neck she could see over the 
heads of the spectators. With an ex 
clamation of dismay she stepped down 
much more briskly than she had climbed 
up, and with a restrained air went on. 
Dinwiddie almost fought his way through 
the ring of men to see what had sent the 
blood to the girl s face. They were wres 
tling. A muscular half-naked Jap was 
giving lessons in jiu-jitsu to a group of 
young marines who with bronze arms and 
hairy chests sat cross-legged in a smiling 
circle awaiting each his turn to be landed 
on the padded mat. Dinwiddie shoul 
dered his way out a little more roughly 
than was necessary. He had seen the red 
in his fair countrywoman s face, and it 
made his own burn. He was almost 
touching elbows with Julie w r hen she and 
her guide went below decks. Under 
grimy rafters in a dimly lighted space 

367 



368 THE SHIP O DREAMS 

surrounded by a clutter of boxes and bales mostly "Yis," and "You come," and on 
the common sailors were drinking tea her part, "I understand," and "all right." 
with their friends and eating rice out of But now he said, "You wait, pliz," and 
little bowls with chop-sticks. They were placed a chair for her at an empty table, 
very quiet, very grave. It was a last Was she to have tea? Dinwiddie could 
good-by for many of them they would have told her that a guest of the admiral 
not be coming that way again. Julie didn t have tea in the midshipmen s 
shivered although it was warm enough mess. The young Jap seated himself at 
below. She had been told that the ship the other end of the table and began to 
was sailing to-morrow. She looked up write laboriously. At last he was done 
and met the high determined look of her and with a look of satisfaction placed his 
self-appointed champion. Looking away neatly written sheet before Julie. Din- 
again she said in a low controlled voice: widdie was apparently studying a chart 
" We are the only white persons on board, against the wall, but he was more in- 
Please don t leave the ship without me." terested in watching the young midship- 
He shook his head emphatically and man. While Julie was looking at her 
graphically signalled that that was the letter, or whatever it was, with a puzzled 
last thing she need fear. He looked all air the Jap stood behind her chair. Sud- 
the more serious because he knew they denly he opened his arms wide, his face 
were as safe as if the ship flew twenty suffused with tenderness, and then turned 
American flags. But it gave him an away with a gesture of despair. Din- 
honest- to-goodness excuse for hanging widdie didn t blame him same old story 
round, and whenever their eyes met he al- the desire of the moth for the star. He 
lowed her to see that he did not under- himself was humbly aware that hardly 
rate the gravity of the situation, and that less a gulf divided him from the girl, this 
she could depend upon him to the last finished product of race and rank, than 
ditch. But all the while he was working that which yawned between her and the 
on his story. He felt he was getting sailor lad. To have considered himself 
something just what, he was not sure, on the same footing with her would be 
It had the charm of fresh creative work, about as presumptuous as to think him- 
The field offered him everything and self on a level with a royal princess. But 
nothing. But whatever the result, story what was the nature of the Jap s com- 
or no story, he would have had at least munication? Julie was asking herself the 
this moment of intense preoccupation same question. It all seemed plain 
and the joy of possible achievement. enough apparently good English in a 
There was another party in the mid- careful, unaccustomed hand. She made 
shipmen s mess a cleaner and more out certain strange words such as "ton- 
prosperous crowd and a gayer. They nage," "length over-all," "draft," and 
were exchanging gifts in which neat little phrases equally obscure. Was it a warn- 
packages done up in white paper, like ing of danger couched in some code of 
those Julie had seen on shore, figured which she was supposed to have the key ? 
prominently. And the seamen were giv- She folded up the paper as if to put it 
ing bunches of artificial flowers for the into her little dangling silver-meshed 
fresh bouquets the women and children purse, and dropped the purse as she 
had brought on board. Some of the brushed past Dinwiddie. He hastened 
younger women were Americanized to the to return the trinket and found in his 
extent of chiffon waists and white kid hand a crumpled bit of writing. He 
gloves and shoes. But you liked those in chuckled as he read. It was merely a 
native costume better and they seemed description of the cruiser. And then he 
to smile more ingenuously. Foreign nuts stuffed the paper into his pocket with 
and sweetmeats were heaped up on dishes another chuckle. His first-page master- 
on long narrow tables covered with red piece was an assured thing ! Here were 
cloth, and tea was being poured from a details he had been seeking ever since he 
large shining brass teakettle also very had come on board details which, al- 
foreign and fetching. though no secret, he had had no means of 
Up to now the communication between verifying ; all set down as plain as print- 
Julie and her guide had been, on his part, tonnage, length over-all, breadth, draft, 



THE SHIP O DREAMS 



369 



arms (of such and such a caliber), search 
lights, torpedoes, crew (bluejackets, war 
rant officers, officers, midshipmen) all 
enumerated and vouched for and signed 
"Midshipman, Y. Arita." 

And Dinwiddie understood. Julie s 
midshipman had probably written his 
heart out in the only English he knew as 
something for her to take away as a sou 
venir of her visit. The lad might have 
thought that possibly the fair visitor 
would send him a card, a letter, a little 
token of remembrance that would follow 
his ship. It was a little voyage on the 
boundless sea of romance. Julie stole 
another look. And Dinwiddie couldn t 
have looked w r orse if a bomb-plot had 
been uncovered. 

They were on the main deck again. 
Dinwiddie hunted up his camera and 
shouldered his pack to be ready at a mo 
ment s notice to leave the ship. But in 
the interval the girl had disappeared. 
Arita was standing outside the admiral s 
ward, a martial figure ready to fight at the 
drop of the hat. "Honorable lady drink 
tea with Admiral Toshitaki Iwamura," 
he vouchsafed to inform the newspaper 
man in his clipped English. She came 
out presently and the admiral himself 
conducted her to the ship s ladder. Din 
widdie was leaning on the rail. Every 
thing was ended for him ! If the tender 
had been the last life-boat leaving a sink 
ing ship and he was left behind he could 
hardly have felt more a lost man. He 
hadn t even a life-line. In a certain 
latitude and longitude, on such and such 
a day, he had irretrievably lost his heart 
and a good story for what was a story 
without an ending? He hadn t thought 
of the possibility of her leaving before 
him. Her henchmen would be waiting 
for her on shore. By the time he could 
hail one of the careening motor-boats she 
would have landed and be lost to him for 
ever. Julie looked up and saw the grim 
tanned face gazing down upon her. 

"Aren t you coming, too?" she called 
out cheerfully. Was he coming ! Climb 
ing down the ladder he dropped with his 
heavy pack in the stern of the narrow 
craft, and as the girl shook off the spray 
of a sudden wave that came aboard with 
him she admonished him with a little 
laugh not to rock the boat ! But her af- 
VOL. LXXL 24 



fability was one of the privileges of rank, 
and he did not presume upon her gracious- 
ness. She dropped behind her protective 
screen again and was once more cool, 
aloof, sophisticated. There was no sound 
but the pulsing motor and the rush of the 
sea turning red under a slow, deliberate 
sunset. They found the dock deserted 
when they came on shore. All the little 
brown people had disappeared. Not only 
were there no henchmen there were no 
hackmen. The only vehicle at the quiet 
landing was Dinwiddie s car in which he 
had run down from Los Angeles that 
morning. 

"You are very kind," said Julie in a 
sort of perfunctory way. "I must con 
fess I was a bit nervous in that stuffy 
place below decks. I didn t know at what 
moment our friendly relations with Japan 
might be broken off and both of us made 
prisoners of war." 

She laughed again and Dinwiddie came 
near laughing back. He caught himself 
in time and bowed low. The admiral had 
hardly done better. 

"I thought I should find my car here," 
she said, looking up and down the street 
anxiously. She could have sworn that 
she had seen a Point Fermin trolley-car 
at the dock a moment ago. Nor was she 
mistaken; but the car ran only on the 
half hours and had just whisked round 
the corner out of sight. Dinwiddie of 
fered his car it wasn t much of a car, 
but it generally got you where you started 
for. . Julie was quite used to having people 
go out of their way for her and it was 
again with her casual "You are very 
kind" that she got in beside him. They 
climbed the hilly streets but it was not 
until they were leaving the little brown 
town behind that she seemed to remem 
ber the paper she had so cleverly passed 
to him. 

"By the way, what did the sailor-boy 
say?" she asked. 

"On a guess I should say he was trying 
to remind you that you were very close 
to gunpowder. So he expressed it in 
terms of his ship the only English he 
had." 

"Tonnage, length over all, draught," 
she said reflectively. 

"Torpedoes, guns, officers, and men," 
he rejoined in a sort of recitative. 



370 THE SHIP O DREAMS 

"And caliber I wonder what he meant like to know your name awfully or that I 

by that?" have resorted to a rather underhand way 

He shrugged his shoulders it might of getting it. Please forgive me. I 

mean anything. wouldn t for the world try to discover 

She was thinking hard and then as if who you are, if you would rather I did 

the solution of her problem had come in not know. If you want me to know I am 

a flash she exclaimed, " It was the spats ! " sure you would tell me." 

And because of her sudden aloofness He looked at her frankly and she saw 

he did not dare to ask what she meant by the man from overseas under the coat of 

her cryptic expression. All the while, tan, and in the deep-set eyes and in the 

with the unfolding incidents of this amaz- tense muscles of the lean, weather-beaten 

ing drive, his "story" ran alongside by face. And she saw grisly battle-fields 

side in his mind. He saw his "first- and barren hillsides with the scattered 

page" blazoned on sky and cliff and sea crosses of those that had not "come back 

it was like a gigantic poster. He began from across." She was sorry she had 

modestly: been so quick to abandon the idea of 

"I am a newspaper man; I am writing being among the admiral s guests. Sud- 

up the visiting battleship for the Los denly she beamed on him. 

Angeles Times. It is in fact my first as- "Perhaps you can make more out of it 

signment since I came back from across " that you don t find me among your 

(to have said from overseas would have names." 

been too patent an appeal to her sym- " You mean you are not free to disclose 

pathies). "And I am naturally anxious your identity !" 

to make good. I have a list of the ad- She nodded. "What if I should tell 

miral s luncheon-party, but I am a poor you that I am a secret agent in the service 

hand at matching names and faces. And of the British Government?" 

it is sort of puzzling work, for some didn t The car swerved dangerously and Julie 

come at all. Would it be asking too much had hard work to save herself from 

if you would glance over my list and see being thrown into the driver s arms. He 

if I have your name?" slowed down, feeling a little light-headed 

Julie almost laughed outright. She by a sense of his good fortune. From 
was used to the attention her good looks that moment she renounced all idea of safe 
and her good clothes excited, but to be mediocrity. Her story became an end in 
taken for the real thing was an over- itself it was no longer an incidental phase 
whelm ingly new experience. She gave it was the answer to why she was there 
herself a little shake mentally and then flying through enchanted scenes. She 
slipped into the new role as easily as into snared the joy of the creative artist, 
one of Annette s new model gowns. He "I wasn t invited to the admiral s 
had brought his car to a stop under a luncheon," she said slowly, giving him 
ragged, ungainly eucalyptus-tree, and she time to take it in. "The admiral himself 
ran over the list with a kindly air like one did not know I was coming. He wasn t 
wishing to be nice to a struggling young notified beforehand. It was just by good 
man. They were from everywhere; San luck I got on board. By a lucky chance 
Francisco, New York, and even one or they must have mistaken rne for some- 
two from the other side. She paused per- body else. Perhaps," with a disconcert- 
ceptibly at the name of Lady Beatrice ing smile, "they thought I was the Lady 
Arundell, London. Since she might have Beatrice Arundell, London." 
her choice why be satisfied with anything "Provided, of course, that Lady Bea- 
short of the best? But titled nobility trice herself was not present." 
meant antecedents, and she knew what "Naturally," she agreed lightly. Lean- 
they counted for from her experience in ing her fresh young face toward him she 
Annette s workrooms. In a sudden funk ran on: 

she waved aside Dinwiddie and his ad- "You know a lot of important things 

miral s luncheon-party. are entrusted to very young women. A 

"I beg your pardon," he said, genuinely young woman is the most innocent-look- 
ashamed of himself. "I m afraid you ve ing thing on earth She looked at him 
found me out. I don t deny that I d with wide eyes so that he could see for 




"What if I should tell you that I am a secret agent in the service of the British Government? " Page 370. 



himself. "Why, it was in the papers just 
lately you probably saw it too how 
one young girl outwitted another young 
girl, and brought the dark schemes of a 
nation to nothing. They were both in the 
secret service, one rooting for America, 
the other for Russia. The Russian spy- 
girl was arrested and her credentials were 
turned over to the American girl, who 



made believe she was the Russian. It 
sounds mixed up, but it isn t. You can 
see for yourself how it would turn out. 
Now I am not Olga Krestinsky that was 
her name rnor am I, by the same token, 
the girl that put it all over Olga. But I 
just want to make my point: two young 
girls were chosen to act as go-betweens 
for two great powers." 



372 



THE SHIP O DREAMS 



She was a little breathless, and then, 
winking hard at the westering sun, she 
went on: 

"Now, a young woman might appar 
ently be on a pleasure-trip, but really be 
out for the purpose of carrying informa 
tion that couldn t be trusted to code. 
Because you know there are experts that 
can read any sort of code as plainly as if 
it were print. If the admiral had been 
warned beforehand he was to be inter 
viewed he might have sailed away in his 
little old boat by night. I just had to 
board his ship like a pirate. The Japs 
are sly, you know." 

"Good work!" he said appreciatively. 
"I wish we had you on our staff. You 
were no-end clever to have got your inter 
view with the admiral." 

"Just a piece of good luck ! I wish you 
could see his cabin. It is like a Japanese 
curio-shop on the boardwalk at Atlantic 
City. Dwarfed trees and embroidered 
silk kimonos and chairs carved into drag 
ons, and perfectly awful-looking false- 
faces all over the place ! " 

.She was instinctively seeking a dra 
matic climax. Dinwiddie himself gave 
her her opportunity. 

" If we should hear that Nippon toasts 
the United States," he prompted, "we 
may take it for granted that your mission 
was successful am I right?" 

She gave him a pointed look as if she 
fathomed the depths of his duplicity, and 
was not to be caught so easily. 

"He gave me the best cup of tea I ever 
had in my life!" she said lightly, and 
then feeling that she had "registered," 
and could afford to be generous, she ran 
on discursively. 

"I ve never been able to see why the 

President of the United States should 

look askance that s slant-eyed, isn t it? 

at the Emperor of Japan. It s different 

with .the Emperor he can t help it ! " 

Dinwiddie could have cheerfully run 
his companion over the "bank," and 
perished with her. She was making game 
of him exploiting his credulity for her 
own amusement having a lot of fun 
with him. But she was a bit too fast. 
"He who laughs laughs, laughs, laughs," 
he quoted confusedly. She had inad 
vertently made herself available copy, 
and the snap-shots he had of her would 
do the rest. 



And then he looked at her. She was 
young enough for anything. Whatever 
her game she was just the youngest thing 
he had ever seen ! It was not within the 
scope of his experience that a secret agent 
went about discovering the fact to any 
chance acquaintance. She d laugh her 
self out of one blunder only to laugh her 
self into another; but deuce take it! 
never giving herself away. She ought to 
be jolly well paid off for it. And yet he 
had to admit that the very mystery with 
which she had wrapped herself but gave 
the moment its peculiar significance, 
more, its transcendent quality. She was 
like the San Pedro "hills" against the 
sky, retreating behind their sunset veils, 
chiffon on chiffon, mauve, and gray, rose, 
and emerald-green; thin and changing 
but impenetrable. He had a sudden 
sense of vision, and with it the uncer 
tainty of whether he could hold it, under 
stand it. Could it be translated only in 
terms of a newspaper article? He had 
forgiven her utterly. Once more he saw 
his first-page blazoned on sky and cliff 
and sea. But on the other hand was the 
high adventure of romance. The thing 
worth taking seriously after all was the 
thrilling joy of the moment. "Story" 
and romance went along side by side in 
his mind, when suddenly it came to him 
that he couldn t have both and play 
fairlv. Which should it be? 

j 

He turned off the road and made the 
steep descent to the town below. 

"I m taking you a bit out of your 
way," he explained. "But I have to get 
to the office before it is too late." 

He left her waiting outside. She saw 
him disappear within a telephone-booth. 
She had made one returned soldier happy, 
poor thing ! He came out grinning and 
taking the wheel again, said: 

"That s off my mind ! I got the night 
editor all right, and told him I d be back 
before we went to press I was still work 
ing on the Japanese cruiser. I didn t tell 
him that all I happened to have were a 
few society names and Y. Arita, mid 
shipman s account of his ship. But 
I ll make something out of it on my way 
back to Los to-night. It s not much 
but I ve often had less to work on." 

She looked puzzled and a bit hurt and 
he hastened to say: 

"I couldn t make use of your informa- 



THE SHIP O DREAMS 



373 



tion. Not that I shouldn t like to tell 
how a brave young girl of gentle breeding 
delivered the goods. How she boarded a 
foreign vessel, quite unattended in spite 
of heavy artillery all about her that could 
have opened fire at any moment. Guns 
with long smooth bores all over and 
under her; some to be fired ahead, some 
dead astern, and turret-rifles to be fired 
on either broadside; and wicked-looking 
torpedoes lying below. I d like to say 
for that gallant deed she was to be given 
the D. S. M. But you see I can t. If I 
did you would miss out on your story. 
You ve got to tell it first." 

She looked at him remorsefully. 

"Moreover/ he went on, "they d be 
on your tracks before the type was cold." 

She was thinking hard. After a while 
she said: 

"I m ever so sorry ! It is too bad you 
haven t anything after all. I wonder if 
I could tell you the same thing only in 
another way. It wouldn t be dangerous 
to anybody a sort of a half-one-per-cent 
story." 

"If you only would!" He would be 
glad to listen to anything it didn t 
much matter what. It wasn t what she 
said it was the way she looked as they 
went along the yellow and pink road in 
the high, pure air with its strange reserves 
of haunting undertones, beetling cliffs on 
one side, and on the other, far below, the 
purple sea banded with its bronze-red 
kelp-beds. She too was overflowing with 
life ; thrilling with a sense of the wildness 
of the scene, the sharp plunges and the 
steep climbs of the narrow road, at times 
hardly more than a trail. And because 
she was more at home with facts and 
couldn t attempt another long flight of 
the imagination she told him her own 
story, which after all was the most dra 
matic thing that could possibly happen 
a wild exaggeration of the most improb 
able dream. 

It was about a girl who "modelled," 
and how she used to wonder about the 
beautiful creatures that put on their cos 
tumes in Annette s "studio" to appear 
on a stage she never saw. She felt as if 
she were condemned to live always be 
hind the scenes, never to have a seat in 
front. She got tired of all the talk of 
putting in and taking out stitches; of wear 
ing clothes for people who never saw you 



in them but just themselves how they d 
look in the gown and not you at all. At 
last she got so sick of it that she wouldn t 
go to a girl-and-music show because they 
all looked like debs and flappers. 

"One day when Julie everybody 
called her Julie it isn t smart not to 
know the models by their first names- 
was showing a costume one of madame s 
customers said: Julie, I ll bet you re 
sick of your job. How would you like to 
play around for a while? 

"And she gave her a lot of children for 
playmates, who just lived in rompers and 
were a thousand years from fine clothes. 
And she put on her magic spats Cin 
derella had nothing on her with her little 
old glass slippers and a wonderful thing 
happened. She was taken for a lady, not 
a manikin, but a real lady ! The skies 
cleared for her and the sea lifted out of a 
fog and let her pass over to a ship that 
had a halo as if it were holy. And persons 
of high rank kowtowed to her, and blue 
jackets and midshipmen made a lane for 
her to pass through. And the ship was 
dressed up as for a party with all its flags 
flying. And I I mean she had tea 
with the admiral ! It is a wonderful thing 
to be a lady ! I don t blame them for 
being so proud about it." 

Quite suddenly they came out on a 
high plateau where there were houses and 
gardens that looked on the ocean and the 
wide sky. 

"Please stop here," said Julie as if 
waking from a dream. Two great ole 
anders, red-and-white from top to toe, 
stood at the entrance of a garden; and a 
border of huge purple Canterbury bells 
swinging on both sides of a gravelled walk 
led up to a white-pillared piazza. Four 
children followed by four funny wagging 
little puppies rushed up to the car. 

" Oh, Julie, look at our puppies ! They 
go with the place, and we have one 
apiece ! Won t you ask him to give them 
a ride? They ve never had a ride in all 
their lives. You ll just love them, Julie. 
Please, Julie !" 

"Shall we have you the time?" 
asked Julie.. 

"All the time in the world. I m at 
your service, Lady Beatrice." 

"But you don t understand 

"But I do. I guess I know a real lady 
when I see her." 




ANTIQUE SHOP 

ARTHUR JOHNSON 

\i7ih. drawings by 
JOHN WOLCOTTAWMf 

THROUGH an old doorway that was lovely yet, 
We wandered in, and yielded to the spell 
Of odds and ends ruins of who could tell 
What dear ambitions ! Heirlooms by the set, 
Clocks ticking bravely still lest we forget 
The honored houses where they used to dwell, 
All proudly fair though huddled there to sell; 
Age circling round them like an amulet. 

We bought a tiny picture "For the frame," 

She said, "chaste as a halo, and as frail" . . . 

But later: "Oh," she cried, "that child!" Who, pale, 

Upon a little sofa red as flame, 

Beseechingly, through the dust-woven veil, 

Stared forth at us who did not know his name. 







374 




ThE POINT OF VIEW 




FROM earliest childhood shadows had 
power to thrill you. The shadow of a 
bird upon the dunes; purple shadows 
of canyons in a bare mountainside; shadows 
of wind-stirred wheat these were the stuff 
of which your young dreams and delights 

were made. 

hadows One June morning remains 

etched on your memory chiefly be 
cause of a shadow that crept over the wet 
brown sand. There was light on the sea 
that morning, light on the rugged dunes, 
silver light on the wings of the wheeling 
gulls; and the wind blew across the Pacific 
from islands that your fancy crowned with 
light. It was a morning in which to run 
and shout, and dare the curling foam to 
catch the wet bare feet. But you had 
found a more fascinating game the game 
of keeping within the soft round shadow 
that was slipping down the shore. 

"What makes the shadow?" you asked 
your elders; and they answered in the tone 
of those who have traced every effect back 
to its cause and know that there are no gods 
in ambush: "It is because a cloud has come 
before the sun." 

The explanation only deepened the mys 
tery for you. Your heart beat with the ex 
citement of sharing for the time that ele 
mental movement. You had heard people 
talk about objects casting shadows. What 
the cloud had cast down, who knew but it 
might choose to claim again ? At any mo 
ment it might enfold you, gather you into, 
its soft embrace and draw you up into that 
heart-lifting sea of blue which you vaguely 
understood held also the secret of your 
origins. 

This early delight in shadows, held through 
the years, was perhaps intensified by life in 
a desert country where the essence of the 
landscape s charm lies in the shadows that 
slip over shining mesa and bare hills, their 
form changing with the growing and fading 
of light. What rivers and forests are to the 
people of less austere regions, shadows be 
come to those who live in the arid lands; and 
they can express the moods of the passing 
day as subtly as any river. 

When blindness began to threaten, it took 



on the mocking form of an old love, for it 
was at first merely a disturbing shadow. 
The horror lay in the fact that it was a 
shadow unclaimed by any object in earth 
or sky, and was obedient to no law of light. 
As this new shadow deepened, light became 
the thing the senses craved. Night was 
scarcely tolerable, and morning a thing to 
be longed for yet dreaded, for there was the 
fear that the eyes might no longer be able 
to see it breaking. You basked painfully 
in the sun, since for a time it vanquished the 
advancing and retreating of the shadow. 

Before the darkness became quite final 
the hospital brought brief oblivion, and 
after oblivion a concentration of pain that 
allowed no other thought to obtrude. 
Weakness followed on pain, and thought 
dallied with the uncertainty of sight as if it 
were not, after all, the prime object of the 
suffering endured. 

And then one morning the freed eyes 
opened careless on a beam of light that 
had slipped through the closed blinds and 
lay upon the opposite wall. Light ! The 
senses swam in that patch of light, played 
about it, clung to it, fearful lest in a moment 
the formless shadow might swallow it up. 
But the finger of light remained, and you 
fell asleep again to that whisper of ancient 
wisdom: "Truly the light is sweet, and a 
pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold 
the sun." 

The ghost of the old fear was not quite 
laid, for me it still remained as trees walking, 
and the world of small and intimate things 
was closed. Only light was wholly comfort 
ing, and the mind clung healthily to that. 

Then one night, after a sleep so deep that 
all remembrance of disaster was sponged 
from the mind, you waked to find soft moon 
light flooding the room. But it was some 
thing more than moonlight that made the 
heart throb with childish ecstasy. A 
shadow lay clear upon the white window- 
curtain the shadow of drooping, arrow- 
shaped leaves, traceries such as the moon 
light often drew on the white walls of your 
sleeping-porch at home. You knew them 
for the shadows of eucalyptus boughs, and 
though returning vision could not yet reach 

375 



376 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



the tree that had cast them there, its spirit 
lay like a delicate promise upon the curtain. 
"Truly the light is sweet," says old wis 
dom; but there is a thing that is sweeter 
still; and with the recovered delight in 
shadow the last vestige of your fear is laid. 



A 



k WAY back in our "little red school- 
house days," our schoolhouse, by the 
way, being an economical and most 
uninteresting gray, we small folk, both boys 
and girls, used to play a curious, almost 
prehistoric form of baseball. In no detail 
could it claim relationship, except 
NoDd S a e ys M ^ perhaps that of a distant ances 
tor, with the game of the modern 
league. The ball was soft rubber, the bat 
a paddle-shaped affair whittled from a 
shingle, and the bases three stately elms 
that had grown, after their own beautiful, 
indifferent fashion, with no notion of form 
ing a diamond. 

Our game was immensely popular and 
that shady corner, where baby feet had 
worn smooth paths from one great tree to 
another, was ;the very top of our social 
world. To be in the game was wonderful; 
even to be allowed to look on was to be near 
happiness. But we took ourselves terribly 
seriously. If the proud possessor of the 
ball, I doubt if we ever called him the pitch 
er, attempted any extra cleverness, pretend 
ing to throw the ball, and then turning 
swiftly to see if any little fingers had left 
the protecting bark of the goal-tree, some 
childish treble would break out in our 
favorite singsong, "No false motions, no de 
lays," and the game would speed up at once. 

The crowding suburbs of a huge town 
have overtaken the school of those far-away 
days, the elm-trees are gone, and a tower 
ing brick structure houses the seemingly 
numberless youngsters of the present dis 
trict. They, poor little tots, take their 
recesses in relays and exercise in a paved 
court, but they doubtless have games of 
tremendous importance, social and other 
wise, and catchwords and singsongs of 
their own with which they call one another 
to order. No amount of argument, no 
knowing quotations from the latest educa 
tional system, can ever convince me that 
the wonderful Child World, with all its self- 
centred thoughts and laws unto itself, has 
ever changed essentially. 

How they ring in one s mind and sing in 
one s ears, these catchwords from childhood 



days ! When the enthusiasm for new work 
or new play, which even middle age cannot 
dim, burdens my left hand with some fas 
cinating material while my right hand is 
still struggling with the duties of the day, 
that stern childish "No false motions, no 
delays," comes down through the years, 
and for the moment both hands fall free 
and my finger-tips seem to feel the friendly 
rough bark of the goal-trees. 

Were we unconsciously laying founda 
tions for future life-work ? Were we study 
ing efficiency before we could even spell the 
word? Who knows? It is only within 
comparatively recent years that the word 
itself has loomed large in our every-day 
vocabulary, decking itself out in capital 
letters, much given to underlining and quo 
tation-marks, evidently considering itself a 
most important personage among words. 
"Of making many books" on the subject, 
"there is no end," and the libraries that 
have so wisely become a part of every big 
business are full of them. Even the out 
sider, set beyond that particular pale by 
age and by unscientific training and pur 
suits, finds them fascinating reading. For 
myself, however, I must confess that this 
modern study of efficiency, as it deals with 
false motions and delays, is but too apt to 
reduce my imaginative and too sympathetic 
brain to a state of simmering mush. 

That work-people can be found willing 
and able to go through the usual motions of 
their daily task with tiny electric lights on 
their finger-tips so that a faithful camera 
can record every detail of motion is a mar 
vel to me. To my incurably flippant mind 
the resultant photographs resemble nothing 
in the world so much as the erratic flight of 
the fireflies in our home meadows. And 
yet these records, under the devoted study 
of the efficiency experts and -the loyal co 
operation of the work-people themselves, 
have wiped out many a false motion, pre 
vented many a delay. All honor to them ! 

It is my own fault that they fill my mid 
dle-aged mind with dismay, and make me 
look upon my own fingers, hitherto con 
sidered willing and obedient servants, in the 
light of tricksy, irresponsible children. Al 
though it may be impossible to train these 
same tricksy children to true scientific ef 
ficiency at this late date, the thought of 
those electric-lit finger-tips clings in one s 
mind. What a mad maze of dots and lines 
would be the result if some faithful camera 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



377 



could follow such a set of illuminated fingers 
throughout one morning of a busy house 
mother s life. The railway map of the 
eastern end of these United States would 
be as nothing to it. Even more bewilder 
ing would be the record of electric-lit feet. 
Imagine the horror of our prohibition fad 
dists ! Never could they be made to believe 
that this was honest toil, recorded in the 
cause of science. 

A science, too, that is moulding the lives 
of even us oldsters, whether we will or no, 
teaching us many a home truth in the con 
servation of energy. Let any one whose 
motions and thoughts have been pruned 
down to a modern kitchenette be thrown 
servantless as may easily happen in these 
latter days into the huge sunlit spaces of 
an old farmhouse kitchen, where the domes 
tic extravagance in the matter of space that 
marked our grandfather s day considered 
it necessary to have a secondary room, of 
many shelves, as a pantry, and a vast shed 
as the only fitting shelter for wood and 
kindling and half a dozen other things that 
were absolutely necessary every other min 
ute. Here indeed is food for thought. 

First comes immense respect for our 
grandmothers, and in my own mind the 
loving memories of certain free-stepping, 
straight-thinking, four-square, towering 
women that I have been lucky enough to 
know in just such surroundings. But, alas, 
there was too often an accompanying 
picture of weary, temperamentally tired 
housemothers, whose neighbors rather 
cruelly dubbed them "slab-sided and slack- 
twisted" without realizing that these bitter,, 
old-time adjectives often simply recorded 
the effect of endless journeyings from sink 
to stove, to pantry, and back from pantry 
to stove to sink. 

Looking back to this dreary round as 
seen through the tired eyes of one of these 
women, it seems unbearable. Will our 
grandchildren look back upon our daily 
round with the same pitying sympathy be 
cause all our daily tasks are not done by 
electricity, our lives and our households 
controlled wholly by a switchboard? 
Again, who knows ? It is possible that we, 
who for the very sake of carrying on had 
to be endowed with a fair share of self-con 
ceit, have reached the stage where it is safe 
for evolution and progress to confess that 
we are of no unusual importance after aHV 
just a link in the chain, a bridge by the way. 



Personally, I have wandered so far from 
"Where the brook and river meet " that my 
present condition seems frankly to be that 
of a castaway on a narrow spit of sand in 
the midst of swirling waters. There is 
humor in the situation, and no loneliness, 
for the rising generation is obviously am 
phibious. The swirling waters are full of 
them, bobbing about serenely, "on their 
lawful occasions. May the gods bless them 
and keep them ! I can never, I fear, be 
come amphibious, but my sand-spit prom 
ises to last quite a time yet, and I am full 
of admiration for the young things all about 
me that are making such a busy, merry af 
fair of this electrically efficient world of ours. 



THEY used to say that a woman is as 
old as she looks, and, I suppose, as 
young as she looks. Her hair may be 
gray, and it may be difficult for her to thread 
a needle without glasses; but if her mouth 
is still mobile and does not withdraw itself 
into a frog look when she knits, 
if she has no double chin, and her 
waist has not settled into her hips 
in that wide, deep way, we know that she 
is still young. Perhaps there are as definite 
age signals in men, but I think not, despite 
the significance of the expression of a man s 
hat. John Burroughs said no one that en 
joys apples is old. I remember one most 
charming idyll of youth when, not many 
years ago, the young brother of a friend of 
mine and John Burroughs himself sat on the 
sofa, discussing a certain peculiarity of a bird 
the boy had observed. The long white beard 
and the knotted hands were utterly negligi 
ble as one watched the fire of enthusiasm 
and youth in those keen, humorous eyes. 
John Burroughs had kept his figure. 

Never in the world has there been so 
great a need of young-old men and women 
as to-day. It takes the young to under 
stand the young, and the young to-day are 
almost tragically in need of being under 
stood. One is stirred to apology at the out 
set for bringing up the question. It is such 
an old story, this problem of the younger 
generation old as the hills in reality, and 
painfully worn just now. However, it is not 
altogether threadbare. No problem is, 
while it remains a problem. Therefore, I 
dare enter into the controversy. The point 
that the young are always making, although 
they do not always make it audibly, is that 
the older generation are such bunglers, so 



378 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



disappointing. Perhaps one reason for this 
is that the Victorian era preserved so many 
old people. Timidity and Victorian good 
ness were disastrous to chins. Think of the 
picture of Queen Victoria at forty-three! 
In Elizabethan days men died young; to 
day those that do not die young are trying 
to keep young, but in Victoria s day, and 
the years that followed, they seem to have 
become mature the minute they ceased to 
be children. One reason for the reaction of 
the young to-day is in part just this hatred 
of the Victorians. They do not like the 
mess of a world that has been left them, and 
they mistrust and misunderstand the old 
as they see them. Queen Elizabeth could 
barely be restrained from riding every day 
when she was past sixty ; she kept her figure. 
Victoria did not keep hers. 

But the attempt to keep young may go 
astray. The danger is an old one. Youth 
is not a matter of short skirts and large hats 
and cigarettes for grandmothers. That 
trick is specious; one sees through it at 
once. Youth means a thing so very differ 
ent. It means, for one thing, adaptability; 
the young-old must not indulge in habits, 
except, of course, coffee in the morning. 
They may never show surprise. To be 
shocked is hopeless. There is nothing so 
ingratiating to the young as complete 
"savoir faire" on the part of the elders. 
This is an axiom that every good teacher 
knows. The young-old never have many 
possessions, for the anxious care of accumu 
lated material is sure to affect the chin. One 
may cherish a few books, perhaps, and the 
trophies of one s travels, but none too many. 
The quality that youth demands above all 
else, however, is sympathy. The young 
may be Bolshevists; if so, they are no hap 
pier than are real Bolshevists anywhere. 
They may demand a large share in the 
government of the home, as Mr. Perry of 
Harvard says they are going to do more and 
more; they may demand it at school, prid 
ing themselves, as one boy wrote, that "not 
even the headmaster can change the laws 
or the punishments made by the students in 
our school "; yet they realize -none better 
that they are rudderless. Never, I believe, 
have the young been more eager than they 
are now to accept the guidance of those that 
seem to them wise. They want, not to exert 
authority over their parents and teachers, 
nor yet to . live quite according to their 
desires; what they want is co-operation. 



The co-operation of the older with the 
young is, I am inclined to think, more dif 
ficult than is the co-operation of the em 
ployer and the laborers. The older genera 
tion is inhibited by three ideas: outraged 
authority, a dislike of the young as they 
seem to-day, and fear. They are uncom 
fortable in the presence of youth. As a re 
sult they withdraw 7 into themselves and do 
not try to understand; they say they cannot. 
They give to their children freedom that 
they should not, because they lack courage 
to do anything else. They fail to realize 
that this war between young and old is not 
new, although in every age it looks differ 
ent. Ernest Lavisse has said of history: 

"One loses correct appreciation of the 
present, if one sees the past as beautiful by 
system; one s system makes the present 
ugly. One belittles one s own time and one 
self. This may become a cause of dis 
couragement, even of despair. . . . Those 
who know that humanity has never been 
beautiful do not reproach her for being 
ugly at present." It is absurdly ignorant 
as well as sentimental to believe that once 
we were good little boys and girls ! 

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that 
the young recognize with amazing swiftness 
wisdom and sympathy in the older genera 
tion, wherever it is to be found. To-day, 
however, the young make no pretense of 
respect for the sages, respect being a quality 
more or less out of date. Therefore tin 
older generation must prove their worthi 
ness. No self-indulgence for them now, no 
quarter, no excuses for weakness and selfish 
ness. The young see through disguises; in 
their hands cant breaks into dust. If, how 
ever, the old can bear the test, they ma) 
be of inestimable service in a topsyturv) 
world. 

It is a fine tonic this idea, of standing 
in well with those who expect the best of 
us. It means fighting on to the end not 
settling down into our chins. It means 
making comrades of the young, meeting 
them man to man, exchanging with ther 
what of wisdom the years have brought us 
in exchange for their clear view of life, 
view altogether without compromise. It is 
a great adventure, with entrancing com 
panions to whom everything is possible. 
The young are eager for our companionship; 
but we must be like the "funny man" of 
Kenneth Grahame s story; there is no place 
now for the Olympians. 




THE FIELD OF ART 




Sargent s New Mural Decorations 

BY PRESERVED SMITH 

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE ORIGINALS 

THERE is a note of universality in the decoration with which he has enriched two 
mind and work of John Singer Sargent, noble buildings in his father s town the 
Calling himself American, born in Boston Library and the Museum of Fine 
Florence, educated in Germany and Italy, Arts. The religious pictures in the library 
trained to his trade in Paris, living in Eng- are widely known, for they have been long 
land, widely travelled, he is as cosmopolitan a-making, though only completed within 
as the "international mind." His art is the last four years. At one end of the gal- 
catholic and eclectic, learning from all lery is set forth the story of the Old Testa- 
schools, and in bondage to none. A master ment, in a rich symbolism now and then re- 



of many styles, he 
adds new domains to 
his empire every year. 
That his power in 
portraiture has not 
declined is witnessed 
by the charcoal 
sketches of President 
A.LawrenceLowell,of 
Doctor William Stur- 
gis Bigelow, of Mrs. 
F. S. Bigelow, and 
some others, all of the 
last two years, now on 
exhibition in Boston 
and Cambridge. 
New splendors of 
water-color and of oil 
pour forth rapidly 
from his studio; no 
tably the landscape 
"Lake O Hara," and 
the war picture "The 
Road," with its un 
canny glint of blue 
helmet and gray uni 
form against a sub- 
lustrous sky of cobalt 
and pearl, while long 
lines of men march 
through the mystic 
night. 

But the crown and 
glory of Sargent s 
work is the mural 




Copyright, Koston Public Library Employees 
Association. 

Moloch. 



calling Watts, though 
far surpassing him. 
There we have the 
Chosen People crying 
unto Jehovah, clad in 
the red wings of his 
cherubim, while the 
savage Babylonian 
and the subtle Egyp 
tian beat down the 
Israelite. On either 
hand are Astarte and 
Moloch, "lust hard 
by hate," and be 
neath the main pic 
ture is the row of 
prophets. At the 
other end of the gal 
lery is made visible 
the doctrine of the 
New Testament: the 
Trinity revealed, the 
Crucified from whose 
pierced hands drips 
the eucharistic blood 
caught in goblets by 
Adam and Eve. 
There, too, may be 
read the story of 
Man s fall through 
Woman, and of Man s 
redemption through 
Woman s Seed; the 
Annunciation, the 
Virgin of the Seven 
379 



380 



THE FIELD OF ART 



Swords, the Apostles. On the wall of the 
gallery are the two great paintings of the 
Church a pure nun with Christ between 
her knees and of the Synagogue, clinging 
desperately to the tables of the law. Above, 
the lunettes represent 
scenes of the Last Judg 
ment, of Hell and of 
Paradise. As in most 
great works of art, 
every idea had been 
worked out before; the 
originality lies in the 
grandeur of- the concep 
tion and in the abound 
ing richness of details. 
Probably the Catholic 
tone of the whole i j due 
more to artistic reasons 
than to anything else; 
for. as Winckelmann 
pointed out long ago, 
Protestantism is the re- 
ligion of merchants and 
Catholicism the religion 
of artists. But it 
would almost seem as if 
Boston s great mural 
decorations vividly rep 
resented the prese nt 
reaction against Puri 
tanism, those in the 
library a Catholic re 
action, those in the Art 
Museum a Hellenistic 
or pagan reaction. 

It was a fortunate 
day, the 2d of Novem 
ber, 1916, when Mr. 
Sargent noted in his 
diary that he had 
agreed with the trustees 
of the Boston Art Museum to paint four 
panels for the rotunda. This original plan 
was soon changed to a comprehensive 
scheme which was carried out with the tire 
less hand of genius, though in three broken 




Copyright* 1916, Boston 



The \ 7 irgin of the Seven Swords. 



make the best of a dome of rather unusual 
proportions, for the rotunda is not circular 
but oval. The vertical curve of the dome is 
a long ellipse, and the illumination comes 
from a skylight at the top. In order to 
study the problem at 
ease Sargent had a mod 
el of the rotunda made 
exactly one-eighth the 
diameter and height of 
the original, and lighted 
like it, from above. 
This model is now on 
exhibition at the Mu 
seum, and can be seen 
with nearly the same 
decorations, on a mi 
nute scale, as those con 
tained in the large ro 
tunda. After solving 
the problems of space 
and of lighting in this 
manner, Sargent con 
structed a grandiose de 
sign comprising four 
large canvases, four 
small canvases, and 
t welve bas-reliefs, not 
to mention minor de 
tails, such as the plac 
ing of vases and a piece 
of sculpture in the 
arches under the dome. 
Every single part of the 
whole large design was 
executed by his own 
hand. As preliminary 
studies he made no less 
than two hundred char 
coal drawings, mainly 
from the nude, of which 
he has generously given 



m 

Library Employees 



fifty to the Museum, where they are now 
on exhibition for the benefit of future stu 
dents. Things of beauty they all are, 
worthy of prolonged attention for Sargent 
is a consummate draftsman did not the 
periods, the whole being completed on Octo- paintings and reliefs in their final form claim 
ber 20, 1921, when it was unveiled to the our more pressing attention. 

No description of detail can do justice to 
the supreme beauty of the whole. One can 
see that the artist has learned the secret of 
mural decoration from all the great masters 
who have ever practised it; from Ghirlan- 
dajo at Florence, and Michelangelo at 
Rome, to the latest works of Puvis de Cha- 



public. Though he at first designed to paint 
four panels for the lunettes in the dome, the 
artist soon saw that considerations of light 
and of the angle of vision would render this 
impossible, and accordingly worked out a 
more suitable plan for the decoration 
of the dome itself. The problem was to 



THE FIELD OF ART 



381 



vannes, and of LaFarge, and of Gaston La every detail subtly as we may, our first im- 

Touche at the Hotel de Ville, in Paris. And pression is likely to be our final one that 

yet, learned as he is, old as are his themes, it is good to live in a world of ideas where 

he has had the genius to make out of his such beauty is possible, where men can 

opportunities something new and living, an dream such dreams and create such speak- 




Copyright, 1921, hy the .Mnseinti ,<f l- inf .Iris, AV.v.V;;. 



The Sphinx and the Chimaera. 



inspiration and a delight to the present and 
probably to a long future. 

All the canvases are in the same key, 
of blue and gold, giving the effect to the 
spectator from below of looking up into the 
sky, a heaven shot through with sunbeams 
and peopled with radiant images of gods 
and goddesses, and other immortal creatures 
of the imagination. The unity of tone and 
the similarity of the subjects, all drawn 
from classic myth, constitute the bond 
that makes all the pictures one. For 
they tell no connected story; they have no 
message save that of the glory of art and the 
compulsion of beauty, Interpret each and 



ing symbols of their aspiration. Next to 
beauty, joy is the dominant idea. The 
world has escaped from the horror of the 
great war, and peace comes again, and with 
peace her natural handmaidens, the pleasant 
things of the spirit. 

As one ascends the stairway into the ro 
tunda the canvas that first meets one s 
eye is a large oval representing the three 
arts, Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture, 
protected by Minerva from the ravages of 
time. How perfectly the pencil has rep 
resented the ethos of each art the massive 
repose of architecture, the manly strength 
of sculpture, the voluptuous softness of 



382 



THE FIELD OF ART 



painting ! Not only is such a trio a fitting 
blazon for America, where the three arts 
are now in full bloom, but it also well rep 
resents the triple accomplishment of Sargent 
in this rotunda, where he has combined into 
a single whole all three arts, as they always 



his ram s horns, is Nature, huge and animal 
and wild. Orpheus is represented as a 
naked boy, singing with all his might to the 
charmed beasts. On the other side two 
women, one draped, the other naked, em 
body the Classic and Romantic spirits. 




Copyright, 1921, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 

Cupid and Psyche. 



must be combined in order to produce the 
highest effect. 

Turning slightly to the right we next see 
a small canvas representing Astronomy- 
Urania, the Heavenly Muse, sitting in sub 
dued evening light, with rapt vision fixed 
on the heavens, while behind her in golden 
band are unfolded the signs of the zodiac. 
Beneath the small canvas are two bas- 
reliefs, one representing Amphion, the great 
musician, and the other the three Graces. 

The centre of the large canvas on the 
right hand is occupied by Apollo, with 
Orpheus and Pan on one side, and Classic 
and Romantic Art on the other. Pan, with 



The form of the girl, like that of Orpheus, 
is a faultless nude, perfect in all things, even 
in the flesh tints, which, according to Ken- 
yon Cox and other great critics, usually suf 
fer in this master s work, from the lack of 
underpainting. 

The small canvas next to this represents 
Prometheus attacked by the eagle, and the 
two bas-reliefs under it, Achilles and the 
Centaur, and Venus and Cupid. 

The large canvas over the door will prob 
ably puzzle many an eager gazer. Labelled 
"The Sphinx and the Chimaera," it shows 
the head of a conventional sphinx, smiling 
and enigmatical, over whom hovers a 




t, i <_ i, I jt Mnxeinn of Fine Arts-, Boston. 



Architecture, Painting and Sculpture, protected by Minervn from the ravages of time. 




Copyright, 1921, Afnscum of Fine Arts, Boston. 

Ganymede. 




C\<fyri/it, 1921, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 

Astronomy. 



383 



384 



THE FIELD OF ART 



woman with arms for wings. This is not 
the triple monster, formed of lion, goat, and 
snake, commonly called a chimera, but the 
word is used in the French sense of "illu 
sion," not necessarily a malignant thing, 
but rather a harmless and beneficent crea 
ture of fancy. "If you deprive man of his 
chirnagras," says Fontenelle, "what would 
be left him ? " Sargent here depicts illusion 
as play of fancy absolutely unrestrained. 
Note that the being has no hands to hold 
and to work with, but only wings with 
which to fly, and wings of "sky-tinctured 
grain and colors dipt in heaven," of downy 
gold and rainbow hue ! Mark the broken 
chains on her legs, and the unstable, 
questioning swoop of her posture, and the 
wildness of her hair, and learn that without 
imaginations that soar to heaven neither 
man nor art is anything. 

The exquisite balance and equipoise of 
the whole design is illustrated in the rela 
tions of the two small canvases on either 
side of the great winged Chimsera. One, 
as already stated, represents Prometheus 
conquered and tortured by an eagle; the 
other is Ganymede borne aloft by an eagle. 
So it is that man is now devoured and now 
snatched to Olympus by his aspirations ! 
And note the painter s realism, how nat 
urally the eagle (true American variety !) 
is poised; how frightened are the eyes of the 
boy ! When Rubens or Correggio painted 
the rape of Ganymede, they subordinated 



realism to the meaning of the myth; Sar 
gent has painted bird and boy exactly as 
they might look in such circumstances, and 
yet he has brought out a loftier lesson than 
is to be learned from his predecessors. Be 
neath the Ganymede are two bas-reliefs, a 
Fame blowing her trumpet, and a Cupid 
and Psyche. In this again is carried out 
the idea of the winged creatures of man s 
mind, the Soul drooping to earth and Love 
stooping down to raise her. 

The last of the large canvases shows 
Apollo and the Nine Muses circling him in 
mystic dance. There is music in the move 
ment music such as there is in so many of 
these decorations: a fine rhythm and trip 
ping metre that remind us that Sargent is 
almost as much a musician and player as a 
painter. Here we have the Apollo of the 
poets, "with harpstring and hair of gold, a 
bitter god to follow, a beautiful god to be 
hold" ; and, to bring out fully the meaning 
of the large canvas, next to it is a small one 
of Music herself, playing in ecstasy upon 
her instrument, while below her Satyr and 
Maenad, and three dancing girls, carry on 
the symbolism of perfect art. 

For, whether the artist intend it or not, 
all art is symbolic: "Alles Vergangliche ist 
nur ein Gleichniss"; it has an inner mean 
ing, but that meaning can only be expressed 
by itself: "Das Unzulangliche, Hier wird s 
Ereigniss." For if art means life, life means 
art. 




Copyright, 1916, Boston Public Library Employees Benefit Association. 

The Golden Age. 



A calendar of current art exhibitions will be found on page 7. 



wmmif/M mmm 

rrJiilii. ft //>/// II iin/li : f , If. 




From a drawing by William Fletcher While. 

COMING BACK, THE LIGHT OF THE CABIN SHONE CLEAR AND STEADY. 

"Bain s Hole," page 419. 
386 



ScRiBNER s MAGAZINE 

VOL. LXXI APRIL, 1922 NO. 4 

The River 

BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT 

SOME men are troubled by the sea, 
And some take the blue hills as a lover, 
And some in a forest lie all day 
Hearing the brown thrush over and over; 
But the man I speak of loved a river. 
Loved the shallows of it, rippling; 
Loved its reaches, sunlight stippling; 
And hour by hour would watch an eddy, 
To see in the amber-tinted deep, 
The water-rat and spring make ready, 
And the yellow lilies turned from sleep. 
I think where willow roots were drowned 
He heard a music passing sound; 
Something of wood- wind, clear and round, 
That crept along the damp sweet ground; 
But like all great and actual lovers, 
He held his peace and seldom spoke, 
Save when some loveliness too sharp, 
Fell in his heart and, star-wise, broke. 
I know, one summer night he said: 
"While I m alive I ll ask no favor; 
I am responsible for ME . . . but when I m dead; 
Death is so different; who ll out-brave her? 
I only ask that then," he said, 
"Some part of me will be a river." 
And once again: "A river holds 
All of a soul a man could want; 
His laughter in its weirs and runs, 
His sorrow where the trees are gaunt: 
And in the secret circling pool 
His meditation, slow and cool." 
Upon his russet lucid stream, 
That wandered like a waking dream 
Through meadows whose habiliment 
Gave it green shadows where it went, 
. He built at length his little house: 
A certain coppice took the breeze: 
And there were elm and locust trees; 
And flowers on an eastward lawn 
That opened to the earliest dawn. 

Copyrighted in 1922 in United States, Canada, and Great Britain, by Charles Scribner s Sons. Printed in 

New York. All rights reserved. 

387 



388 THE RIVER 



. . . "And I am glad," he said, "for now 

I can love God and milk a cow." 

. . . There was an August night of thunder, 

Heavy and soft and whispering footed, 

And through the elm trees, out and under, 

The bats their intricate weaving plotted: 

The otter hunted on the bank; 

The smell of weeds was lush and rank. 

"I wonder," said my friend, and smoked, 

"If heaven isn t compensation; 

A sweeping up, and winnowing out, 

And sure release, and isolation; 

So that the greatest love we have 

Is all that s left; and we are fire, 

The very heart of fire, its breath, 

Genii and ether, passion, death? 

How can a man so much love, else; 

And what becomes of all his loving? 

The hunter for his high bright hills, 

The farmer for his red rich ploughing, 

The swimmer for the sea; a few 

Who some rare love of women knew? 

. . . To-morrow I ll be wed," he ended; 

His pipe went out in hand extended. 

"I do not know how I have wrung 

From life a girl so gold and young; 

So very young and gold she sways: 

I must learn all her golden ways." 

A musk-rat broke the sudden hush; 

The river whimpered in the rush. 

Youth is impatient and goes by; 

Gold is not given man for long; 

There is no lyric constancy, 

Only the memory of a song; 

Mv friend was left alone with his 

j 

Memories untender and too curt 
I found him sitting on his lawn, 
And the poor stricken face was hurt. 
. . . Now I had never dragged a river, 
Not till that day; nor ever after, 
I hope, for there s the laughter 
Of those who search; they dredge and spit, 
And joke and smoke; and probe for IT. 
And there re the crowds that come and go; 
And dogs that yawn and yet you know 
That all the while beneath the flood 
The dead man dances in the mud. 
Dances and sways and bobs and bows; 
This flower of two dead lovers vows; 
This whispering in the night turned flesh; 
Into a heart that yearned afresh. 
The water lilies sway and ride 
Their slim green anchors to the tide; 
The grave frog watches with round eye 
The darting of the dragon-fly; 
Above the iridescent ooze 



ON THE TRACK OF AN UNKNOWN SHEEP 

Stumbles a bee with pollened shoes. 
... I do not know; I cannot tell; 
Save that he loved the river well. 
Perhaps now he has what he so wanted, 
Rippling and sunlit; ousel haunted. 



389 



On the Track of an Unknown Sheep 

BY JOHN B. BURNHAM 

President, American Game Protective Association 
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 




N the summer of 1921 
Andy Taylor, of Shu- 
shanna, Alaska, and I 
together travelled 
twenty-one thousand 
miles to get one small 
mountain - sheep, 
thirty-one inches high 
by forty-two inches over all. We were 
fifty days on the sea, fifty days on land 
travelling, or unprofitably occupied, and 
fifty days on the hunting-grounds. Be 
tween us we wore out nine pairs of shoes, 
two sets of tempers, and two pairs of eyes, 
looking for sheep where they weren t. 
But we are satisfied because, with other 
material secured from the natives, we 
have settled the question of the kind of 
sheep there are in the Chukotsk Peninsula 
of northeastern Siberia, and bridged the 
longest gap in the range of sheep from 
western Asia to Mexico. We also had a 
mighty interesting time in the practically 
unknown hinterland that lies across Ber 
ing Strait from Alaska. 

We had the usual troubles encountered 
when one gets off the beaten track. We 
brought five pack-horses twenty-three 
hundred miles from Seattle to Nome, only 
to be blocked in getting them the last two 
hundred and forty miles to Asia by the 
stupid stubbornness of the one man who 
could have taken them across. We left 
the horses in Nome and thereafter were 
dependent on boats and man-power for 
progress. 

The U. S. Revenue Cutter Bear carried 
us to Emma Harbor, Siberia, named by 



the New Bedford whalers in the sixties, 
and not for Emma Goldman. The Bol 
shevist representative at the place refused 
permission to land, and ordered the Bear 
and ourselves to leave the country, with 
the result that the Bear stayed over the 
Fourth of July and fired a twenty-one- 
gun salute, gaily decorated from stem to 
stern with the flag of every known coun 
try except Russia. The Bolshevists had 
the nerve to send out and ask why their 
flag had not been included. They got an 
evasive answer, but naturally an Amer 
ican vessel would not have flown their 
red rag. 

During the interval Taylor and I 
hunted the neighboring country without, 
however, finding any traces of sheep. I 
had chartered a schooner to take us from 
Emma Harbor farther along the coast, 
but the Bolshevists blocked us in getting 
the boat. It belonged to Billy Thomp 
son, an Esthonian Russian, who gets his 
name and an unusual supply of fine quali 
ties from a Scotch grandfather; but Billy 
also inherited Scotch caution, and he 
knew if he disobeyed the order his boat 
and trading-post would be confiscated. 

Doctor Vassily, the local commissioner, 
was a Bolshevist by conviction and not 
amenable to the usual incentive. I tried 
it with distressing results. He would 
accept nothing short of written permis 
sion from Martens, the Soviet emissary, 
deported from New York the previ 
ous March. He particularly cherished 
against us the facts that my expedition 
had a scientific object and that we were 
Americans. He shouted his disapproval 



390 



ON THE TRACK OF AN UNKNOWN SHEEP 



of things scientific and American. His 
face was convulsed and his eye had a 
maniacal gleam. It was a relief when 
Billy remarked, in his practical way, 
"The damn fool s crazy." 

From Billy came the suggestion that 
the nachalnik at Whalen was of a differ 
ent type. All Billy wanted was some 
thing official to save his face. The Bear 



who willingly carried us back to Siberia 
to continue our hunt where we had left 
off. If we had had our horses Vassily s 
veto would not have stopped us, but we 
had a ton of provisions and duffle which 
could not be moved without assistance, 
and Vassily prevented even the natives 
giving us help. 

Taylor and I were embarked on a most 



O 




&u.!-f a i /}*<f*r 



Map of the Chukotsk Peninsula, showing ground covered by the author. 



had to proceed to Whalen to give assis 
tance to Amundsen s polar ship, the 
Maud. It was arranged that men on the 
Bear would apply for a permit for me, 
which, if received, would be forwarded 
to Captain Thompson. This paper was 
secured and sent Thompson, and six 
weeks later the good ship Trader caught 
up with us near Cape Bering, and there 
after Taylor and I had a comparatively 
comfortable time. I could take no 
chances, however, of having the applica 
tion turned down, so the Bear landed us 
at St. Lawrence Island, where I found 
an Esquimau owner of a small cat-boat, 
who knew nothing about Bolshevists, and 



interesting quest. Dr. E. W. Nelson, 
chief of the U. S. Biological Survey, who 
knows more about this part of Siberia 
than any other American scientist, had 
for the last twelve years been trying to 
interest an American sportsman to make 
the trip to secure specimens of the un 
known sheep of the country. Biologists 
knew that mountain sheep existed in the 
Chukotsk Peninsula, but they did not 
know what the sheep were or how to 
classify them. No museum in the world 
had a specimen of this animal. The 
records of its occurrence were wofully 
meagre. Aside from the statements of 
traders who, in time past, had seen 




The U. S. Revenue Cutter Bear, Emma Harbor, July 2, 1921. 



392 



ON THE TRACK OF AN UNKNOWN SHEEP 




The author on the Bear, U. S. Revenue Cutter. 

sheep-horns or spoons made from the 
horns, only four credible records existed, 
and there was no evidence to show that 
a live sheep had ever been seen by a white 
man. 

In 1899, while with the Harriman Ex 
pedition at Emma Harbor, Doctor C. 
Hart Merriam and Doctor George Bird 
Grinnell saw the remains of a small ram 
which had been recently killed by natives. 
Late in June, 1913, Joseph Dixon of the 
University of California heard from na 
tives of the south coast of the peninsula, at 
John Howland Bay, that they had, that 
day, seen a sheep on a mountain back of 
their village. In July of the same year a 
party of American big-game hunters- 
Scull, Elting, Collins, and Levering 
landed at Penkegnei Bay, on the east 
coast, and hunted a week without seeing 
either sheer>or sheep sign. They did, how 
ever, find some natives who had in their 
possession parts of some recently killed 
mountain sheep, and Scull secured from 
them the horns of a small ram. Finally, in 
1914, Captain Bob Bartlett, on his way 
from Wrangell Island to Emma Harbor, 



after the wreck of the Karluk, ate sheep 
meat procured by natives while travelling 
with dog-team on the ice of Seniavine 
Strait, no great distance from Penkegnei 
Bay. When the nachalnik at Whalen is 
sued my license he gave permission "to 
kill as many birds as he wants." "He 
does not want birds," said my repre 
sentative; "he is after mountain sheep." 
"I cannot give him permission for moun 
tain sheep," translated the commission 
er s secretary; "there are none in the 
Chukotsk." The nachalnik almost hit the 
bull s-eye, but fortunately for us there 
was one sheep he didn t know about. 

My bargain with the Esquimau, Sip- 
pula, was to carry Taylor and myself and 
our supplies from St. Lawrence Island to 
John Howland Bay. He was to leave us 
there for two weeks while we packed back 
into the mountains and hunted, and then 
to come for us again with the Wislow 
and carry us forty or fifty miles farther 
west along the south side of the peninsula 
to a new base for another hunt. Though 
not mentioned by name, I thought I could 




Captain "Bally" Thompson, owner of the schooner 
Trader, of Petropavloosk and of the trading- 
post at Emma Harbor, Siberia. 

He has sailed tfie seven seas, visited all the continents and 
knows the chief ports of the world almost as well as he 
knows Emma Harbor. He was on Benedict s yacht 
when the latter was commodore of the New York Yacht 
Club and tells interesting anecdotes of Grover Cleveland. 



ON THE TRACK OF AN UNKNOWN SHEEP 



393 



recognize one of the little dents on the 
chart as John Rowland Bay, but the St. 
Lawrence Islanders could not confirm my 
guess. We raised the Siberian coast at 
midnight, and Taylor and I went below to 
sleep. The cabin port-holes were open, 
but the smell of seal-oil and Esquimaux, 
which is also seal-oil, was nauseating. I 
would have slept on top of the cabin ex 
cept for the fact that there was nothing 



Sippula had gotten lost crossing the five- 
mile-wide entrance to Providence Bay. 

I set a course northwest, and for sev 
eral hours we followed this without pick 
ing up the land. We had been out long 
enough to have reached our destination, 
and could not afford to overrun John 
Howland Bay, because it was essential 
that the Wislow land us and get back to 
shelter as soon as possible. The bay it- 





The Wislow, the Esquimaux-owned catboat on which Captain Sippula carried us to Siberia. 



to which I could lash myself, and the boat 
was pitching too much to make the ex 
periment a safe one otherwise. 

At six in the morning Sippula waked 
me to find out where he was. Neither he 
nor any of his crew had sailed these waters 
and they knew nothing about the coast 
line. I got my chart and copy of the 
"Asiatic Pilot," but the detail of the 
chart is untrustworthy to a degree, and 
the descriptions of the coast contour given 
in the book are worthless to the inshore 
navigator. A heavy fog blanketed the 
sea, and the Wislow s compass was af 
fected by some local attraction which, at 
times, made it vary a whole quadrant 
from my pocket compass, held a few feet 
away. A storm was brewing. The wind 
came from the southwest, which made the 
coast a lee shore. Already the warning 
swell was getting heavy. Apparently 



self is an open roadstead, and affords no 
protection from the sea. A man familiar 
with this coast would have known that 
we were breasting a strong head current, 
which at this time of year always runs 
from the westward, but being ignorant 
we neglected this factor in our dead 
reckoning. 

The sea and air were full of birds. 
Lesser auklets flapped along the water 
or buzzed by like flocks of bumble-bees. 
Thousands of murres scurried hither and 
thither in aimless flight. Red-beaked 
puffins labored by, seemingly breathless 
with anxiety. Cormorants, of "shags," 
stretched to black streaks, appeared and 
disappeared. Big white gulls lounged 
lazily on set pinions or rested on the sea. 
They alone seemed unconcerned at our 
presence. 

It is dangerous to run in close in a fog 





Taylor, Allalowin, and Pngantoo packing across the glacier. 



on account of the shoals and rock pin 
nacles that stand as outposts in the sea 
in front of most of the capes. We, how 
ever, had to raise the land, and, after try 
ing north-northwest for a time, headed 
the boat straight north. All hands were 
now on deck peering in an effort to pene 
trate the gloom. It was Sippula who 
first saw the breakers looking like a long 
streak of snow. Then looming far over 
head appeared the jagged front of a 
thousand-foot cliff. 

The wheel was spun over and we 
steered west, but almost immediately 
rocks and breakers appeared dead ahead, 
and very close. Instantly we turned 
south, just escaping the danger. The 
eight-horse engine was limping on one 
lung, and threatening momentarily to 
expire. For a while it did not seem we 
would get away. It would have been all 
day with us if we had gone on the rocks, 
as the surf was too heavy for swimming, 
and the cliffs too steep to climb, and the 
water paralyzingly cold. Our seven-foot 
skin dingey was useless except in still 
water. We put (flit to sea and lost touch 
with the land. After a time we again 

394 



headed northward, and again saw the 
white line and the cliffs. Many times 
the process was repeated before, instead 
of the cliffs, we made out dimly a line of 
sand-dunes, and, running the Wislow al 
most into the breakers, saw a dog on the 
beach. 

The tension was broken. The Esqui 
maux all began talking, and there was 
confidence in their voices. Seeing the 
dog, they knew that human beings could 
not be far distant. Then through the 
mist appeared the round domes of twenty 
or more walrus-hide-covered huts, or 
mongteras, and yellow skin boats sup 
ported on posts six feet or so above the 
ground, and the dim figures of men. 
Sippula, with pride in his voice, said: 
"These are our people," referring to the 
relation of the St. Lawrence Islanders to 
the Siberian Esquimaux. They call them 
selves "Masinka," which may be freely 
translated " the chosen people." We had 
arrived at Imtook, a native village on a 
part of John Rowland Bay. 

Our start for the interior of the Chu- 
kotsk was made from Shairrainnik, four 
miles farther on. This is the farthest 



ON THE TRACK OF AN UNKNOWN SHEEP 



395 



west Esquimaux village in Asia. Beyond 
the coast is inhabited by " fish Chukchis/ 
as distinguished from the "deer Chuk 
chis" of the interior, a Mongol tribe re 
sembling, in some ways, our Apache In 
dians. We had two packers, Pngantoo 
and Allalowin. The first was a good man 
and not afraid to work, but Allalowin s 
only qualification was his flow of lan 
guage. This might have been welcome 
to a lonely man, but Taylor and I soon 
learned to loath the voice even more than 
Allalowin himself. It took us all the 
forenoon the day we started to break him 
from the embraces of his three wives. 

Taylor and I carried packs as well as 
the men. Our tent was a nine-by-nine 
miners tent, of zephyr silk. One jointed 
pole is all that is required for its erection, 
which is an advantage in a treeless coun 
try. The packs also contained our sleep 
ing-bags, extra socks, shoes, and under 
wear and provisions. The Esquimaux 
had some seal meat for their personal use. 
Our supplies were dessicated potatoes and 
onions, dried fruits, bacon, hardtack, and 
tea and coffee. We had also part of a 
case of eggs. The natives pack with a 



walrus-hide breast-strap, which is much 
better than shoulder-straps, as it does 
not have the same tendency to stop the 
circulation of the blood. I used a pack- 
rigging devised by Belmore Browne at the 
time of his Mount McKinley climb. It is 
by far the best packing device I have ever 
seen, for with it the weight is also carried 
from. the breast-bone. We camped that 
night in a saddle in the mountains, eight 
miles in from the coast. 

The greater part of the Chukotsk 
Peninsula is a jumble of low mountain 
ranges, nowhere exceeding an elevation 
of four thousand feet. The average 
width of the peninsula is one hundred and 
fifty miles, and its length about two hun 
dred and fifty. The crest of the eleva 
tion is rarely more than thirty miles from 
the south coast, and the streams on this 
side are necessarily short, rapid, and un 
beatable. These streams all start in 
glaciers. The country is almost unbe 
lievably sterile. One walks for hours at 
a time over granite or mica schist, or lime 
stone, mountains, without seeing a green 
plant; and birds and animals are similarly 
missing. And yet the country is quite 




The Chukotsk Peninsula reindeer are very inferior in size to the fine animals of Alaska. 

This is an average herd of about two hundred and fifty deer. From two to three men look after each herd, and as there 
is not much to do one of the men is hunting constantly. This is the reason that wild caribou have become extinct in the 
peninsula and mountain-sheep reduced to the extent that there will be none left within -the next nve years. 



396 



ON THE TRACK OF AN UNKNOWN SHEEP 



thickly inhabited, and all the 
ranged by the reindeer herds 
Chukchis. 

For more than two months we hunted 
the silent hills. Half the time we walked 
on ice, both on account of the better 
travelling afforded, and also to save our 



valleys signs of recent feeding. In hidden nooks 
of the among the rocks were several beds where 
a sheep had lain, and at each of these 
places were noticeable amounts of shed 
hair. The sign was along the jagged rim 
of an old volcano crater. The lower 
levels were clear of fog. If I could have 



footgear. Much of the rock is volcanic, the good fortune to drive the sheep down- 
and the sharp edges hill the chances for 

and dryness and in- dred and fifty yards 

vigoration of the Siberian firewood. below to my left, 

sun ! If I lived in an animal darted 

tVi PVniVntcV T Cassiope Tetragona Fuel moss. A creeping, flowering hart tnwstrl trip 

evergreen plant which burns when green with fragrant 

should certainly be odor and a hot flame owing to its high content of oil. crater. It looked 

. . * Below, Siberian reindeer moss, a lichen which does not , . 

a SUn-WOrshlpper. compare in size with its Alaskan relative. no bigger than a 

Next to the damp- rabbit, and had no 

ness of the country more substance 

the wind was the worst feature. We were than a swift-moving shadow, and when 

opposite the least-known part of the polar covered with the sights of the rifle seemed 

ocean. The perpetual ice of that sea was to fade and disappear in the mist. An 

only two hundred miles away, while to the experienced rifleman can call his shots, 

south lay an open course straight away and in case of a miss tell just where the 

to Australia and New Zealand. The bullet went, but in this instance I could 

zephyrs from the spice islands met cruel not. I fired three times, and the thing 

rebuff in the Arctic gales, and only a disappeared behind a flanking ridge. I 

typhoon from the China Sea can break knew it was a sheep, but whether ram, 

through. We had to weight our tent lamb, or ewe I could not tell. With the 

with a wall of rocks to keep it from being harsh roar of the rifle still in my ears, I felt 

blown away. like a boy who has spoken aloud in church 

One day while searching for a way back during the benediction. I had been mov- 

to camp in a fog I came unexpectedly on ing like one in a dream, spellbound by the 

the fresh imprint of a sheep s foot in pall of the fog. Then I awoke to disap- 

some green moss. Around the place were pointment and resolve, and I ran to head 




Crater country filled with a glacier and partly frozen lakes, where sheep are found. 




Fog in region where sheep are found. 
The rim of the crater in fog. 



397 



398 



ON THE TRACK OF AN UNKNOWN SHEEP 



the sheep at a gap in the pinnacles it must 
take to get out of the crater. 

When the place was reached the ground 
showed the sheep had not yet passed. I 
waited a long while, but nothing hap 
pened. Gradually the fog rose until the 
whole of the inner part of the crater 
was visible. The bottom was filled with 
a glacier, and down to it in each depres 
sion in the rim ran ice-slides. Separating 
these slides were narrow ridges with teeth, 
like broken combs. The sheep was un 
doubtedly hidden somewhere among the 
teeth of one of these ridges and had, it 
seemed, no intention of leaving the crater 
at that time. 

With my glasses I carefully examined 
the snow-mantle of the glacier, foot by 
foot, until satisfied the sheep had not 
crossed to the farther side. I then looked 
over each of the slides, but it was not 
until I had changed to several vantage- 
points that I saw the evidence which gives 
thrill to the hunter a blood-trail crossing 
a narrow part of one of the snow-slides. 
Up to this time I was sure my shots had 
missed the sheep, and now I could hardly 
believe what I saw. 



The track indicated the probable loca 
tion of the animal, and I began climbing 
down. The descent was difficult, both on 
account of the ice-tongues which must be 
crossed, and also because of the necessity 
to avoid dislodging stones, the noise of 
which falling might alarm the sheep. 
Several times I got near the sheep only 
to find it had left its cunningly concealed 
bed for a new location. It was playing 
hide-and-seek among the rocks. After 
four hours of this work I had the animal, 
as I thought, cornered at the very end of 
one of the spurs. Then to my bitter dis 
appointment, for the second time that 
day, glimpsing its leaping form as it 
rounded a great rock, I fired and missed 
at thirty yards. It was eleven o clock 
at night. Tired and discouraged, I re 
turned to camp, which I reached some 
time after midnight. 

The next morning all four of us set out, 
filled with determination to get the sheep. 
It seemed likely that "peneak" was still 
in the crater basin. The upper rim of 
this basin was almost vertical, and so far 
as my observation went, there was only 
one possible place on the north side where 




"The Unknown Sheep." 
Pngantoo and Chukotsk mountain-sheep ewe. 



ON THE TRACK OF AN UNKNOWN SHEEP 



399 



the animal could escape. This was what 
mountain climbers call a chimney, a steep, 
narrow passageway between rock walls. 
Unlike others opening to the rim, this 
chimney was nowhere blocked by vertical 
rock. All that was necessary to secure 
the sheep was for one of us to guard the 
exit while the others drove the animal 



therefore, I got to the head of the chim 
ney and found that the sheep had already 
passed, I was disappointed but not sur 
prised. Andy told me they had found 
the bed where the sheep had lain for the 
night not far from the place where I had 
last shot at it. 

We spent some time on the summit of 




Tombstones for ships. 



to him. The plan was flawless except for 
the same cause which lost Napoleon the 
battle of Waterloo. The human element 
is the uncertain factor. The Esquimaux 
this time were responsible for the slip. 

Taylor with Allalowin and Pngantoo 
conducted the drive, while I went above 
to intercept the sheep. The day was still, 
and before long I heard the voices of the 
men, cheerful but altogether too high- 
pitched. Nothing short of death could 
stop these men from talking. I swore, 
and increased my pace. Several times 
later the sound of their laughter and 
friendly arguments reached me. When, 



the ridge slowly picking up the track. 
Then Taylor turned his glasses to a snow 
bank half a mile to the east and found 
the trail. He had wonderful eyes in ad 
dition to his acquired and instinctive 
ability as a sheep-hunter. I could not 
see the track with glasses until nearly half 
the distance to the snow-bank had been 
covered. The sheep had crossed on the 
jump, and we concluded from the evidence 
in the snow that it had only suffered a 
leg wound. The track was lost on rock 
at the summit of the main ridge, and as 
the fog had again become very dense we 
gave up the hunt and returned to camp. 




Pngantoo packing the ewe to camp. 



The next day the fog conditions were 
reversed. The low country was ob 
scured, but the mountain-tops were open 
to the clear sky. Andy with Allalowin 
went to the place we had last seen the 
sheep-tracks, while Pngantoo and I 
climbed the mountain east of our camp 
with the intention of covering the likely 
places in between. We hoped, by thus 
hunting the range from opposite direc 
tions, one of the parties might drive the 
sheep to the others. There were innumer 
able hiding-places, however, in the miles 
of rough mountains that intervened, and 
much of this was covered with fog; so we 
were far from sanguine as we set out that 
morning. 

Pngantoo packed his model 73 .44-40 
Winchester at right angles across his back 
by the usual breast-thong. The gun was 
as rusty as if it had lain out of doors the 
almost half-century since this model was 
placed on the market, but it was still ser 
viceable, and will no doubt later on be 
used by one of Pngantoo s sons for seal 
and walrus hunting. I picked the way, 
up rock-slides until the summit of the first 
mountain was reached, and then along 
the crest of the ridge. We made frequent 
400 



detours on side spurs to examine basins, 
but this work was generally useless on 
account of our inability to see any dis 
tance. It was only on the highest eleva 
tions that we were above the fog. 

After passing over three mountains we 
came to a small mesa-like place, and here 
we found the fresh tracks of a sheep but 
no blood. The chances all pointed to this 
being the wounded animal, but as it had 
gone almost immediately on a rock ridge 
we could not follow the trail. We made 
a careful search of all the neighboring 
country, but could find no further trace 
of the sheep. The fog made our clothing 
gray with beads of frost-like water, which, 
however, disappeared the moment we as 
cended to the sunlight. Pngantoo, sepa 
rated from Allalowin, did not talk, and it 
was very quiet up there on the mountain- 
top. On days when the wind does not 
blow one hears no sound except the distant 
rush of falling water from the glaciers. 

We could find no connecting ridge to 
the mountains farther north. Pngantoo 
should have known the country, but he 
could not help. He tried independently 
to find a route, but each time came back, 
smiling, but shaking his head. There 



ON THE TRACK OF AN UNKNOWN SHEEP 



401 



were many steep ice-slides in the way 
which were dangerous to cross. After a 
while we sat down and waited for the fog 
to lift. Our own mountain was bathed in 
sunlight. As we watched, one after an 
other the mountains pricked through the 
floor of the fog, looking like islands in 
a great gray sea, but those to the north 
were lower and still submerged. At 
length we made out dimly a rough ridge 
dropping into gloom to the east, which 
might eventually turn north and give 
us our connection, and we started along 
it. I was lost, and Pngantoo knew no 
more about it than did I. Instinct was 
at work, however the thing that is called 
"hunch." I recollect an unconscious urge 
dissociated from reason to go eastward. 
We followed the ridge a long way, over 
one rocky hump after another, through 
the fog, until its sides became very steep 
and the climbing difficult. Then a mir 
acle occurred. Out of the rocks a few 



yards below my sheep materialized. It 
was as if it had been instantly created 
from the void. I fired and the sheep fell 
dead at our feet. Pngantoo sprinted by 
me and caught the animal by one horn as 
the body started sliding into the abyss 
below. He held on and called for help, 
and together we dragged the sheep up to 
a level spot. One front leg was broken 
by my shot of two days before. Later 
on, when the fog was still further dissi 
pated, it became evident that we were 
nearly a mile from our proper course. 
Finding the sheep was simply a case of 
bull-headed luck. It had selected for its 
hiding-place a hollow where it was in 
visible except from overhead. One scan 
ning the ridge with glasses in clear 
weather could not have seen it. If we 
had not been lost and susceptible to com 
monly ignored impressions, we would 
never have gotten the sheep. 

The animal was a mature ewe, without 




Karinko and Uvuk, Chukchi packers from Nulieurock, with the loads they carried for us to the 

sheep mountains. 

Chukchi and Esquimaux clothing is quite similar. In general the men wear two garments, fur-seal trousers with the 
hair out or deerskin trousers with the hair in and deerskin parkies with the hair in next their flesh. In wet weather they 
add a feather-weight rain parkie made by sewing together walrus intestines, or in the case of the Matasingi Chukchis of split 
deerskin oiled until it is translucent. 

VOL. LXXI. 26 



402 



ON THE TRACK OF AN UNKNOWN SHEEP 



lamb. Its estimated live weight was one 
hundred and ten pounds. It was very 
different in color from any sheep I had 
ever seen. Taylor said it looked like a 
caribou in the summer coat. Its back 
was a mouse color, but the tail, which was 



it. Here is a ragged sea of high moun 
tains culminating in Matasingi, to which 
the "Asiatic Pilot" gives the height of 
9,180 feet. These lofty mountains are 
separated from the ranges of the Chu- 
kotsk by a stretch of low country. Wil- 




Xatives bringing in specimens. 



very short, was black. It had just com 
pleted the process of shedding its winter 
coat. It also had a very remarkable horn 
flare. Instead of rounding backward with 
a moderate spread, the horns of these ewes 
(for the fact was later confirmed by a 
specimen acquired from a native) flare 
widely from the start at the skull. The 
length of the horns is ten and a half 
inches, but they spread seventeen and a 
half at the tip. They also have a pe 
culiar offset near the ends. 

Billy Thompson took us the last leg 
of our journey to the extreme inner end 
of the peninsula at the head of Holy Cross 
Bay, or Kresta Gulf, as the Russians call 



lows begin to appear, and farther west are 
spruce and birch forests. 

In this western country on the Kolyma 
watershed, three or four hundred miles 
away, is a new moose, as yet unknown to 
science. It is the easternmost repre 
sentative of its family in Asia, a lordly 
creature with broad-spreading antlers re 
sembling its Alaskan cousin much more 
nearly than its Scandinavian congenitor. 
As I was given the quest for an unknown 
sheep, so, in turn, I pass along to another 
hunter this quest. The world is getting 
very small, and this is one of the few re 
maining opportunities for securing a new 
big-game animal. 



Sketches of Visiting Statesmen 

BY WALTER TITTLE 

PENCIL DRAWINGS FROM LIFE, MADE AT SPECIAL SITTINGS GIVEN THE ARTIST 



A 



S I read from time to 
time of famous world 
figures, I find myself, 
in common with most 
people, I fancy, visu 
alizing the ones that 
appeal most strongly 
to my imagination. 
As I gather my verbal or pictorial infor 
mation from the printed page, I imagine 
my characters as living and moving about, 
occupied with the tasks with which the 
world associates them, or pursuing their 
favorite hobbies and forms of recreation. 
I am likely, even, to endow them with a 
quality of voice that seems to me best 
fitted to the dream-picture that I have 
constructed. To some I will give a ner 
vous energy of action, to others a calmer 
force, and to still others a rigid, stately 
dignity that, in most instances, I have 
been relieved to find a misconception. 
Recently I had an exceptional oppor 
tunity to test the accuracy of some of my 
visualizations by coming face to face with 
a number of personages of whom I had 
long known, for the purpose of making 
portraits of them. Some of the original 
studies for these portraits are reproduced 
herewith. 

I have read of Mr. Balfour since I wa? 
a child. To me he has been a great Brit 
ish institution rather than an individual, 
and enough of my childish awe was still 
with me, as late as the year 1917, that his 
arrival here at that time caused in me a 
feeling of wonder almost as great as if the 
Tower of London had been purchased 
and transported by the money-magic of 
some American millionaire for erection in 
Central Park. Of course, I was forced to 
smile at my own naive mental attitude. 
Why shouldn t Mr. Balfour come to 
America? But second thought showed 
that to me he was one of my throng of 
dream-people, and that what subcon 



sciously surprised me was that he was a 
real person, after all, and not a character 
from one of the novels of Dickens that I 
loved so to devour when my first con 
sciousness of Mr. Balfour was formed. 

Visual proof of this later and more 
reasonable conception came recently in 
Washington, when I saw a tall, slightly 
stooped, active gentleman enter an auto 
mobile in front of a public building. 
There, at last, was Mr. Balfour. In re 
sponse to the applause of the assembled 
crowd he smiled brightly, nodded his 
head repeatedly, and waved his hand 
quickly in short arcs, as though he were 
endeavoring to entertain a very small 
child. The gesture was distinctly femi 
nine, and probably was the result of his 
somewhat restricted position in the rear 
seat of a limousine. He seemed very 

/ 

friendly, and glad of the approval of the 
throng. His profile to me was rather a 
surprise, and not exactly what one would 
expect from the aspect of his full face. 

I had another chance to study him, 
and to make a quick sketch, before our 
first actual sitting. My chair was the 
next but one to his on an occasion when 
he made an address. In gesture and voice 
and smile he gave a vivid impression of 
what he must have been like at twenty. 
I believe I have never seen a man to 
whom the graces of youth have clung so 
becomingly. His mannerisms of posture 
suggested the well-bred, rather charm 
ingly awkward boy who has recently ac 
quired a very considerable growth and 
hardly knows how to handle the new ac 
quisition. As he rose, assisting himself 
by gripping the table at which we sat, his 
movements, I fancied, were quite the 
same as when he was called upon to recite 
his lessons at Eton nearly sixty years ago. 
His voice was exceedingly pleasant in 
quality, without the slightest trace of 
oratorical manner, and, again, the voice 
of a boy. The quick smile seemed to take 



404 SKETCHES OF VISITING STATESMEN 

fifty years from his age, which asserted it- variety of expression, and choice was dif- 

self more when his face was at rest. ficult when one could see material for 

Our first sitting occurred in his apart- many sketches in the course of a few mo 
ment. It was in the evening, after a hard ments. A countenance so richly expres- 
day s work, and his face showed some sive is the logical result of a life as long 
fatigue. Our second sitting was in the and full as Mr. Balfour s has been, 
middle of the afternoon, and he looked 

quite young and rested. I have never en- From the pictures of Mr. Briand that 

joyed anyone s conversation more than I had seen in newspapers and magazines, 

Mr. Balfour s. His choice of words and as well as from printed accounts of him 

his pronunciation of them stamped him as a fighter in politics, I was expecting to 

as the perfect purist. His grasp of all meet a rather intolerant, firebrand type 

subjects seemed complete. His face was of man. I have no doubt that this im- 

so alive, his manner so cordial, and he pression was heightened by his hirsute 

seemed so greatly interested in the sub- adornments; the shaggy mane and long, 

jects we discussed. He asked me who my generous mustache made me liken him to 

recent sitters had been. I recited my list a type of faro-banker of the far West of 

in the order in which I had done them, the Bret Harte s time. I was expecting a 

first group being six Frenchmen. " Well, show of annoyance on his part at the idea 

you sound very French, so far," he of being portrayed, and was greatly 

laughed. "Now I ll be British," I re- pleased at his very great gentleness and 

plied, enumerating eight of his country- willingness to help me in my work. He 

men. " Good ! That more than balances made it possible for me to do three stud- 

the account." Our conversation then ies of him, and on every occasion his 

drifted to art in general, and his knowl- cordial handclasp and his kindly expres- 

edge of it was quite broad. He talked of sion of face kept me assured that in his 

sports, people, even international politics, mind the artist has an important niche in 

and was very enthusiastic about the any civilization. 

achievements of the Conference. Amer- This attitude is the rule, I believe, with 
ica had a strong appeal for him, and his Frenchmen. No better passport to their 
stay was proving to be most enjoyable, interest could be produced than a port- 
He contrasted New York, London, and folio of sketches. Art is a language that 
Paris. "London is to me the most in- most of them understand to a consider- 
teresting of places. It is unlike other able degree, and, if they do not under- 
European cities. It has a peculiar charm stand it, at least they reverence it. There 
of antiquity and tradition. There are a were a number of members of the French 
number of cities on the Continent that delegation in the room when I made my 
resemble Paris, but London has an atmos- first sketch of Mr. Briand. I was work- 
phere that is quite its own. Personally, ing rapidly, trying to record the grave and 
I have never cared much for Paris, though dignified face in front of me. Back of me 
I recognize its definite appeal. The three I heard exclamations of excitement in 
cities are so utterly different, and each so French, one voice calling to the others in 
wonderful in its own way ! New York, the room to see what I was doing. I 
with its great buildings, is, of course, the straightened up suddenly and my head 
result of environment; lack of space has hit the chest of a large man wearing the 
made it what it is. It appeals to me rosette of an officer of the Legion of 
greatly, now and when I was here before. Honor. " Tres bien, tres bien," he saidre- 
I am sure that it could become quite a peatedly, and others echoed his words, 
passion with me." When I had finished, Mr. Briand rose from 

We conversed during the entire time his chair with his hands extended to re- 

that our sittings required, and the rapidly ceive the sketch, and he gave me a kindly 

changing expressions of his mobile face pat on the arm, and "Tres, tres bien 1 in 

would have been a tax on the agility of his rich musical voice. This incident il- 

any artist s hand. He raised his eyebrows lustrates the very sympathetic attitude 

a great deal, especially when he smiled, toward my task that gave me so much 

I have rarely seen a face capable of such pleasure during the hours that I spent 



+* 




The Riglit Honorable Arthur James Halfour. 
(Autographed.) 



with the French. After this first sketch 
of Mr. Briand they demanded to see the 
contents of my portfolio, and from that 
time on I was greeted with the most cor 
dial good-fellowship whenever I appeared. 
I mentioned Mr. Briand s voice. I am 
sorry I did not have the privilege of hear 
ing him deliver his famous speech before 
the Conference. The quality of his voice 
in conversation is so rich and resonant, 
with such an evident suggestion of its 
oratorical possibilities, that I am sure it 
must have been a great pleasure to hear 
this master of oratory in action. His 



manner could not have been simpler, or 
freer from self-consciousness and pre 
tense. He was dignified unconsciously. 
In conversation his face was usually 
grave, but capable of most mischievous 
flashes of smile and laughter, if things 
took a humorous turn. I was present 
when he made the famous utterance about 
dreadnoughts not being built for sardine- 
fishing, nor submarines to study under 
sea flora. Everybody laughed, and no one 
enjoyed the joke more than Mr. Briand. 
His face was alive with mischief and 
laughter. He is short of stature, and 

405 



406 



SKETCHES OF VISITING STATESMEN 



stoops somewhat. His large head is set 
rather forward and low on his shoulders, 
and his large drooping mustache bisects 
either jaw with its downward arc in such 
a way that, from a front view, his chin 
seems much squarer than it really is. All 
of the members and attaches of his dele 
gation showed their affection for him. 
He seemed to be the indulgent father of 
them all. 

To me the name Viviani has something 
alive about it, and suggests a leaping 
flame. It is the work of poets to cause 
words to suggest things apart from the 
hard and fast meanings that are recorded 
in dictionaries, and this name I would 
recommend to them for its euphonious 
properties. And to a certain degree the 
man is like the name. He is personally 
more like what I expected Mr. Briand to 
be, after seeing pictures of his shaggy 
brows and mustaches. He was the one 
Frenchman who apparently refused to 
belong wholly to the otherwise happy 
family of the French delegation. His 
moods were as unreliable as the weather. 
Sometimes he seemed quite gay and 
pleased with life. But the chances were 
that the next time you saw him he would 
be thoroughly out of sorts with every 
thing and everybody. On the occasion 
when I made my sketch of him he seemed 
to be very much at peace with the world. 
His greeting was gentle, and his hand 
clasp kindly. But on other occasions 
when I happened to be at the rooms of 
the French delegation I could hear his 
rapid-fire tones of dissatisfaction over 
this, that, and the other even before the 
man himself was visible. Shortcomings 
of some sort are to be found in every one, 
and I record this aspect of Mr. Viviani 
because I feel that even a brief sketch of 
him would not be complete without it. 

On one of his sunny days I descended 
with him in the lift of the hotel where he 
was staying. No one else was in the car 
but the operator. Mr. Viviani regarded 
himself in a mirrgr with much interest, 
striking several attitudes. What he saw 
there seemed to be entirely to his satis 
faction; he turned away with a contented 
smile, and made a jovial remark in which 
he included with his glance the elevator 
man and me. I replied in English, and 



his response was pronounced exactly as I 
spell it : " Ah no spitch Englitch. I had 
never before heard a French accent that 
in the least resembled this. 

I admired the force that was apparent 
in Mr. Viviani s face and figure. His 
neck is quite thick, and joins his head in 
a straight line at the back. His face is 
muscular and sculpturesque, the jaws 
being heavy, and the mouth exceedingly 
firm, with a downward tendency at the 
corners. The brow above the eyes is 
prominent, and the forehead slants back 
rather abruptly. His nervousness is evi 
dent in the expression of his face. I had 
the privilege of hearing his astonishing 
mastery of oratory in the Conference 
chamber on the occasion of the presenta 
tion of the Four Power Treaty. He was 
magnificent. The range of his voice in 
quality and power, the astonishing va 
riety of it, was marvellous ! His perform 
ance resembled a musical composition, 
with its quiet beginning, the gradual 
crescendo, and the lightning-like climax 
just before the end. 

When Baron Kato had taken the chair 
that I placed for him, and the first few 
lines of the sketch were drawn, he smiled 
slightly and said in a high, shrill voice, 
"I sin." My interest was instantly 
aroused. Here, I thought, was the be 
ginning of a burst of self-revelation that 
would thrill the author of "The Mirrors 
of Washington." "I beg your pardon?" 
I interrogated. " Sin, sin, very sin," came 
the high voice again, as he motioned to 
his unusually emaciated face. His pro 
nunciation had misled me, and my cu 
riosity met with an anticlimax. Thin he 
certainly was. His face was the most in 
scrutable mask except when one was 
treated to the very rare smile: He looked 
like an expressionless bronze wrought by 
one of his own race, embodying as much 
of the mystery of the Orient as any of its 
sculptured gods. 

"When I first saw Baron Kato," Mr. 
Balfour said during one of our sittings, 
"I thought, there is a dying man. He 
seemed in the final stages of some fatal 
disease, so thin and yellow and expres 
sionless. I was agreeably surprised when 
I talked with him to see how his face can 
light up with an exceedingly sunny smile, 










Aristide Briand Kx-1 remier of Irancc. 



and I came to the conclusion that he is 
not sick at all. To me his is one of the 
most interesting faces of the Conference." 
I could not help thinking that his country 
men had done well in choosing this man 
to cope with the world s diplomatists. I 
tried to talk with him on the subject of 
Japanese art, remarking its influence on 
the art of the Occident. His reply was 
"I am entirely ignorant of art.", This 
surprised me. I had expected the Japa 



nese to be different from our average 
men of affairs. We think of them as an 
aesthetic people, forgetting that some of 
their greatest artists were little thought 
of by them in their day. 

Lord Lee of Fareham does his part in 
maintaining the reputation for attrac 
tiveness of the English gentleman. His 
voice is quiet, his manner gentle. He pos 
sesses both simplicity and distinction. 

407 



/jfi ~ d&T - ^>v 

. 




Rene Viviani, Ex-Premier of France. 



His large brown eyes seem to afford one 
a glimpse of his soul. He looks more the 
musician or poet than first lord of the 
admiralty, with a long record of distin 
guished service as a statesman behind 
him. The artistic strain that is evident 
in his face has found outlet in collecting 
pictures. He owns many notable can 
vases. His collection of the works of 
Constable is a very important one. He 
not only owns pictures, he knows them. 
I enjoyed greatly talking with him about 
them. A large part of his collection he 
had given to the British Government, he 
said, along with his estate, Checquers 
Court, which was donated as a permanent 
408 



country house for the Premiers of Eng 
land. 

I found Senator Carlo Schanzer, of 
Italy, quite different from what I had 
anticipated. I had seen one poorly 
printed picture of him in a newspaper, 
accompanied by an account of his active 
career. The cut showed his curly hair 
worn high on his head, with a fine 
"spade" beard and delicate mustache. 
The face was quite handsome. So to big 
achievements I proceeded mentally to 
add large stature and voice, as well as 
great show of physical energy. The man 
who confronted me was small, with a 





Baron T. Kato, of Japan. 
(Autographed.) 



very low voice of childlike gentleness. It 
was necessary for me to listen quite care 
fully to hear what he said. His move 
ments corresponded in deliberate gentle 
ness to his voice, and there was about 
him an almost feminine sweetness and 
serenity of manner and smile that is fre 
quently met with in Italians. He was 
not in the least effeminate, however. He 
sat with the absolute stillness of a statue. 
The occasional winking of his eyes was 
the only movement. He was as easy to 
draw as a study in still life. 

So many Americans have recently had 
the opportunity of seeing Marshal Foch 



that description of him here seems almost 
superfluous. Then, too, my contact with 
him was necessarily of such short dura 
tion that I feel that there are a legion of 
people here as well qualified as I to de 
scribe him, and a lot more to whom no 
verbal delineation is necessary. My 
sketch of him was made during his final 
visit of a day and a half to Washington, 
and his engagement list, as reviewed to me 
by several of his staff, seemed impossible 
of fulfilment in so short a time. Conse 
quently, the opportunity of sketching him 
that fell to my lot was busily consumed in 
jotting down his facial lineaments, with 
scant leisure for noting much else. 

409 







I 








Lord CAT of Farehum, 1 irst Lord of the Admiralty. 
(Autographed.) 



To my adoring eyes he wa*s a most satis 
factory personage to look upon, this hero 
of heroes. His fine soldierly bearing and 
erect posture would win approval for any 
man not possessed of his great fame. If 
strength of jaw and chin are indicative 
of combative qualities, I fancied I could 
perceive elements that contributed much 
toward the winning of the war. His face 
410 



had a marked spiritual aspect, particu 
larly noticeable when in repose. In con 
versation he was possessed of a great 
deal of animation and gaiety on the oc 
casions when I observed him, and he ap 
peared to be on the most intimate terms 
of camaraderie with his staff. The deep- 
set eyes, with a note of sadness in 
them, were transformed utterly when he 




. 




Sir Auckland Geddes, British Ambassador to the United States. 
(Autographed.) 



laughed, and the many lines of his face 
all seemed necessary to the perfect con 
summation of his mirth. 

Albert Sarraut, French minister for the 
colonies, is an exceedingly alert man. 
His nervous energy is noticeable in every 
movement. I was filled with admiration 
for his tireless capacity for work, and for 



the unfailing good humor and suavity 
that were always his even when devoting 
himself to many tasks at the same time. 
He has bright, eager eyes; and the effect 
of eagerness is heightened perhaps by his 
retrousse nose and upturned mustache. 
He wears a peculiar little pince-nez that 
seems too small for its necessary function ; 
I am sure that the average American ocu- 

411 













Senator Carlo Schanzer, Italian Delegate. 
(Autographed.) 



list would object to having the pupils of 
the eyes so far outside the centre of the 
lenses. During our sittings he was called 
away several times for short conferences 
with Mr. Viviani. With a courteous 
apology he would quickly disappear, and 
just as quickly I would find him sitting 
before me again. He impressed me as a 
man of unusual ability, which is corrobo 
rated sufficiently by the fact that he has 
412 



held his present post in four consecutive 
cabinets. We talked about French art as 
I worked, and his enthusiasm for the Im 
pressionists is very great. Especially does 
he adore Renoir, which made for us at 
once a common meeting-ground. Some 
of the later tendencies of the French 
school are not much to his liking. 

Sir Auckland Geddes is a vigorous, 




Albert Sarraut, Minister of Colonies, France. 
(Autographed.) 



clean-cut type of Scotchman. He is tall 
and powerfully built, with a decided 
strength of modelling in his features. 
His head resolves itself into very definite 
and unusual planes. The mouth and ex 
ceptionally prominent chin indicate the 
determination that is undoubtedly his. 
I noticed him and Mr. Balfour in con 
versation at the Conference table, and 
was struck by the similarity of construc 



tion of their heads. Both are unusually 
long, out of the average proportion to 
the width, and the excess of length in 
both cases comes above the brows and 
below the base of the nose. There are 
other points of similarity in the two 
heads. I mentioned this to Sir Auckland 
when he sat to me. He said he thought 
that it was doubtless to be accounted 
for partly by the fact that both Mr. Bal- 



* , 

/ 




Marshal Ferdinand Foch, recently guest of the American Legion in the United States. 



four and he are of a Scotch type, and 
further because the two families are con 
nected. 

I found Sir Auckland a most interest 
ing subject. His face seemed to be made 
to draw or model. He called my atten 
tion to a peculiarity of his mouth. " You 
seem to be biting your lower lip," I said; 
"are you?" He laughingly assured me 
that he was not. I could not help being 
impressed by the youth of this man for 
the important position he holds, and 
spoke of it to him. "Well, the war made 
me," he said, with a frank smile. Sir 
Maurice Hankey had made a similar 
statement to me about himself, and I was 
414 



glad to remark that war occasionally 
shows discretion in her choice of the ones 
she "makes." She sometimes elevates 
the ones that "carry on" best, and not 
only the profiteers. 



A most charming and attractive man 
is Doctor Sze, the Chinese minister. His 
face is almost constantly adorned with a 
boyish smile. He speaks excellent Eng 
lish, which is not to be wondered at when 
one knows of his generous American edu 
cation, but a considerable trace of the 
Chinese accent still remains. He has an 
air of kindly good-fellowship for every 
body, and seems to be eager to oblige in 











Dr. Sao-Ke Alfred Sze, Chinese Minister to the United States. 

(Autographed.) 



any way that he can. This was notice 
able in his attitude toward the newspaper 
men, and some of them were inclined to 
take unfair advantage of it. I was pres 
ent on one occasion when a newspaper 
correspondent questioned him with un 
necessary sharpness, before a considerable 
audience, on some points that Doctor 
Sze was evidently not at liberty to dis 
close. He parried the almost brutal in 
terrogations for a while without losing his 
smile, but finally, instead of the rebuke 
that was really merited, his objection 
came in the form of a protest. He said 
that further meetings with the press 
would be impossible if this sort of thing 



were to continue. The large majority of 
the crowd were quite indignant that this 
kindly gentleman should be imposed up 
on. I heard him read an able speech in 
one of the open sessions of the Con 
ference. He spoke clearly, and in a 
strong, steady voice; but a nervous sensi 
tiveness was discernible in the trembling 
of his hands, which he tried to avoid by 
bracing them against his body. I admire 
a man who has courage enough to con 
quer the fear that he may have of ad 
dressing an audience. Doctor Sze is 
greatly liked in Washington, and the rea 
sons for this are immediately apparent on 
meeting him. 

415 



flh 
w*1^l\ 




Pullman 
Portraits 

BY RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY VV. M. BERGER 



DOWN the green plush lane, at the forward end of the car, 
There are seven Iowa farmers tired old wives 
With their faces set toward "the perfumed orange groves 
For a lyrical end to their prosy, cumbered lives; 
And all day long with their red, work- twisted hands 
On their black silk laps they idle, they rest, they play; 
They badger the grime-gray brakeman, * make new friends, 
"Say, Pa, this gentleman here s from loway!" 



II 

While the bored, late breakfast crowd in the diner fumed 

And a thin man snarled that his coffee wasn t hot, 

I saw them carry her by with clumsy haste 

A silent, sagging shape on a sagging cot, 

And all day long there seeps through my noisy car, 

Through the tight-shut, shining door of the drawing-room, 

The sense of a breathless race with hours and miles . . . 

The sense of doom, of imminent, hovering doom; 

And whenever the loose-limbed brakeman hurtles through, 

Frolicsome-shy as a sidling setter pup, 

The mother s jerking face at the crack of the door 

"Are we late? How late? Do you think we can make it up?" 



416 



Ill 



There s an old young soldier raptly hurrying home 
With a line of shining deeds across his coat, 
But the scar far back in his aching-tired eyes 
Is a deeper scar than the one along his throat, 
And all day long I am watching him realize . . . 
That the show is done; he has missed his cue; he s late; 
The bands are stilled and the WELCOME signs are down, 
And his shining deeds, his war is out of date! 




IV 

A big, thick-wristed man in the section across; 

The delicate, fresh-dressed woman by his side 

With the look in her face of a stale, warmed-over dream, 

Is a bride, a pitiful, tardy, Autumn bride, 

And all day long, sitting still in her green plush seat, 

She escapes, she flees, she hides . . . till the tram s harsh tune 

Summons her back to the touch of his thick, cold hand, 

To bring her November heart to the feast of June. 

Can they ever learn to rest in their orange groves? 

Is the engine aware of the drawing-room s tragic need? 

And the soldier s eyes and the dream that stood too long? 

I am tense with the urge for a greater, kinder speed; 

And all day long, till the desert sun slides down 

And the farmers wives are noisy with plate and cup, 

Now soft, now shrill, four-keyed, it pierces through . . . 

"Are we late? How late? Do you think we can make it up?" 





<&# .: 1 I 




Voi. LXXI. 27 



417 



Bain s Hole 



BY ALEXANDER HULL 

Author of " The Argosies " 
ILLUSTRATIONS (FRONTISPIECE) BY WILLIAM FLETCHER WHITE 




HE cabin of Jess Toler 
lay in the long shad 
ows of the trees of 
Bain s Hole, a little ex 
plored and impenetra 
ble swamp, reeking 
with miasma and de 
cay, filled with the in 
animate treachery of slime and bog, alive 
with the quicker death of cottonmouth, 
rattler, and, now and then, a scarlet har 
lequin. The swamp growth was tall ; trees 
towered a hundred and fifty feet into the 
serene wash of gold that was sunset, and 
were silhouetted, black, twisted, incom 
prehensibly threatening shapes, against 
the mellow sky. The swamp lay to the 
west of the cabin a hundred yards or more, 
and the cabin faced south. North and 
east were reaches of level tilled land, ris 
ing toward the morning direction in slow 
gradations to a long line of softly curved 
lavender mountains. Except for the ever- 
present black menace of Bain s Hole there 
was no threat in the region thereabout. 
The twilight was coming on, warm and 
drowsy, and all sounds were muffled and 
uninsinuating the distant challenges of 
restless cocks, the faint baying of a far 
away hound, the long-drawn echo of a 
chime-whistle on the railway, ten miles 
away. 

Lou May Toler stood in the doorway 
of the cabin, a slim, brown figure of nine 
teen, looking at the drowsy world and 
watching and listening, for she seldom 
saw Jess Toler before she heard him- 1 for 
her husband. He would slip furtively 
along the edge of the swamp, or slink, low- 
bent, behind the concealing zigzags of the 
rail fence, and a crackling stick under his 
foot, or a rustling of brush or grass, very 
often would be her first warning of him. 
Into the heart of Lou May there stole 
for a moment a^ little of the peace and 
quiet of the twilight. She looked reso 
lutely away from the oppressive swamp, 
418 



into the fields and hills that were still 
rosy with the afterglow. Suddenly there 
seemed to be a premonition of chill in the 
atmosphere, and, sensitive to every indi 
cation of nature, to which she was so near, 
Lou May felt it. It came, she knew, from 
the swamp. Her eyes, big, brown, wist 
ful, turned slowly, and she looked appre 
hensively at the black and moss-grown 
phantoms rising out of the mucky ground. 
A shiver more than that, a trembling 
like the shaking of ague passed through 
her. Lou May was deathly afraid of the 
known and unknown terrors of Bain s 
Hole. 

Of these Jess was one. Far in its re 
cesses he had a hiding-place to which he 
retreated, from which he emerged, like a 
snake crawling in and out of its thicket. 

"Ah don lak dat swamp," muttered 
Lou May. "Ah don lak um. Seems 
lak Ah cain t breathe near it seems lak 
hit s full o brack debbils sometimes Ah 
kin mos smell um." 

And as she drew a long inhalation it 
did, indeed, seem as if there were a reek 
in the air as of something foul and fester 
ing. She shook her head and turned away 
from Bain s Hole, turning as if she were 
struggling against some sinister attrac 
tion, very strong, but not quite strong 
enough to hold her yet. One might 
have said that there was a continual war 
fare going on between the swamp and the 
woman, to which the as yet defeated 
swamp returned again and again. 

Still there was no sound or sight of Jess 
Toler. 

Lou May heard a tiny whimper inside 
the cabin, and she turned abruptly to go 
in. At any cost the baby must be kept 
quiet. If it cried, and Jess happened to 
be in one of his frequent brutal moods, 
something terrible surely would happen ! 

In the instant that she turned, a black 
shape fluttered up from Bain s Hole and 
winged eastward across the dying day, 



BAIN S HOLE 



419 



flying low so low that its great black 
wings seemed almost to brush the ridge 
of the cabin. 

Lou May flung her apron over her face. 
Too late. She had seen the fluttering 
omen! 

Perhaps seeing the movement, the bird 
veered sharply, and emitted a shrill cry, 
and repeated it. 

"Caw! Caw!" 

Lou May shook from head to foot. She 
uttered a low moan, and staggered into 
the cabin. 

"Ol crow," she whispered, terror- 
stricken. "Hit s a debbil, fo sho ! Some 
niggah go n die to-night. Somebody 
goV die!" 

Suddenly, with a passionate cry, she 
caught up the whimpering child from its 
crib and covered its face with her kisses. 

" Tain yo , honey chile tain yo - 
de Lawd he ain t gwine let it be yo ! " 

The child s murmuring was stilled long 
before Lou May s heart was quieter. She 
put it back in the crib and fixed the fire. 
The coffee was boiling fiercely, and the 
fat of side meat spattering smokily upon 
the rusty stove-top. Lou May, despite 
her fear, took a bucket and went to the 
spring for fresh water. The path to the 
spring lay away from the swamp, but 
Lou May whispered incantations through 
every step of her fearsome progress. 
Coming back, the light of the cabin shone 
clear and steady something beneficent 
and protecting to guide her. 

But as she entered the door she saw 
that Jess Toler was sitting inside the 
cabin, his evil face alight with malice, his 
eyes consumed with the fire of some hell 
ish menace. 

Lou May screamed softly, and the 
water-bucket dropped from her limp fin 
gers and clattered onto the ground out 
side. She stood swaying on the threshold. 

Jess Toler got to his feet and jerked her 
roughly inside. 

"Yo-all go n scream some moah 
foah Ah gets through wiv yo !" he said 
savagely. 

He pushed her to the farther side of the 
room and put himself between her and 
the door. Lou May put her hands up be 
fore her face defensively. 

"Ain _ no need fo that," said Jess. 
"Ain go n beat yo nohow this time. 



Beatin is too good fo yo . Don know 
jes what Ah do aim to do wiv yo but 
theah ain no hurry bout that. Time 
enough to tend to yo lateh on. Jes 
now . . ." 

Suddenly he roared his question at her. 

" Wheah was yo long bout two days 
befoh we uz married?" 

" Ah don remember. Hit s so long ago 
now 

"Wheah was yo ?" repeated Jess in 
exorably. 

"Fo de Lawd, hit s de truff Ah m tell- 
in yo !" cried Lou May. "Ah don re 
member." 

Jess Toler laughed, and there was a 
note of incredible cruelty in his mirth. 

"Sho t mem ry sho t mem ry! Ah 
aims to make it a li l longeh yes, Ah 
sho does aim to ! " 

Suddenly his mirth changed to venom. 

"Yo bettah think ha d," he assured 
her. "Bettah think ha der than yo eveh 
thought befoh ! Bettah speak up and tell 
me wheah yo was ! Not because Ah don 
know Ah knows puffeckly well but 
jes because Ah d like to heah yo say it. 
Speak up wheah was yo ?" 

Lou May moaned. "Ah don know," 
she sobbed. "Ah speck Ah wasn t no- 
wheah Ah mean Ah tell yo Ah don 
know ! Mos lakly Ah was jes at home. 
Of co se, that s wheah Ah was Ah was 
at home. Yo ask maw ef Ah wasn t ! 
Ah don remember, mahse f , but 

Jess stepped closer to her. 

"Yo don remember wiv the remin- 
deh what yo got right heah?" 

"Ah don know what yo talkin 
bout!" 

Jess Toler looked toward the crib in 
the corner significantly. 

"Ah m talkin bout a basta d, that s 
what Ah m talkin bout," he said bluntly. 

At the same instant that the enormity 
of the false accusation struck her, she 
wondered at the strange lack of violence 
in him when he made it. He must be 
without an atom of proof he couldn t 
have proof, for there was only falsity in 
the charge ! And yet she realized, with 
utter despair, that no amount of protes 
tation would convince him. He was de 
termined to convict her. And yet .... 
again she wondered that he was so quiet 
about it. It might be, she thought, shiv- 



420 



BAIN S HOLE 



ering, that here was an anger past noise. 
Knowing that it was useless, some fine 
instinct within her compelled her never 
theless to deny. 

"Hit s a lie!" she cried. 

He stirred and clenched his hands. Lou 
May knew then that his immobility had 
not been the lack but the repression of 
violence. He was stemming it deliber 
ately so that it might accumulate behind 
the barriers, and become overwhelming 
and utterly disastrous to her. The 
thought of the crow, that lethal portent, 
recurred to her. In a blinding flash, Lou 
May saw that she was that night to die. 
The crow had flown for her ! But, if she 
must die, she would die protesting ! 

"Hit s a lie hit s a lie !" she screamed 
passionately. 

Jess put his hand on her wrist and 
wrenched it cruelly. 

"Stop at noise!" he hissed. 

And as if she were hypnotized, Lou 
May stopped. 

" Yo listen to me, yo - ! " said Jess. 
"Theah ain t no use tryin to talk lies to 
me ! Ah know wheah yo was that night 
when Ah was oveh to Gulf City. Ah see 
Ben Garrison this afte noon, and he tole 
me bout that niggah fum the No th 
how yo was always talkin to um, listen- 
in to his highfalutin talk an how yo 
went down the riveh wiv him that night, 
an neveh come home till mo nin 

Lou May s voice was low now, but she 
still protested. "Hit ain t true! Ben 
Garrison was lyin to yo , Jess ! Ben was 
mad because Ah wouldn t have no truck 
wiv him he toP me then he d get even 
wiv me. Ah nevah had no doin s wiv at 
niggah fum the No th. Hit s a lie hit s 
a damned lie!" 

Suddenly Jess Toler released her wrist 
and swung his hand heavily against her 
mouth. The blow half stunned her, but 
there was something of relief, too, in the 
physical hurt. Almost instantly there 
was a taste of warm saltiness in her 
mouth, and she realized that her lips had 
been cut against her teeth. 

"Go n lie bout Ben, too, huh? Play 
me a dirty trick lak at, an nen lie bout 
mah bes fren , too, huh? Go n lemme 
raise a li l basta d foh yo gen lemun fren 
fum the No th, and puvide clothes an 
food fo hit " 



A lie ! A lie ! said all her being. The 
child had nothing that she had not 
begged of her mother for it, and as for 
food, it had not yet passed the age where 
it could dispense with its own mother s 
milk ! A terrible depression closed down 
over her. From that moment on, she 
determined, he should extort no denial 
from her. He might hurt her so that she 
could not keep quiet, but she would never 
give his evil accusation the lie again. 

As if he could read her unvoiced de 
termination and were immeasurably an 
gered by it, he struck her again but 
again with the flat of his hand. She did 
not understand that. It was as if he were 
being very careful not to injure her seri 
ously. What did that mean? 

"Cain t play at trick wiv Jess Tole . 
Ain go n have no basta d in my cabin ! " 

Suddenly he took her by her two arms 
and whirled her about, and pushed her 
out of the door, heavily, so that she stum 
bled over the sill and fell to the ground 
outside. When she rose to her feet the 
door was closed. And still she did not 
understand. She heard the voice of Jess 
Toler inside the cabin, repeating without 
apparent heat, dully but determinedly: 

"Ain go n have no basta d in my 
cabin!" 

He moved heavily across the cabin 
floor. Lou May was pierced through and 
through with the long wail of her child. 
Suddenly bitter enlightenment flooded 
her heart, her brain, her whole body. She 
leaped, screaming, at the door and beat 
upon it with clenched fists. The wailing 
inside abruptly ended. Frantically Lou 
May beat her fists bloody on the door. In 
vain it did not give all her puny human 
strength might be dashed against it and 
it would never yield ! With a high, 
raucous scream Lou May Toler collapsed 
upon the ground, unconscious. 

For a long while she lay there, not 
moving, mercifully unknowing, scarcely 
breathing, even. She lay there while the 
sound of a moving bolt came from the 
cabin, then the rattling of a raised win 
dow. Utter silence followed and was 
greatly prolonged. 

The gibbous moon, red and angry, rose 
over the smoky mountains of the eastern 
horizon, and slowly climbed the sky. It 
stood well over the valley when Lou 




It was in the night, in the moonlight, in the road ... or the forest it was everywhere ! Page 422. 

421 



422 BAIN S HOLE 

May finally stirred and got to her feet, Lou May sat with her mother. There 

whimpering. She staggered to the door, was compensation of a sort about the 

swayed, and fell against it. This time it cabin of Mammy T ress Conner in a huge 

gave, for it had nothing more to keep and magnificent tulip-tree, a thing of em- 

from her. erald and silver mingled, cool and be- 

Lou May, still moaning, crept across neficent. It tempered the midday sun 
the floor on her hands and knees to the to the flimsy roof of the sagging cabin, 
crib. The yellow moonlight, through the and gave it a breath of purer air and took 
open window by which Jess Toler had five degrees from its blistering tempera- 
gone out, fell upon the child s dusky face. ture. 

Timidly, Lou May put out her finger and Lou May sat at the open door, looking 

touched the little cheek, and the flesh to out across the fields, her hands lying 

her finger was cold and unmoving. loosely in her lap. In the drooping lines 

The terror of death filled the cabin. It of her young body an infinite weariness 
lay about her, everywhere. Poor, foolish and apathy were pictured. Five days 
Lou May had the thought suddenly that earlier her baby had been buried. Lou 
she could escape it that she could run May had found tears for that last part- 
away from it. She ran out into the golden ing, but she had shed them as if in a 
moonlight. But it was there, too ! Faster dream. Curiously aloof, her spirit had 
and faster she ran. But no matter how sat watchful within her, and had observed 
fast she might go, it kept pace with her. her body and her deeds as those of an- 
It was in the night, in the moonlight, in other being. It was all unreal, the clumsy 
the road or in the fields or the forest mechanical simulacra of life, when ac- 
it was everywhere ! It was in her own tually no life was there. Something, the 
breaking heart. She sped on, gasping, vital part of her, was dead, had been dead 
And now she felt but little. She had for- ever since the night when her child had 
gotten her child was dead. She had for- been murdered, and was dead now, as she 
gotten why she was running she only sat looking from her mother s door, her 
knew that she must keep on running eyes half open, half closed, 
running running from some terrible and Her mother sat at the kitchen table, 
pursuing thing behind her. She was no busily sucking a chicken bone. She 
longer a woman: she was a panic-stricken rolled its end in her capacious mouth and 
animal, flying through the dark from an unctuously and loudly extracted the last 
unnamed and unrealized terror. Pres- bit of goodness from it, then tossed it, 
ently her eyes were closed, and she ran clean and shining, past her daughter into 
on blindly. She tripped on a root and the yard, treasure-trove for wandering 
fell heavily, and did not rise again until coon-town dogs, or lean and predatory 
the moon dropped behind the horizon in cats, whichever might first and piratically 
the pale dawn. discover it. This done, she surveyed her 

It was barely light when Lou May daughter yet again, deep trouble furrow- 
stumbled against the door of her mother s ing her glistening face, 
cabin in Cairntown. " Honey, Ah done kilt dat fowl jes on 

" Who dar who dar?" demanded the yo account, an now yo gwine let me eat 

rich and soothing voice of her mother. it all mahse f ? Cain t yo eat jes a li l 

"Hit s me Lou May," said Lou May bit, honey? Ef hit s on y a wing, or a 

weakly. Then something inside of her tiny piece of breas , hit s boun to do yo 

seemed to burst and release a torrential good. Jes a li l piece, Lou May!" 

flood of feeling. "Hit s me, maw mah She had asked the question half a 

baby s daid an Ah ve come home!" dozen times already, and each time Lou 

The sunshine, thick, rich, and golden, May had apathetically replied: Ah 

poured down at noontide upon the streets ain t hongry, maw Ah don feel like 

and houses of Cairntown streets more eatin ." 

than ankle-deep with red-brown dust; This time she made no reply, and her 

houses low-built, jerry-built, and ugly, mother, emboldened, pressed her harder. 

Where the dust was deepest, in one of the " Yo got to eat yo grub, chile ! Cain t 

lowest-built and ugliest of the cabins, nobody get long widout dat! Hit s an 



BAIN S HOLE 



423 



awful good bi d, honey tender and 
juicy and sweet hit jes melts in yo 
mouf. Yo is young yet yo want to 
save yo good looks." 

Lou May stirred, and got to her feet. 

"All right, Ah ll eat hit," she acceded. 
" Mah looks ain t botherin me no moah, 
though. Ah m thoo wiv men, onless hit s 
one man, an Ah don know ef Ah am thoo 
wiv him, or ef Ah ain t." 

"Dat s " 

"Don yo name him to me !" said Lou 
May. " Don yo nevah name him to me 
Ah warns yo , maw!" 

The tone was dead, but in spite of that 
there was something potent and deterrent 
in it that instantly stopped the garrulous 
negress. 

"Ah ll eat a li l grub, because Ah m 
go n out to Bain s Hole dis afte noon, an 
hit ll take strength, an hit seems lak Ah 
ain t got no mo seems lak mah bones is 
jes tu n to wateh, an run away fum me." 

Her mother protested. "Honey chile, 
yo cain t go out theah! Yo cain t do 
hit why " 

But there was a grim finality in the 
girl s answer, against which the older 
woman knew she might beat in vain, 
though with veritable cataracts of words. 

"Ah m go n theah ain t no use in yo 
talkin to me bout hit. Ah ve got to go. 
Ah cain t he p mahself. Hit seems lak 
theah s somethin callin me, somethin 
like a voice, an hit s a voice dat s high 
and shrill and piercin sweet hit s the 
voice of mah baby. Ah been settin heah, 
not stirrin , not sayin nothin wiv mah 
eyes closed, so Ah spect yo says to yo - 
self, De poor chile is asleep. Tain t so. 
Ah ain t been sleepin Ah ve been lis- 
tenin to dat voice an Ah kin heah hit 
in de day an in de night. An hit s jes 
like mah baby s voice. Ah knows mah 
baby s daid. Ah ain t crazy, neitheh. 
But Ah knows Ah ve got to go out theah 
again." 

Lou May ate her dinner, and an hour 
later she set out, weak and shaken, but 
steadfast with the determination that 
nothing could shake, along the road 
which, eight days before, she had trav 
elled in the dreadful night with fear-fleet 
limbs. Often along the way she rested, 
and it was near four in the afternoon 
when she neared the cabin of Jess Toler. 



The long shadows of Bain s Hole fell 
far over into the level ground, so that 
they included in their sinister domain the 
cabin. They had reached it, and had ex 
tended some fifty feet beyond. Lou May 
came up to the edge of the shadows, a 
distinct and sharply defined line just 
there, and paused. 

She was afraid. It seemed to her that 
the shade, a step beyond, was the domain 
of another world, a world peopled by 
ghosts and devils and evil spirits, and by 
their earthly and fleshly allies, the snakes, 
the crows, and Jess Toler. If she were 
to put her foot into it again there would 
be something terrible and irretrievable 
about the movement, she thought. She 
would be giving herself up to the black 
spell of the spirits of evil and darkness. 
Yet it was but a step, in the daylight, 
across that unstable and moving and 
intangible threshold. For an instant Lou 
May could not take it. She half turned 
to run away. 

Then she closed her eyes. For a mo 
ment she stood motionless, listening. 
That piercing and perilously sweet sound 
again ! 

"Mah baby," murmured Lou May, 
smiling faintly, "Ah m comin Ah m 
comin !" 

And when she opened her eyes, lo, the 
shadows had perceptibly lengthened, and 
she stood immersed in the coolness and 
the dank breath of Bain s Hole. 

She went on to the cabin. It was, as 
far as she knew, as it had been left the 
day the people had come from town and 
gotten her child s body. She went inside 
and stood for a little, bewildered, dazed, 
her heart thumping madly. 

Suddenly she began to shiver. She 
leaned against the table for a moment, 
and the spell passed off. It was weakness, 
she thought, and she moved to the stove. 
There was wood in the corner. 

"Ah ll make mahse f a li l tea," she 
said, and the sound of her voice reassured 
her. 

When she had finished her tea she 
seemed much better. Certainly she was 
no longer frightened. A strange peace 
had settled upon her. It was odd that in 
this place where she had known his vio 
lence, his torture, his cruelty, she should 
remember nothing of Jess Toler but it 



424 



BAIN S HOLE 



was true. She remembered only the tiny 
atom of black humanity, now blown so 
far away on the cold wings of eternity, 
which had slumbered in her hungry arms; 
she remembered only its cooing and gur 
gling, its smiles and quick laughter, its 
puny anger and sharp, soul-piercing cries 
. . . that was all she could remember. 
But it was, for the time being, almost 
enough. She sat by the open door, re 
membering these things, and she found 
in them the first ease and healing that she 
had known since that evil night. Her 
eyes were bright and clear and lovely. A 
soft light shone in their topaz depths that 
fell short only barely short of content. 

The shadows advanced farther into the 
valley, and dusk came on. Lou May rose 
now and then to replenish the fire, and 
returned to her seat. Her mood was con 
firmed and accentuated. She was, she 
dimly realized, almost happy once more. 

She saw, without a touch of fright, a 
crow rise from the tattered trees of Bain s 
Hole, as it had risen on that other terrible 
night, and wing its way toward the cabin, 
and over it, so closely that its shadow, if 
it had cast a shadow, would have fallen 
almost at her feet. She barely stirred at 
the sight. 

"Ah m go n to die to-night," she said 
softly. " Ah m go n to die to-night but 
honey baby, de Lawd Jesus gwine take 
mah soul away fum dat brack debbil bi d, 
and bring me up to yo ! " 

As if in derision, the raucous voice of 
the bird answered her from the distance. 

"Caw! Caw! Caw!" 

Undaunted, Lou May repeated: 
" Bring me up to yo ! Ah m comin soon, 
honey ! Ah m comin ! " 

The innate fatalism of her race caught 
her up to a plane of rapt exaltation, where 
the fears and superstitions of her lower 
and every-day life no longer operated. 
She soared above them with her faith, 
high and serene. 

It grew dark, and she lighted a lamp 
and closed the door, and sat down again 
in the padded and squeaking rocking- 
chair, and swayed back and forth in a 
slow, rhythmic motion. She knew now 
that she was waiting . . . waiting for the 
Angel of Death to visit the cabin again 
and take her away away to her child. 

Moments, hours, passed, before her 



waiting ended. The faint, rich chime of 
the town clock had told ten across the still 
valley when the latch-string of the cabin 
door began to lift, in the direct line of her 
eyes. It came up slowly, scarcely seem 
ing to move. After an endless suspense 
it clicked, the door swung open, and Jess 
Toler, limping, unshaven, and muddy, 
stepped quickly into the room and barred 
the door behind him. 

His eyes were bloodshot, and there was 
a bluish tinge in his brown face. His lips 
were black. He leaned against the door 
for a moment, his mouth drawn back, his 
teeth gleaming chalky-white. Twice he 
essayed to speak and twice he failed. 
Only tortured and unintelligible aspira 
tion resulted. He made a movement of 
baffled anger. And with the movement 
some sort of release came for his voice. 

"Yo come back!" he said hoarsely. 
"Ah knowed yo d come back. Yo got 
grub cooked?" 

Lou May shook her head. 

He crossed the floor quickly, rummaged 
in a box by the cupboard, and found a 
loaf of dried bread. There was a chunk 
of side meat hanging by the stove. These 
he slung into a towel, which he hastily 
knotted together. Then seeing Lou 
May s teapot, cold on the end of the table, 
he poured out what was left, a black and 
acrid fluid, into her cup and drank it off 
noisily. 

Lou May had not stirred. 

He laid down the cup and stared at her 
narrowly. When he spoke it was with a 
much stronger voice than before. 

"Ah come back to kill yo foah Ah 
leaves de country." 

Lou May s face did not change. 

"Ah knowed yo d be comin back 
heah ! Ah says to mahself : Ain t no use 
go n out Wes widout killin huh fust. 
Ah laid oveh theah in de swamp, th ee- 
fouah days, watching de cabin, an yo 
nevah showed up. Ah knowed yo d come 
back foah long, though. Two-th ee days 
moah. Ah didn have no money, so yest - 
day Ah went oveh Bradley way, an las 
night Ah cotch dat ol Mis Tatum what 
lives oveh theah all alone, an tie huh up, 
an bu n huh toes jes a li l an afteh 
while she tole me wheah she is got bout 
fouah hund ed dollahs hid up. Sho did 
glad to. Ah lowed yo d be back bout 




Remembering these things . 



she found in them the first ease and healing that she had known 
since that evil night. Page 424. 



425 



426 



BAIN S HOLE 



de time a week was up, an Ah says: Ah ll 
jes go back yondeh and kill dat niggah 
befoah Ah strikes out fo Noo Awleens 
an de WesV 

He watched her for a little. 

" [Ain t much out of mah way, an 
twon take long jes a few minutes/ Ah 
says. . . ." 

Undoubtedly it had been his intent to 
terrify her first, but suddenly something 
in her attitude seemed to proclaim to him 
that he was foiled. He looked at her more 
intently, scowling. Anger, then incredu 
lous amazement, flooded his face. 

"How come?" he demanded. "How 
come yo -all am fraid of me no moah?" 

"Ah ain t, dat s all," said Lou May 
slowly. "Ah won nevah be fraid of yo 
no more. Theah ain nothin no moah 
what yo kin do to me." 

"Ain t?" 

Jess Toler laughed deep in his throat, 
furiously. 

"Kin kill yo , Ah reckon." 

"Do hit!" 

He stared at her, baffled. Then he 
reached for the table-drawer and put his 
hand on the handle of the long butcher- 
knife that was in it. 

"Ah ll do hit!" he said. 

Lou May got to her feet and faced him 
serenely. 

Suddenly the horrible drama inside the 
cabin came to an end, the thread of its 
plot snapped by the hand of fate. 

There was a quick, thunderous knock 
ing on the cabin door, and a voice cried, 
in the clarion, ringing tones of the man- 
hunter: 

"Come out of there, nigger, and give 
yourself up !" 

Jess Toler wilted where he stood, like 
a plant in the blasting breath of fire. His 
face was utterly transformed; it became 
ashen, livid, and awful. 

"White man!" he whispered voice- 
lessly. 

With a quick exhalation of breath he 
blew out the lamp and left the room in 
darkness, intense at first, but after a few 
seconds paled by the light of half a dozen 
lanterns outside. They shone in all the 
windows, and their light, and the voices 
of the men, were evidence that the cabin 
was surrounded and that Jess Toler was 
doomed. 



In the darkness Lou May heard him 
withdraw to the farthest end of the room, 
into the corner, whimpering. 

"Nigger, come out, or we ll come in 
after you!" 

There is nothing so inexorable for the 
negro as white man s justice. Lou May, 
cowering in the middle of the room, flung 
her hands over her face. 

At the same instant there was a mys 
terious, terrible sound in the corner of 
the room where Jess Toler had been. A 
strange, unhuman cry, and the heavy im 
pact of a body striking the floor. After 
that, for an instant, silence. Then two 
hoarse gasps that had in them the dread 
ful semblance of the " Caw ! Caw ! " of a 
crow that had almost lost its voice. The 
sounds were meaningless to Lou May, but 
terrifying in their unintelligibility. 

An angrier murmur arose outside and 
the voice of the grim white man called 
the third time. 

" Open or we ll burn you out ! " 

A wild, quick courage surged through 
Lou May Toler. 

" Yes, suh ! " she cried. " Ah ll open- 
Ah llopen!" 

She fumbled in the darkness, found 
the bar, and raised it. The door opened 
with a rush, sweeping her back so that 
she fell against the table. When she re 
covered herself the room had a dozen 
white men in it, with guns and a rope in 
their hands. 

But Jess Toler had escaped their jus 
tice. 

He lay in the corner in a pool of his own 
gushing blood, his throat slit from ear to 
ear. 

Lou May began to sob hysterically. 

One of the white men caught her by 
the arm and shook her. " Shut up, you 
young fool !" he said. "You don t know 
when you re well off. You get out of 
here, and go on into town to your 
mother!" 

He pushed her out of the door into the 
night. 

The moon was just breaking over the 
hills in the far east, and the world, second 
by second, grew silver under its alchemic 
light. Bain s Hole, brooding and sinister, 
loomed up before her eyes. But to its 
menace she was indifferent now. Bain s 
Hole had no more hold over her. She 




"Ah come back to kill yo t oah Ah leaves de country--" Page 424. 



427 



428 



GHOSTS AND DEVILS: NEW STYLE 



had paid her debt to it, in blood and life 
and suffering. And she was free, for its 
animating spirit, Jess Toler, was dead ! 

Free. . . . 

Yes, strangely, she was free. Some 
thing surged up within her, a warmer, 
quicker, stronger flow of blood, the stir 
ring of new life, the recrudescence of 
youth . . . she was not dead, and she was 
glad that she was not dead ! 



The voices of the white men in the 
terrible cabin were confused and low- 
pitched. She heard one of their horses, 
tethered down near the swamp, nicker 
and another reply. The moon cleared the 
curved summits of the mountains, and 
rose, a disk of luminous silver, for its 
nightly vigil. 

Lou May stirred and moved away to 
ward the town. 



Ghosts and Devils: New Style 

BY GORDON HALL GEROULD 



A 



S far as I know, three ing the last few years; theorists as well 

opinions, and three as practitioners of spiritism have multi- 

only, are held with plied. My own feeling is that most of the 

reference to those phe- writing whether conscious or automatic 

nomena beyond the had better have been left undone, and 

verge of ordinary ex- most of the experimentation untried. 

perience, about which That part of both which has been caused 

the world is talking so by distress of heart excites one s sym- 



much to-day. One large group believes pathy, to be sure, but it is only one of 

that the spirits of the dead intervene in numberless things that disturb one in 

our affairs: not very successfully perhaps, these bad days. Because one sees why 

but rather persistently. Another group grief-stricken folk are tempted to meddle 

accepts the teaching of the Catholic in such matters, one need not admit that 

Church that spirits intervene indeed, but they ire wise in so doing. 
that they are by no means the ghosts of Na, I am not an experimenter in the 

the dead. The Church says quite plainly mysteries of spiritism. But I have ob- 

that all such manifestations are the work served one very curious fact about the 

of evil spirits, who are perpetually seeking manifestations reported in our time that 

to delude mankind by their tricks and foul I have never seen mentioned in print or 

devices. The third group explains the heard discussed in conversation. This, 

phenomena in question, or seeks to ex- if a mere onlooker s voice may be raised, 

plain them, by the methods of science, as I should like to call to your attention. I 

products of the human brain and of hope I may be forgiven for not taking 

matter. Of course there are, besides, the sides about the origin of the manifesta- 

people who shut their eyes and deny that tions, which I can t in good conscience 

anything queer ever happens; but they do. That odd things take place seems 

can scarcely be said to hold any opinion, to me very clear; but my opinion as to 

For them the world is a shadowless place, their source has no value whatever. I 

and has nothing to offer even by way of will keep that to myself and merely set 

illusion except Maskelyne and his collab- down what I make out to be a remarkable 

orators in mystery. difference between the occult phenomena 

It is not my purpose to discuss psychic of to-day and those of earlier centuries. 
phenomena, or to attempt a judgment Be the agents ghosts or devils, or mere- 

among the contending parties who try to ly shadows of our subliminal selves, they 

explain them. The literature of the sub- are not what they used to be in power and 

ject has grown to an alarming extent dur- performance. They seem a little dodder- 



GHOSTS AND DEVILS: NEW STYLE 429 



ing, a little run to seed, as if touched court of law. The poor spirit one can- 
either with senility or with premature not help pitying the spirit, even if it be a 
decay. They are not, in short, so clever devil is constrained to answer cate- 
as they used to be. Perhaps it is wrong gorically; or painfully to spell out its 
to apply to them phrases coined to de- revelations by the clumsy device of giving 
scribe the conditions of mortality; but each letter of the alphabet a fixed number, 
since they speak and act in materialistic There is no dignity in the performance, 
fashion, it is necessary to use terms of which is, besides, much more elementary 
ordinary life in talking about them. At than the magical practices of record even 
all events, the fact seems to be that they among primitive races, 
display themselves much less interestingly It is obvious that the persons who en- 
than once they did. They are concerned, gage in table-tipping are far more highly 
comparatively speaking, with nothing but developed than the Kabbalists of old, or 
trivial things, as the senile human being than mediaeval magicians, or than the 
tends to live in a little round of common- backward tribes of Africa. One must 
place event except when straying down grant this, of course, or else discard along 
the long vistas of memory. It seems to with Professor Bury and others our 
me, that is, that the ghosts or devils of cherished notions about human progress, 
our present era are in a sad decline. It follows, then, that the spirits concerned 

Contrast, for example, the table-tipping in such scenes must somehow have retro- 
so much in vogue in the best circles of graded. Since the human participants 
Europe and America, with magic as prac- are not clumsier of mind and more naive 
tised in more vigorous ages: the magic, than the people of other times and places, 
that is, by which ghosts or spirits were it must be the spirits who have lost their 
conjured up to reveal the secrets of a former qualities. I can see no satisfactory 
hidden world. The parallel is sufficiently way of avoiding this conclusion, 
just. In both cases the object of the Some one may object that it is unfair 
performance is to summon the spirits to contrast so elementary a practice as 
whatever they be: to compel their pres- table-tipping must be admitted to be, 
ence and their speech. According to any with sophisticated magic. I still think 
respectable system of magic, whether en- that the parallelism is fair, but I am will- 
gaged in by adepts or by amateurs, a form ing to take another case. What of the 
of words and a ceremonial ritual of some revelations of the modern medium? I 
dignity were employed. The spirit came, do not, of course, ask you to give serious 
and the spirit spoke clearly: warning, ad- attention to the professional seance, 
vising, revealing. It spoke in intelligible where the possibility of vulgar fraud is 
language, moreover, with little beating always present. Let us consider what 
about the bush. It knew the game and happens at a sitting in a private house, 
had control of the situation, except that when the medium as well as the rest of 
it was under magical compulsion to speak, the participants is a guest. Everything 
There was no coyness, no concern about is very decent and aboveboard; nobody 
establishing its identity. It spoke as one would consciously deceive any one else, 
expecting belief. The medium (in the evening clothes of his 

The practice of table- tipping is exces- customary wear) makes a slightly depre- 

si^ely -joidiffieftta43^4ft c^^ catory speech, and goes into a trance, 

group of persons who call themselves After a little he begins to talk, but not in 

civilized, and possibly consider them- his natural voice. He is now "Uncle 

selves educated, sit about a table, and Charlie," and he asks whether the Prince 

wait in silence. Their outspread finger- Albert he used to wear is still remem- 

tips touch. The table begins to move, to bered. Strangely enough, the coat in all 

seesaw, to tap the floor with its impatient its dusky magnificence is recalled by some 

legs. The spirit is supposed to be present, one, and it brings to mind the carnation 

and is addressed. It is bidden to give that graced its lapel. Uncle Charlie then 

three knocks f or " yes" and one for "no." says that he is happy, that the other 

A series of leading questions is then put, world is not like the world we know, and 

such as would certainly be allowed in no that he still thinks with affection of the 



430 GHOSTS AND DEVILS: NEW STYLE 

old oaken bucket that his infancy knew, good fiction, and neither ghosts nor 

He is dismissed, and another manifesta- devils can be expected to take the time 

tion comes on. Everybody agrees that to perfect themselves in an art of purely 

the session is going very well. . mundane interest. The striking thing is 

Now this scene has been duplicated that they have taken the trouble to die- 
thousands and thousands of times since tate such laborious pieces of narrative, 
man began to reach into the unknown for If spirits of the dead, they ought to have 
his comfort and self-satisfaction. It has more interesting things to do, and if imps, 
been duplicated, I mean, except for one things more devilish. Novels so written 
or two differences. Formerly the medium are harmless enough, but they indicate a 
would not have worn evening dress he lack of energetic employment on the part 
might have worn very little indeed. He of their postulated makers that is, again, 
would have gone into a trance, however, a sign of decayed powers, 
and when he spoke he would have said Most automatic writing, however, is 
something of really vital interest to the not in the form of fiction, but of revela- 
auditors. He would have told them tion. Things are found written on pages 
whether or not they should make war, erstwhile blank, and the person who held 
whether or not the countess or the head- the pencil has not been conscious of the 
man s third wife was guilty of adultery, hand s movement. It is mysterious, of 
or something like that. Nobody greatly course. The recipient of the message, 
cares to be assured that Uncle Charlie can though he pretend to scoff, cannot help 
recall the old oaken bucket. It is quite being startled. Even if the words written 
startling enough for us to know that have no great intrinsic interest, their 
Uncle Charlie exists at all. We are really provenience gives them weight. Some- 
a little doubtful about that, in spite of our thing has " come through." The method 
protestations of faith in immortality; and is undoubtedly much less clumsy than 
so we welcome the trivial assurances con- table-tipping. A hand worked busily for 
veyed to us through the medium. thirty minutes, and there the record is. 

Possibly, you see, the modern ghost or A spirit of whatever nature would prefer 
devil is not really so weak and futile as to control fingers trained to write, rather 
he appears to be. Possibly he is merely than to thump a table twenty times 
lazy, and does only so much as he is re- against the floor in order to register the 
quired to do in a sceptical age. The au- one letter T. It is both easier and swifter, 
dience is satisfied if the medium speaks at Accordingly, the records made by auto- 
all, and makes no demand that he talk matic writing are at once more fluent and 
what appears to be sense. He had to do slightly more interesting than those made 
better in the old days when magic flour- by table-tipping. 

ished. People weren t experimenting Disappointment comes, therefore, when 

then: they believed, and they would not one finds that the revelations reveal so 

easily have been put off with the kind of little. They almost never venture on pre- 

thing reported by our adepts. dictions of the future, and they have 

Automatic writing is another device by taught us nothing about worlds beyond 

which ghosts, devils, or subliminal per- our ken. What they are concerned with 

sonalities the explanation, again, does is the past experience of people usually 

not affect what I have to say assert known to the person writing. That the 

themselves nowadays. Automatic writ- communicant whatever it be tries hard 

ing is very popular. It is so widely prac- to identify itself with the personality 

tised, indeed, that one must conclude it of some particular dead person is not 

to be an easy access by spirits or sub- strange. This is what happens in medi- 

conscious states to mortal recognition, umistic performances of all sorts, as I 

Novels have even been written by this have already said. We pride ourselves on 

means, although one has to admit that not being credulous, and we therefore 

they are not good novels. Parenthetically compel the spirits to use their best efforts 

it may be said that this need occasion no to convince us of their reality. We ask 

surprise. Some training and much hard for a sign. Possibly we ought not to be 

work are essential to the production of so disappointed as we are, under the con- 



GHOSTS AND DEVILS: NEW STYLE 431 

ditions we enforce, that so little else is Philip of Clairvaux said: "I gave no cre- 

given us. The spirits are kept busy, when dence to them that told me, until I came 

present, in establishing identity. myself and saw and proved that I had not 

You may say that seers and seeresses, heard the half." I am making no com- 

in all time, have been chary about pre- ment on the nature of any of these phe- 

dicting the future, or have predicted it in nomena, mediseval, oriental, or modern. I 

vague terms. The oracles have become am merely pointing out that the marvels 

proverbial for their evasive ambiguity. I of our day are less amazing than those 

grant this, but I beg you to remember vouched for by credible witnesses from 

that magicians of every sort, using every other centuries and other lands, 

kind of device, were formerly much bolder Ghosts, when they walked, used to 

than we are to-day in our traffic with the make their presence quite evident. They 

unseen. The spirits were more down- did not try to sidle into our consciousness 

right. They gave advice freely, even by means of. rappings and furtive inscrip- 

though they did not always tell what tions. They came boldly and said what 

would come of it. They laid bare the they had to say. Sometimes they were 

secrets of the past and of the other world malignant, and were quite properly dis- 

with particularity and thoroughness, posed of by the priests. Sometimes they 

They were less timorous than they are were grateful for favors done to them in 

to-day, and more effective. The symp- life or to their bodies after death, and 

toms of decline are clear, no matter what took very practical means of rewarding 

field of the occult you survey. their benefactors. Sometimes they held 

Take the recent so-called experiments themselves up as horrible examples, in 

in the nature of matter which is not order to warn their friends of the wrath to 

matter. We are told, and shown by dia- come. Sometimes they were merely piti- 

gram, how legs that are not legs, but pro- ful and begged the alms of decent burial 

jections of force in the shape of legs, lift or prayer. In any event, they came as 

tables in Belfast. We have had other ghosts, unafraid and unashamed, 

similar manifestations reported to us. So with devils mediaeval devils, for 

But all of them are puerile in comparison example, who had the most deplorable 

with things done by Hindu adepts for purposes in their dealings with human 

many centuries. If, however, you are in- beings, but were often stern moralists 

clined to rule out East Indian wonders as withal. There was the devil who filled a 

the work of conscious artists in mystery, sack with the words and syllables omitted 

I commend you to the records of two Bel- or abbreviated by the clergy in reading 

gian women of the thirteenth century, the Psalms, and the other who took notes 

Elizabeth of Erkenrode and Christina on the people who chattered during 

Mirabilis, who were soberly investigated church services. There was the imp laden 

by men of responsibility and repute in with little bottles whom Saint Machary 

their own time. The story of these in- saw. Each phial represented a particular 

vestigations makes what happened in vice, and they were to be used to tempt 

Ulster seem very tame. Elizabeth, for the monks of the desert. The saint was 

example, had stigmata that bled each edified, when the devil came back from 

Friday; and every day she observed the his expedition, to learn that one hermit 

hours with bodily feats that would have had drained all the bottles, while his fel- 

been well-nigh unbelievable even in a lows had rejected every one. The imp 

robust person, while she took no solid knew his business, and went about it, but 

food and very little liquid. A tablet he had a low opinion of the erring monk, 

painted with the crucified figure of Christ Illuminating as evidence of the diabolic 

clove to her when she touched it with attitude is the tale of the nun who swal- 

hands and lips, so that the attendants lowed a devil on a lettuce leaf, through 

could not withdraw it. Standing on one not making the sign of the cross. To the 

foot, she bowed again and again to the holy exorcist who was called in, the devil 

ground, thus imitating the form of the said acutely: "What fault is it of mine? 

cross. Many times a day she went into I was sitting on the lettuce, and she did 

what we know as cataleptic trances. As not cross herself." They were malicious, 



432 GHOSTS AND DEVILS: NEW STYLE 

and they were bold, those devils who Let us not deceive ourselves, but try to 
throng mediaeval exemplary literature ; look at this matter clearly. The processes 
but they were sprightly, too, and some- by which they are summoned are magical, 
times showed real humor. Once, I recall, both in purpose and in method, as cer- 
when an imp seated on the train of a lady s tainly as the rites of any savage witch- 
dress was shaken off, there was heard a doctor. I know that we do not account 
chorus of demoniac laughter all about. ourselves credulous and that we think of 

I do not give these anecdotes as being magic as something quite out of date 
necessarily well authenticated in every and discarded. I am afraid that some of 
particular, but merely as showing what your friends would be shocked if you ac- 
estimate of familiar spirits and their be- cused them of indulging in magic on the 
havior used to prevail. I wish to point score of table-tipping and automatic writ- 
out that they, as well as ghosts, were once ing. They might feel hurt, and they 
not the timid, shrinking, and far from might call you rude. I should advise 
clever creatures they appear to have be- against your making the attempt to show 
come in our age. Whatever opinion you them that they are amateurs of a primi- 
hold, that is, concerning the nature of the tive kind of magic. It is, nevertheless, 
mysteries about which experimenters are true that they are. They are trying to 
now engaged in gathering data, you must compel the supernatural by means of 
see that the investigators have chosen a ritual, which is a fairly good working 
rather bad time to do it. They have to definition of magic. Any one who knows 
deal with phenomena much less pictur- even a little about magic must agree to 
esque and important than might once this. As I say, let us face the situation 
have been investigated. This is a pity, honestly and call things by their right 
Research is likely to be more profitable names. 

if the subjects examined are in a flourish- As I have tried to show you, we have 

ing state. Who wishes to study an anae- been taking the manifestations common 

mic octopus or a sick amceba? in our day much too seriously. Our ap- 

Besides which, the technic of these preaches to the black art are rather pitiful 
modern experimenters is decidedly crude, and feeble, and our ghosts or devils not 
as I have already shown. They have up to the old standard. If we are really 
much to learn about the art of dealing going to desert religion for magic, we 
with spirits. The primitive methods they ought, it seems to me, to study the sub- 
now employ can scarcely be expected to ject carefully and, perhaps, get mission- 
yield the best results. They need, I take aries in from Africa and Asia. Some- 
it, to learn magic from the masters of thing like a revival of witchcraft is 
magic. Possibly magic is really a lost art needed before we can boast of any mas- 
among civilized nations, and will have to tery. I am not attempting to proselytize: 
be reconstructed from its foundations be- I myself think religion a greater force 
fore the powers of ghosts or devils, or for good than magic. It is only in 
both, can again have free play. In spite the interest of clear thinking and effec- 
of what I have said earlier, I am not sure, tive action that I have set down these 
you see, how much of their apparent im- observations. I dislike shilly-shallying, 
potence and puerility is due to their own If anybody wishes to become adept in 
decay, and how much to the processes of the black art, let him, in Beelzebub s 
magic by which they are summoned to name, go about it whole-heartedly and in- 
appear. I should not wish to libel them, telligently. 



Leaves from My Autobiography 

SOCIETIES AND PUBLIC BANQUETS 

BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 



[SIXTH PAPER] 




HE most unique ex 
perience in my life has 
been the dinners given 
to me by the Montauk 
Club of Brooklyn on 
my birthday. The 
Montauk is a social 
club of high standing, 
whose members are of professional and 
business life and different political and 
religious faiths. 

Thirty years ago Mr. Charles H. 
Moore was president of the club. He 
was a prominent manufacturer and a 
gentleman of wide influence in political 
and social circles. Mr. McKinley offered 
him the position of secretary of the navy, 
which Mr. Moore declined. He came to 
me one day with a committee from the 
club, and said: "The Montauk wishes to 
celebrate your birthday. We know that 
it is on the 23d of April, and that you 
have two distinguished colleagues who 
also have the 23d as their birthday- 
Shakespeare and St. George. We do not 
care to include them, but desire only to 
celebrate yours." 

The club has continued these celebra 
tions for thirty years by an annual din 
ner. The ceremonial of the occasion is a 
reception, then dinner, and, after an in 
troduction by the president, a speech by 
myself. To make a new speech every 
year which will be of interest to those 
present and those who read it, is not easy. 
These festivities had a fortunate begin 
ning. In thinking over what I should 
talk about at the first dinner, I decided to 
get some fun out of the municipality of 
Brooklyn by a picturesque description of 
its municipal conditions. It was charged 
in the newspapers that there had been 
serious graft in some public improve 
ments which had been condoned by the 
VOL. LXXL 28 



authorities and excused by an act of the 
legislature. It had also been charged 
that the Common Council had been giv 
ing away valuable franchises to their 
favorites. Of course, this presented a fine 
field of contrast between ancient and 
modern times. In ancient times grateful 
citizens erected statues to eminent men 
who had deserved well of their country in 
military or civic life, but Brooklyn had 
improved upon the ancient model through 
the grant of public utilities. The speech 
caused a riot after the dinner as to its pro 
priety, many taking the ground that it 
was a criticism, and, therefore, inappro 
priate to the occasion. However, the af 
fair illustrated a common experience of 
mine that unexpected results will some 
times flow from a bit of humor, if the 
humor has concealed in it a stick of dy 
namite. 

The Brooklyn pulpit, which is the most 
progressive in the world, took the matter 
up and aroused public discussion on mu 
nicipal affairs. The result was the forma 
tion of a committee of one hundred citi 
zens to investigate municipal conditions. 
They found that while the mayor and 
some other officials were high-toned and 
admirable officers, yet the general admin 
istration of the city government had in 
the course of years become so bad that 
there should be a general reformation. 
The reform movement was successful; it 
spread over to New York and there again 
succeeded, and the movement for mu 
nicipal reform became general in the 
country. 

The next anniversary dinner attracted 
an audience larger than the capacity of 
the club, and every one of the thirty has 
been an eminent success. For many 
years the affair has received wide pub 
licity in the United States, and has some- 

433 



434 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

times been reported in foreign newspa- John M. Harlan presided, and distin- 
pers. I remember being in London with guished men were present from different 
the late Lieutenant-Governor Woodruff, parts of the country and representing 
when we saw these head-lines at a news- great interests. Probably the speech 
stand on the Strand: "Speech by Chaun- which excited the most comment was a 
cey Depew at his birthday dinner at the radical attack of Andrew Carnegie on the 
Montauk Club, Brooklyn." During this government of Great Britain, in submit- 
nearly one-third of a century the member- ting to the authority of a king or a queen, 
ship of the club has changed, sons have Canada was represented by some of the 
succeeded fathers and new members have high officials of that self-governing colony, 
been admitted, but the celebration seems The Canadians are more loyal to the Eng- 
to grow in interest. lish form of government than the English 

During the last fourteen years the pres- themselves. My peppery Scotch friend 
ident of the club has been Mr. William H. aroused a Canadian official, who returned 
English. He has done so much for the his assault with vigor and interest, 
organization in every way that the mem- It is a very valuable experience for an 
bers would like to have him as their execu- American to attend the annual banquet of 
tive officer for life. Mr. English is a the American Chamber of Commerce in 
splendid type of the American who is emi- Paris. The French Government recog- 
nently successful in his chosen career, and nizes the affair by having a company of 
yet has outside interest for the benefit of their most picturesquely uniformed sol- 
the public. Modest to a degree and diers standing guard both inside and out- 
avoiding publicity, he nevertheless is the side the hall. The highest officials of the 
motive power of many movements pro- French Government always attend and 
gressive and charitable. make speeches. The American Ambassa- 

Twenty-four years ago a company of dor replies in a speech partly in English, 

public-spirited women in the city of Des and, if he is sufficiently equipped, partly 

Moines, Iowa, organized a club. They in French. General Horace Porter and 

named it after me. For nearly a quarter Henry White were equally happy both in 

of a century it has been an important fac- their native language and in that of the 

tor in the civic life of Des Moines. It has French. The French statesmen, how- 

with courage, intelligence, and indepen- ever, were so fond of Myron T. Herrick 

dence done excellent work. At the time that they apparently not only grasped his 

of its organization there were few if any cordiality but understood perfectly his 

such organizations in the country, and it eloquence. The honor has several times 

may claim the position of pioneer in been assigned to me of making the Ameri- 

women s activity in public affairs. can speech in unadulterated American. 

Happily free from the internal difficul- The French may not have understood, 

ties and disputes which so often wreck but with their quick apprehension the ap- 

voluntary associations, the Chauncey De- plause or laughter of the Americans was 

pew Club is stronger than ever. It looks instantly succeeded by equal manifesta- 

forward with confidence to a successful tions on the part of the French, 

celebration of its quarter of a century. Among the many things which we have 

I have never been able to visit the club, inherited from our English ancestry are 

but have had with it frequent and most public dinners and after-dinner speeches, 

agreeable correspondence. It always re- The public dinner is of importance in 

members my birthday in the most gratify- Great Britain and utilized for every occa- 

ing way. I am grateful to its members sion. It is to the government the plat- 

for bestowing upon me one of the most form where the ministers can lay frankly 

pleasurable compliments of my life. before the country matters which they 

A public dinner is a fine form of testi- could not develop in the House of Com- 

monial. I have had many in my life, mons. Through the dinner speech they 

celebrating other things than my birth- open the way and arouse public attention 

day. One of the most notable was given for measures which they intend to propose 

me by the citizens of Chicago in recogni- to Parliament, and in this way bring the 

tion of my efforts to make their great Co- pressure of public opinion to their sup- 

lumbian exhibition a success. Justice port. 



C&AUNCEY M. DEPEW 435 

In the same way every guild and trade which were of more than ordinary inter- 
has its festive functions with serious est. 

purpose, and so have religious, philan- After-dinner oratory, while most at- 
thropic, economic, and sociological move- tractive at the time, is evanescent, but 
ments. We have gone quite far in this some incidents are interesting in memory, 
direction, but have not perfected the sys- At the time of Queen Victoria s jubilee I 
tern as they have on the other side. I was present where a representative of 
have been making after-dinner speeches Canada was called upon for a speech, 
for sixty years to all sorts and conditions With the exception of the Canadian and 
of people, and on almost every conceiva- myself the hosts and guests were all Eng- 
ble subject. I have found these occa- lish. My Canadian friend enlarged upon 
sions of great value because under the the wonders of his country. A statement 
good-fellowship of the occasion an un- of its marvels did not seem sufficient for 
popular truth can be sugar-coated with him unless it was augmented by compari- 
humor and received with applause, while sons with other countries to the glory of 
in the processes of digestion the next day Canada, and so he compared Canada 
it is working with the audience and with the United States. Canada had 
through the press in the way the pill was better and more enduring institutions, 
intended. A popular audience will for- she had a more virile, intelligent, and pro- 
give almost anything with which they do gressive population, and she had pro- 
not agree, if the humorous way in which tected herself, as the United States did 
it is put tickles their risibilities. not, against undesirable immigration, 

Mr. Gladstone was very fine at the and in everything which constituted an 
lord mayor s dinner at Guild Hall, where up-to-date, progressive, healthy, and 
the prime minister develops his policies, hopeful commonwealth she was far in ad- 
So it was with Lord Salisbury and Bal- vance of the United States, 
four, but the prince of after-dinner I was called upon immediately after- 
speakers in England is Lord Rosebery. wards and said I would agree with the dis- 
He has the humor, the wit, and the tinguished gentleman from Canada that 
artistic touch which fascinates and en- in one thing at least Canada was superior 
raptures his audience. to the United States, and it was that she 

I have met in our country all the men had far more land, but it was mostly ice. 

of my time who have won fame in this I regret to remember that my Canadian 

branch of public address. The most re- friend lost his temper, 
markable in effectiveness and inspiration One of the historical dinners of New 

was Henry Ward Beecher. A banquet York, which no one will forget who was 

was always a success if it could have there, was just after the close of the Civil 

among its speakers William M. Evarts, War, or, as my dear old friend, Colonel 

Joseph H. Choate, James S. Brady, Watterson, called it, "The War between 

Judge John R. Brady, General Horace the States." The principal guests were 

Porter, or Robert G. Ingersoll. General Sherman and Henry W. Grady of 

After General Grant settled in New Atlanta, Ga. General Sherman, in his 

York he was frequently a guest at public speech, described the triumphant return 

dinners and always produced an impres- of the Union Army to Washington, its 

sion by simple, direct, and effective ora- review by the President, and then its 

tory. officers and men returning to private life 

General Sherman, on the other hand, and resuming their activities and indus- 

was an orator as well as a fighter. He tries as citizens. It was a word-picture 

never seemed to be prepared, but out of of wonderful and startling picturesque- 

the occasion would give soldierly, graphic, ness and power and stirred an audience, 

and picturesque presentations of thought composed largely of veterans who had 

and description. been participants both in the battles and 

Not to have heard on these occasions in the parades, to the highest degree of 

Robert G. Ingersoll was to have missed enthusiasm. Mr. Grady followed. He 

being for the evening under the spell of a was a young man with rare oratorical 

magician. I have been frequently asked gifts. He described the return of the 

if I could remember occasions of this kind Confederate soldiers to their homes after 



436 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the surrender at Appomattox. They had without indicating his own views, said 
been four years righting and marching, substantially: "We Yankees used to be 
They were ragged and poor. They re- able to govern ourselves, but you Irish 
turned to homes and farms, many of have come here and taken the govern- 
which had been devastated. They had ment away from us. You have our en- 
no capital, and rarely animals or farming tire city administration in your hands, 
utensils necessary to begin again. But and you do with us as you like. We are 
with superb courage, not only on their deprived of Home Rule. Now what you 
own part but with the assistance of their are clamoring for both at home and 
wives, sisters, and daughters, they made abroad is Home Rule for Ireland. With 
the desert land flourish and resurrected such demonstrated ability in capturing 
the country. the greatest city on the western conti- 

This remarkable description of Grady, nent, and one of the greatest in the world, 

which I only outline, came as a counter- why don t you go back to Ireland and 

part to the triumphant epic of General make, as you would, Home Rule there a 

Sherman. The effect was electric, and success?" 

beyond almost any that have ever oc- I was called a few minutes afterwards 

curred in New York or anywhere, and to a conference of the leading Irishmen 

Grady sprang into international fame. present. I was an honorary member of 

Joseph H. Choate was a most danger- that society, and they were in a high state 
ous fellow speaker to his associates who of indignation. The more radical thought 
spoke before him. I had with him many that Mr. Choate s speech should be re- 
encounters during fifty years, and many sented at once. However, those who 
times enjoyed being the sufferer by his appreciated its humor averted hostile 
wit and humor. On one occasion Choate action, but Mr. Choate was never in- 
won the honors of the evening by an un- vited to an Irish banquet again, 
expected attack. There is a village in The second historical occasion was 
western New York which is named after when the Scotch honored their patron 
me. The enterprising inhabitants, bor- saint, St. Andrew. The attendance was 
ing for what might be under the surface greater than ever before, and the interest 
of their ground, discovered natural gas. more intense because the Earl of Aber- 
According to American fashion, they im- deen was present. The earl was at that 
mediately organized a company and is- time Governor-General of Canada, but 
sued a prospectus for the sale of the stock, to the Scotchmen he was much more than 
The prospectus fell into the hands of Mr. that, because he was the chief of the Clan 
Choate. With great glee he read it and Gordon. The earl came to the dinner in 
then with emphasis the name of the com- full Highland costume. Lady Aberdeen 
pany: "The Depew Natural Gas Com- and the ladies of the vice-regal court 
pany, Limited," and waving the pro- were in the gallery. I sat next to the earl 
spectus at me shouted: "Why Limited?" and Choate sat next to me. Choate 

There have been two occasions in Mr. said: "Chauncey, are Aberdeen s legs 

Choate s after-dinner speeches much bare?" I looked under the table-cloth 

commented upon both in this country and and discovered that they were naturally 

abroad. As I was present on both eve- so because of his costume. I answered: 

nings, it seems the facts ought to be ac- "Choate, they are." 

curately stated. The annual dinner of I thought nothing of it until Choate be- 

the "Friendly Sons of St. Patrick" oc- gan his speech, in which he said: "I was 

curred during one of the years when the not fully informed by the committee of 

Home Rule question was most acute in the importance of the occasion. I did 

England and actively discussed here, not know that the Earl of Aberdeen was 

At the same time our Irish fellow citizens, to be here as a guest of honor. I was 

with their talent for public life, had cap- especially and unfortunately ignorant 

tured all the offices in New York City, that he was coming in the full panoply of 

They had the mayor, the majority of the his great office as chief of Clan Gordon. 

Board of Aldermen, and a large majority If I had known that I would have left my 

of the judges. When Mr. Choate spoke trousers at home." 

he took up the Home Rule question, and, Aberdeen enjoyed it, the ladies in the 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 437 

gallery were amused, but the Scotch were One of the ablest men in the Senate was 

mad, and Choate lost invitations to fu- Senator John T. Morgan, of Alabama, 

ture Scotch dinners. I was fond of him personally and admired 

Few appreciate the lure of the metropo- greatly his many and varied talents. He 

lis. It attracts the successful to win was a most industrious and admirable 

greater success with its larger opportuni- legislator, and a debater of rare influence, 

ties. It has resistless charm with the am- He was a master of correct and scholarly 

bilious and the enterprising. New York, English, and one of the very few who 

with its suburbs, which are really a part never went to the reporters room to cor- 

of itself, is the largest city in the world, rect his speeches. As they were always 

It is the only true cosmopolitan one. It perfect, he let them stand as they were 

has more Irish than any city in Ireland, delivered. 

more Germans and Italians than any Senator Morgan was a great card on a 
except the largest cities in Germany or famous occasion among the many well- 
Italy. It has more Southerners than are known men who were also to speak, 
gathered in any place in any Southern Senator Elihu Root presided with his 
State, and the same is true of Westerners usual distinction. Senator Morgan had 
and those from the Pacific coast and New a prepared speech which he read. It was 
England, except in Chicago, San Fran- unusually long, but very good. On ac- 
cisco, or Boston. There is also a large count of his reputation the audience was, 
contingent from the West Indies, South for such an audience, wonderfully patient, 
America, and Canada. and frequent and enthusiastic in its ap- 

The people who make up the guests at plause. Mistaking his favorable recep- 
a great dinner are the survival of the tion, Senator Morgan, after he had fin- 
fittest of these various settlers in New ished the manuscript, started in for an 
York. While thousands fail and go back extended talk. After the hour had grown 
home or drop by the way, these men have to nearly two, the audience became impa- 
made their way by superior ability, fore- tient, and the senator, again mistaking its 
sight, and adaptability through the fierce temper, thought they had become hostile 
competitions of the great city. They are and announced that at many times and 
unusually keen-witted and alert. For many places he had been met with oppo- 
the evening of the banquet they leave sition, but that he could not be put down 
behind their business and its cares and or silenced. Mr. Root did the best he 
are bent on being entertained, amused, could to keep the peace, but the audience, 
and instructed. They are a most catholic who were anxious to hear the other speak- 
audience, broad-minded, hospitable, and ers, gave up hope and began to leave, 
friendly to ideas whether they are in ac- with the result that midnight saw an 
cord with them or not, providing they are empty hall with a presiding officer and an 
well presented. There is one thing they orator. 

will not submit to, and that is being At another great political dinner I sat 

bored. beside Governor Oglesby, of Illinois. He 

These functions are usually over by was famous as a war governor and as a 

midnight, and rarely last so long; while speaker. There were six speakers on the 

out in the country and in other towns, it dais, of whom I was one. Happily, my 

is no unusual thing to have a dinner with turn came early. The governor said to 

speeches run along until the early hours me: "How much of the gospel can these 

of the next morning. While public men, tenderfeet stand?" "Well, Governor," 

politicians, and aspiring orators seek their I answered, "there are six speakers to- 

opportunities upon this platform in New night, and the audience will not allow the 

York, few succeed and many fail. It is maximum of time occupied to be more 

difficult for a stranger to grasp the situa- than thirty minutes. Any one who ex- 

tion and adapt himself at once to its ceeds that will lose his crowd and, worse 

atmosphere. I have narrated in preced- than that, he may be killed by the elo- 

ing pages some remarkable successes, and quent gentlemen who are bursting with 

will give a few instances of very able and impatience to get the floor, and who are 

distinguished men who lost touch of their to follow him." 

audiences. "Why," said the governor, "I don t 



438 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

see how any one can get started in thirty of a very distinguished and brilliant 

minutes." gentleman taking himself too seriously. 

"Well," I cautioned, "please do not be At another rather solemn function of this 

too long." kind I performed the same at the request 

When the midnight hour struck the hall of the management, but with another pro- 
was again practically empty, the governor test from the orator and his enmity, 
in the full tide of his speech, which evi- In reminiscing, after he retired from 
dently would require about three hours, the presidency, Mr. Cleveland spoke to 
and the chairman declared the meeting me of his great respect and admiration 
adjourned. for Mr. Lamar. Cleveland s speeches 

Senator Foraker, of Ohio, who was one were always short. His talent was for 

of the appointed speakers, told me the compression and concentration, and he 

next morning that at the Fifth Avenue could not understand the necessity for an 

Hotel, where he was stopping, he was just effort of great length. He told me that 

getting into bed when the governor burst while Justice Lamar was secretary of the 

into his room and fairly shouted: "For- interior he came to him one day and said: 

aker, no wonder New York is almost al- " Mr. President, I have accepted an invi- 

ways wrong. You saw to-night that it tation to deliver an address in the South, 

would not listen to the truth. Now I and as your administration may be held 

want to tell you what I intended to responsible for what I say, I wish you 

say." He was shouting with impassioned would read it over and make any correc- 

eloquence, his voice rising until, through tions or suggestions." 

the open windows, it reached Madison Mr. Cleveland said the speech was 

Square Park, when the watchman burst extraordinarily long though very good, 

in and said: "Sir, the guests in this hotel and when he returned it to Secretary 

will not stand that any longer, but if you Lamar he said to him: "That speech will 

must finish your speech I will take you take at least three hours to deliver. A 

out in the park." Northern audience would never submit 

During Cleveland s administration one to over an hour. Don t you think you 

of the New York banquets became a na- had better cut it down?" The secretary 

tional affair. The principal speaker was replied: "No, Mr. President; a Southern 

the secretary of the interior, Lucius Q. C. audience expects three hours, and would 

Lamar, who afterwards became United be better satisfied with five." 

States senator and justice of the Supreme Justice Miller, one of the ablest of the 

Court. Mr. Lamar was one of the ablest judges of the Supreme Court at that time, 

and most cultured men in public life, and was the principal speaker on another oc- 

a fine orator. I was called upon so late casion. He was ponderous to a degree, 

that it was impossible to follow any longer and almost equalled in the emphasis of his 

the serious discussions of the evening, and utterances what was once said to Daniel 

what the management and the audience Webster, that every word weighed twelve 

wanted from me was some fun. pounds. I followed him. The Attorney- 

Lamar, with his Johnsonian periods General of the United States, who went 

and the lofty style of Edmund Burke, back to Washington the next day with 

furnished an opportunity for a little Justice Miller, told me that as soon as 

pleasantry. He came to me, when I had they had got on the train the justice 

finished, in great alarm and said: "My commenced to complain that I had wholly 

appearance here is not an ordinary one misunderstood his speech, and that no 

and does not permit humor. I am secre- exaggeration of interpretation would war- 

tary of the interior, and the representative rant what I said. The judge saw no 

of the president and his administration, humor in my little effort to relieve the 

My speech is really the message of the situation, and took it as a reply of oppos- 

president to the whole country, and I ing counsel. He said that the justice 

wish you would remedy any impression took it up from another phase after leav- 

which the country might otherwise re- ing Philadelphia, and resumed his ex- 

ceive from your humor." planation from another angle as to what 

This I was very glad to do, but it was he meant after they reached Baltimore, 

an instance of which I have met many, When the train arrived at its destination 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 439 

and they separated in the Washington and Fenianism was rabid. While Mr. 

station, the justice turned to the attorney- Beecher had great influence upon his 

general and said -."Damn Depew! Good audience, his audience had equal influ- 

night." ence upon him. As he enlarged upon the 

Such are the perils of one who good- wrongs of Ireland the responses became 

naturedly yields to the importunities of a more enthusiastic and finally positively 

committee of management who fear the savage. This stirred the orator up till 

failure with their audience of their enter- he gave the wildest approval to direct 

tainment. action and revolution, with correspond- 

The great dinners of New York are the ing cheers from the diners, standing and 
Chamber of Commerce, which is a na- cheering. Mr. Beecher was explaining 
tional function, as were also for a long that speech for about a year afterwards, 
time, during the presidency of Mr. I was a speaker on the same platform. 
Choate, those of the New England So- Mr. Beecher always arrived late, and 
ciety. The annual banquets of the Irish, everybody thought it was to get the ap- 
Scotch, English, Welsh, Holland, St. plause as he came in, but he explained to 
Nicholas, and the French, are also most me that it was due to his method of prep- 
interesting, and sometimes by reason of aration. He said his mind would not 
the presence of a national or inter- work freely until three hours after he had 
national figure, assume great importance, eaten. Many speakers have told me the 
The dinner which the Pilgrims Society same thing. He said when he had a 
tenders to the British ambassador gives speech to make at night, whether it was 
him an opportunity, without the formali- at a dinner or elsewhere, that he took his 
ties and conventions of his office, of speak- dinner in the middle of the day, and then 
ing his mind both to the United States a glass of milk and crackers at five 
and to his own people. o clock, with nothing afterwards. Then 

The annual banquets of the State so- in the evening his mind was perfectly 

cieties are now assuming greater impor- clear and under absolute control, 
tance. Each State has thousands of men The Lotos Club has been for fifty years 

who have been or still are citizens, but to New York what the Savage Club is 

who live in New York. Those dinners to London. It attracts as its guests the 

attract the leading politicians of their most eminent men of letters who visit 

several States. It is a platform for the this country. Its entertainments are al- 

ambitious to be president and sometimes ways successful. For twenty-nine years 

succeeds. it had for its president Mr. Frank R. 

Garfield made a great impression at Lawrence, a gentleman with a genius for 

one of these State dinners, so did Foraker, introducing distinguished strangers with 

and at the last dinner of the Ohio Society most felicitous speeches, and a committee 

the star was Senator Warren G. Harding, who selected with wonderful judgment 

On one occasion, when McKinley and the other speakers of the evening. A 

Garfield were present, in the course of my successor to Mr. Lawrence, and of equal 

speech I made a remark which has since merit, has been found in Chester S. Lord, 

been adopted as a sort of motto by the now president of the Lotos Club. Mr. 

Buckeye State. Ohio, I think, has passed Lord was for more than a third of a cen- 

Virginia as a mother of presidents. It is tury managing editor of the New York 

remarkable that the recent candidates of Sun, and is now chancellor of the Uni- 

both great parties were of that State. I versity of the State of New York, 
said in the closing of my speech, alluding I remember one occasion where the 

to the distinguished guests and their most tactful man who ever appeared be- 

prospects: "Some men have greatness fore his audience slipped his trolley, and 

thrust upon them, some are born great, that was Bishop Potter. The bishop was 

and some are born in Ohio." a remarkably fine preacher and an unusu- 

One of the greatest effects produced by ally attractive public speaker and past 

a speech was by Henry Ward Beecher at master of all the social amenities of life, 

an annual dinner of the Friendly Sons of The guest of the evening was the famous 

St. Patrick. At the time, the Home Rule Canon Kingsley, author of "Hypatia" 

question was more than ordinarily acute and other works at that time universally 



440 



LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



popular. The canon had the largest and 
reddest nose one ever saw. The bishop, 
among the pleasantries of his introduc 
tion, alluded to this headlight of religion 
and literature. The canon fell from grace 
and never forgave the bishop. 

On Lotos nights I have heard at their 
best Lord Houghton, statesman and poet, 
Mark Twain, Stanley the explorer, and I 
consider it one of the distinctions as well 
as pleasures of my life to have been a 
speaker at the Lotos on more occasions 
than any one else during the last half- 
century. 

In Mr. Joseph Pulitzer s early struggles 
with his paper, the New York World, the 
editorial columns frequently had very 
severe attacks on Mr. William H. Vander- 
bilt and the New York Central Railroad. 
They were part, of course, of attacks upon 
monopoly. I was frequently included in 
these criticisms. 

The Lotos Club gave a famous dinner 
to George Augustus Sala, the English 
writer and journalist. I found myself 
seated beside Mr. Pulitzer, whom I had 
never met. When I was called upon to 
speak I introduced, in what I had to say 
about the distinguished guest, this bit of 
audacity. I said substantially, in ad 
dition to Mr. Sala: "We have with us 
to-night a great journalist who comes to 
the metropolis from the wild and woolly 
West. After he had purchased the 
World he came to me and said, Chaun- 
cey Depew, I have a scheme, which I am 
sure will benefit both of us. Everybody 
is envious of the prestige of the New York 
Central and the wealth of Mr. Vander- 
bilt. You are known as his principal 
adviser. Now, if in my general hostility 
to monopoly I include Mr. Vanderbilt and 
the New York Central as principal offend 
ers, I must include you, because you are 
the champion in your official relationship 
of the corporation and of its policies and 
activities. I do not want you to have 
any feeling against me because of this. 
The policy will secure for the World 
everybody who is not a stockholder in the 
New York Central, or does not possess 
millions of money. When Mr. Vander 
bilt finds that you are attacked, he is a 
gentleman and broad-minded enough 
to compensate you and will grant to you 
both significant promotion and a large 
increase in salary." Then I added: 



"Well, gentlemen, I have only to say that 
Mr. Pulitzer s experiment has been emi 
nently successful. He has made his 
newspaper a recognized power and a nota 
ble organ of public opinion; its fortunes 
are made and so are his, and, in regard to 
myself, all he predicted has come true, 
both in promotion and in enlargement of 
income." When I sat down Mr. Pulitzer 
grasped me by the hand and said: 
"Chauncey Depew, you are a mighty 
good fellow. I have been misinformed 
about you. You will have friendly 
treatment hereafter in any newspaper 
which I control." 

The Gridiron Club of Washington, be 
cause of both its ability and genius and 
especially its national position, furnishes 
a wonderful platform for statesmen. Its 
genius in creating caricatures and fake 
pageants of current political situations 
at the capital and its public men is most 
remarkable. The president always at 
tends, and most of the Cabinet and 
justices of the Supreme Court. The am 
bassadors and representatives of the lead 
ing governments represented in Washing 
ton are guests, and so are the best-known 
senators and representatives of the time. 
The motto of the club is "Reporters are 
never present. Ladies always present." 
Though the association is made up en 
tirely of reporters, the secrecy is so well 
kept that the speakers are unusually frank. 

There was a famous contest one night 
there, however, between President Roose 
velt and Senator Foraker, who at the 
time were intensely antagonistic, which 
can never be forgotten by those present. 
There was a delightful interplay between 
William J. Bryan and President Roose 
velt, when Bryan charged the president 
with stealing all his policies and ideas. 

If the speaker grasped the peculiarities 
of his audience and its temperament, his 
task was at once the most difficult and 
the most delightful, and my friend, Mr. 
Arthur Dunn, has performed most useful 
service in embalming a portion of Grid 
iron history in his volume, "Gridiron 
Nights." 

Pierpont Morgan, the greatest of 
American bankers, was much more than 
a banker. He had a wonderful collec 
tion in his library and elsewhere of rare 
books and works of art. He was always 
delightful on the social side. He was 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 



441 



very much pleased when he was elected 
president of the New England Society. 
The annual dinner that year was a re 
markably brilliant affair. It was the 
largest in the history of the organization. 
The principal speaker was William Ever 
ett, brother of the famous Edward 
Everett and himself a scholar of great 
acquirements and culture. His speech 
was another evidence of a very superior 
man mistaking his audience. He was 
principal of the Cambridge School, that 
great preparatory institution for Harvard 
University, and he had greatly enlarged 
its scope and usefulness. 

Mr. Everett evidently thought that 
the guests of the New England Society 
of New York would be composed of men 
of letters, educators, and Harvard gradu 
ates. Instead of that, the audience be 
fore him were mainly bankers and suc 
cessful business men whose Puritan char 
acteristics had enabled them to win great 
success in the competitions in the great 
metropolis in every branch of business. 
They were out for a good time and little 
else. 

Mr. Everett produced a ponderous 
mass of manuscript and began reading on 
the history of New England education 
and the influence upon it of the Cam 
bridge School. He had more than an 
hour of material and lost his audience in 
fifteen minutes. No efforts of the chair 
man could bring them to attention, and 
finally the educator lost that control of 
himself which he was always teaching to 
the boys and threw his manuscript at the 
heads of the reporters. From their re 
ports in their various newspapers the 
next day, they did not seem to have ab 
sorbed the speech by this original method. 

Choate and I were both to speak, and 
Choate came first. As usual, he threw 
a brick at me. He mentioned that a 
reporter had come to him and said: 
"Mr. Choate, I have Depew s speech 
carefully prepared, with the applause and 
laughter already in. I want yours." 
Of course, no reporter had been to either 
of us. Mr. Choate had in his speech an 
unusual thing for him, a long piece of 
poetry. When my turn came to reply I 
said: "The reporter came to me,, as Mr. 
Choate has said, and made the remark: 
I already have Choate s speech. It has 
in it a good deal of poetry. I asked the 



reporter: From what author is the poetry 
taken? He answered: I do not know 
the author, but the poetry is so bad I 
think Choate has written it himself. " 

Mr. Choate told me a delightful story 
of his last interview with Mr. Evarts be 
fore he sailed for Europe to take up his 
ambassadorship at the Court of St. 
James. "I called," he said, "on Mr. 
Evarts to bid him good-by. He had 
been confined to his room by a fatal ill 
ness for a long time. Choate, he said, 
I am delighted with your appointment. 
You eminently deserve it, and you are 
pre-eminently fit for the place. You 
have won the greatest distinction in our 
profession, and have harvested enough 
of its rewards to enable you to meet the 
financial responsibilities of this post with 
out anxiety. You will have a most bril 
liant and useful career in diplomacy, but 
I fear I will never see you again." 

Mr. Choate said: "Mr. Evarts, we 
have had a delightful partnership of over 
forty years, and when I retire from diplo 
macy and resume the practice of the law 
I am sure you and I will go on together 
again for many years in the same happy 
old way." 

Evarts replied: "No, Choate, I fear 
that cannot be. When I think what a 
care I am to all my people, lying so help 
less here, and that I can do nothing any 
more to repay their kindness, or to help 
in the world, I feel like the boy who wrote 
from school to his mother a letter of 
twenty pages, and then added after the 
end: P. S. Dear mother, please excuse 
my longevity." 

Where one has a reputation as a 
speaker and is also known to oblige 
friends and to be hardly able to resist 
importunities, the demands upon him 
are very great. They are also sometimes 
original and unique. 

At one time, the day before Christmas, 
a representative of the New York World 
came to see me and said: "We are going 
to give a dinner to-night to the tramps 
who gather between ten and eleven 
o clock at the Vienna Restaurant, op 
posite the St. Denis Hotel, to receive the 
bread which the restaurant distributes at 
that hour." This line was there every 
night standing in the cold waiting their 
turn. I went down to the hotel, and a 
young man and young lady connected 



442 



LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



with the newspaper crossed the street and 
picked out from the line a hundred guests. 

It was a remarkable assemblage. The 
dinner provided was a beautiful and an 
excellent one for Christmas. As I heard 
their stories, there was among them a 
representative of almost every depart 
ment of American life. Some were tem 
porarily and others permanently down 
and out. Every one of the learned pro 
fessions was represented and many lines 
of business. The most of them were in 
this condition, because they had come to 
New York to make their way, and had 
struggled until their funds were ex 
hausted, and then they were ashamed to 
return home and confess their failure. 

I presided at this remarkable banquet 
and made not only one speech but several. 
By encouraging the guests we had several 
excellent addresses from preachers with 
out pulpits, lawyers without clients, doc 
tors without patients, engineers without 
jobs, teachers without schools, and travel 
lers without funds. One man arose and 
said: "Chauncey Depew, the World has 
given us such an excellent dinner, and 
you have given us such a merry Christ 
mas Eve, we would like to shake hands 
with you as we go out." 

I had long learned the art of shaking 
hands with the public. Many a candi 
date has had his hands crushed and been 
permanently hurt by the vise-like grip of 
an ardent admirer or a vicious opponent. 
I remember General Grant complaining 
of this, of how he suffered, and I told him 
of my discovery of grasping the hand first 
and dropping it quickly. 

The people about me were looking at 
these men as they came along, to see if 
there was any possible danger. Toward 
the end of the procession one man said to 
me: "Chauncey Depew, I don t belong 
to this crowd. I am well enough off and 
can take care of myself. I am an an 
archist. My business is to stir up unrest 
and discontent, and that brings me every 
night to mingle with the crowd waiting 
for their dole of bread from Fleischmann s 
bakery. You do more than any one else 
in the whole country to create good feel 
ing and dispel unrest, and you have done 
a lot of it to-night. I made up my mind 
to kill you right here, but you are such an 
infernal good fellow that I have not the 
heart to do it, so here s my hand." 



On one occasion I received an invita 
tion to address a sociological society 
which was to meet at the house of one of 
the most famous entertainers in New 
York. My host said that Edward Atkin 
son, the well-known New England writer, 
philosopher, and sociologist, would ad 
dress the meeting. When I arrived at the 
house I found Atkinson in despair. The 
audience were young ladies in full evening 
dress and young men in white vests, 
white neckties, and swallow-tails. There 
was also a band present. We were in 
formed that this society had endeavored 
to mingle instruction with pleasure, and 
it really was a dancing club, but they had 
conceived the idea of having something 
serious and instructive before the ball. 

Mr. Atkinson said to me: "What won 
me to come here is that in Boston we have 
a society of the same name. It is com 
posed of very serious people who are en 
gaged in settlement and sociological work. 
They are doing their best to improve the 
conditions of the young women and young 
men who are in clerical and other employ 
ment. I have delivered several addresses 
before that society, and before the audi 
ences which they gather, on how to live 
comfortably and get married on the 
smallest possible margin. Now, for in 
stance, for my lecture here to-night I 
have on a ready-made suit of clothes, for 
which I paid yesterday five dollars. In 
that large boiler there is a stove which I 
have invented. In the oven of the stove 
is beef and various vegetables, and to heat 
it is a kerosene-lamp with a clockwork 
attached. A young man or a young wo 
man or a young married couple go to the 
market and buy the cheap cuts of beef, 
and then, according to my instructions, 
they put it in the stove with the vegeta 
bles, light the lamp, set the clockwork and 
go to their work. When they return at 
five, six, or seven o clock they find a very 
excellent and very cheap dinner all ready 
to be served. Now, of what use is my 
five-dollar suit of clothes and my fifty- 
cent dinner for this crowd of butterflies?" 

However, Mr. Atkinson and I made up 
our minds to talk to them as if they 
needed it or would need it some day or 
other, and they were polite enough to ask 
questions and pretend to enjoy it. I 
understand that afterwards at the mid 
night supper there was more champagne 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 443 

and more hilarity than at previous gather- thing. You had better get out while you 

ings of this sociological club. can." 

During one of our presidential cam- My reply was this : " My friend, I want 

paigns some young men came up from a little talk with you. I began life very 

the Bowery to see me. They said: "We much as you did. Nobody helped me. 

have a very hard time down in our dis- I was a country boy and my capital was 

trict. The crowd is a tough one but this head," and I slapped it, "these legs," 

intelligent, and we think would be recep- and I slapped them, "these hands," 

tive of the truth if they could hear it put and I slapped them, "and by using them 

to them in an attractive form. We will as best I could I have become just what 

engage a large theatre attached to a you say I am and have got where you will 

Bowery beer saloon if you will come down never arrive." 

and address the meeting. The novelty A shirt-sleeved citizen jumped up from 

of your appearance will fill the theatre." the audience and shouted: "Go ahead, 

I knew there was considerable risk, and Chauncey, you re a peach." That char- 
yet it was a great opportunity. I believe acterization of a peach went into the 
that in meeting a crowd of that sort one newspapers and was attached to me 
should appear as they expect him to look wherever I appeared for many years af- 
when addressing the best of audiences, terwards, not only in this country but 
These people are very proud, and they abroad. It even found a place in the 
resent any attempt on your part to be slang column of the great dictionaries of 
what they know you are not, but that you the English language. The result of the 
are coming down to their level by assum- meeting, however, was a free discussion 
ing a character which you presume to be in the Bowery, and for the first time in 
theirs. So I dressed with unusual care, its history that particular district was 
and when I went on the platform a shirt- carried by the Republicans, 
sleeved, short-haired genius in the theatre After their triumph in the election I 
shouted: "Chauncey thinks he is in gave a dinner in the Union League Club 
Carnegie Hall." to the captains of the election districts. 

The famous Tim Sullivan, who was sev- There were about a hundred of them, 

eral times a state senator and congress- The district captains were all in their 

man, and a mighty good fellow, was the usual business suits, and were as sharp, 

leader of the Bowery and controlled its keen, intelligent, and up-to-date young 

political actions. He came to see me and men as one could wish to meet. The club 

said: "I hope you will withdraw from members whom I had invited to meet my 

that appointment. I do not want you to guests were, of course, in conventional 

come down there. In the first place, I evening dress. The novelty of the occa- 

cannot protect you, and I don t think it is sion was so enjoyed by them that they 

safe. In the second place, you are so well .indulged with more than usual liberality 

known and popular among our people in the fluids and fizz and became very 

that I am afraid you will produce an im- hilarious. Not one of the district cap- 

pression, and if you get away with it that tains touched a drop of wine, 

will hurt our machine." While the club members were a little 

In the course of my speech a man arose frightened at the idea of these East-siders 

whom I knew very well as a district coming, my guests understood and met 

leader, and who was frequently in my every convention of the occasion before, 

office, seeking positions for his constitu- during, and after dinner, as if it was an 

ents and other favors. That night he was accustomed social function with them, 

in his shirt-sleeves among the boys. The half dozen who made speeches 

With the old volunteer fireman s swagger showed a grasp of the political questions 

and the peculiar patois of that part of of the hour and an ability to put their 

New York, he said: "Chauncey Depew, views before an audience which was an 

you have no business here. You are the exhibition of a high order of intelligence 

president of the New York Central Rail- and self-culture. 

road, ain t you, hey? You are a rich man, In selecting a few out-of-the-way oc- 

ain t you, hey? We are poor boys. You casions which were also most interesting 

don t know us and can t teach us any- and instructive, I recall one with a society 



444 LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

which prided itself upon its absence of man of high rank, who had come to this 

narrowness and its freedom of thought country on a sort of missionary and evan- 

and discussion. The speakers were most gelistic errand. Of course, he was as 

critical of all that is generally accepted solemn as the task he had undertaken, 

and believed. Professor John Fiske, the which was to convert American sinners, 

historian, was the most famous man He turned suddenly to me and, in a loud 

present, and very critical of the Bible, voice, asked: "What was the matter with 

My good mother had brought me up on the custard-pie?" The story travelled 

the Bible and instilled in me the deepest for years, was used for many purposes, was 

reverence for the good book. The criti- often murdered in the narration, but man- 

cism of the professor stirred me to a aged to survive, and was told to me as an 

rejoinder. I, of course, was in no way original joke by one of the men I met at 

equal to meeting him, with his vast erudi- the convention in June, 1920, in Chicago, 

tion and scholarly accomplishments. I After Chicago received from Congress 

could only give what the Bible critic the appointment I did all I could to help 

would regard as valueless, a sledge-ham- the legislation and appropriations neces- 

mer expression of faith. Somebody took sary. The result was that when I visited 

the speech down. Doctor John Hall, the the city as an orator at the opening of the 

famous preacher and for many years exhibition I was voted the freedom of the 

pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian city, was given a great reception, and 

Church, told me that the Bible and the among other things reviewed the school 

church societies in England had put the children who paraded in my honor, 

speech into a leaflet, and were distributing The Yale alumni of New York City had 

many millions of them in the British Isles, for many years an organization. In the 

It is singular what vogue and circula- early days the members met very infre- 

tion a story of the hour will receive, quently at a dinner. This was a formal 

Usually these decorations of a speech die affair, and generally drew a large gather- 

with the occasion. There was fierce ri- ing, both of the local alumni and from the 

valry when it was decided to celebrate the college and the country. These meetings 

four hundredth anniversary of the land- were held at Delmonico s, then located 

ing of Columbus in America, between in Fourteenth Street. The last was so 

New York and Chicago, as to which phenomenally dull that there were no 

should have the exhibition. Of course repetitions. 

the Western orators were not modest in The speakers were called by classes, 

the claims which they made for the City and the oldest in graduation had the 

by the Lakes. To dampen their ardor I platform. The result was disastrous, 

embroidered the following story, which These old men* all spoke too long, and it 

took wonderfully when told in my speech, was an endless stream of platitudes and 

It was at the Eagle Hotel in Peekskill, reminiscences of forgotten days until 
at which it was said George Washington nearly morning. Then an inspiration of. 
stopped many times as a guest during the the chairman led him to say: "I think it 
Revolutionary War, where in respect to might be well to have a word from the 
his memory they preserved the traditions younger graduates." 
of the Revolutionary period. At that There was a unanimous call for a well- 
time the bill of fare was not printed, but known humorist named Styles. His 
the waiter announced to the guest what humor was aided by a startling appear- 
would be served, if asked for. A Chicago ance of abundant red hair, an aggressive 
citizen was dining at the hotel. He or- red mustache, and eyes which seemed to 
dered each of the many items announced push his glasses off his nose. Many of 
to him by the waiter. When he came to the speakers, owing to the imperfection 
the desserts the waiter said: "We have of the dental art in those days, indicated 
mince-pie, apple-pie, pumpkin-pie, and their false teeth by their trouble in keep- 
custard-pie." The Chicago man ordered ing them in place, and the whistling it 
mince-pie, apple-pie, and pumpkin-pie, gave to their utterances. One venerable 
The disgusted waiter remarked : " What is orator in his excitement dropped his into 
the matter with the custard ? " Alongside his tumbler in the midst of his address, 
me sat a very well-known English gentle- Styles said to this tired audience: "At 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 



445 



this early hour in the morning I will not 
attempt to speak, but I will tell a story. 
Down at Barnegat, N. J., where I live, our 
neighbors are very fond of apple-jack. 
One of them while in town had his jug 
filled, and on the way home saw a friend 
leaning over the gate and looking so 
thirsty that he stopped and handed over 
his jug with an offer of its hospitality. 
After sampling it the neighbor continued 
the gurgling as the jug rose higher and 
higher, until there was not a drop left 
in it. The indignant owner said: You 
infernal hog, why did you drink up all 
my apple-jack? His friend answered: 
I beg your pardon, Job, but I could not 
bite off the tap, because I have lost all my 
teeth." The aptness of the story was 
the success of the evening. 

Some years afterwards there was a 
meeting of the alumni to form a live asso 
ciation. Among those who participated 
in the organization were William Walter 
Phelps, afterwards member of Congress 
and minister to Austria; Judge Henry E. 
Howland; John Proctor Clarke, now chief 
justice of the Appellate Division; James 
R. Sheffield, then a rising young lawyer, 
now president of the Union League Club; 
and Isaac Bromley, one of the editors of 
the New York Tribune and one of the wit 
tiest writers of his time, and many others 
who have since won distinction. They 
elected me president, and I continued as 
such by successive elections for ten years. 

The association met once a month and 
had a serious paper read, speeches, a 
simple supper, and a social evening. 
These monthly gatherings became a fea 
ture and were widely reported in the 
press. We could rely upon one or more 
of the faculty, and there was always to 
be had an alumnus of national reputation 
from abroad. We had a formal annual 
dinner, which was more largely attended 
than almost any function of the kind in 
the city, and, because of the variety and 
excellence of the speaking, always very 
enjoyable. 

The Harvard and Princeton alumni 
also had an association at that time< with 
annual dinners, and it was customary for 
the officers of each of these organizations 
to be guests of the one which gave the 
dinner. The presidents of the colleges 
represented always came. Yale could 
rely upon President Dwight, Harvard 



upon President Eliot, and Princeton 
upon President McCosh. 

Of course, the interchanges between the 
representatives of the different colleges 
were as exciting and aggressive as their 
football and baseball contests are to-day. 
I recall one occasion of more than usual 
interest. It was the Princeton dinner, 
and the outstanding figure of the occasion 
was that most successful and impressive 
of college executives, President McCosh. 
He spoke with a broad Scotch accent and 
was in every sense a literalist. Late in 
the evening Mr. Beaman, a very brilliant 
lawyer and partner of Evarts and Choate, 
who was president of the Harvard Alumni 
Association, said to me: "These proceed 
ings are fearfully prosaic and highbrow. 
When you are called, you attack Presi 
dent McCosh, and I will defend him." 
So in the course of my remarks, which 
were highly complimentary to Princeton 
and its rapid growth under President 
McCosh, I spoke of its remarkable success 
in receiving gifts and legacies, which 
were then pouring into its treasury every 
few months, and were far beyond any 
thing which came either to Yale or Har 
vard, though both were in great need. 
Then I hinted that possibly this flow of 
riches was due to the fact that President 
McCosh had such an hypnotic influence 
over the graduates of Princeton and their 
fathers, mothers, and wives that none of 
them felt there was a chance of a heavenly 
future unless Princeton was among the 
heirs. 

Mr. Beaman was very indignant and 
with the continuing approval and ap 
plause of the venerable doctor made a 
furious attack upon me. His defense of 
the president was infinitely worse than 
my attack. He alleged that I had inti 
mated that the doctor kept tab on sick 
alumni of wealth and their families, and 
at the critical moment there would be a 
sympathetic call from the doctor, and, 
while at the bedside he administered com 
fort and consolation, yet he made it plain 
to the patient that he could not hope for 
the opening of the pearly gates or the 
welcome of St. Peter unless Princeton 
was remembered. Then Beaman, in a 
fine burst of oratory, ascribed this won 
derful prosperity not to any personal 
effort or appeal, but because the sons of 
Princeton felt such reverence and grati- 



446 



LEAVES FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



tude for their president that they were 
only too glad of an opportunity to con 
tribute to the welfare of the institution. 

The moment Beaman sat down the 
doctor arose, and with great intensity ex 
pressed his thanks and gratitude to the 
eloquent president of the Harvard alumni, 
and then shouted: "I never, never, never 
solicited a gift for Princeton from a dying 
man. I never, never, never sat by the 
bedside of a dying woman and held up the 
terrors of hell and the promises of heaven, 
according to the disposition she made of 
her estate. I never, never looked with 
unsympathetic and eager anticipation 
whenever any of our wealthy alumni ap 
peared in ill health." 

The doctor, however, retaliated subse 
quently. He invited me to deliver a lec 
ture before the college, and entertained 
me most delightfully at his house. It was 
a paid admission, and when I left in the 
morning he said: "I want to express to 
you on behalf of our college our thanks. 
We raised last evening through your lec 
ture enough to fit our ball team for its 
coming contest with Yale." In that con 
test Princeton was triumphant. 

The Yale Alumni Association subse 
quently evoluted into the Yale Club of 
New York, which has in every way been 
phenomenally prosperous. It is a factor 
of national importance in supporting Yale 
and keeping alive everywhere apprecia 
tion and enthusiasm for and practice of 
Yale spirit. 

My class of 1856 at Yale numbered 
ninety-seven on graduation. Only four 
of us survive. In these pages I have had 
a continuous class meeting. Very few, if 
any, of my associates in the New York 
Legislature of 1862 and 1863 are alive, 
and none of the State officers who served 
with me in the succeeding years. There 
is no one left in the service who was there 
when I became connected with the New 
York Central Railroad, and no executive 
officer in any railroad in the United States 
who held that position when I was elected 
and is still active. 

It is the habit of age to dwell on the 
degeneracy of the times and lament the 
good old days and their superiority, but 
Yale is infinitely greater and broader than 
when I graduated sixty-six years ago. 
The New York Legislature and State 
executives are governing an empire com 



pared with the problems which we had to 
solve sixty years ago. 

I believe in the necessity of leadership, 
and, while recognizing a higher general 
average in public life, regret that the 
world crisis through which we have 
passed and which is not yet completed, 
has produced no Washington, Lincoln, 
or Roosevelt. I rejoice that President 
Harding, under the pressure of his un 
equalled responsibilities, is developing the 
highest qualities of leadership. It is an 
exquisite delight to visualize each admin 
istration from 1856 and to have had con 
siderable intimacy with the leaders in 
government and the moulders of public 
opinion during sixty-six unusually la 
borious years. 

Many who have given their remi 
niscences have kept close continuing dia 
ries. From these voluminous records 
they have selected according to their 
judgment. As I have before said, I have 
no data and must rely on my memory. 
This faculty is not logical, its operations 
are not by years or periods, but its films 
unroll as they are moved by association 
of ideas and events. 

It has been a most pleasurable task to 
bring back into my life these worthies of 
the past and to live over again events of 
greater or lesser importance. Sometimes 
an anecdote illumines a character more 
than a biography, and a personal incident 
helps an understanding of a period more 
than its formal history. 

Life has had for me immeasurable 
charms. I recognize at all times there has 
been granted to me the loving care and 
guidance of God. My sorrows have been 
alleviated and lost their acuteness from 
a firm belief in closer reunion in eternity. 
My misfortunes, disappointments, and 
losses have been met and overcome by 
abundant proof of my mother s faith and 
teaching that they were the discipline of 
Providence for my own good, and if met 
in that spirit and with redoubled effort 
to redeem the apparent tragedy they 
would prove to be blessings. Such has 
been the case. 

While new friends are not the same as 
old ones, yet I have found -cheer and 
inspiration in the close communion with 
the young of succeeding generations. 
They have made and are making this a 
mighty good world for me. 



A Day with a Ranchwoman 



BY L. M. WESTON 



W 



HEN, owing to failing 
health, my husband 
left a lucrative city job 
to dig his living out 
of the soil, I was not 
overjoyed. Born and 
bred in town, city con 
veniences looked good 
to me, and I did not care to exchange 
them for the hardships of country life. 

My twenty-year-old son, however, was 
delighted at the prospect of raising wheat 
and cattle. Farming was a job in which 
youth was an asset; his day s work would 
be worth as much as his father s. Two 
against one the majority ruled. 

It was decided that we should keep one 
hired man but no maid, as the farmhouse 
was small, and, far away from social ac 
tivities, I surely needed something to oc 
cupy my time. Cooking for three men 
wouldn t, of course, be much work, "just 
enough to keep me busy." 

Seeing no escape, I meekly tackled the 
job assigned me, though feeling I was be 
ing chastened by the Almighty for some 
deadly sin of which I had no recollection. 
As time went on I was informed on dif 
ferent occasions by my husband or son 
how the wife of one neighbor ploughed, 
another ran a binder, another shocked 
grain, while they all could milk and make 
butter, not to mention pitching hay for 
the stock and harnessing horses. Grad 
ually the idea dawned upon me that my 
family and neighbors thought I was lead 
ing a very idle life because I did not milk, 
chop wood, tote coal or water, churn, or 
wash the soiled clothes. I had not been 
accustomed to doing such work, and could 
not see, as my husband was in easy cir 
cumstances, why I should change the 
habits of a lifetime merely because I 
lived in the country. At the same time, 
I did not consider myself a drone in the 
hive, as I had little leisure. 
I But the last straw was when my son 
| told me that our hired man had said I did 
the least of any rancher s wife he ever 
saw. Nobody likes to be considered a 



slacker, and this impertinent remark 
made me downright angry. Still, it did 
seem as though such unanimity of opin 
ion must have some foundation in fact, so 
I decided to probe the matter to the very 
bottom. I was always busy, always dead- 
tired at night. Where did the time go? 
What did I do? I felt like a man who 
tried to be economical and yet could not 
make both ends meet. He would prob 
ably keep an exact account of how he 
spent his dollars and cents in order to 
straighten his finances, and I determined 
to keep an exact account of how I spent 
my hours and minutes, for one day at 
least, for purposes of self-defence. 

The next day was the 24th of August, 
and twenty minutes after our Big Ben 
proclaimed the hour to be half past four 
I was up, dressed, and in the kitchen, 
preparing breakfast. In the intervals of 
making coffee, toast, and cereal, and fry 
ing potatoes and eggs, I set bread to rise, 
and put up two lunches. My son, who 
was going to bind on a distant part of the 
ranch, would not be able to come home 
for his midday meal. The other lunch 
was for the shocker who accompanied 
him, whose appetite made one wonder if 
he had four stomachs, like a cow. Coffee 
went with the lunches, which necessitated 
careful washing of the bottles in which 
they carried it. 

I wanted to stop my work long enough 
to watch the sun rise from behind the 
mountains. The faint colors of the dawn 
always gave me keen delight, but there 
was no time, this morning, to enjoy a sight 
of the myriad-tinted forerunners of the 
sun. I could not even spend a few min 
utes to step outside and feel the light, 
fresh, early-morning breeze that was al 
ready whispering the news of the Day 
King s coming to the golden grain and 
swaying grasses. 

I had six motherless little chicks that 
I kept boxed up in the kitchen at night; 
they had to be fed, watered, and put out 
side. Mike, our Boston terrier, was bark 
ing loudly for admission at the living- 

447 



448 



A DAY WITH A RANCHWOMAN 



room door. (He always went there when 
I was in the kitchen , and vice versa. ) The 
table had to be set, and the kitchen swept 
and tidied, not to mention feeding the 
fowls and letting them out of the hen 
house. Six o clock, breakfast-time, came 
all too soon, but when the four men sat 
down at the table the meal was ready. I 
spent considerable time serving them, 
and, when they had finished eating and 
had lighted their cigarettes, I went down 
to the barn, about a hundred yards from 
the house. 

By that time the saddle-horse, used to 
catch the work-horses, would have fin 
ished her oats, and I felt, after she had 
been shut up in the barn all the long, hot 
night, she should have a chance to roll 
and run about the pasture. I put her 
out, then looked at the tanks where the 
stock drank, and turned the water on in 
one that was almost empty. 

I am very fond of animals. My broth 
er-in-law once remarked, when visiting 
us, that a fellow wanted four legs to get 
any attention on our ranch. This obser 
vation was provoked by being obliged to 
wait for his dinner while I doctored a sick 
cow. 

After turning on the water I returned 
to the house and cleared the table of 
breakfast dishes. I began to wash them, 
when my son called me. I went to the 
door. He was between the house and 
barn, hitching four horses to a binder. 
He wanted me to give him his gloves as 
he passed the house, as he dared not leave 
his horses standing while he looked for 
them. Our horses are gentle, but they will 
run away with slight provocation. They 
are high-spirited, and usually feel good, 
as we feed them well, holding the opinion 
that the laborer, even if only a horse, is 
worthy of his hire. 

I went on with my dishes, but kept 
watch of the boy, so as not to make him 
wait for his gloves. But he stopped long 
enough to tell some little incident that 
had happened at the barn, and, always 
glad of his confidences, I could not hurry 
him off, so it was half past seven when I 
returned to the dish-pan. Then I plucked 
and prepared chicken for frying. I had 
barely finished this job when my hus 
band called and asked me if I wouldn t 
help him get a horse in the corral that 
needed doctoring. The animal was not 



easy to catch, but we managed finally to 
get a halter on him and I held the rope 
while my better half administered the 
healing treatment. After letting him 
loose I was about to return to the kitchen 
when my spouse said he had got to sack a 
lot of oats and could get through much 
quicker if I would help him, so I stayed. 
After we had finished I remembered my 
bread and again started for the kitchen, 
when my better half suggested that I 
come back in time to help him through 
the corral with a load of seed wheat he 
must take to the hired man, who had com 
menced to drill. The corral was full of 
loose stock and he needed some one to 
shut and open the gate, and see that none 
of the animals got out. 

I kneaded my bread, put it in pans, 
made some of the dough into cinnamon 
rolls, much liked by the family, and re 
turned to the corral in time to render the 
needed assistance. 

"I think the windmill ought to be 
turned on," remarked my husband, just 
as he was leaving. " I am afraid the reser 
voir is nearly empty, and would you mind 
feeding Lord Brae and Stubbs some 
grain ? " 

I assented, and immediately climbed 
the steep hill to the windmill. 

Returning, I stopped at the barn to get 
grain for Lord Brae and Stubbs. The 
latter was a young heifer that had been 
born in such terribly cold weather that 
one of her feet was practically useless 
from frost-bite. It was so hard for her to 
get around the pasture that we fed her 
grain every day; but Lord Brae was a 
different proposition. He was a new 
comer on the ranch, and, proud of his 
pedigree, ruled the other horned creatures 
like a despot. He was not well acquainted 
with me, and, when I tried to feed him, 
intimated that in the higher bovine cir 
cles in which he moved introductions 
were in order. In short, he was afraid of 
me and I was afraid of him. But, after 
long hesitation, he conquered his fears and 
followed the bucket of grain I held to 
ward him with a trembling hand, into a 
smaller corral where he could eat un 
molested by the rest of the cattle. 

It was now about ten o clock and I was 
returning to the house and indoor duties 
when I saw my pet three-year-old horse 
looking beseechingly toward me from the 



A DAY WITH A RANCHWOMAN 



449 



other side of the pasture fence. I often 
took him into the barn and fed him oats, 
so could not resist his longing expression, 
and spent twenty minutes ministering to 
his wants. 

When at last I returned to the kitchen 
my bread was more than ready for the 
oven. I replenished the fire, then set to 
work making pies, as, on hot days, I did 
all the baking possible at one time, so as 
not to keep a fire any longer than was 
absolutely necessary. 

I was glad to sit down to peel the apples, 
as I was tired, and my husband and the 
hired man would be in at half past twelve 
and expect a hearty dinner I had it 
ready on time, but shuddered at the pile of 
cooking dishes to be washed after the meal. 

I started right in, after eating, but was 
soon interrupted by my spouse, who 
wanted a farm paper that had come two 
or three days before. He had looked 
everywhere, he said, and couldn t find it. 
Was sure I had destroyed it. 

I left the dishes to search for the missing 
periodical, and at last unearthed it from a 
pile of magazines about three feet high. 

My husband had agreed to haul wheat 
that afternoon for a neighbor who was 
threshing, so left the house long before I 
had finished washing dishes. I decided to 
lie down, as I was so tired. Just then my 
helpmeet drove by on his way to the 
threshing outfit and called out that the 
windmill needed turning off and he didn t 
have time to do it. So again I wended 
my way up that steep quarter of a mile to 
the windmill. I stopped at the top to ad 
mire the view. It was fine a wide ex 
panse of greenish-yellow prairie, with its 
innumerable shades, making a delightful 
contrast with the chocolate brown of 
ploughed ground and the broad fields of 
golden wheat. Above all was the deep- 
blue arch of the sky, over which drifted 
snow-white masses of clouds that cast 
weird shadows on the near-by mountains. 
The whole scene was permeated with the 
languorous beauty of August. I was 
enveloped in a kind of live silence, as the 
hum of insect life made itself heard, like 
the pulsing of nature s great heart. The 
shimmering waves of heat followed each 
other to the mountains, where they were 
lost in a transparent, bluish-gray haze. 

A sense of unutterable, ineffable peace 
VOL. LXXL 29 



took possession of me until I happened to 
glance toward a seventy-five-acre oat-field 
where the grain was cut and shocked wait 
ing to be threshed. Several head of cattle 
had broken through the surrounding fence 
and were actively engaged tossing the 
bundles, and gorging themselves on the 
grain. What to do I did not know. I 
dared not ride the saddle-horse that was 
in the barn, and I could not drive them 
out on foot. Still, if they were not put out 
before the men returned at six, they would 
destroy bushels of oats. I decided that I 
must walk a mile or more to where my 
son was binding, and tell him. He could 
ride bareback, and, though I could not 
saddle the horse in the barn, I could lead 
him to my son, who could ride home and 
so expedite matters. But I reckoned 
without the horse. When he found him 
self out in the broiling sun, and under 
stood I expected him to go some distance, 
he said as plain as a dumb brute could 
that, if I wanted to wander around in the 
heat, he didn t and wasn t going with me. 
He planted his four feet on the ground, 
refused to move, and looked at me with 
an obstinate, uncompromising expression 
in his eyes impossible to misunderstand. 
I gave up, tied him again in the barn, and 
started off alone. 

After hearing my unpleasant news, my 
son unhitched, put his horses in a near-by 
barn, and hustled home with me. Know 
ing how much grain a number of cattle 
could destroy in an afternoon, he lost no 
time in saddling the recalcitrant horse 
(who was very amenable to his master s 
orders), drove the cattle out of the oats, 
mended the fence where they had broken 
through, and rode back to his field work. 

By the time I reached home it was 
after three, and I lay down, feeling I could 
not get supper for four men if I did not 
rest a few minutes. I was actually numb 
with fatigue. 

About half past four I rose and went to 
the barn for grain to feed my chickens. 
Then I went to a tank and toted water 
for them, gathered the eggs, and cleaned 
up the chicken-house. 

Returning to the house, I discovered 
our little Boston terrier had drunk the 
biggest half of the milk I had put in a pan 
for the chickens just outside the back 
door. It had evidently disagreed with 



450 A DAY WITH A RANCHWOMAN 

him, judging from the look of the porch, of the oats. I was dreadfully disap- 

which necessitated my getting water and pointed, as he particularly liked the eat- 

mopping vigorously for some minutes. ables I had that night, which would be 

It was now about five, but; as we did spoiled by warming over. Fried chicken, 

not have supper until seven, I planned I ; creamed potatoes, stewed corn, fresh 

could sit down and finish a story I had bread, cinnamon rolls, green-apple pie, 

commenced two days before, and per- cheese, and coffee. 

haps have leisure to watch the sunset. , I had to make more trips to the wood- 
A Montana sunset is indescribable and, pile, and keeping a fire so long made the 
once seen, never to be forgotten. Charley kitchen stifling hot. I paused in picking 
Russell, if not academy- trained, can faith- up the sticks to watch, for a minute at 
fully depict Montana scenery, people, and least, the fading colors in the sky, and 
ponies; but neither he nor any other art- suddenly realized both dogs were wait- 
ist can transfer to canvas the wonderful ing for supper. The terrier was expressing 
color and subtile, illusive, atmospheric ef- his impatience by short, angry barks; the 
fects of a Montana sunset. The glory of collie was silent, but turned hungry, ex- 
the Lord fills the earth. The onlooker is pectant, topaz-colored eyes in my direc- 
caught up to the seventh heaven of de- tion that were more eloquent and corn- 
light by the celestial splendor and its ter- pelling than the little dog s fretful yaps, 
restrial reflections. Mountains, prairies, The clouds were rapidly assuming their 
fields, and streams are transfigured in the twilight robes of dull drab as I broke corn- 
radiant light. Time stretches into eter- bread, and scraped chicken-bones and 
nity, and the finite is lost in the infinite, gravy into the dogs dishes; but neither 
One is reminded of St. John s vision of collie nor terrier realized how I was sac- 
" the Holy City, coming down from God." rificing my love of beauty to their appe- 

Already I felt uplifted in anticipation tites. 

of the wonderful sight, when my husband It was pitch-dark when my son came 

drove into the yard. He was evidently and sat down to a kept-warm supper, 

in the depths of a grouch, and asked, ir- He was too tired to know whether he 

ritably: "Will you catch King for me? was eating fried chicken or boiled horse- 

The cattle have broken through into the meat. About the same time my husband 

oats again." Now King was a one-man brought in the milk. I strained it, then 

horse who would let me catch him in the washed the dishes. It was after nine 

pasture, when he was likely to lead other when I felt at liberty to lay my weary 

people a merry chase; consequently, when body on the bed. Thinking how short 

there was a hurry call for his services, I the time before Big Ben would again ring 

was usually deputed to get him. On this out half past four, I had a fellow feeling 

occasion he was nearly half a mile away, with the man who said, "he got up so 

and by the time I had found a halter, early he met himself going to bed." 

caught, led him home, watered, and fed I was just drowsing off when it occurred 

him, it was nearly six o clock. Of course, to me that I had forgotten to fill up the 

my husband would have watered and fed collie s water dish, and such a hot night 

him, but I always attend to his creature he would need plenty to drink. I rose, 

comforts when taking him from the pas- slipped into a kimono and my moccasins, 

ture, as I am proud of his very evident hurried into the kitchen to the water-pail, 

partiality for me, and want to continue then outdoors with a dipper full. Just 

in his good graces. I finally left him re- then the quavering call of a coyote fell 

luctantly, and went into the kitchen to on my ear and I remembered that I had 

start my fire. It was high time, as I had not shut the door of the chicken-house, 

to bring in the wood, although it was cut Groping my way twenty or thirty yards 

for me. I should be obliged to hustle, in the darkness, I remedied this oversight, 

though, and so miss the sunset, but the then returned to the house, 

meal was ready at seven. As I lay down again one of Irving Ber- 

My husband, the hired man, and the lin s popular songs rang in my inner ear, 

shocker sat down at the table, but my son and I felt a strong desire to ask him if he 

had sent word he would work late, hav- had ever really lived on "that farm in 

ing lost so much time chasing cattle out Michigan." 




The housing arrangements for active or pensioned workers furnished by the Krupp establishment are 
pretty paternalistic but most complete and comfortable. 



Europe at Work 

BY WHITING WILLIAMS 
III. GERMANY, THE SAAR, AND THE LEAGUE 

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 




ERE in these rooms 
behind us the high 
military officers lived 
during the war to in 
spect the guns and 
ammunition made by 
our 115,000 working 
men," a Krupp official 
explained to us by the railing of the high 
tower in the centre of the huge plant. 
"Over there beneath that roof we con 
structed under the eyes of these officers 
the mystery gun which bombarded 
Paris. Since the armistice [business of 
lowering voice and erasing smile] our 
manufacture of war materials is ended. 
To-day we have only about 50,000 work 
ers. Of these about 3,000 mine coal from 
the veins directly beneath us." 

In spite of strong letters of introduc 
tion, the company officials refused me 



opportunity to work alongside their em 
ployees. I was also asked not to converse 
with them, as I was taken through a plant 
which represented every possible step be 
tween antiqueness and modernity almost 
from the days when the house of Krupp 
was first founded in a little forge in 1812. 
To my amazement the officers stated that, 
before 1914, ninety-five per cent^)f their 
output by tonnage was for peace uses- 
steamship engines and shafts, farm ma 
chinery, etc., etc. To-day the list also 
includes locomotives, typewriters, cash- 
registers almost every imaginable fabri 
cation of steel including teeth ! 

"One new product we are not manu 
facturing for the market, though we are 
willing to give the public the idea. Our 
workers found that they ruined their gold 
caps and crowns when they gritted their 
teeth in the effort to lift the heavy pieces 

45 1 



452 EUROPE AT WORK 

of iron or steel. As a result, our dental anxious to haye things quiet down to care 

department has discovered a very sue- to make much trouble. Furthermore, the 

cessful way to use for their teeth not the reports of growing unemployment in 

usual gold but a certain alloy of steel !" Great Britain and America counselled 

War-wearied, unhappy, and perplexed, caution in Germany as in France. Strik- 

but doggedly busy that appeared the ing or working, the situation among the 

condition not only of Krupp s leaders and German workers is badly complicated by 

workers, but of practically the entire disunity. 

Ruhr basin. That means the Pittsburgh "Unfortunately, our labor organiza- 
district of Germany. For mile after mile tions not only get into politics, as in Eng- 
throughout the country surrounding such land, but also into religion. Here in the 
cities as Essen, Elberfeld, Dusseldorf, Ruhr we coal-miners are divided into 
etc., the great chimneys of the steel a Catholic miners union, an anti-Catho- 
plants, machine works, and factories stab lie, a neutral or non-religious, a com- 
the horizon like some huge Cyclopean munist, a socialist, and so on almost 
picket fence. And from those chimneys seventeen in all ! That s perhaps why we 
the smoke of activity certainly was com- organized workers aren t taken as sen- 
ing last summer. ously as we should be." 

Nevertheless, it appears to me wrong If Europe can somehow stave off war or 
to assume so generally that these smoking even those rumors which require prepara- 
chimneys mean that Germany is already tion for war, it may mean that some of 
"back to normalcy." On the contrary, these unions will enroll a few former 
they are more of a sign that Germany is colonels and generals. Many of these 
not even started back to normalcy. In the grew up in pre-war Germany totally un- 
markets of the world her rapidly depre- trained to earn a living in any other way 
ciating currency has secured a marked than on the parade-ground or the battle- 
selling advantage but only temporarily, field. To-day, by thousands these army 
So far, every effort to put value into the officers are said to be learning to manip- 
mark has caused an immediate closing of ulate, not plough-shares, but the levers 
those factories. On the other hand, a of lathe and drill-press, instead of swords, 
falling currency brings in every sort of As apprentices it is to be noticed that 
evil, including, of course, a highly restless they stand in line for fair earnings later, 
group of laborers. These must endeavor and finally for a government pension, but 
somehow to increase the number of marks meanwhile they get apprentice wages of 
in their pay-envelopes as rapidly as the practically nothing per week ! 
purchasing power of the currency di- "Let me shake a good American hand," 
minishes. That can be only partially ac- said a young man who followed me out of 
complished even at the cost of constant a post-office. "I was lucky enough to be 
agitation. Altogether it is not strange a German prisoner among the American 
that the communists utilize the situation soldiers. I grew fat ! More to eat I had 
to embarrass the republican government than before, when I was a German soldier, 
to the utmost. In the Ruhr, at least, it And, mein Herr, also more than I have 
was manifestly easy for all to remember had as a German citizen since my return ! 
that nearly 200 persons had been killed Ach, but fine fellows they were, those sol- 
during two weeks of trouble outside the dier-boys of yours ! " 
factory gates of exactly that district dur- The civil-service employees like himself 
ing Kapp s communist rebellion of March, in the post-office, and also on the state- 
1920. Within the last few weeks, how- controlled railways, the teachers, the 
ever, trustworthy reports come, both of doctors, the college professors all these 
increasing strikes and increasing unem- have suffered heavily in Germany. Un- 
ployment. like the workers they have been unable to 

On the whole, the organized laborers increase their income in anything like the 
had, up to August, 1921, kept their wages same degree as the cost of living. Along 
up fairly well with the i ,000 per cent in- with them the small capitalists and owners 
crease in the cost of living. Most of them of property continue to handle sums con- 
were apparently too war-worn and too siderably larger than in the old days, but 



EUROPE AT WORK 



453 



with a buying power immensely lessened. 
In Austria-Hungary and other countries 
of depreciated currency this "middle- 
class " group is still existing, though it is 
literally starving to death. 

"A Beamier (local government official) 
couldn t have done it better himself!" 
used to represent the most that you could 
say if you wanted to express satisfaction 
with a piece of work. Now these along 



" Easily can one see that her little girl 
was born in that dreadful year of no 
potatoes all of them were like that. No 
milk was in the udders of the cows or the 
breasts of the mothers," another added as 
the two got off at a station. 

"Haben Sie ge-quaked?" This is the 
war and post-war expression for "Have 
you breakfasted?" It is the recognition 
of the effectiveness of the American 




Workers inspecting suitings at low prices outside a Krupp gateway. 



with men of the same stamp of more than 
average education and training pretty 
much all over Europe face a common 
fate in what might be called "the Decline 
and Fall of the Middle Classes." 

"At first we cut off our little luxuries. 
That wasn t so bad. Then we had to 
begin to cut off this necessity and that. 
Already my man, he has hardly enough 
strength to carry him through his day. 
How can we cut off more ? I ask, how ? " 
queried the well-spoken wife of an en 
gineer, as she turned upon us all in the 
third-class railway compartment, tears 
in her eyes. 

"How?" was the echo which went 
around the circle. 



Quaker enterprise by which hundreds of 
thousands of German children were kept 
alive during the war. In many parts of 
Germany they are still being fed. The 
Quakers inform the visitor that hardly 
one of the fat and hearty-looking young 
sters everywhere to be seen is less than 
one, and most of them are two and three, 
years undersized. 

I found among all classes plenty of will 
ingness to confess to full portions of the 
gnawing miseries of blockade and war- 
making. Among the workers, also, was 
surprising willingness to confess defeat- 
complete military defeat. Any one still 
denying it was likely to be dismissed with 
a toss of the head as " an old reactionary 



454 



EUROPE AT WORK 



who wants to get a job for himself or his 
military relatives." 

The uncertainties of the future it is 
these that bother more than the certain 
ties of the past, however disagreeable 
these may be. It is these uncertainties 
that give the reactionary the same hope 
as that harbored by the radicals the 
hope that somehow the republic will strike 
a rock. They also make the captains of 
industry hesitant about putting their f or- 



its descent. It is also registered and 
taken advantage of by the thousands 
who find that speculation is better than 
working for a money which grows less 
valuable for every day you earn it or hold 
it. 

Perhaps it is not so much the uncer 
tainty of the future as the hatred of it 
the hatred of its certainties, or semi-cer 
tainties that accounts for the one unity 
I was able to find in all groups at all levels 



%s9iMKii0B^^tf^ 

ml 




These youngsters in Essen were unwilling to hold the dustpans and brooms with which they were cleaning 

up the roadway "for the chickens." 



eign securities at the disposal of the gov 
ernment for meeting its reparations 
obligations. Before doing so these gen 
tlemen want a little more assurance that 
the same government will not unpleas 
antly continue its efforts to nationalize the 
mines and other industries from which the 
profits were gained. Naturally enough, 
too, these captains have insisted that the 
government try a little harder to lessen 
the colossal sum which the state railways 
are expected to Jose this year. Until such 
provisions were made the deficit threat 
ened to resemble somewhat of a repara 
tions payment twelve to fifteen billions 
of marks ! 

That same uncertainty as to the coun 
try s political and industrial future is 
registered every day the mark continues 



of German life. That unity is exactly the 
one an open-viewed visitor could hope 
devoutly not to find. I refer to the unity 
with which I found all the citizens of Ger 
many hating France! 

"Do you know why we Germans lost 
the war? I will tell you. It is because 
we never learned to hate ! But now we 
learn we learn to hate France ! " 

The statement from an important com 
mercial executive and a former army of 
ficer would have caused a smile if it had 
not been uttered with such seriousness- 
such tragic seriousness. 

It is altogether probable that the uni 
versality of the hatred is the result of that 
surprising commonness of the conscious 
ness of national defeat. Every one takes 
pains to explain that the success of the 



EUROPE AT WORK 



455 



Allies was due to America and not to 
France. But that may be just the reason 
for the unconscious effort to make up for 
this sense of defeat by hating the nearest 
of the associated enemies. There is some 
ground, of course, for Germany s belief 
that such demands as the financial rep 
arations and the military occupation come 
mainly from France. But that is largely 
because France supplied the scene of the 
colossal damages represented by her 600,- 



uncertainty of the German future. For 
one of the numerous political parties in 
Germany virtually says to the public : 

The present republican government 
has not yet gained the sympathy and 
support of our former enemies. It must 
be plain to you that the democratic 
regime has brought only disorganization 
to Germany. We alone, the conserva 
tives (really the reactionaries), with our 
military plans, can make the fatherland 




At Elberfeld the zoo and its denizens share the Sunday afternoon crowds with football. 



ooo ruined homes and by such sadly 
wounded industries as that at Lens. Nat 
urally France is anxious both to have the 
money for rebuilding and also for paying 
the soldiers she believes are necessary if 
she is to avoid going through it all again. 
The unity with which France is hated 
in Germany is equalled only by the unity 
with which Germany is feared in France. 
Personally, I hoped to find in Germany 
that this unity of France s fears was un 
justified. My hope was hardly realized. 
It is, of course, hard for any one outside 
the secret service to know the situation 
regarding available arms in Germany. 
But the French feel that chemicals and 
various new devices could be made to 
serve by an enemy who hates. So the 
French fear only ties itself up with that 



what it was before united and powerful. 
Why not give us another chance ? " 

Among the most aristocratic part of the 
community there are more than a few 
who would like to help. These are cer 
tain that such as Professor Oncken of 
Heidelberg University are right when 
they claim that Germany was not de 
feated but only duped. According to the 
professor, the great betrayal of history, 
next to the time when Rome betrayed 
Carthage, happened when the German 
generals laid down their arms on the un 
derstanding that the Fourteen Points 
were to be the basis of the peace and 
then learned their mistake too late for 
renewing hostilities. Later I asked a dis 
tinguished American military expert for 
his idea of this. 



456 EUROPE AT WORK 

"Of course, the German generals did that might have been a proper ending for 

not consent to an armistice until General a Hohenzollern ! But to desert his post 

Foch had shown them his terms. It of duty at the head of his people that is 

didn t take them long to see that these unthinkable! We are done with him!" 

terms were very different from the Four- Or, to quote another: 

teen Points. They still had every oppor- " But still we Germans are not trained 

tunity to refuse to sign and to continue for a republic. Why should we give 

to fight. If they had even hesitated about President Ebert our honor when he is 

signing, General Foch might have had an nothing but one of us working men ? No 

excuse for doing what many wanted him more of this God and I . business, you 

to do pursue them to the Ruhr or Ber- understand, but a limited monarchy like 

lin. I have heard the generalissimo say England. No, not the Kaiser or the 

that he would have done this if they Crown Prince, but well, Eitel or the 

could have been made to sign anything youngest son they are not bad fellows, 

in Berlin which they were unwilling to after all!" 

sign there in the private car at the front. Germany is a kaleidoscope much 

Only then would further fighting have more so than the rest of Europe and 

been excusable. The trouble was that that is saying a great deal. It is to be 

they signed so he said, and signed hoped that the "big business" interests 

quickly conditions which contained in the two chief enemy countries of France 

every single item I could possibly think and Germany can succeed in putting for- 

of ! ward their present plans for an economic 

It is easy to believe that thousands of understanding with England s co-op- 

the former soldiers of those generals are eration. Therein lies the possibility of 

to-day finding outlet for their present greater certainty and that means more 

energies in the new. national sport of jobs for the workers of all the world. For 

"fuss-ball." All over the country scores neither money nor men can go to work 

of teams fill the parks with crowds of when the only certainty is uncertainty, 

spectators on Sunday, and the columns of . A good hoper can believe that exactly 

the newspapers the rest of the week. It this programme will be aided by the situa- 

is easy to believe that, with other sports tion in the Saar. 

which are enjoying unheard of popular- The coal-mines of this part of Germany 

ity, it is not a bad substitute for the goose- were given over permanently to the 

step as the national outdoor recreation. French Government in order to make up 

In other ways Germany is feeling out a for the lessened production caused by the 

new sector of the front line of national destruction of the mines of Lens. The 

achievement, just as did France in the administration of the district s 700,0x20 

day of her defeat more than fifty years citizens is under the League of Nations, 

ago. Booksellers in Germany report a which appoints five commissioners from 

tremendous increase in the literature of different countries, including France and 

every sort of philosophy the more bi- the Saar itself. All over the world we 

zarre the better. To such thinkers the have been hearing that in this "hot spot 

present world of actuality is now as hate- of Europe" the 70,000 miners were com- 

ful as it was to the "generation of de- pletely unwilling to work hard for the 

feat," in France as earlier mentioned. French engineers representing the French 

Whether the healing of the nation can be Government. 

accomplished without a return to the his- During my days of work as a miner I 

torical and traditional type of leader kept listening and watching for every pos- 

that is the question which leads again sible evidence of "ca-canny" and sabo- 

into the mazes of Germany s future and tage. I found very little. My fellow 

its array of industrial, social, and political workers were using their arms and picks 

uncertainties. and shovels as energetically as my French 

Here s how one German miner put it: buddies and that is saying a lot. I be- 

" If- the Kaiser had arranged to go up lieve I found the answer. For one thing, 

to meet his death upon a funeral pyre they felt themselves comparatively well 

like the great German heroes of old paid. Unlike most of the other working 



EUROPE AT WORK 



457 



men of the district they were receiving 
their wages in francs. As rapidly as the 
mark depreciated they grew luckier and 
luckier in comparison with the other 
workers of the district and also with the 
miners of the Ruhr in the north. They 
did believe living was more expensive in 
the Saar than in the Ruhr. I am con 
fident, however, that the difference did 
not at all offset the wage advantage. 
Secondly, many of them also felt that 



the whole country s high cost of living. 
Such contacts made a good impression as 
compared with those of their predecessors 
the German engineers. These went un 
derground comparatively seldom. It was 
in marked contrast also with the almost 
military strictness and discipline with 
which the present German under-fore- 
men still act with their fellow Germans. 
Some of the French engineers com 
plained that their children were occa- 




A group of war orphans at Elberfeld. "Haben Sie ge-quaked?" is now good German for "Have you 

breakfasted?" 

It is a tribute to the Quakers for keeping alive hundreds of thousands of German children. 



they were better treated by the French 
engineers than by the Germans who for 
merly represented the Prussian Govern 
ment operation. This treatment came, 
in turn, from the remarkable training 
given in French engineering schools. 
This emphasizes the necessity of close 
and friendly relations with the workers as 
an important factor in the problem of in 
dustrial production. Every day the 
French engineer visits his pits under 
ground. As we worked ,they would come 
along and enter into conversation with 
the workers, discussing with them, among 
other things, the necessity of increased 
coal production with its increased wage 
to the worker as a means of lowering 



si on ally stoned when coming out of 
French schools. But all this is sure to 
lessen with time, especially now that new 
factors for, at least, a local peace between 
French fears and German hatreds are 
being furnished by the League of Na 
tions. One of these new factors, strange 
ly enough, is supplied by what can be 
called the American temperament. One 
of the five high commissioners, Mr. R. 
D. Waugh, was chosen to represent Great 
Britain, but he also represents the Amer 
ican business view-point because he was 
a successful business man of Winnipeg, 
Canada. He has splendid opportunity 
to express this view-point because he is 
in charge of the district s finance and 



458 



EUROPE AT WORK 



food-supply. His policy is to forget the 
war as far as possible, and so to help the 
League of Nations to put the district 
upon a businesslike Jjasis which will keep 
taxes and living costs at a minimum, with 
general security and prosperity at a maxi 
mum. More and more the League of Na 
tions administration is coming to repre 
sent the impartiality of Europe rather 



relationships between the nations have 
been born out of a succession of wars. 
. "But it is unreasonable that you 
should ask me to change the linen of your 
bed and your room each day. It is quite 
impossible." 

So objected a German woman of good 
family with whom a French officer was 
quartered recently in the occupied dis- 




Duisberg is said to be the largest inland harbor in the world. 
Basin after basin furnishes docking facilities ior the thousands of boats that ply up and down the Rhine. 



than the conflicting view-points and in 
terests of Germany and France. It is en 
tirely possible, accordingly, that the Saar 
will show the way to international under 
standings everywhere by demonstrating 
the League s effectiveness in interna 
tional administrative co-operation. It 
would make nothing less than an epoch 
in history if the plebiscite of the district 
twelve years from now should show a 
majority s desire to remain an inde 
pendent state. And that is not so very 
unlikely with the help of businesslike 
impartiality and of the human emphasis 
of those French schools of engineering ! 

It is almost impossible, however, to 
overstate the difficulties in the way of 
the peaceful ordering of life and work in 
a continent where so large a part of the 



trict. His reply must have been surpris 
ing: 

You are quite right, madam,, it is 
both unnecessary and unreasonable. I 
have asked it for this week only to help 
. you to realize the difficulty endured by 
my own mother at the hands of your own 
son while he was in France. He kept it 
up iar Jour years!" 

"Why, are you insisting upon further 
invasion of France, now that you have 
beaten Napoleon the Third and all France 
is at your feet ? " was asked of a German 
general after the decisive victory of 1870. 

"I am now engaged in the: task of 
punishing Louis the Fourteenth," was the 
German s reply. 

"You have right," a worker answered 
me when I asked him if he realized how 




The Schwebebahn, or suspended railway, between Barmen and Elberfeld, utilizes a crooked river-bed 

because the valley is otherwise too crowded with manufacturing establishments 

to permit any direct street-car line. 

France had suffered from the German in- France, Germany, and Belgium taking so 

roads. "But think how often the Great much more interest than the working men 

Napoleon used to overrun the Father- of America in international history and 

land!" international relations. All these breed 

No wonder I found the working men of the attitudes and interests of the present 




German coal-miners of the Saar leaving town for the shaft of a coal-mine several miles in the country. 

459 



460 



EUROPE AT WORK 



which in turn breed the certainties or un 
certainties of the future. These, in turn, 
express themselves in terms of the regu 
larity or irregularity of their daily jobs. 

It was a thoughtful German who gave 
what must be the key to the understand 
ing of Europe a key that is always in 
the mind of the working men themselves 
because it is the key that locks or unlocks 
the daily job. 

"Europe is a crowded room so 
crowded that if one nation puts its fork 
in its mouth it is likely to put its elbow 
in another nation s eye. All these people 
have been living in this room under these 
crowded conditions for a very long time. 
Most of them, also, have been growing 
larger. All the time, too, the telegraph 
and the wireless and the aeroplanes have 
been making Europe small, not to men 
tion the rest of the world. So the problem 
of those elbows has been growing con 
stantly more difficult. Yet up until now 
there has been no way in which more 
elbow-room could be gained except by the 
aid of bayonets." 

Just that, I am persuaded, is the reason 
why any American is likely to get the 
same surprise that I did at Geneva. 



To the best of my eyesight, I followed 
the pointing of the motorman. The 
building fulfilled my expectations of the 
League of Nations office a small but 
aristocratic mansion surrounded by a 
large lawn and a high iron fence. Alto 
gether a place of very stand-offish ap 
pearance. The gate was locked every 
gate. It was Saturday afternoon, but the 
second annual assembly convened Mon 
day morning. It seemed a highly aristo 
cratic way of doing business trying to save 
the world for democracy. Finally I asked 
a chauffeur about it with as much heat 
as my French would carry. With a shrug 
of surprise he asked my objections to 
walking in the front gate. He pointed 
not at the "mansion," but across the 
street ! There I saw a seven-story build 
ing. Messenger-boys were running in and 
out. A line of automobiles was trying 
to crowd up to the door. Paris-gowned 
women and silk-hatted statesmen from 
Europe or South America stepped out and 
hurried in. Limousine doors slammed, 
motors chugged and stuttered. Other im 
posing men with turbans from India and 
fezes from Persia stepped out. With 
mouth open I gazed at this amazing spec 
tacle. It was the actualization of mv 




Fellow workers of the author in the coal-mines of the Saar. 

These mines were given over to France in partial reparation for the damage done the mines of Lens and other 

French cities. 




"The hot-spot of Europe." 

This name has been given the Saar by reason of the complicated political and industrial situation. The German miners 
shown here work directly under the supervision of the German foreman at the left. He, in turn, is under the orders of the 
l- rench engineer shown with the cane. The League of Nations, in general charge of the district, may point with pride to its 
record in the Saar, largely because the French engineers are doing an excellent job of getting along with the German workers. 



high-school commencement s dream 
about "the parliament of man; the fed 
eration of the world ! " I had been look 
ing for the American idea of the League. 
I had found the European ! 

Whatever forms may be chosen for 
carrying on the more permanent phases 
of the President s conference, the choice 
is certain, I believe, to be very greatly 
influenced by this consideration: 

In Europe to-day the League of Nations 
is a going concern. 

In Europe the League has a history, 
and, on the whole, a creditable history, 
behind it. Its permanent secretarial 
force, furthermore, is constantly increas 
ing its store of facts and understanding 
for aiding the statesmen to make con 
stantly wiser decisions. Still further, 
those statesmen are tending constantly 
to represent more fully the new diplo 
macy in which public opinion plays a 
larger and larger part. The older gen 
erations, the elder statesmen, in both 
Europe and Asia, are realizing that 
whether they like it or not the whole 



thrust of any parliament of man is sure 
to be democratic. Among the delegates 
I counted more than a dozen univer 
sity professors, some of them the most 
noted and fair-minded in the ^ world. In 
Germany the organization s name is al 
ready the "League of Peoples" (Voel- 
kerbund). 

"If the League were to disband to 
morrow morning we would have to create 
another to-morrow night in order to carry 
on all the hundred and one functions 
which have been assigned to it." So 
writes one of London s best-informed edi 
tors. 

At one public session I saw Lord Rob 
ert Cecil take the platform to scold the 
representatives from Poland and Lithua 
nia for imperilling the world s peace by 
refusing to compose their differences. 
Further, I heard and saw the represen 
tatives of over fifty nations show by their 
applause their approval of the scolding. 
We were witnessing the workings of the 
world s first successful effort to help the 
nations to secure elbow-room by a new 

461 



462 



EUROPE AT WORK 



method. That method proposes to sub- Europe s life is war-torn. Europe s 

stitute for bayonets nothing less than workers are war-worn. Europe wants to 

public opinion the public opinion of an sit down, not on bayonets but on the 

organized world ! It is not strange if Eu- chairs of the supper-table set with food 

rope generally thinks the change highly gained by a day s work at the lathe and 

revolutionary. It thought so when the loom. And, just because Europe s 

democracy was proposed as a substitute peoples are so war-torn and so war-worn, 

for autocracy. The difference between the statesmen are going to find it ex- 

them is much the same. tremely difficult to lead them back to 

"Monarchy," said a famous English those normal, wholesome attitudes which 



political leader, "is 
like a great ship. It 
sails the sea with all 
sails set in all the 
pomp of power 
until it strikes a 
rock ! Then it goes 
quickly to the bot 
tom. Democracy 
is like a raft. You 
cannot sink the 
thing, but d n 
it ! your feet are 
always in the 
water!" 

Neither public 
opinion nor a n y - 
thing else has as yet 
had a fair chance at 
keeping the -feet of 
Europe out of the 
cold water of that 
uncertainty which 
flows from out ev 
ery corner and crev 
ice of the Great 
Disaster. The 
temperature has 
been lowered still 
further, also, by 




People work hard in the Saar, but at present it is 
one of the most prosperous parts of Europe. 



are the heart of the 
normal, wholesome 
relationships of nor 
mal, wholesome life 
and industry. Eu 
rope has less of the 
moral and intellec 
tual strength need 
ed for facing her 
problems than she 
had before the war. 

" You have, then, 
no wife?" I asked 
of my companion 
as, after our little 
coffees, we went 
down to the mine in 
the early morning. 

"Well, I d hardly 
say so," was his sur 
prising reply. " For 
me and for my three 
sons my wife is dead 
yes, quite dead 
too much a friend 
of our German cap 
tors she was." 

Twice as many 
French marriages 
took place in 1920 



what Europe s workers find the amazing as in 1913, with also a much greater ex- 

and incomprehensible frigidity of America cess of births over deaths than in a long 

toward its own child and toward all the time. But on the other hand there have 

miseries which the League America s been thousands of homes broken up be- 

League was expected to lessen. That cause they were unable to stand the strain 

surprising frigidity of ours only increases the extremely heavy strain of hav- 

the shell-shock from which all the political ing husbands, fathers, or sons off in the 

and all the industrial sensibilities of Eu- trenches, year after year, perhaps dead, 

rope have been suffering. The strange perhaps alive, while 10,000 soldiers from 

thing is that they have made as much Tasmania or Manitoba or Montana were 

progress as they have in overcoming their crowded into a town already packed with 

shattered nerves and getting back to the its usual 3,000 natives, 

job. "But your son is a good sort. He ll 

"You can do everything in the world carry on, yes?" I went on with the fa- 

with bayonets except sit on them," ther as we came near to the lamp-room at 

Talleyrand is said to have remarked. the mine. 




The Saar district contains about 700 square miles with 700,000 inhabitants, including 70,000 miners. 

The mines have been given to France according to the Versailles Treaty. The district is administered by the League 
of Nations, which chooses five commissioners, including one from France and one from the Saar. 



"I m afraid not, m sieu . Have you 
not noticed the look in his eye ? Is it not 
the look of a fox, or perhaps a rat ? That 
comes from his spending, four years a 
captive near here. Usually he ate break 
fast by pulling his belt so and dined 
by yanking it so ! When he secured real 
food it came mostly by stealing it when 
his captors were not looking. Bad training 
that for a boy between the years of twelve 
and sixteen, very bad, is it not so?" 

It has been said that one reason for the 
recent disturbances in India and Egypt 
is the loss of tens of thousands of the best 
of the young manhood of Britain in the 
early volunteer days of the war. I ex 
pect to see difficulties of the same sort 
when some of the places in the national 
assemblies of the various European 
peoples are taken by some of these hun 
dreds of thousands of Europe s children 
who grew up with nothing nearer child 
hood than a four years nightmare. Such 
as these and the populations they will 
represent will be difficult bosses for Eu 
rope s statesmen for already in Europe 
to-day it is the peoples that are the bosses 
of the statesmen and not the statesmen 
that are the bosses of the people. 



I wish that it were possible to come 
back from Europe with the conviction 
that the various, intricate complexes of 
fears and touchinesses of the different 
peoples are unreasonable and unjustified. 
Then the treatment would be easy. But 
any careful observer is sure to see how 
deeply rooted they all are in the con 
sciousness of a long and very practical 
past, with that consciousness made sensi 
tive almost to the explosion-point by a 
shorter and more recent past full of emo 
tions of the highest conceivable intensity. 
Nothing is surer than that, under the 
same circumstances, we here in America 
would have gone through exactly the 
same experiences and emotions and come, 
therefore, into exactly the same attitudes 
requiring, consequently, the same care 
ful treatment for our return to normalcy. 

To get back to the old normalcy is as 
impossible for America as for Europe, for 
both must go back together. The old 
normalcy is dead and gone. It is not too 
much to say that the nature of the new 
normalcy will depend largely upon Amer 
ica s attitude toward the peoples of Eu 
rope and toward the hopes and fears be 
hind those elbows in the crowded room. 

463 



464 



EUROPE AT WORK 



"Our committee began to make prog 
ress with its job " so reports the Amer 
ican member of an international group 
formed during the war for routing the 
world s wheat supply ships safely past 
the submarines into the Allied harbors 
"only when, finally, each member came 
to believe that every other member could 
be trusted to have as disinterested a 
point of view as himself." 

Meanwhile three things appear to me 
certain: 

First, that Europe s workers hate war 
more deeply than do America s. They 
know it better, ^hey have been im 
mensely closer to it. They pray harder 
than we do for ways out of that crowded 
room which do not call for bayonets, be 
cause they see better than we do the dif 
ficulty of finding those ways. 

Second, Europe s workers see more 
plainly than we do how footless it is for 
America to talk of the " mess in Europe," 
when the same things that make Europe 
each day smaller and smaller are making 
the whole world into a smaller and smaller 
room. The world s present joblessness 
and the world s increasing "elbow com 
plex"- these make a "world mess" of 
world-wide dimensions and of world-wide 
causes. It calls for world-wide treatment 
with America sitting in at Genoa and 
in every other conference as talker as well 
as listener talker and also hoper, be 
cause Europe, like the women at Lens, as 
mentioned in the previous article, is too 
tired to be a good hoper. 

Third, the greatest pressure for the 
achievement of the world s new normalcy, 
in terms of the equilibrium of trade be 
tween the nations, is the pressure that 
comes now from the statesmen of Europe 
who represent the workers. These by the 
million find themselves jobless in a stalled 
world. They want work. They exert a 



vast pressure for it. Of that pressure 
Lloyd George is just now the chief ex 
ponent, partly because America s public- 
opinion does not yet see the connection 
between our huge unemployment and Eu 
rope s huge war losses. Yet from all over 
America as well as over Britain goes up 
the prayer : 

"Give us this day our daily job!" 

Nothing is more earnestly to be hoped 
for on behalf of those who utter that 
prayer in either Europe or America than 
that America will have that deeper sym 
pathy which is sure to come from a wider 
knowlege of the reasonableness of the 
hearts and of the weariness of the hopes 
of those that utter that prayer "over 
there." 

It is not necessary that we should en 
deavor, from our seats in our Cis-Atlantic 
grand-stand, to determine exactly how 
far Germany is honest or dishonest, re 
pentant or revengeful, or exactly how far 
France is justified or unjustified in its 
fear of that cloud upon its eastern hori 
zon. It is immensely more important 
that we adopt a method, first, for getting 
a better understanding of the whole huge 
and vital performance, and then for giving 
that understanding, with its accompany 
ing sympathy, a larger influence upon the 
performance. 

Perhaps that information could be best 
gained and that sympathy most practi 
cally expressed by our formation at an 
early date of a "Western Hemisphere 
League of Nations." After allowing for 
the saving of the "faces" of the "irrec- 
oncilables," during the course of two or 
three years, this League could quietly 
amalgamate with the other on terms 
found mutually agreeable. 

Some such programme would appear to 
be the best that we could do for the saving 
of Europe and Asia and the rest of us ! 





The Matter with Peter 



BY ELIZABETH HERRICK 

Author of "After All," "The Unit," etc. 
ILLUSTRATIONS BY C. F. PETERS 



M 



RS. ARBUCKLE saw 
Peter s ailment clear 
ly. She put it to him 
with a sparkling fore 
finger. 

"The matter with 
you, Peter, is that you 
haven t an interest!" 
And she had prescribed gardening and 
sent him her own landscape-architect, 
who, she promised, would "enthuse an 
Egyptian mummy ! If you don t catch 
fire, Peter, you re only smoking flax, and 
deserve to be quenched ! " 

Peter, brooding over his breakfast, ap 
pealed through the open casement with 
an air of suppressed outrage. The lawn 
at Mount Merry was his pet pride. From 
his earliest memory it had flowed over its 
terraces to the sapphire bowl of the lake 
without a flaw in its shimmering velvet. 
And here was Gail s architect slashing it 
up till it looked like a war-garden or a 
medical chart. By the Lord Harry ! 
Peter would make short work of the 
idiot ! Let Hazlett send the miscreant to 
him ! 

In Hazlett s absence Peter s mind con 
tinued to run on its grievance for why 
the dickens Gail Arbuckle should have 
sent him this fake gardener except for a 
joke But it wasn t a joke. She had 
been sincerely solicitous to help him re 
trieve his " indolent peregrination through 
life." 

" Your very soul s indolent, Peter. See 
if this architect of mine doesn t wake it 
up shortly and inspire it with something. 
D. Parke is the last word in gardening 
and a lot of other things, too!" 

Peter laughed acidly. The architect 
might be the "last word" in gardening, 
but he was sure of soon hearing his last 
word here ! The same instant he felt the 
fellow s presence behind him. 

It is easier, however, to discharge a 
VOL. LXXL 30 



servitor in anticipation than actually. 
Peter didn t turn around. 

"What, Mr. D. Parke Edgerton, did 
you conceive that I wanted?" he tem 
porized sarcastically, " my lawn turned 
into a community war-garden?" The 
worst, as he conceived, over, Peter faced 
around boldly; but the worst was to 
come.* He half rose from his chair and 
his tawny mane seemed to rise, too, every 
glittering hair stiffly erect on his startled 
head, for the man before him 

"By Jove!" he choked, under his 
breath. "Oh, by the Lord Harry!" 

wasn t a man, after all ! And, in the 
instant of their startled meeting, her dark 
bright eyes shot a quivering golden dart 
into his. 

"Mr. Peter Wainwright," she rejoined, 
sweetly but spiritedly, "you might do a 
lot worse with it ! " 

Peter wholly rose from his chair, gal 
vanized by the emergence, and achieved 
a bow. He had sent, he explained, for the 
architect who had been defacing his lawn 
and, hearing him enter the room, she 
came into it quickly. 

"You were going to discharge him?" 

Peter corroborated emphatically. 

"Oh!" breathed the girl blankly, the 
intense vital light dying out of her face. 
Peter had a second instant of agony. 

" I hope you ll forgive me. I m a duffer 
at everything. That s why Mrs. Ar 
buckle took me in training." With his 
friend s name came inspiration. "I don t 
know how I can retrieve myself unless, as 
Mrs. Arbuckle would suggest, I invite you 
to .breakfast." 

The girl hesitated, then sat suddenly 
down in her chair with the resolution of 
a business man who means to see his work 
through. Breakfast took a half-hour, but 
during it Peter learned a good deal for 
one thing, that his whole landscape was 
wrong. This great sweep of lawn was, to 

465 



466 



THE MATTER WITH PETER 



the landscapist s eyes, "like a big bare 
room with nothing but a carpet in it. 
You couldn t imagine a romance, Mr. 
Wainwright, on a lawn like that ! There s 
not a spot anywhere on the estate, except 
in the woods, where you could even think 
of making love to a pretty girl." 

Peter stiffened ridiculously. "I 
wouldn t think of it anywhere ! " 

She held up a warning hand. "Wait, 
Mr. Peter Wainwright, till your foxgloves 
and lilies are in flower under those trees ! 
Down there, some white night She 
stopped, laughing mischievously. 

Peter s stiffness relaxed. It occurred 
to him illuminatingly that if he were ever 
to commit the indiscretion she mentioned, 
it would be because the pretty girl looked 
like her. Breakfast over, he walkecl with 
her to the different plantings. From the 
view-point of that ardent, exquisite face 
near his own, their outrageousness van 
ished. He discerned even a pleasing de 
sign. In some of the beds the ground 
was already starred by spring flowers. 
Dropping on her knees, she turned up the 
flower faces tenderly and called each by 
name. Peter got down beside her and 
tried to get hold of the names, but the 
chief thing he got hold of was the beauty 
of the down-bent face. La Reve tulips 
had just the color that throbbed in her 
cheeks when she looked up from them 
eagerly. Altogether, it was a wonderful 
morning. They reached the end of it at 
the gardener s lodge, which, by Peter s in 
structions to Hazlett, the architect was 
occupying. 

" I won t ask you to look at the cottage 
garden to-day it s your luncheon hour- 
mine also, Mr. Peter She stopped 
headlong, her lovely color hot in her 
cheeks. "Oh, I hope you ll excuse me! 
Hazlett and the others always speak of 
you that way I ve heard it so often!" 

"I hope you ll go on calling me so," 
said Peter magnanimously, "D. Parke 
for that s the name I ve heard you called 
oftenest." 

She laughed, but 

"I have to use it," she defended. 
"Most people wouldn t employ a woman 
landscape-gardener if they knew it. 
Mr. Rollker sees patrons and I make the 
plans. It s only when we have a big con 
tract like this that I appear on_the scene. 



And I thought Mrs. Arbuckle said 
you were south for the winter and spring." 

Peter admitted it. "I returned sooner 
than I expected. Palm Beach palled, like 
everything else, after a little." 

She gave him a wondering glance, then 
a slight, scrutinizing frown. 

"Oh, that is a pity!" she said and 
passed through the gate. 

Peter went buoyantly home. After the 
fulness of the morning, the afternoon 
seemed empty flat and unprofitable. 
He strolled the grounds over, hoping to 
see her again. A young man, presumably 
Rollker, in a belted suit that wonderfully 
became his slenderness Peterwas stout 
was superintending work near the 
gates. He walked briskly away before 
Peter came up. Peter took immediate 
and unreasoning dislike to him, to his 
jaunty air, to the cut of his coat, most of 
all to the cut of his figure. He watched 
the laborers awhile, then went back to the 
house, where he read all the cyclopaedia 
articles he could find on landscape-gar 
dening, and fretted the rest of the day 
because he couldn t find more. " A li 
brary full of books and nothing in them ! " 
he complained, irritably and irrationally, 
to Hazlett. 

The next morning he went to the lodge. 
He had never noticed it particularly, but 
to-day its sun-stained gables and hospi 
table open casements, even its brick gar 
den-wall, breaking out here and there in 
a foam of white blossoms, impressed him 
as a setting that became her. Peter vi- 
sioned her in the garden, the wind ruffling 
her hair and blowing into her cheeks more 
of that sweet wild rose in which his eyes 
delighted. She was in pink, and she had, 
as in a picture Peter remembered, a 
basket on her arm, into which she was 
cutting flowers. Perhaps she would give 
him one ! Peter s heart quickened, send 
ing the flame up to his hair. As he waited 
for it to die down, her voice rippled over 
the wall: 

"Sonny! Look what you re doing!" 

Peter opened the gate. Inside was cer 
tainly the most beautiful spring garden 
his world- jaded eyes had ever rested on. 
Either side of the path to the door lay 
broad masses of color pale yellow, blue, 
purple, and lavender but there was one 
color missing the pink of her gown. 



THE MATTER WITH PETER 467 

And the flower-basket his fancy had pic- prophet. D. Parke, she foretold, would 
tured was transformed, as by the wand enthuse an Egyptian mummy!" 
of some malicious witch, into a worse-f or- " Are you really a dead one ? " Some- 
use market-basket which stood in the thing serious in her scrutiny made Peter 
walk, and from it the objectionable young sorry he had told her. She didn t seem to 
man in the belted coat was rapidly setting see it as the joke that it was. 
out plants. He was on his knees behind a "I suppose I must be, if you re to re- 
spiraea, whistling "Tipperary, " to the un- vivify me." Again, as at the lodge gate, 
easiness of a neighborly cat. The whistle Peter thought he detected a shade of dis- 
came as close to a right masculine note as appointment in her glance, 
the slim belted figure to a right-sized man. "It s a pity!" she commented simply 

"Poor pussy!" Peter commiserated, "with so much to live for !" 

And the fellow jumped to his feet. From "But that s just the trouble. I feel 

a sudden tautness of figure he seemed, as that I ve nothing to live for." His gesture 

yesterday, to purpose flight, then ap- weighed his possessions and found them 

parently thought better of it. He faced wanting, 

around slowly. That level, measuring glance of hers 

"I why you startled me, Mr. Pe- seemed, Peter was humiliatingly aware, 

ter ! " she said. to find him wanting. 

But it was Peter who was most startled, " Yes, that s the trouble ! and the pity 

whose blush rose to his hair. The glow of it!" 

in her cheeks deepened a trifle, but it was "But what have I?" Peter protested 

Peter s that flamed. And though she " a lot of money somebody left me and 

gasped on her first words, Peter stam- a lot of leisure to do nothing in ! " 

mered speechlessly, his tradition of wo- "Do something /" she said, so unexpec- 

man, his inherited conventions, shocked tedly and forcefully that Peter jumped, 

and upset. He returned to the subject later, having 

She looked on his crimson confusion, cogitated it meanwhile. She had asked 
and her own consciously deepened. The him to lunch "though not," she had 
golden glimmer returned to her eyes. She laughed, " in return for your breakfast 
came from behind the spiraea and looked only to show you your gardener s cottage, 
herself down with a little air of bravado I dare say you ve never been in it be- 
that was yet wholly womanly. Peter fore." 

looked her down, too, and from the ashes Peter confessed it confessed, too, to 

of his ideal rose the new woman trim, its charm, contrasting the little kitchen, 

businesslike, capable, with a face modest- with its Dutch tiles and white paint, its 

ly sweet as a flower above the hard lines black-oak buffet and table, with the bleak 

of her garb. Peter s eyes kindled. They mahogany homelessness of his dining- 

swept back to hers with an admiration room. And its charm was enhanced when, 

more disconcerting than their first horri- after a brief absence, she returned to it in 

fied shock. She spoke hurriedly, while he that gown, adorably pink, he had missed 

was gathering himself. from the garden. It looked suddenly 

" You wouldn t like to try to get about good to Peter to work for a living and to 

in skirts in a lot of shrubbery ! " eat in a kitchen. It recurred to him that, 

And Peter realized he wouldn t that with apparently everything to get out of 

there wasn t a man living who would. He life, he was getting nothing out of it. He 

tried to say though, it looked, to her groped for the reason. Was as she had 

coat-buttons that he thought she looked implied and Gail Arbuckle openly charged 

very sensible and nice, but broke defiantly -the fault with himself ? They had pre- 

off and lifted his eyes. scribed the same remedy "Do some- 

"You look entirely all right, D. thing !" and Gail had characteristically 

Parke !" he said heartily. added, "if it s only to put on your own 

The unconventional episode brought shoes !" He felt curious to know what D. 

them together. Peter found himself ex- Parke hadn t added, 

ploring the garden in a glow of enthusiasm. " You told me to Do something. You 

" Mrs. Arbuckle will think herself true didn t say what." 



468 THE MATTER WITH PETER 

She looked up from her salad with a ning that inspiration first visited him. It 

frown of absorption. was such a night as D. Parke had foretold, 

" Whatever you think your talents and and he was crossing the lawn near the fox- 
position fit you for. Everybody born into glove and lily planting. The perfume of 
this world ought to be of some use in it the lilies reached out subtly and drew him. 
a rich man most of all. The world has One great gleaming chalice brushed his 
given him everything. It s up to him, coat-sleeve as he entered the recess; its 
isn t it, to give something back ? " fragrance clung to the cloth faintly, inef- 

Peter had to assent, but fably. Peter s strange thrill was followed 

"What?" he asked her again. by stranger longing. The next morning he 

"The best that he has, "she said crisply, carried his architect apian fora similar 

with a straight look into his eyes. planting near the cottage. "The moon- 

"But if" -Peter s rueful glance swept light on the lake," he explained, "would 

his unfruitful years "he hasn t any heighten the effect." 

best ? if he s mediocre clear through ? " She looked at him mischievously. Mr. 

Again she flashed him that glance of Peter had experienced the white night! 

disapprobation. Had he fallen in love ? 

" Then let him get to grubbing like me !" "But a debutante wouldn t go so far 

Once more Peter s traditions were from the house by moonlight, would 

startled, but he brooded the suggestion she ?" she objected, the golden light glim- 

in the lonely state of his dining-room, mering deep in her eyes. 

The homely charm of the kitchen came "I m not planning for debutantes!" 

back to his eyes. Dreaming over the Peter retorted, adding boldly, "I might 

table, they saw her opposite. . . . He go that far myself!" which was a great 

went to the lodge early next morning. change in Peter. Mrs. Arbuckle, running 

"I ve thought over what you said and down in her car to get Peter s name and 

decided on gardening. I m a duffer at weight for her new Garden Club, discov- 

everything, but I ought to learn some- ered another. Instead of demurring, Pe- 

thing from you." ter promised both with an alacrity that 

She laughed, but her soft bright color made his friend open wider her very wide- 
deepened, open blue eyes. 

"All right, Mr. Peter ! My apprentices Naturally, as she was D. Parke s class- 
begin with the spade. Can you dig?" mate, she called at the lodge and, nat- 

Peter said that he could and found that urally, Peter had to show her the way. 
he couldn t. She had to take his spade They lunched on the rose-trellised porch, 
and show him the way. But the lesson the fragrance of a thousand flowers all 
was pleasant because of the occasional around, and Peter s head a trifle dizzy 
contact of her hands with his. Peter ac- with the sweetness. Walking back to her 
quired, during it, some information about car with Mrs. Arbuckle, he turned on 
gardening and more about women. Sue- her with an air transparently aggrieved, 
ceeding days increased his knowledge of "How was I to suppose that D. stood 
both. He accumulated, too, personal for Daphne?" for during the lunch chat- 
data. He learned that she was a college ter he had made this discovery, 
classmate of Gail s, that she was alone in "But she s curing you, Peter!" Mrs. 
the world except for the aunt who had sat Arbuckle triumphed. "I knew what was 
through lunch with them and " Sonny," the matter I ve bored you myself and I 
the cat; and that D. didn t stand for never bore any one. What you needed to 
Daniel, though he put it to her hopefully, make a real man out of a fine fellow that 
He gathered also some interesting facts looks like one was an interest and a 
about himself. He began to value time woman!" 

and to realize the amount of energy he Peter returned to the lodge that eve- 
had hitherto wasted, to come to his work, ning. He found Daphne on the porch in 
not only wondering, as at first, if he should the rosy dusk, its glow coloring her ex- 
see her, but what it was to be and what quisitely. She rose to meet him, "Sonny" 
he could personally put into it. He began tucked under her arm, and Peter thought, 
to have ideas. But it was on a June eve- with elation, that her color rose, too. 




Drawn by C. F. Peters. 

"Are you really a dead one ?" Something serious in her scrutiny made Peter sorry he had 

told her. Page 467. 



469 



470 THE MATTER WITH PETER 

"I came," he excused, "to talk up dim. And it seemed that all light was 

Monday. Gail seems to count on our extinguished after her going the night the 

joining that club. We ll motor to town paper was finished, for she mentioned as 

and lunch at the Kimball. And now that curiously coincident that the paper and 

that s settled"- Peter dropped into a her work on the estate were finished to- 

chair "I should have guessed that D. gether. The big room looked as blank 

stood for Daphne," he murmured irrel- and unlighted as the heart Peter brought 

evantly. "It sounds so like a flower!" back to it a place of insupportable gloom 

Even under the afterglow, he could see of impossible occupation. He shut up 

her cheeks flame, but the room, but the heart he had to take 

" You thought it stood for Daniel ! " she with him. All night he lay sleepless, star- 
reminded him archly, which led to his ing into its emptiness. With morning an 
asking how much Gail had told her about idea came to him. 

him. He was relieved and disappointed "Can t you," he suggested, "think of 

that Gail had told her nothing except that something else that wants doing here ? " 

he was a rich man who needed a lot of im- The golden glimmer shone on him again, 

provements. " Not unless you can think of something 

" But I ve been thinking since I came to I ve overlooked, Mr. Peter." 

know you" she regarded him with can- But it wasn t till the Garden Club 

did intentness " that perhaps she meant meeting that Peter thought of anything, 

inner improvements as well ! " A woman member was telling of the grad- 

Peter winced but swallowed the pill. ual extinction of some species of wild 

"That s all right, D. Parke. I wanted flowers and urging club members to seat- 
to know what you thought." ter seeds along roadsides, when Peter s 

She regarded him with a smile very idea came. After reading his own paper, 

warm in its friendliness. he took up her thread. He told what he 

"Well, I think you re making some of purposed to do in his woods, speaking his 

them, still there s a good deal more to own words with astonishing fervor and 

be done ! " fluency. He painted acres of bluebells 

She didn t go on, and Peter s moral and anemones, of harebells and primroses, 

courage fell short of asking her what. But Columbines, foxgloves, and wild asters, 

a day or so later he explained ingenious- polemoniums and wood-hyacinths went 

ly his promise of a paper on landscaping into his woodscape. He sat down in a 

for the next Garden Club meeting. storm of applause. 

"I thought you would want to continue Daphne said nothing until just as they 

your improvements!" which showed he reached home. She drew a wistful breath 

had digested the lesson. and looked deep into the woods. 

Daphne, tempted at first to refuse to "I d love to do it, but it would cost a 

help him, the next minute consented fortune and it would take all summer and 

not to put him in a bad light with the fall!" 

club! Besides, as he urged, any one that "That s what I want!" Peter said 

knew all about landscaping shouldn t eagerly, then caught her blush and fell 

have difficulty doping out a few pages consciously silent. 

about it. Nevertheless, his paper took a They tramped through the woods that 

long time writing. At his suggestion it afternoon, up hill, down dale, through a 

was achieved evenings in his library where natural wonderland, 

there was "every thing handy." Lounged Daphne, noting the thousands of each 

in a big leather chair, Peter watched the species to be used in the planting, closed 

girl as she studied and wrote, interrupting her order-book and drew rapturous 

her constantly with suggestions relevant breath. Her beautiful color pulsed in her 

and irrelevant, to the great consumption cheeks. The golden sparkles Peter loved 

of time, which was his chief object. He came and went in her eyes. 

liked to see her sitting opposite; she gave "Oh, it is lovely. It is what I ve al- 

a look of home to his house. Her vivid ways wanted to do somewhere." She 

presence seemed to light the room more looked at him wistfully. "It s strange it 

than its lamps. When she left, it went should be one of your dreams, too!" 



THE MATTER WITH PETER 471 

"I had to think of something!" Peter "I suppose you think I m a waster!" 

confessed. And again they both flushed Her eyes, which had followed his with 

and fell silent. Cruising back over the an artist s joy in the wonder-work of her 

lake by moonlight again it was a white hands, came back, shining, 

night Peter recalled his plan for the fox- " No, Mr. Peter only that you haven t 

glove and lily planting, and pointed out learned how to spend ! " 

the spot for it a moonlit dell opening When he came to her that evening, she 

down to the shore. Once more and de- felt a change in him. There had come a 

cisively Daphne negatived the sugges- firmness into his big masculinity; self- 

tion. confidence sounded in his step; he sat 

" It is much too near your gardener s down with a restive energy that denoted 

cottage, Mr. Peter. Don t plan trysting- powerful forces at work, 

places for your employees if you want "I begin to see what you mean we 

your work done !" rich men have a chance to-day that may 

There was a covert threat in the words, never come to us again. We ve all of us 
under which Peter smarted. It sounded bought Liberty Bonds, turned our rose- 
as if, despite those improvements he d beds into kitchen-gardens, and indulged 
been making, he wasn t man enough yet in a lot of spectacular patriotism, but the 
for her liking. He had contrived to keep thing it seems to me would help most 
her here, but she had given him to under- that would help right here at home is to 
stand, unmistakably, that she stayed only plant our estates to food-crops, and estab- 
on terms of business relations. He felt lish a chain of markets to sell our produce 
defeated in the instant of victory, and direct to our big middle class, that s hung 
went home gloomily wondering what sort up between charity and the high prices, 
of man would measure up to her ideal. I believe twould knock the bottom out 
Again the Garden Club gave him a hint of the profiteering that s going on all over, 
that was useful. Peter s report of his Of course there d be squeals some of 
woodscaping fell humiliatingly flat, while the dealers and farmers would claim the 
a member who had converted his rose- millionaires were cutting their throats 
beds into a war-garden of parsnips and but"- Peter s lips tightened grimly 
carrots was cheered to the echo. Even "some of them ought to be cut ! You 
D. Parke applauded, her lovely face aglow, wouldn t hear any squeal from the people 

" Though what you, a landscape- that aren t getting enough of the right 

architect," the aggrieved Peter re- kind of food because they can t pay for 

proached, as his car ran through his gates, it. Now, the way to put through a pro- 

"saw in that fellow s rooting up roses to ject is to set the ball rolling, so I m going 

plant carrots - !" to plough up this place and put it to the 

She gave him a glance of disappointed right sort of use." 

surprise. Peter paused expectantly. He saw the 

" Good citizenship ! " she said warmly, anticipated glow sweep over her face, re- 

Instantly her retort at their first meeting spect dawn in her eyes, but he saw in 

recurred to him. He "might do a lot them, too, inexplicably, disturbingly, a 

worse" with his lawn than turn it into a quick brightness like tears. She said 

war-garden. His eyes fared over its wide nothing at once, but sat with tense hands 

sweep, relieved now by gracious plantings, clasped together then : 

then back to her face, still bright with "Do you intend to plough up every- 

enthusiasm, and felt he had done worse, thing, Mr. Peter?" 

This pleasure-garden she had planted for " Everything ! " Peter s grand renunci- 

him seemed, all at once, the measure of his atory gesture seemed to sweep the estate, 

smallness. Not only had he wasted thou- Again that glitter like tears. She held 

sands in his country s time of need he her red underlip an instant under her 

had wasted space and time. No wonder teeth before it broke away in a smile, 

that, though she did his work, she didn t "That looks rather a big contract, Mr. 

respect him. He was a poor citizen, a Peter, but you seem to have thought it 

poor patriot, a small fellow all round, all out!" Then, disappointingly to Peter, 

He swept his hand over the landscape, she led the talk to the war. 



472 THE MATTER WITH PETER 

He contrived to get back to his subject, under her dropped lashes reassured him a 

though, just as he was leaving. " So, little. 

if you ll set your men to work digging up "It s not my garden it s yours, Mr. 

what we ve planted Peter. Besides, you re going to plough it 

"Oh, I couldn t do thai!" Her voice up!" The glimmer went out. She looked 

seemed to shrink. But she recovered at him sombrely: "It doesn t matter, 

poise instantly. "Very well, Mr. Peter !" Mr. Peter. I shouldn t have been here 

And Peter departed, in the glow of high much longer anyway only till I finished 

purpose. the woods." 

He was up at dawn scouring the coun- Peter jumped at the word. "That s 
try for ploughmen. It was past ten when just it the woods ! You can t go, you 
he got around to the lodge. As he ap- know. You contracted to plant that 
preached the house, a strangeness about woodland and you ve got to plant it. 
it obsessed him. It seemed to look down When I said I was going to plough up 
on him blankly over its wall. Picking his everything, I meant all available land- 
way between packing-boxes on the porch, not woods. And you didn t think, did 
he discerned what he missed. The cur- you, I d plough up this garden? So" 
tains of sheer, snowy muslin were down Peter sat down triumphantly "don t 
from the windows. The door was open, you think, Daphne, you d better un- 
He went through it into the living-room, pack?" 

It looked stripped denuded a thing of Daphne unpacked, a deepened bloom 

bare walls and stiff haircloth upholstery, in her cheeks, a golden sheen in her eyes, 

The home touches the warm-colored still there when Peter found her, an hour 

cretonnes, the pictures and books, her later, pluckily superintending the destruc- 

work-table were missing. Her desk tion. Her men were digging up the plants 

peeped through the slats of a crate. Pe- from the lawn and heaping them to be 

ter stood, consternation-struck, on the burned. Peter saw Daphne stoop over, 

threshold. Daphne s flushed face lifted with a lovely instinctive movement of 

from over a trunk. protection, as some flowering favorite was 

"Oh! Mr. Peter!" And she turned flung on the pile. 

defensively, putting up her hands to "Save it, if you want to," he said 

brush back from her face the shining, solicitously. "Put it into your garden! 

tumbled hair. Take all you want." 

It wasn t a cordial invitation, but But she made a renunciatory gesture, 

Peter came on into the room, his glance in her smile a strange shining of pride, 

wavering uncertainly. "No. I want my bit share in this 

"It looks like an exodus, but I don t big work of yours." For the first time 

know if I know what it means." Peter saw himself, with elation, a man in 

She flashed him a smile, then a wa- her eyes. Going jubilantly to lunch, he 

vering, uncertain thing glimmering over poured out his repressed spirits on Haz- 

her seriousness. lett. 

"It means you need a farmer now, Mr. "Hazlett, I begin to feel like a man !" 

Peter not a landscape-architect!" "Yes, sir! That s how you ve always 

Peter weakened under the blow. Blun- looked, sir!" said Hazlett respectfully, 

dering fool ! he had driven her from him ! Peter s war-garden throve. Pictures 

"But you can t goP he protested un- of it got into the papers, with an exposi- 

steadily. "Don t you see I can t let tion of Peter s ideas. Pictures also ap- 

you?" His miserable eyes yearned on peared of the lodge-garden and woods, 

her face. Through the open window the reserved "for the use of Mrs. Wainwright, 

garden background blurred suddenly, a lover of flowers." 

Against it Peter saw clearly the one "I shouldn t wonder if they were!" 
flower he couldn t miss from his land- Peter admitted, when Mrs. Arbuckle 
scape exquisite, glowing. "How do you showed him the "feature." 
think I your garden can go on growing "Of course! I m glad you ve dis- 
without you?" covered it." She leaned over the news- 
She shook her head, but a glimmer paper and fixed friendlily inquisitive eyes 




Drawn by C. F. Peters. 

"It means you need a farmer now ( Mr. Peter not a landscape-architect! " Page 472. 



473 



474 THE MATTER WITH PETER 

on his. "Why don t you ask her, Peter?" good deal like the thousand yards of 

she put confidentially. Peter shook his bunting he had flung to the breeze a 

head dubiously. spectacular patriotism. By the supreme 

" Some time, perhaps but I ve a lot of sacrifice these splendid fellows were mak- 

inside improvements to make !" ing, Peter saw that he "owed the world" 

Mrs. Arbuckle looked at him blankly, nothing less than himself. He cast a 

" Good gracious ! What s the matter quick glance at Daphne. Her eyes were 

with your house, Peter ? Is Daphne going following the brown khaki stream that 

in for real architecture?" flowed through the street, the exaltation 

Peter offered her a cigarette and took in them exultation, for they were men of 

one himself. her race ! The last khaki-clad man passed 

" Real architecture !" he repeated con- and the crowd closed in behind. The 

templatively. "I think you might call blare of the band died away up the street, 

it that. She doesn t find my style suf- "That s the right kind of spending!" 

ficiently imposing." Peter said quietly. She nodded without 

Mrs. Arbuckle stared, then laughed and speaking, but the glance she gave him was 

tapped his sleeve with a glittering finger, brimming with tears. He intended going 

"Build bigger, Peter !" she counselled, to her after lunch to talk this thing over, 

"You ve got the materials." And Peter but after lunch a deeper conviction of 

turned her advice in his heart. himself as a "slacker" depressed him. 

The summer flew. From the idlest of He saw why he hadn t won her respect- 
rich men Peter became the busiest. What he had done nothing to earn even his 
with growing and harvesting, the co- own! He shut himself into his library 
operative markets already established in and had it out with the man Peter, 
the nearest cities, the Garden and Civic About four he emerged and ordered his 
Clubs, the new Liberty Loan Committee, car. As he passed around the end of the 
all of which seemed suddenly to discover lake, the lodge came into view. He saw 
Peter to be their most indispensable mem- the flutter of Daphne s pale-yellow gown 
ber, he hardly saw Daphne, but he could on the porch. She stood leaning against 
see, evenings, the lights shining across his a post, a book in her hand. Peter won- 
grain-fields from the lodge s windows and dered a little during business hours she 
warm his heart with her nearness. All was always busy somewhere about the 
the time he felt that he was building estate. He hoped this unusual leisure 
bigger and bringing nearer the day when didn t mean she had finished his woods 
he would dare Mrs. Arbuckle s advice. not that it could make any real difference 

The morning of the departure of the now, only he would like to feel she was 
Second Regiment for camp, Peter took still there in the lodge, and that her lights 
Daphne and her aunt into town. The were shining out nights over his grain- 
front of Peter s great building was gay fields. 

with silk flags and bunting; the co-opera- Daphne hadn t finished the woods, 
tive store showed a wonderful "war- win- But the military pageant of the morning, 
dow;" Peter s car, standing in front, flew in uplifting her heart, had left it out of 
the national colors. Daphne s eyes tune with the peaceful business of life, 
glowed with enthusiasm. Peter, sitting Instead of resuming work, she put on her 
beside her, felt sudden pride in himself as prettiest gown and sat on her porch and 
one of those "solid citizens" looked to by read first a war-story, then a love-story, 
the government to shoulder the financial "I suppose I read the war-story be- 
burden of war. But when the national cause of the regiment this morning," she 
air crashed on his ear and the khaki-clad mused, but she didn t confide in herself 
men swung into view, what Peter had why she had read the love-story, though 
done looked suddenly trivial. All he had the rose in her cheeks throbbed irrelevant- 
called patriotism in himself seemed to ring ly a minute. " I wonder," she immediate- 
false, like spurious metal. The govern- ly added, "if Mr. Peter meant what he 
ment had asked for men, and Peter had said that that was the right way to 
taken up gardening a poor substitute spend?" 
for his healthy young body. It was a She rose, the book in her hand, and 



OLD PLAYS AND NEW PLAYGOERS 



475 



stood looking over the lake, her eyes full 
of dreams. The chance was so big ! all 
this splendid possibility so far as the 
eye could reach stretched the demesne 
of Peter; all the vast unused, untried ca 
pacity of Peter himself. Across her vi 
sion, into the sunlit interval at the end of 
the lake, flashed Peter s car. Behind the 
liveried chauffeur lounged Peter s big 
figure. The car shot into the woods. 
Daphne looked after it sombrely. 

"If he only believed it !" she said wist 
fully and returned to the war-story for 
Peter didn t love the high things of the 
soul well enough yet to love her as a man 
must love her to win her ! 

She returned to the porch after supper 
and sat in the sunset, its red light flushing 
her primrose gown and glittering hair. 
Slowly her eyes traversed the sun s trail 



over the lake to the road where she had 
glimpsed Peter, and waited there with a 
curious expectancy till the click of the 
lodge gate brought them back. A soldier 
in khaki had entered the garden. The red 
light, slanting in through the gate, shed 
round his uniform a halo like glory. He 
stood at salute, the glow on his handsome 
strong face all the weakness and heavi 
ness gone out of it the face of a recon 
structed Peter, built anew from his foun 
dations on stronger, finer lines the face, 
she recognized, with a keen thrill, half 
joy, half fear, of her ideal man. 

She ran down the steps to meet him, 
both hands outstretched in an instinctive 
gesture that seemed to hold him while it 
bade him Godspeed. 

"Don t go! Yes, go! Peter!" she 
cried, womanly. 



Old Plays and New Playgoers 

BY BRANDER MATTHEWS 




VERY dramatist is of 
necessity subdued to 
what he works for 
the playgoers of his 
own generation in his 
own country. Their 
approval is what he 
has to win first of all ; 
and if they render a verdict against him 
he has no appeal to posterity. It is a 
matter of record that a play which failed 
to please the public in its author s life 
time never succeeded later in establishing 
itself on the stage. Partisans may prate 
about the dramatic power of the "Blot 
on the Scutcheon," but when it is as it 
has been half-a-dozen times galvanized 
into a semblance of life for a night or a 
fortnight, it falls prone in the playhouse, 
as dead as it was when Macready first of 
ficiated at its funeral. Even the "Mi 
santhrope," mightiest of Moliere s come 
dies and worthy of all the acclaim it has 
received, was not an outstanding triumph 
when its author impersonated Alceste and 
it has rarely rewarded the efforts of the 



succession of accomplished actors who 
have tried to follow the footsteps of the 
master; it is praised, it is admired, but it 
does not attract us to the theatre because 
it does not give as abundantly the spe 
cial pleasure that only the theatre can 
bestow as do "Tartuffe" and the 
"Femmes Savantes" and half-a-score of 
Moliere s lighter and less ambitious 
pieces, supported by stories more satis 
factory than that of the "Misanthrope." 
The playwright who is merely a clever 
craftsman of the stage has no higher aim 
than to win the suffrages of his contempo 
raries. He knows what they want for 
he is one of them and he gives them 
what they want, no more and no less. 
He does not put himself into his plays; 
and perhaps his plays would be little 
better if he did. He is strenuously and 
insistently up to date, as the phrase is; 
and as a result he is soon out of date. He 
writes to be in the fashion; and the more 
completely he portrays the fleeting 
modes of the moment, the more swiftly 
must he fall out of fashion. The taste 



476 OLD PLAYS AND NEW PLAYGOERS 

of the day is never the taste of after "Country Wife") all of which reap- 
days; and the journalist-dramatist buys peared because they had appealing plots, 
his evanescent popularity at a price, amusing situations, and lively characters 
Who now is so poor as to pay reverence and because they did not portray the 
to Kotzebue and to Scribe, who once had immorals of the days of Nell Gwyn. 
all the managers at their feet? No Vet when an adroit playwright who 
maker of plays, not Lope de Vega or seeks to please the public of his own time 
Dumas Alexander the Great was more by the representation of its manners, 
fertile than Scribe in the invention of happens to be also a creative artist, 
effective situations, none was ever more enamoured of life, he is sometimes able so 
dextrous in the knotting and unknotting to vitalize his satire of a passing vogue 
of plots, grave and gay. But his fertility that it has abiding vigor. This is what 
and his dexterity have availed him little. Moliere did when he made fun of the 
He wrote for his own time, not for all "Precieuses Ridicules." Even when he 
time. What sprang up in the morning was writing this cleverest of skits, the 
of his career and bloomed brightly in the coterie which had clustered around Ma- 
sunshine, was by nightfall drooping and dame de Rambouillet was disintegrating 
withered and desiccated. and would have disappeared without his 

The comic dramatists of the Restora- bold blows. But affectation is undying; 

tion had perforce to gratify the lewd lik- it assumes new shapes; it is always a 

ings of vicious spectators who wanted to tempting target; and Moliere, by the 

see themselves on the stage even more magic of his genius, transcended his im- 

vicious than they were. Congreve and mediate purpose. He composed a satire 

Wycherly put into their comedies what on one special manifestation of pretense 

their contemporaries relished, a game which survives after two centuries and a 

flavor that stank in the nostrils of all half as an adequate satire of all later 

decent folk. The Puritan shrank with manifestations. The Precieuses in Paris 

horror from the picture in which the Im- have long since been gathered to their 

puritan recognized his own image. So it mothers ; so have the Aesthetes across the 

was that a scant hundred years after channel in London; and soon they will be 

they had insulted the moral sense which, followed to the grave by the Little 

like Truth, though " crushed to earth will Groups of Serious Thinkers who are to- 

rise again; the eternal years of God are day settling the problems of the cosmos 

hers," they were swept from the stage, by the aid of empty phrases. No one sees 

What had delighted under Charles II, the "Precieuses Ridicules" to-day with- 

disgusted under George IV. out recognizing that it is almost as fresh 

Even the frequent attempt to deodor- as it was when Madame de Rambouillet 

ize them failed, for as Sheridan said and enjoyed it. 

he knew by experience since he had made The man of genius is able to please his 
his "Trip to Scarborough" out of the own generation by his depiction of its 
"Relapse" the Restoration comedies foibles and yet to put into his work the 
were "like horses; you rob them of their permanent qualities which make it pleas- 
vice and you rob them of their vigor." ing to the generations that come after 
Charles Lamb, who had a whimsical pre- him. The trick may not be easy, but it 
dilection for them admitted that they can be turned. How it shall be done, 
were "quite extinct on our stage." Con- well, that is one of the secrets of ge- 
greve s pistol no longer discharged its nius. 

steel bullets; and Wycherly no longer In the case of the "Precieuses Ridi- 

knocked his victims down with the butt cules" we can see that Moliere framed a 

of his gun. Yet they died hard; I am old plot for his lively little piece that is per- 

enough to have seen Daly s company in ennially pleasing, a plot which only a lit- 

the "Trip to Scarborough" and the "Re- tie modified was to support two popular 

cruiting Officer," in the "Inconstant," successes nearly two centuries later, the 

in "She Would and She Would Not, "and "Ruy Bias" of Victor Hugo and the 

the "Country Girl" (Garrick s skilful "Lady of Lyons" of Bulwer-Lytton. He 

cleansing of Wycherly s unspeakable tinged his dialogue with just enough time- 



OLD PLAYS AND NEW PLAYGOERS 477 

liness to hit the taste of the town in to do as they were wont to do. What he 

1658; and he did not so surcharge it as gives them to say is rarely the utterance 

to fatigue the playgoers of Paris in 1921. of the characters they were supposed to 

be interpreting; and this is because the 

jj two Dromios are parts only, are not true 

characters, and are scarcely to be ac- 
THE likings of the groundlings who cepted even as types, 
stood in the yard of the Globe Theatre A difference of taste in jests, so George 
when Shakspere began to write plays Eliot declared, is "a great strain on the 
were coarser and grosser than those of the affections;" and it would be insulting to 
burghers whom Moliere had to attract to the creator of Bottom and Falstaff to pre- 
the Petit-Bourbon; and unfortunately tend that we have any affectionate re- 
Shakspere in his earlier efforts was not as gard for Costard and Dull, for Launce and 
cautious as Moliere. In the Falstaff Speed. It is only when Shakspere was 
plays, for example, the fat knight is as coming to the end of his apprenticeship 
alive to-day as when Elizabeth is fabled that he found out how to utilize the tal- 
to have expressed the wish to have him ents of Kempe and of Kempe s unknown 
shown in love. But the talk of his com- comrade in comedy, in parts which, with- 
panions, Nym and Pistol, is too thickly out ceasing to be adjusted to their per- 
bespangled with the tricks of speech of sonalities, were also accusable characters, 
Elizabethan London to interest American Dogberry and Touchstone. But when 
and British theatregoers three hundred we come to Touchstone we are forced to 
years later. There is but a faded appeal perceive that Shakspere was the child of 
in topical allusions which need to be ex- his own age even when he refrains from 
plained before they are appreciated and echoing its catchwords. He is cleaner 
even before they are understood; and in than the majority of his rivals, but he was 
the playhouse itself footnotes are impossi- near enough to Rabelais to be frank of 
ble. speech. On occasion he can be of the 
In his earliest pieces, written during his earth, earthy. He bestows upon Touch- 
arduous apprenticeship to the craft of stone a humor which is at times Rabelai- 
playmaking, when he was not yet sure sian in its breadth, in its outspoken 
of his footing in the theatre, Shakspere plainness of speech, assured of the guf- 
had to provide parts for a pair of popular f aws of the riffraff and rabble of a Tudor 
iun-makers, Will Kempe and another as seaport, but a little too frank for the 
yet unidentified. They were lusty and descendants of the Puritans on either side 
robust comedians, accustomed to set the of the Atlantic to-day. Nearly fifty 
house in a roar as soon as they showed years ago when Harry Beckett was re- 
their cheerful faces. They created the hearsing in "As You Like It" for one of 
two Dromios, the two Gobbos, Launce the infrequent Shaksperian revivals that 
and Speed, Costard and Dull; and it is Lester Wallack ventured to make, he told 
idle to deny that not a little of the talk me sorrowfully that his part had been 
that Shakspere put in their mouths is no sadly shorn, some of Touchstone s best 
longer laughter-provoking; it is not only lines having been sacrificed in deference 
too topical, too deliberately Tudor, it to the increasing squeamishness of Ameri- 
is also too mechanical in its effort at can audiences. 

humor to move us to mirth to-day. Their These accessory comic parts are not 
merry jests, Heaven save the mark ! alone in their readjustment to the modi- 
are not lifted above the level of the patter fying moods of a later age. The point 
of the "sidewalk comedians" of our of view changes with every generation, 
variety-shows. They are frankly clowns ; and with every change a character is 
and Shakspere has set down for them likely to be seen from a different angle, 
what the groundlings expected them to No dramatist, whatever his genius, can 
utter, only little better than the rough foresee the future and forecast the fate of 
repartee and vigorous innuendo and ob- his creatures. The centuries follow one 
vious pun which they would have pro- another in orderly procession, and they 
vided for themselves if they had been free are increasingly unlike. Moreover the 



478 OLD PLAYS AND NEW PLAYGOERS 

dramatist of genius, by the very fact that of Venice " has become in our eyes a Shy- 
he is a genius, is forever building better lock play. In fact, Macready more than 
than he knew. He may put a character threescore years ago used to appear in a 
into a play for a special purpose ; and after three-act version which ended with the 
a century or two that character will loom trial scene, a most inartistic perversion 
larger than its creator dreamed and will of the comedy. After all, the " Merchant 
stand forward, refusing to keep the sub- of Venice" is a comedy, even if its love- 
ordinate place for which it was expressly story is sustained and stiffened by a terri- 
designed. We listen to the lines he utters ble underplot. Plainly Shakspere created 
and we read into them meanings which the abhorrent Shylock that the lovely 
the author could not have intended, but Portia could cleverly circumvent him, and 
which, none the less, are there to be read score off him, and put him to shame. His 
by us. hardness of heart was to make more re- 

We may even accept as tragic a figure fulgent her brightness of soul. Shylock 

whom the playwright expected to be re- was set up to be scorned and hated and 

ceived as comic and who was so received derided; he is a vindictive money-lender, 

by the audience for which the playwright insisting on a horrible penalty; no one in 

wrote. Sometimes this is a betrayal of the play has a good word for him or a 

his purpose, as it is when aspiring French kindly thought; his servant detests him 

actors have seen fit to represent the Fi- and his daughter has no natural affection 

garo of Beaumarchais (in the "Marriage for him. 

of Figaro, "not in the "Barber of Seville") When all is said we cannot but feel 

as the violent and virulent precursor of that Shakspere in his treatment of Shy- 

the French Revolution; or as it is when lock displays a callousness not uncommon 

the same French actors insist on making in Elizabethan England. And yet and 

the Georges Dandin of Moliere a sub- yet Shakspere is true to his genius; he en- 

ject for pity, tear-compelling rather than dows Shylock with life. The Jew stands 

laughter-provoking. before us and speaks for himself; and we 

It is not a betrayal, however, rather is feel that we understand him better than 

it a transfiguration, when the Shylock the genius who made him. Our sym- 

of Shakspere is made to arouse our sym- pathy goes out to him; and, although we 

pathy. I make no doubt that Shakspere do not wish the play to end otherwise than 

projected Shylock as a comic villain, at it does, we are almost ready to regard him 

whom he intended the spectators to laugh as the victim of a miscarriage of justice, 

even if they also shuddered because of his guilty though he is. Ellen Terry quotes 

bloodthirstiness. Yet by sheer stress of from a letter of Henry Irving a significant 

genius this sinister creature, grotesque as confession: "Shylock is a ferocity, I 

he may be, is drawn with such compelling know but I cannot play him that way ! " 

veracity that we cannot but feel for him. Why couldn t he? It was because the 

We are shocked by the insulting jeers of nineteenth century was not the sixteenth, 

Gratiano at the moment of his discomfi- because Victorian audiences were not 

ture. We. are glad that his plot against Elizabethan, because the peoples who 

Antonio has failed; none the less do we have English for their mother-tongue are 

feel that he has been miserably tricked; less callous and more civilized than their 

we are almost ready to resent the way in forebears of three hundred years ago. 
which the cards have been stacked against 

him. m 

To any one who has familiarized him 
self with the attitude of Elizabethan play- WHILE it is more than three hundred 
goers toward usurers and toward the years since Shakspere wrote the "Mer- 
Jews, it is evident that Shakspere in- chant of Venice," it is less than a hundred 
tended the "Merchant of Venice" to be and fifty since Sheridan wrote the " School 
a Portia play; its action begins at Bel- for Scandal." The gap that yawns be- 
mont and ends at Belmont; and Shylock tween us and Sheridan is not so wide or 
is absent from the final act. In spite of so deep as the gulf that divides us from 
this intent of the author, the " Merchant Shakspere; but it is obvious enough. 



OLD PLAYS AND NEW PLAYGOERS 479 

Even a hundred years ago Charles Lamb John Palmer; and Lamb asserted that it 

declared that the audiences of his time required his consummate art "to recon- 

were becoming more and more unlike cile the discordant elements." Then the 

those of Sheridan s day, and that this in- critic suggested, and this was a century 

creasing unlikeness was forcing the ac- ago, that "a player with Jack s talents, 

tors to modify their methods, a little if we had one now, would not dare do the 

against their wills. Sheridan s two bril- part in the same manner. He would 

liant comedies continue to delight us by instinctively avoid every turn which 

their solidity of structure, their vigor of might tend to unrealize, and so to make 

characterization and their insistent sparkle the character fascinating. He must take 

of dialogue. In the "Rivals" Sheridan his cue from the spectators, who would 

is following in the footsteps of his fellow expect a bad man and a good man as 

Irishman, Farquhar, and in the " School rigidly opposed to each other as the death- 

for Scandal" he is matching himself beds of those geniuses are contrasted in 

against Congreve. In both he was carry- the prints." 

ing on the tradition of Restoration com- A little later in the same essay the in- 
edy, with its cold-heartedness, its hard comparable analysis of "Artificial Corn- 
glitter, its delineation of modes rather edy" Lamb pointed out that "Charles 
than morals. It is perhaps too much to must be loved and Joseph hated," add- 
assert that most of his characters are un- ing that "to balance one disagreeable 
feeling; but it is not too much to say that reality with another, Sir Peter Teazle 
they are regardless of the feelings of must be no longer the comic idea of a 
others, perhaps because their own emo- fretful old bachelor bridegroom, whose 
tions are only skin-deep. teasings (while King played it) were 

It is true that in the " Rivals " Sheridan evidently as much played off at you as 

threw a sop to the admirers of Senti- they were meant to concern anybody on 

mental Comedy and introduced a couple the stage, he must be a real person, 

of high-strung and weepful lovers, Falk- capable in law of sustaining an injury, 

land and Julia, who are forever senti- a person toward whom duties are to be 

mentalizing. But this precious pair have acknowledged, the genuine crim. con. 

been found so uninteresting that in most antagonist of the villainous seducer 

of the later performances of the "Rivals" Joseph. To realize him more, his suffer- 

all too infrequent, alas ! they have ings under his unfortunate match must 

been omitted altogether or disgraced by have the downright pungency of life, 

relegation to the background. must (or should) make you not mirthful 

The vogue of Sentimental Comedy was but uncomfortable, just as the same pre- 

waning when Sheridan wrote and it disap- dicament would move you in a neighbor 

peared before he died, yet the playgoers or old friend." 

of London and of New York were becom- I cannot count the number of occasions 

ing more tender-hearted than their ances- when I have enjoyed the performance of 

tors who had delighted in the metallic the "School for Scandal," but they 

harshness of character-delineation cus- must amount to a score at the least. I 

tomary in Restoration comedy. They recall most clearly John Gilbert s Sir 

were beginning to look for characters Peter; and I can testify that he had pre- 

with whom they could sympathize and to served the tradition of King. He was 

desire the villains to remain consistent the fretful old bachelor bridegroom, who, 

in their villainy. They were unwilling when the screen fell and discovered Lady 

to remain in what Lamb termed "the re- Teazle in the library of Joseph Surface, 

gions of pure comedy, where no cold was wounded not in his heart but in his 

moral reigns." Lamb called the " School vanity. He preserved the comic idea, as 

for Scandal" incongruous in that it is Sheridan had designed. But John Gil- 

"a mixture of sentimental incompatibili- bert was the only Sir Peter I can recall 

ties," Charles Surface being "a pleasant who was able to achieve this histrionic 

reality" while Joseph Surface was "a no feat, 

less pleasant poetical foil to it." Of all the many Lady Teazles it has 

The original performer of Joseph was been my good fortune to see, Fanny 



480 



OLD PLAYS AND NEW PLAYGOERS 



Davenport stands out most sharply in 
my memory, perhaps because she was 
the first I had ever beheld and perhaps 
because she was then in the springtime 
of her buoyant beauty. Certainly when 
the screen fell she was a lovely picture, 
like Niobe all tears. Her repentance was 
sincere beyond all question. She re 
nounced the comic idea, which is that 
Lady Teazle has been caught in a com 
promising situation by the elderly hus 
band with whom she is in the habit of 
quarrelling. Fanny Davenport saw only 
the pathos of the situation ; and she made 
us see it, and feel it, and feel for her, and 
hope that her impossible husband would 
accept her honest explanation, the ex 
planation which indeed he would have to 
accept since we as eye-witnesses are 
ready to testify that it is the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 

But this rendering of the part is dis 
composing to the comic idea; and it 
forces a modification of method upon the 
actor of Charles Surface. It is in def 
erence to the comic idea that when the 
screen falls Sheridan made Charles see the 
humor of the situation and only the 
humor of it. He is called upon to chaff 
Sir Peter and Lady Teazle and Joseph, 
one after the other. If the actor speaks 
these lines with due regard to the comic 
idea which created Sir Peter as a peevish 
old bachelor bridegroom and Lady Teazle 
as a frivolous woman of fashion, and if 
the actor of Sir Peter and the actress of 
Lady Teazle take the situation not only 
seriously but pathetically, as they would 
in a twentieth-century problem-play, 
then Charles s speech is heartless and 
almost brutal. Now Charles is a char 
acter as sympathetic to the audience in 
his way as Lady Teazle is in hers. 
Charles is to be loved as Joseph is to be 
hated. And so the impersonator of 
Charles is compelled to modify his meth 
od, to transpose his lines and to recognize 
that the robust raillery natural to him and 
appropriate to the predicament must be 
toned down in deference to our more deli 
cate susceptibilities. 

He laughs at Sir Peter first; and then 
he turns to Joseph, who is fair game, and 



whom the spectators are glad to see held 
up to scorn. He says "you seem all to 
have been diverting yourselves here at 
hide-and-seek and I don t see who is out 
of the secret." With this he turns to 
Lady Teazle and asks, " Shall I beg your 
ladyship to inform me?" So saying, he 
looks at her and, perceiving that she is 
standing silent and ashamed, with down 
cast eyes, he makes her a bow of apolo 
gy for his levity. Finally, with another 
thrust at his brother, the unmasked hypo 
crite, he takes his departure airily, leaving 
them face to face. If the comic idea suf 
fers from this departure from the intent 
of the comic dramatist, it must find what 
consolation it can in its sense of humor. 

IV 

A LARGE share of the success of even 
the masterpieces of the drama, comic and 
tragic, is due to the coincidence of its 
theme and its treatment with the desires, 
the opinions, and the prejudices of the 
contemporary audiences for whose plea 
sure it was originally planned. But the 
play, comic or tragic, as the case may be, 
can survive through the ages, as the 
"Merchant of Venice" and the "School 
for Scandal" have survived, only if this 
compliance has not been subservient, if 
the play has the solidity of structure and 
the universality of topic which will win 
it a welcome after its author is dead and 
gone. What is contemporary is three 
parts temporary and what is up-to-date 
is certain soon to be out-of-date. Never 
theless it is always the audience of his 
own time and of his own place that the 
playwright has to please, first of all; and 
if their verdict is against him he has lost 
his case. Plays have their fates no less 
than books; and the dispensers thereof 
are the spectators assembled in the play 
house. The dramatist who ignores this 
fact, or who is ignorant of it, does so at 
his peril. As Lowell once put it with his 
wonted pungency, "the pressure of pub 
lic opinion is like the pressure of the 
atmosphere; you cannot see it, but it is 
sixteen pounds to the square inch all the 
same." 



The Gallows-Tree 



BY SHAW DESMOND 

Author of "Democracy," "Passion," "Gods," etc. 




HE country was "up," 
and the people were 
dying by famine, the 
bullet, and the noose. 
There was not a hill 
side which had not its 
gutted cabin, nor a 
valley where the 
scaldy crows did not gorge themselves on 
their horrid food. 

It was the year of the great rebellion. 
The shadows lengthened in the court 
house as the autumn day drew to its close, 
and ever as they lengthened the noose 
tightened around the throat of Michael 
Quinlan. 

There he stood in the dock, a tall, for 
bidding-looking young man, with blue- 
black hair and straight brows, drawn 
frowningly over the eyes that burned in 
his head like coals of fire. On the bench 
there was a splash of scarlet which loomed 
threateningly athwart the shadows. An 
other patch of color near the prisoner 
showed where a file of English redcoats 
guarded the dock. A great silence hung 
over the crowded court, as the trial en 
tered on its final stage. 

The evidence had all been against him. 
The body of Major Haslam had been 
found in the Gurteen fall of the Black- 
water, the throat savagely hacked. Quin 
lan had been seen in the company of the 
murdered man just before his death, and 
the last link in the chain of evidence had 
been completed by the blood-stained 
knife which had been found on him when 
arrested, to which, curiously enough, was 
tied a lock of woman s hair. True that 
he stoutly denied his guilt; nor was any 
motive evident, as he had no quarrel with 
the major, whose body when found re 
tained its valuables. But he could not 
account for his movements on the day in 
question. 

Not, indeed, that in 98 they were very 
particular about evidence. Examples had 
VOL. LXXI. 31 



to be made, and the gallows-tree hung 
rotten with its fruit. 

The prisoner s counsel had resumed his 
seat with the air of a man who knows that 
he pleads a hopeless cause. The crown 
prosecutor had done his work effectively, 
and there remained nothing further but 
the summing up and the sentence. 

Crouching near the prisoner, rocking 
herself slowly to and fro, her head in her 
hands, was a young girl. As she raised 
her head to look at her lover she revealed 
a face of a strange beauty, her blue eyes 
in strong contrast to the pallor of her face. 
By her side sat an old woman whose hair 
writhed round her face like a nest of 
snakes. 

The judge commenced his summing up. 
In even, passionless tones he reviewed the 
case. Resistlessly, the words were ground 
from his lips, as though he were speaking 
of something in which he had no concern. 

"Prisoner at the bar, if you have any 
thing to say why sentence of death should 
not be passed upon you, now is the time 
to speak." 

Michael Quinlan looked steadily at the 
judge, then around the court until his gaze 
rested on the girl who sat near him. 

" You give me leave to speak, and I will 
speak, though they are my last words on 
earth. You are hanging an innocent man 
but never fear, you will do what you 
are sent to do, for you are paid for it. 
Sure, isn t murder your trade and hanging 
your business? All around the country 
are the signs of your bloody work, and 
of those whom you stand for burned 
cabins, gallows-trees, outraged women. 
If Haslam was killed, he got no more 
than he deserved; but I swear, as God and 
His blessed saints are my witnesses, that 
I had no hand in it. Guilty or innocent, 
it makes no difference. The gallows 
must have meat, and you are the butcher 
who supplies it. Do your dirty work and 
be damned to you." 

481 



482 



THE GALLOWS-TREE 



The judge listened with impassive face, 
and, as the prisoner concluded, he took 
the black cap in his hands before pro 
nouncing the death sentence, when a 
shriek cut the stillness. 

"O God ! don t send him to his death. 
O Michael, Michael they dare not touch 
you they shall not touch you !" 

The girl had risen and stood with her 
hooded cloak thrown back from her shoul 
ders, her hands clenched despairingly, her 
eyes staring wildly. 

She was forced back by two soldiers, 
and the judge went on as though nothing 
had happened. 

" It is the sentence of the court, Michael 
Quinlan, that you be taken from hence to 
the place from which you came, and that 
you be hanged by the neck at daybreak 
on the morning of " 

"Hold on, my lord!" 

A tall, powerfully built man elbowed 
his way through the crowded court to the 
front of the dock. 

The judge frowned, and motioned to 
the soldiers to take him away, but he 
went on: 

" You are sentencing an innocent man. 
It was I who killed Major Haslam." 

The onlookers craned forward to view 
the interrupter, whilst an old woman, 
standing in the well of the court, cried 
out: 

"Desmond, Desmond what are ye 
saying? Is it mad that you are?" 

The man turned round. 

" Be quiet, mother. I know what I am 
doing well enough." 

The judge called for silence, and asked 
the man to be sworn, when the book was 
handed to him and the oath administered. 

In short, hurried sentences, as though 
he were repeating a lesson, he stated that 
he had met the dead man near the Gur- 
teen fall on the evening of the igih of 
October, and that he had accused him of 
attempting to insult Mary McCarthy, 
the girl who sat near him, whose story 
was well known round the countryside. 
Angry words had ensued, when he had 
drawn a knife from his hip-strap and 
slashed the major s throat, afterwards 
throwing the body into the Gurteen fall. 

He was closely examined by the judge, 
but his story held firm. 

Michael Quinlan looked at him curi 



ously, as though not able to credit his 
senses, for the two men were deadly 
enemies. 

Wasn t it known all over the district 
that they had been rivals for the hand 
of Mary McCarthy, who, with the con 
trariness of her sex, had decided in favor 
of "Black Michael," as he was called, 
the man about whom such curious stories 
were whispered, who was more than sus 
pected of being an informer in the pay 
of the English Government, and who 
was hated? Her decision had left Des 
mond heart-broken, and, as the people 
said, " Sure it was he that was the changed 
man since Mary McCarthy looked the 
wrong way on him." 

The girl turned her eyes on Michael, 
and going up to Desmond she put her 
hands through the dock-rail into his, say 
ing: "May God bless you for this day s 
work, Desmond you have saved an inno 
cent man and have rid the country of a 
black-hearted scoundrel." 

There was nothing to be done but to reT 
lease the man in the dock, who walked 
through the crowd, whose curses were 
flung at him as he went out. 

But it was a shame, a shame, the people 
said. To think of a fine young man like 
Desmond O Riordan to put his neck in 
the noose with a blackguard like that 
Michael Quinlan going free. Sure the 
country could have spared one much 
better than the other. It was too bad 
entirely. 

Desmond O Riordan was sentenced to 
death by hanging in the same dock which 
had just held Michael Quinlan. The 
death penalty was to be carried out in the 
great square of Fermoy at dawn two days 
later. 

It was the black night for Desmond 
O Riordan in his cell in the Fermoy jail. 
Lying on his back in the pitchy darkness, 
he could see the bars of his cell limned 
faintly against the starry sky. 

Ever and again through the window 
came the sound of hammering. Tick- 
tack, tick-tack. But they were doing 
their work well, never fear. The work 
that was to swing him into eternity. 

Tick-tack, tick-tack. 

How the sound cut through the dark 
night ! The voices of men came fitfully 



THE GALLOWS-TREE 



483 



to his ears, with now and then a laugh or 
a ribald jest. 

Blessed Mother in heaven, what kind of 
men were they at all, at all, to make 
ready the death of a man with a jest on 
their lips ! 

Tick-tack, tick-tack. 

His mind drifted away to the story his 
mother used to tell him when a little gos 
soon, about the duricaune, or fairy cob 
bler, with a foxglove on his head, who 
makes his natty little brogues under the 
shadow of a hedge. It was often he had 
heard him at work down by the Black- 
water, and the tick-tack of his hammer 
on the brogues. Tick-tack, tick-tack. 

Then his mind ran to the curious 
earthy scent of the river of the eels he 
used to catclv of the speckled trout that 
swam so coolly in the deep pools. 

He saw himself a little boy again, going 
to be taught at the monastery saw him 
self growing to manhood, and then- 
There was a grip at his heart as the 
thought of Mary came to him of the day 
when he had seen her barefooted going 
down to the well at Ballyvoyle when 
the joy of life had filled his heart. He 
knew then, as he knew now, that without 
her the world would be a dead place. 

Michael, Black Michael, had come 
along, with the strong, compelling ways 
of him, and the fierce look in his dark 
eyes, and he saw the hope of his life ex 
tinguished like a candle that you puff out 
with a breath. It was up at the farm 
that Mary had first met Black Michael, 
and he saw the light fade out of her eyes 
and the smile from her lips. But it was 
quick and merciful. He knew then that 
love was finished for him. 

It was a queer world entirely. Here he 
was in a felon s cell a few hours before his 
execution and by his own will. For 
what did he free his rival ? With Michael 
out of the way he might have won the 
girl to himself. What a fool he was ! 
Better make sure of a few years of life and 
love here whatever might come here 
after. Better sweet hell with her than 
the mansions of the blessed in heaven ! 

And it was not yet too late. He could 
deny it all say that he was tired of his 
life without the girl, and welcomed death 
to release him from his sufferings. And 
it would be true it would be true. 



There came to him the look in her eyes 
the dawning of hope when he had de 
clared his guilt. How it hurt him ! But 
her smile of gratefulness was worth it all. 

And sure his death would be quick. 
Hanging was not a long business. True, 
when they hanged Lanty O Callaghan, he 
was cut down twice with his neck un 
broken, and they had to string him up 
again. But surely the hangman would 
give him the long drop so as to make cer 
tain, and he was a heavier man than 
Lanty. They used to be sayin . . . 

What was that? 

Steps came along the corridor. They 
stopped outside his door, which was flung 
open. Out of the darkness came a figure 
dimly outlined by the rays of a lantern 
it was the jailer with another figure be 
hind him. 

They might have spared him this ! It 
was his mother. 

" Oh, Desmond, Desmond ! " was all the 
poor woman could say as she threw her 
self into his arms. 

"Mother what brought you here? 
Sure you need not make it harder for me 
than it is." 

" Desmond, you never did it," she cried. 
" You never did it you that I nursed at 
my breast you the curly-haired little 
gossoon that grew up in the shelter of my 
arms, that were the joy of my life, and 
that every one loved. Desmond, darlin , 
tell me you did not do it you must, you 
must." 

" Sure, mother, there is no use in talk- 
in . What happened is between me and 
my God. I have made my choice, and I 
must go through with what I have 
begun." 

The old woman threw back the cloak 
from her shoulders, her wisps of gray hair 
lying disordered upon her face. She 
looked at him steadily. 

"Listen to me, my son. Do ye think 
that your mother does not know better 
than to think you would raise your hand 
to take away the life? Do ye think I 
brought you into the world in anguish, 
and reared you in joy, not to know the 
heart of you? You can deceive a court 
full of lawyers sure it is their business 
to deceive and to be deceived you can 
make a licensed slaughterer put the noose 
about your neck, but you cannot deceive 



484 



THE GALLOWS-TREE 



your old mother. You never put the 
knife into Haslam. That was never your 
way. When you fought you fought 
with the bare fist like an honest boy, and 
not like Black Michael may his soul be 
cursed forever. Why are you doing this ? 
What object have you in the world? 
For the love of God give up the thought 
and come back to me and to life." 

"Oh, mother, mother!" was wrung 
from the man, who turned away from her, 
his face working convulsively. 

"If your mother cannot move you, I 
will bring her that can." She went to the 
door and called: "Come here, alannah." 

Mary McCarthy entered the cell, her 
face of chalky whiteness. She came up 
to Desmond and reached down for his 
hand, which she held in both of her own. 

"Desmond," said she, "your mother 
tells me that she does not believe you 
killed this man. It is broken, my heart 
is, with it all, and if you are set free they 
will hang my Michael. But I cannot 
leave arijnnocent man go to his death by 
the slipping-knot if I can save him. Did 
you do it, alannah?" 

At the word of endearment, Desmond 
almost gave way, and a great tenderness 
crept into his eyes. 

"Mary," said he, "there was a time 
when I dared to hope that you might 
come to love the boy who gave his heart 
to you because he could not help himself. 
Sure, often when the dawn of the summer s 
sun came through the window of a morn 
ing, I saw the two of us as one, with the 
little colleens and gossoons growing up 
about us. But sure, girl, that is all over 
now, and I have put it behind me with 
the other things. The good God did not 
mean it to be. Leave me to go my way 
alone the journey is one which you 
could not lighten if you would. It won t 
take long anyways, and they do be say- 
in that it is an easy way to die." 

The man drew himself up, his eyes 
glistening. 

"Better to die on the scaffold for rid 
ding the world of Haslam than to die 
peacefully in bed." 

"Desmond, Desmond my heart is 
torn," said the girl, "and I don t under 
stand myself, but now that you are going 
I feel that I can never be happy again. 
It is Michael that has my heart, but you 



have my affection and my respect. I will 
pray for the soul of the boy who went to 
his death because of the insult they put 
upon a defenseless girl, and it is his rest 
ing-place that will be kept green by my 
hands as his memory will be green in my 
heart. Desmond, what am I to do at all, 
at all!" 

The man smiled gently as he put his 
hand on the head of the girl. 

"Go back, now, Mary, and take your 
rest. It is only a few hours that I have 
to make my peace with God, and I ask 
you not to come at the last. Take my 
mother home with you, and care for her 
as long as she lives. After all, what does 
it matter whether I go now or fifty years 
hence ? Good-by, alannah, and may the 
heavens be your bed this night and for 
ever!" 

The girl turned her face up to his, and, 
taking his head in both her hands, she 
kissed him on the forehead and went out 
of the cell. 

The man turned to his mother. 

"Good-by, mother. Sure, if it be the 
will of the blessed saints, we will meet 
yet in heaven. Give the shake-hands for 
me to all the boys and girls I used to 
know. Good-by." 

The woman clung to his arm with the 
strength of despair, but he loosened her 
arms gently and she was taken out of the 
cell by the jailer. 

The hour of his first trial had passed 
now for the last one of all. 

Outside in the darkness he could hear 
the "cheep-cheep" of an awakening bird. 
He looked through the cell window. 
Surely there was a grayness in the sky, 
and the stars had paled. The note of the 
bird was taken up by another, until the 
air was vibrant with the music. 

When he used to go birds-nesting 
in Colligan Wood God be with the 
times 

The cell door opened again, to admit a 
priest. It was Father Power, the man 
who prepared him for his first com 
munion, and who had christened him. 

"Desmond, my poor boy, it is terrible 
to find you like this," he said. "Little 
did I think in the old days that you would 
ever come to it." 

"Father, sure it is I that have the great 
sorrow to see you like this. But all that 



THE GALLOWS-TREE 485 

I have to ask now is that you will con- stones as they walked towards the gate 

fess me, and give me the last consolations leading to the square. 

of religion." The rising sun threw its beams into the 

The confession must have been long prisoner s face. He looked steadfastly 
drawn, for the priest did not come out of on the sky. Somewhere up above, a lark 
the cell for a long time, and when he did was singing in the clear air, whilst in the 
his face was wet with tears. distance the silver ribbon of the Black- 
Desmond had made his peace with God, water wound in and out toward Lismore. 
and he was at rest in himself. A sullen roar, like the muttering of a 

The dawn crept into his cell as he sea, met him as he stepped out into the 

waited for the last dread messenger of all. light. 

The hammers had ceased. Outside his Merciful heavens! every one in the 

window he could hear the hushed voices country had come to see him die. The 

of a multitude, like the sound of the wind square was black with the people, who 

in the trees. Every now and again the pressed upon the ranks of the soldiers, 

sob of a woman would rise above the Then, at a breath, there fell a great 

whispering. silence as the little body took its way 

In the distance he heard the tramp of through the long files of redcoats, whose 

men. It came closer and closer. bayonets glistened under the rays of the 

"Halt!" sun. 

The grounding of muskets outside his The priest s voice, reciting the prayers 

door and the drawing of the bolts. Into for the dying in Latin, alone broke the 

the cell came the governor of the prison stillness. In the centre of the square was 

an Englishman, but a man who concealed the goal of the procession. Gaunt, black, 

a kindly heart under a forbidding exterior, forbidding, it fitted its work, 

as is the way sometimes of his race. A rope swayed ever so little in the airs 

"O Riordan," said he, "I am sorry to of the morning. 

come on this errand, but I must do my "Oh, the crature look at his face for 

duty." the love of God!" 

"That is all right, sir," said Desmond, " Sure it is the face of a martyr or of one 

smiling at him, "you must only do what of the blessed saints." 

you have to do. Maybe," he went on, " God save you, Desmond alannah, and 

"it is the welcome visit that you are pay- make the journey light before you." 

ing me, after all. Though I m not old, " Oh, the little gossoon that of ten I had 

it is not glad with life that I am." on my knee !" 

The governor motioned to the hang- The cries came dully to the ears of 

man, who stood behind him, to come for- Desmond, 

ward with his shackles. A man stared at him from the crowd, 

"Sir," said Desmond quickly, "I will his arms crossed on his breast. As Des- 

ask you one favor. Don t be after send- mond passed he said: "You sent him to 

ing me to the scaffold like a felon the pit that was ready for him, and there 

shackled and bound. Let me walk free will be a bloody reckoning for this morn- 

in the light of day." ing s work." The soldiers looked for the 

"Will you give me your word as a man speaker, but he had disappeared, 

not to try to escape?" asked the gov- They were near the end now, and the 

ernor. crowd was again hushed into silence. 

"I will, that same, sir sure it would- Desmond felt a great joy in his heart, 

n t be like a man that put his own neck walking as though he were going to his 

in the cord to draw it out when he saw wedding. The thought came to his mind 

it dangling foreninst him." that it was a beautiful morning for dying 

The little procession , formed up, a file and for dying inj.the good cause, 

of soldiers going first, followed by the They came to the foot of the scaffold, 

prisoner, by whose side the priest read On the last step were seated two women 

the prayers for the dying, whilst another Mary McCarthy and his mother, 

file of soldiers completed the party. Their eyes were dry as though they had 

The feet echoed hollowly on the flag- wept all their tears away. 



486 



THE GALLOWS-TREE 



Desmond bent down to embrace his 
mother for the last time. She remained 
clasped in his arms for a moment there 
was a hurriedly spoken message and he 
placed her in the arms of the girl, mount 
ing the scaffold as though he were mount 
ing an altar. 

From above them came the trilling of 
the lark, which was now falling from the 
vault of high heaven, its song ringing out 
with startling clearness. As it sank to rest 
the music gradually died away. It was 
his requiem. 

The hangman came forward to bandage 
the eyes, after which his ankles and hands 
were pinioned, and the coil of rope placed 
round his bare throat. He shuddered 
a little as the slip-knot kissed his neck. 

All at once on the air was borne the 
terrible sound of the Irish keen. The 
voices of the women blended in the death- 
song, rising shrilly on the morning breeze. 
Louder and yet louder it swelled, and then 
died away into the stillness. 

The crowd was silent as the man stood 
there with bandaged eyes, the priest by 
his side offering him the last consolations 
of his faith. 

With a quick movement the hangman 
stepped back from his victim to put his 
hand on the bolt which would launch him 
into eternity. 

"Stop!" 

A man burst from the crowd as the man 
hesitated, and mounted rapidly the steps 
of the scaffold. The people saw with a 
great wonder that it was Black Michael. 

"You are hanging an innocent man," 
he cried. "It was I that cut the throat 
of Major Haslam." 

The governor motioned to the hang 



man to stand back, O Riordan still wait 
ing with the bandage on his eyes. 

"Listen, people of Fermoy," cried 
Michael, "listen to the black-hearted in 
former who nearly let an innocent man 
go to the gallows-tree. And the confes 
sion is easy, for I have endured the tor 
tures of hell since the trial, and since the 
black day I sold myself to the English as 
an informer, taking the blood-money like 
Judas of old. It was I that sent Lanty 
O Callaghan to his death, and Patrick 
O Sullivan and John MacCormack. But 
I did one good deed I killed Haslam be 
cause he tried to harm the woman I loved, 
and it was a deed that will swing in the 
balance against those others on the day 
of the final reckoning. I am not ashamed 
of it, and I will answer for it to the great 
Judge of all. I knew on the day of the 
trial that Desmond O Riordan was willing 
to give his life for the sake of the girl, in 
order that I might be saved to her. That 
is the truth as I hope for heaven ! " 

The girl had risen from her seat on the 
gallows steps, the light of a new under 
standing shining through her eyes. In a 
moment she had climbed them and had 
thrown her arms around the neck of the 
pinioned man with the selfishness of a 
great love. 

Then she remembered, as she turned 
her eyes on Michael, now surrounded by 
the redcoats, whose eyes were fixed on 
her. She went over to him, knelt at his 
feet, and kissed his hands. 

" Oh, Michael," said she, " what am I to 
say to you who have given up your life ! " 

"Though I have lost my life and my 
love, alannah, I have saved my soul," 
said the man simply. 





The Incorrigible Optimist 

BY JAMES HENDRIE LLOYD, M.D. 

Author of "Mental Contagion and Popular Crazes," etc. 



I 



T is said that Charles 
James Fox did not like 
to see his speeches in 
print; the contact with 
cold type must have 
taken some of the af 
flatus out of them. 
This dismal effect of 
printing is seen not unfrequently in our 
own day. To the physician it is best ex 
plainable by the somewhat kindred proc 
ess which takes place in cold storage. 
Something has been lost, a flavor or excel 
lence intangible and not easily named 
but there is an ugly reality left which 
somehow has to serve the purposes of 
alimentation. It is this ugly reality which 
to the scientific mind is often the crux of 
the whole problem. 

Our present-day civilization is largely 
concerned with such problems namely, 
the realities which are left over after the 
idealists and optimists have ceased from 
their favorite tasks of talking and writing 
fine things about them. But it may be 
thought that a physician is venturing on 
dangerous ground, and not his own terri 
tory, when he, too, presumes to write about 
them. This, however, is an error, because 
in mental pathology there are cases pre 
sented which are precisely like the cases 
of some of our incorrigible optimists. 

This pathological variety is called by 
the specialists a "hypomaniac," that is to 
say, he is not a full-fledged maniac; he is 
only an understudy. His usual charac 
teristic is extreme optimism, a tendency 
to see things not as they exist, and to 
govern his conduct accordingly. In this 
mental affection (the hypomania of Men 
del) the patient shows an unwonted gar 
rulity, restlessness, motiveless journey 
ing from one place to another, emotional 
instability, the formation of schemes, a 
slight degree of incoherence, and an in 
capacity for the performance of continued 
fine mental labor. " After a paroxysm of 
this kind, sometimes lasting for weeks or 



months, he may return to his normal 
state, although frequently the finer edge 
of his mental faculties has been blunted 
by the brain-storm, and he has become 
less acute, less intrinsically ethical, and 
less receptive of external impressions." * 
In this definition two things are ap 
parent. There is, first, the emotional in 
stability. If the hypomaniac s mental 
state is analyzed critically, it is found 
that the basis of it is a disturbed state of 
the emotions. The slight disorder of the 
other mental faculties, such as the per 
ceptions and the intelligence, has its origin 
very largely in a morbid activity of what 
is known as the affective or emotional 
life. This is shown in the erratic, or irra 
tional, impulses which guide his conduct 
and the sentimentalism which discolors 
his views of things in general. Not to be 
too technical, it may be pointed out in 
passing (and it ought to be easily under 
stood by any intelligent reader) that, ac 
cording to the modern school of psycholo 
gists, this affective or emotional life is the 
fundamental thing in the minds of all of 
us. In the lower animals we call these 
things instincts; in children they are im 
pulses; in grown man and woman they 
are motives. They manifest themselves 
long before the development of the higher 
reasoning faculties, and all through life 
they constitute the larger part of our 
mental activities. Among the more 
primitive of them are hunger, self-pres 
ervation, pleasure and pain, hope and 
fear, love and hate, and the instincts of 
sex, family, tribe, or race-preservation. 
Mental pathologists constantly find that 
the disorders of these primitive instincts 
are among the earliest manifestations of 
mental disease. All these instincts centre 
about what is called the personality the 
sense of the ego. In fact, they largely con 
stitute the essential elements of character 
in most people, and are especially undis- 



* Berkley, "Mental Diseases," p. 144, 
description, slightly altered, is taken. 



from whom this 



487 



488 THE INCORRIGIBLE OPTIMIST 

guised in unsophisticated, unthinking and the universe in a whole book, in which in 

half-educated people. They are the stig- his attractive style he expounded the phi- 

mata of man in his natural state. Ac- losophy of a naturalist which is a good 

cording to his reactions to them, his mas- enough philosophy in its way, if it is taken 

tery of or by them, man is, or is not, at in small doses. But John Burroughs 

his best. swallowed it whole, and announced him- 

It is, indeed, his method of reacting to self a pantheist; by which he probably 
his instincts that introduces, secondly, meant no more than that he was satisfied 
the big question of ethics. In the above with nature as he found her; he was not 
definition of the hypomaniac it was ob- therefore necessarily an optimist, nor was 
served that this unfortunate person be- he in a hypomaniacal state of mind about 
comes "less intrinsically ethical." In the object of his love. Burroughs had too 
other words, he suffers in his moral sense, much good sense for that. His devotion 
This is so well recognized by mental pa- to nature was sane. On the other hand, 
thologists that some of them have even Goethe, we are told, turned to nature as 
called this kind of mental disease "moral a relief from human life. "He found in 
insanity." About this term there is some- her, or thought he found, order and per- 
times waged a war in our courts of law, fection, but in human history he found a 
when the attempt is made to exculpate confused tale of error and violence. He 
some hypomaniac whose excursions in could only tolerate it in so far as it en- 
idealism have brought him into conflict ablesus to get rid of the past." * In other 
with the criminal law. They are hard words, the nature-lover gets rid of the 
problems, as every expert knows who has ethical problems which so weigh down 
ever tried his hand at expounding this the soul of the student of human life, 
kind of psychology to a judge and jury. This relief to his spirits gives him a won- 
Alienists who are fond of discussing types derf ul buoyancy. He becomes an opti- 
will say that some of these offenders mist. Everything in nature is for the 
should be called paranoiacs; and others best. He sees a hawk kill a pigeon, but 
of them have been called emotional luna- the spectacle rouses no ethical protest in 
tics. But these distinctions may safely him. He may feel rather sorry for the 
be left to the debating societies. pigeon, but he also feels rather an admira- 

The ethical sense is a late arrival in the tion for the hawk; each is playing its ap- 
evolution both of the race and of the in- propriate part in the beautiful drama of 
dividual. In primitive man and in chil- nature the pigeon in getting killed, the 
dren, it is largely undeveloped; in the hawk in getting a dinner, 
abnormal man, such as the hypomaniac, Now this way of looking at nature is 
it is usually perverted. Contrary to what from the hypomaniac s point of view. It 
is commonly taught, it is not an innate is deliberately ignoring realities, and sub- 
faculty, for it is still in process of evolu- stituting for them a sentimental idealism, 
tion in the history of the race. Goethe s appeal to nature as against hu- 

Consider the case of the naturalist, man life is only a poet s license, for, in 
There is, for instance, the perfectly honest reality, nature is cruel and pitiless. There 
nature-lover (not the nature-fakir) who is no ground for his claim that he can find 
simply cannot bear to get into a contro- in her a superior order, much less perfec- 
versy with his mistress, and so he ignores tion, especially in a moral sense; and his 
any hard problems that she may thrust plea is of use only to save the face of the 
upon him. He accepts her, whatever her incorrigible optimist, 
defects. His mood is like that ascribed If anything is clear in the history of hu- 
to Margaret Fuller, who is reported to man thought, it is that some of the best 
have said, "I accept the universe" minds have not accepted the universe, 
which having been repeated to Carlyle, Carlyle himself only accepted the uni- 
the old seer exclaimed: "My God, she d verse with limitations; he always re- 
better !" . The story may be apocryphal, served to himself the right of prescribing 
but it is as good as most of the fables told the conditions. The one thing that he 
by the nature-worshippers. lohn Bur- 

V -i-i i r v- j ,ir j *G. Lowes Dickinson, in a review of the life of Goethe by 

rOUghs, awhile before hlS death, accepted p. Huhn Brown, Athenaum, January 21, 1921, p. 68. 



THE INCORRIGIBLE OPTIMIST 489 

would exclude from his universe was cant, radicalism, the casting aside of old stand- 
There was no place in his sorry scheme of ards, the setting up of "idealisms" with- 
things for people who substitute words out number, and the supreme role of 
for things, formulas for realities. Take emotionalism. Hence, also, the wisdom 
the case of the ancient stoic. He seems, of scrutinizing, as never before, the aims 
indeed, to have accepted the universe, of the champions of various kinds of 
but he neither asked nor expected much empirical socialism. There never yet was 
from it, so he was not often disappointed, prepared such a stage for the hypomaniac 
He had no delusions about it, but his as the world presents to-day, 
mental attitude was that of a man who Take the extreme doctrines of democ- 
thought himself on a level just a little racy. There is really very little support 
above it. He was one thing, the universe for them in the " cosmic process," for na- 
was another. He could not cope with ture is not democratic ; she is aristocratic, 
it, but he preserved an aloofness which The best is none too good for her; she is 
was a fine mental poise, and has charac- not even satisfied with a fair average; and 
terized some of the best both of pagan in order to attain her ends she ruthlessly 
and Christian philosophers. Marcus Au- sacrifices the inferior, the unfit. Wher- 
relius exclaimed: "What is it to me to ever she has evolved a social state, it has 
live in a universe devoid of gods?" The been among the lower forms of life, such 
mental attitude of some of the Christian as in the ant-hill or the beehive. But this 
fathers,, if they are fairly quoted, was one state has been founded on a rigid system 
of extreme hostility to the world. They of caste, for entomologists tell us that in 
were pessimists of the deepest dye. This the ant-hill there is a system of class gov- 
world, for them, was a hopeless case, ernment, composed of the breeders, the 
Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, de- soldiers, the workers, and the slaves; and 
cided, on philosophical principles, that " of that no individual by any chance can 
all conceivable worlds this was the worst." elevate itself from a lower to a higher 
Huxley treated this subject from the grade. All is fixed. The polity of an ant- 
point of view of the layman and the scien- hill is a more monstrous thing than Hindu 
tist, and in a memorable essay described caste. It is impossible to see how the 
the antagonism of the "cosmic process" optimist can find any comfort in the con- 
to ethics. By the "cosmic process" he templation of such a work of nature ; but 
evidently meant what is generally called he goes on his way, and ignores the ob- 
" nature," and his argument amounted vious. 

practically to this, that man can find little The hypomaniac, although weakened 
support for his moral ideas in the works of in his moral sense, is prone to engage in 
nature. Huxley was so far from accept- moral schemes. These seem to have an 
ing the universe that he even claimed that irresistible attraction for him. As already 
the only hope for civilization lay in man s said, he is incapable of sustained intellec- 
opposing the cosmic process. If this is tual labor; he cannot think a thing out 
true (and every one must judge for him- to its logical conclusions. But moral con- 
self), it would seem to follow that man s cepts are more easily grasped than corn- 
moral nature is something that has plex intellectual ones. A child can under- 
evolved with him; that his ethics are a stand the Ten Commandments earlier 
by-product of his evolution. This may than he can comprehend a problem in al- 
be a startling conclusion to some minds; gebra. This tendency in the hypomaniac 
nevertheless, it provides a stimulus to is in strict accord with the well-recognized 
human endeavor. Jt seems to put the laws of pathology, for a disease process is 
question of man s destiny fairly up to always likely to show itself in some weak 
himself the responsibility for his future spot in the organism. Therefore, when 
on his own shoulders. This is practically the ethical instincts are morbidly excited 
the world s state of mind to-day in the or deranged, it is in this sphere that the 
face of more stupendous problems than disorder of conduct will manifest itself. 
probably have ever before confronted hu- This is doubtless the explanation of the 
manity. The shouting now is for man fact that this unfortunate egotist some- 
to work out his own destiny. Hence the times poses as a social reformer, and the 



490 THE INCORRIGIBLE OPTIMIST 

additional fact that he does not often emerged from the primitive state, it has 

trouble himself to ascertain whether his not been the worse for him. The argu- 

reforms are practicable. He thus becomes ments are clearly put by Bury in one of 

an incorrigible optimist. A thing is to be his most interesting chapters. Not only 

attained because he wants it to be at- some modern sentimentalists, like Rous- 

tained. His emotions supply the place of seau, but even some of the ancient sages, 

arguments. It follows that he always like Plato, were highly dissatisfied with 

goes to extremes, and if he has his way the whole business. These critics, it is 

he is likely to spoil any rational scheme sad to say, were pessimists as to human 

for ameliorating conditions, because he is history. They were too much enamoured 

not a meliorist, he is an optimist. The of nature "and too little tolerant of man. 

rational aspirations of humanity to con- To the hypomaniac or his congener, the 

trol the evils of war, mean for him noth- incorrigible optimist, the appeal is the 

ing less than the inauguration of universal other way about. He is self-centred. He 

and everlasting peace overnight; the con- can, in his own opinion, if not shake the 

siderate plans for limiting armaments, spheres, at least set up a social paradise, 

mean for him total disarmament offhand. Optimism of this incorrigible sort is not 

He would leave the Panama Canal totally a philosophy, it is not even a set of rules; 

undefended rather than abate one jot or it is a mental state, a psychosis, 

tittle of his scheme for an immediate but These men who would shatter the 

impossible millennium. world to bits and then remould it nearer 

In all this the hypomaniac is unsup- to their hearts desire/ take little account 

ported by what Huxley called the "cos- usually of the religious impulses of hu- 

mic process," but he cares nothing for a manity. They ignore the religious evolu- 

cosmic process, and probably would not tion of the race. This is strikingly shown 

understand it unless it could be shown in such systems as communism and Bol- 

him in the "movies." shevism. For them there is apparently 

Renan said: "It is not given to man no mystery in the universe, nothing be- 
to solve the problem of the universe; yond the veil. When the men of the 
nevertheless, he must attempt it." There French Revolution came at last to see 
are a good many people attempting it at this omission in their system, and sought 
the present time, but the mental equip- to remedy it, they could do no better than 
ment of most of them does not give as- to set up a mumbo-jumbo with Robes- 
surance that the problem will be solved, pierre as a high priest. This was a strik- 
It is more likely to take its place among ing example in Robespierre of religious 
the problems of mental pathology. The hypomania. As we read the account in 
direction of this pathological trend is the histories of the Revolution, notably in 
toward a monomania on the subject of Carlyle, of the Feast of the Etre Supreme, 
"progress." This word is fast becoming with its "sea-green pontiff," we are struck 
one of the most ominous words in the die- as with something grotesque, something 
tionary, and it should be relegated for pathological. Here is material for psy- 
safe-keeping to the Categories of Cant, chiatry. That a man of Robespierre s 
He need not be dubbed a pessimist who caliber should mistake himself for a ponti- 
confesses humbly that he sees in some of fex maximus and endeavor to play the 
its implications some dangers to our civi- part, is exactly in accord with the ideas 
lization. Professor Bury, in his recent and outbursts of some of the religious 
work on "The Idea of Progress," has hypomaniacs who inhabit our asylums, 
shown what, of course, history has Sometimes they are called paranoiacs, but 
demonstrated that this civilization of it makes no difference here what they are 
ours is largely an artificial product. It is called. They are abnormal, and they are 
not a work of nature so much as it is a particularly apt to be the products and 
work of man, or even an accident in the exemplars of abnormal times. Dean Inge 
evolution of the race. There have even has called attention to the fact that the 
been some wise-heads who have ques- stress and emotionalism of the Great War 
tioned whether any civilization is a sue- have been followed by an outbreak of 
cess; whether the farther man has what he has denominated the lower forms 



EARLY MEMORIES OF NEW ENGLAND 



491 



of religion. In these forms the primitive 
instincts of worship are undisciplined by 
the higher mental faculties. They are 
also dissevered from tradition, from the 
old-established cults. They are instances 
of the tendency of people nowadays to 
throw aside old standards; but the resul 
tant is not so valuable for edification as it 
is interesting for psychological analysis. 

It is rather curious, in this Connection, 
to note the mental activities of some of 
the Darwinian evolutionists. What will 
be said here applies by no means to all of 
them, but only to some of them who are 
rapidly becoming also incorrigible opti 
mists. They are looking forward to the 
evolution of a perfect social system on 
Darwinian principles. They seem to ig 
nore the fact that Darwin himself never 
made any such claims for his system, and 
that it has little if any application in what 
may be called the spiritual or religious 



sphere. It is simply a system of natural 
science, descriptive of the origin of or 
ganic forms on this little planet, and it 
furnishes spiritual pabulum only in the 
sense that anatomy or chemistry fur 
nishes it. Nevertheless, we are invited by 
some of our optimistic evolutionists to 
look forward to the time when mankind 
will be snugly ensconced in an ideal state, 
and as the motive of its religion will wor 
ship "the true, the beautiful, and the 
good." But it is doubtful whether man 
kind will ever really worship any such 
abstractions, for the motive of religion 
always has been, and doubtless always 
will be, the worship of the Deity. For 
this worship our well-meaning evolution 
ists would substitute a sort of sublimated 
socialism, which, when everything is said 
for it that can be said, is yet of the earth 
earthy. Is this the final word in opti 
mism? 



Early Memories of New England 

BY JAMES L. FORD 

Author of "Forty-Odd Years in the Literary Shop" 



M 



Y earliest impressions 
of New England came 
to me in the form of 
family legendry im 
parted by my elders 
whose veracity I could 
not doubt. Some of 
these stories go back 
to the days when my great-grandmother, 
then a little girl, picked the thorns that 
served frugal housekeepers as pins during 
the Revolution. Early in the last century 
this same woman showed herself to be the 
prototype of many who are to-day lurk 
ing behind French sign-boards in Fifth 
Avenue shops, for she opened a little inn 
and store in the New Hampshire village of 
Haverhill, in order to support and educate 
her children. She did it under her own 
name, however, and did not call herself 
" Frizette." Her daughter learned to play 
on an Astor piano, the first instrument 
brought into that State, and one of her 
sons, Major Horace Bliss, is still remem 



bered by elderly citizens of Baltimore as 
the last man in that town to wear a stock. 
Other legendry that made an indelible 
impress on my mind, related to a later 
period when three beautiful women 
known as the "Fowles of Watertown" 
were distinguished figures in Boston so 
ciety, and "carriage" was deemed an im 
portant part of a young girl s education. 
I was also taught that Portsmouth was a 
distinctly aristocratic city as well as one 
of the most important shipping ports on 
the Atlantic coast. 

Thus it came to pass that mossy tradi 
tions filled my mind when I paid my first 
visit to New England to stay with an 
elderly relative in the Connecticut village 
of Bloomfield, near Hartford. I arrived 
on Saturday morning and at sundown my 
aunt took away my toys, laid aside her 
knitting, and opened her Bible, explaining 
that it was her custom to "keep Saturday 
night." At the same hour on the follow 
ing day my wooden blocks were returned 



492 EARLY MEMORIES OF NEW ENGLAND 

to me and the knitting was resumed. I by the same desire for forgiveness of 

sometimes wonder if there are any New trespasses that fills the soul of many a 

Englanders left who still keep Saturday rich man when he wills a portion of his 

night. ill-gotten gains to charity. Saturday was 

Of course I was taken to church, and a full holiday, when those who were not 
no sooner was I seated than my aunt kept on bounds because of the black 
bustled out and returned with some sprigs marks against them were allowed to 
of fennel on which I was permitted to roam the country at will, 
nibble during the service. When the The result of this was that we had alto- 
hymns were given out we rose and faced gether too much time for play and as all 
the choir, turning our backs on the outdoor sports were prohibited on Sunday 
preacher, for in the New England tradi- it was then that we cooked up mischief 
tion the altar plays a small part in divine for the week to come. Since then I have 
worship. become convinced that a part of Sunday 

I had another surprise when the hired should be devoted to healthful sport and 

man, who had driven us over from Hart- that a half holiday is enough for Saturday, 

ford, took his seat at the family table, as Nothing is worse for boys than to give 

became the dignified position that he and Satan opportunities for finding work for 

his kind have always enjoyed in New their idle hands. 

England households. I believe now that There were more than two score boys 

the race is almost extinct and that any in our school, which was one of the most 

family would be only too glad to find expensive in the country, its terms of tui- 

a hired man who would consent to eat tion being $500 a year, exclusive of those 

with them. "extras" which are the joy of the school- 

A few years later I was sent to board- master s heart, and are not unlike the 

ing-school in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, devices of the green table that furnish 

and had not been there many days before what is known as the "percentage in 

I noticed an old man of saturnine visage favor of the house." We brought our 

slowly ascending the hill behind our own blankets, towels, table cutlery, and 

school grounds. He seated himself on a other articles which I believe are now 

spot near that now occupied by the house supplied in nearly every boarding-school, 

of the late Joseph H. Choate, and re- Our teacher prided himself on the high 

mained there for hours looking out over class of pupils consigned to his care, but 

the valley of the Hoosatonic. The next I think that our parents were of a higher 

day he disappeared and we were told that class than ourselves. I know that we 

he was the last of the old Stockbridge looked down on the village school and its 

Indians, on his annual visit from the humbler scholars, yet that primitive es- 

Western reservation of his tribe to gaze tablishment, I was told in later years, 

upon the land that had once belonged to sent four of its pupils to the supreme 

his forebears. It must have been his last bench of the United States, and that is 

visit, for we never saw him again. more than our school ever did. 

Our school was a stronghold of religion Stockbridge and its neighborhood had 

of the old-fashioned New England sort, been for years famous for its distin- 

and even then I was conscious that there guished inhabitants, including Catherine 

was something wrong in a system that Sedgwick, G. P. R. James, Henry W. 

wasted so much time and aroused in us a Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Her- 

rooted aversion to every kind of religious man Melville, Fanny Kemble, and Cyrus 

service. We had prayers and singing at W. and David Dudley Field. Most of 

the morning and evening meals, and on these celebrities had disappeared when I 

Sundays we went to church in the morn- arrived, but the New England tradition of 

ing, attended a Bible class in the after- neatness and cleanliness had expressed 

noon, and sang hymns for an hour or so itself in the founding of the Laurel Hill 

in the evening. There was also a weekly Association, the first of the village-im- 

prayer-meeting at which attendance was provement societies that are to be found 

voluntary and in which the worst scape- to-day in nearly every small community 

graces in the school took part, actuated in the land. We boys were instructed to 



EARLY MEMORIES OF NEW ENGLAND 493 

make way with every old newspaper or and book-loving, and there was a marked 

other unseemly article that we found in difference between the two. The first- 

the highway, and I remember that certain named, I am sorry to say, commanded my 

individuals who had refused to join the regard because they had more spending 

society averred that we had been told to money, but I was strongly drawn toward 

deposit them on their premises. I have their betters by our common love for 

since learned that every good work meets books. 

with opposition at the start, usually from I was, of course, too young to realize 
the so-called "better element." the significance of the changes then be 
lt was in Stockbridge that I met the ginning, but when, many years later, I 
first of the long line of famous writers revisited Berkshire County and saw how 
whom it has been my privilege to know, in the huge, ornate dwellings erected by 
the person of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, modern " Captains of Industry " dwarfed 
whose daughter was the wife of the local the dignified old mansions we used to 
Episcopal clergyman. Her husband, the think so grand, I recalled the simplicity 
Reverend Calvin E. Stowe, was with her and unostentation of an elder day before 
and I recall with delight his humorous gardens gave place to "estates." 
darky stories. In the days of my youth the Shakers 
The old home of G. P. R. James, of were a picturesque element in New Eng- 
" solitary horseman" fame, stood, and land life, following their own peculiar 
perhaps still stands, over the way from customs and living on terms of amity with 
what is now the Red Lion Inn, then con- their neighbors. They were held in such 
trolled by the Plumbs, one of whom, I esteem that no doubts were entertained 
believe, is still engaged in the hotel busi- regarding their strict observance of the 
ness in Pittsfield. The James house was moral code, which is more than can be 
occupied by Mr. John Gourley, the vice- said of any other eccentric community 
president of the New York Stock Ex- I ever heard of. Perhaps the fact that 
change, and for years a well-known sum- the Shaker ladies had been deprived in 
mer resident of Stockbridge. Further the cradle of the fatal gift of beauty had 
down the street dwelt Mr. McAllister, in something to do with it, but the elders 
whose garden stood an apple-tree subject were so honest in their dealings with the 
to many midnight forays from our school, outside world that they were not liable 
a tree that lived for years in our simple to suspicion. 

legendry. There was a prosperous Shaker com- 

A rather shy boy was invited to spend munity in Tyringham, about three miles 

the evening at the home of the clergyman from Stockbridge, and we boys often 

already mentioned, and during supper did walked over there on Saturdays to par- 

not once open his mouth except to put take of their excellent fare and carry 

something into it. The period that fol- away packages of candied flag-root and 

lowed found him also tongue-tied, but cakes of maple sugar in which were em- 

when his hostess in a desperate attempt bedded the meat of the walnut and but- 

to awaken his interest placed a basket of ternut. And my remembrance is that 

fruit upon the table he rose in his chair they gave full measure in both quality 

with a glad cry of "Hello ! Old McAllis- and quantity. 

ter s apples ! " Their religious services were conducted 

I comprehend more fully now certain in a manner that seemed strange to the 

conditions of which I was vaguely con- orthodox and included a sort of monoto- 

scious as a boy of twelve. The great nous dance with hands extended after the 

wealth acquired easily, and in many cases fashion of a dog standing on his hind legs 

dishonestly, during the Civil War, had begging for a bone. We never attended 

left its mark on the whole country north any of their Sunday ceremonies, for they 

of Mason and Dixon s Line; nor had con- did not like to exhibit their quaint cus- 

servative New England escaped its malign toms to strangers, but I have been told 

influence. Among my schoolmates there that at an earlier period they danced in 

were scions of the illiterate rich as well as sets like lancers or quadrilles and since 

of the moderately well-to-do thoughtful my time their terpsichorean exercises 



494 EARLY MEMORIES OF NEW ENGLAND 

have been greatly modified or completely garded forbidden fruit as sweeter than 

eliminated. that served openly. 

As an experiment in communism the Many of the wearers of army overcoats 

Shakers rank with that community of were, I suspected, too far advanced in 

intellect blended with physical toil, years to have taken part in the war, but 

Brook Farm, but there was a notable they were still active enough to go fishing, 

difference between the two. Save in the even on Sundays, and to relate stories of 

example it set in frugality and honesty the their prowess in that sport as they sat 

one did nothing to advance human prog- tilted up against the wall. Another 

ress, while the other sent out into the favorite theme with these veterans was 

world men who had gained much by their how hard they used to work when they 

period of plain living and high thinking, were young, and how long it took them to 

Very few of the Shaker communities re- save up the thousand dollars that enti- 

main, but the world is all the better for tied them to a little well-earned rest, 

the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Father Scientific research seldom engaged their 

Hecker, Charles A. Dana, Margaret faculties, but there was one subject over 

Fuller, and other survivors of an experi- which they wrangled during the entire 

ment that history wrongfully records as winter which was never definitely settled. 

a failure. That was whether a wheel goes round 

The extinction of the Shaker communi- faster at the top than at the bottom, 
ties was not due to financial causes. Each disputant carried with him a dia- 
Their lives ran along on lines as simple as gram to enable him to make clear his 
those of Biblical times, and their wealth theory and there was many an adjourn- 
was in land, in flocks and herds and crops, ment to the barn in order to set the 
Their system was ideally communistic, wheel of the landlord s buggy in motion, 
and by working diligently and spending The original race was almost extinct in 
little money they were able to save much, southern New England at this time, but 
But having no children they were obliged a few full-blooded Indians still lived on 
to recruit their communities from the their near-by reservation, and there I 
outside, and there was nothing in their have seen the last of the Mohicans wind- 
uncouth garb and austere way of life to ing up in peaceful agriculture the bloody 
attract young people, and therefore their annals of their tribe. In their little 
numbers dwindled until only the very burying-ground were to be found crum- 
old remained. bling headstones marked with the name of 

My next New England memories clus- Uncas and the line "One of the Royal 

ter about a small village where I spent Family," a pathetic reminder of past 

some time half a century ago and where I glories. It was on this reservation that 

became familiar with Yankees racy of the great Uncas himself died, a very old 

the soil in speech and manner, and also man, while sitting in the sun before his 

with customs and characters that I fear cabin-door. 

are now of the past. Here I found no But in the neighborhood of every vil- 

literary celebrities and none of the Berk- lage there was usually some character 

shire County atmosphere, although there known locally by some such name as 

were plenty of persons who read books "Injun Joe/ who dwelt apart from the 

and had time for shrewd thought. community and came down now and then 

The Civil War was not then far in the to sell baskets or replenish his whiskey- 
past and many an old army overcoat was jug. I recall also an Indian doctor whose 
to be seen in the group that clustered nostrums, prepared mysteriously from 
about the stove in the hotel or dove from roots and herbs, were held in high esteem 
time to time into the "back room," where by the illiterate. 

liquor was surreptitiously sold. I re- As I look back to these days of long 

member that we boys often wished that ago I feel certain that the Civil War left 

we were old enough to take part in the behind it in rural communities a legacy 

orgies that went on behind the closed more enduring and deplorable than the 

door and from which the revellers re- old army overcoats, in the shape of a 

turned wiping their lips with their coat- spirit of greed and an admiration for 

sleeves. Adolescence then, as now, re- those who had suddenly grown rich 



EARLY MEMORIES OF NEW ENGLAND 



495 



through unscrupulous methods not un 
like that which prevails to-day. Tradi 
tions of "Jim" Fisk and his four-horse 
pedler s cart were in the air; the spectacu 
lar doings of Wall Street were on every 
lip and lottery tickets were sold by a local 
agent. 

The old-fashioned Yankee pedler, since 
supplanted by the Jew or Armenian, was 
a constant visitor at the little hotel where 
we stayed, and many of his kind were 
most honest and worthy individuals. 
Especially well do I recall "Big Steve," 
who drove a splendid four-horse team and 
sold candy for a Springfield house. 
About once a month he would draw up 
with much rattling of harness before the 
door of the inn and bring the village 
quidnuncs to every window. Other ped- 
lers brought their wives with them and 
these good women would spend two or 
three days with us while their husbands 
drove about the near-by country to sell 
their goods. There were always a num 
ber of these travelling salesmen stopping 
with us when the landlord gave his annual 
ball after harvest time, and not one of 
them failed to take part in the revel. 

Well do I recall these and like assem 
blies which we young fellows always 
graced with our presence! There was 
a "caller-off" named Cady, famous 
throughout all the State, whose services 
were constantly in demand. According 
to local report he received the sum of ten 
dollars and his expenses for every appear 
ance, and when he died, in quite recent 
years, he was said to have left behind him 
a fortune of one hundred thousand dol 
lars. Cady led the orchestra of three 
pieces with his violin and called off the 
figures at the same time and I doubt if 
there is any musician now living capable 
of such an exploit. 

The early New Englanders had learned 
the terpsichorean art, when they learned 
it at all, from French dancing-masters, 
and the various technical terms used 
have survived in a corrupted form to the 
present day. Thus "dos-a-dos" fell from 
the lips of Cady as one word, "doseedo"; 
"chassez" as "shassay" and "a la main 
droit" as "allamang right." 

This inimitable " caller-off" had an 
enormous personal acquaintance through 
out the State and was also a man of 
infinite jest, so that he interspersed his 



commands with many personal allusions, 
of which I recall : 

" Mr. Johnson, doseedo; 
The more you dance, 
The less you know." 

One feature of these balls was never 
lacking, and that was the appearance on 
the floor toward the close of the festivi 
ties of an elderly inhabitant, famed in his 
early youth for his grace and activity in 
the execution of "pidgeon wings" and 
other fancy steps, even then almost 
obsolete. At a suitable moment during 
a pause in the music the landlord would 
publicly call upon this veteran to "show 
the young folks how they used to do it." 
Although he had been furtively practis 
ing in the barn for some weeks and had 
come to the ball arrayed in the only 
swallowtail coat that existed in the neigh 
borhood, he always affected great sur 
prise at the invitation and the applause 
that followed it, and declared with a 
mournful shake of his head that his 
"dancing days were over" and he had 
attended the ball merely as an onlooker 
and had "no idee" he would be expected 
to perform. But a little persuasion 
would cause him to make reluctant dis 
play of his art, and then Cady would 
take up his bow, the lively music would 
begin, and we would all crowd around a 
vacant space on the floor to gaze upon 
the nimble performance of a dancer who 
was almost an octogenarian. 

Supper was always the next event on 
the programme and a real supper it was, 
too, for the wise landlord was too shrewd 
to miss this opportunity of showing visi 
tors from afar that he could set a table 
beyond compare. There was a big tur 
key at each end of the long table, and 
I remember that my uncle, who as a 
"city man" commanded general respect, 
used to carve one of these birds and dis 
pense the slices with smiling affability. 
There were vegetables, too, from the 
hotel garden, and coffee, served in big 
cups, and with cream from the landlord s 
own cows. I don t think that anything 
on that table had ever seen the inside of 
a can. But it was not until the appear 
ance of the dessert that the culinary re 
sources of the establishment were made 
apparent. Never since then have I 
seen such pies, cakes, and jellies served 



496 EARLY MEMORIES OF NEW ENGLAND 

in such abundance. And every one of here ez hez been a leettle mite sharp in a 

them was of honest make, prepared by hoss trade we ask the Divine forgiveness 

the hands or under the supervision of the for their sins." At this, there was much 

landlord s wife. furtive lifting of grinning faces, and an 

The " caller-off " was not the only local audible chuckle went round the room, 

character who invoked the comic muse in When the other man s turn came I heard 

the practice of his profession. The auc- a nasal voice saying: "And if they be enny 

tioneer, who dominated the scene on the on us pore sinful critters ez hez burned 

occasion of a sale of household goods, was down their barns for the insurance money, 

a real comedian, and a "vandoo" under we hope they will find forgiveness and 

his direction never failed to attract a grace." 

large assemblage. His personal acquaint- I have often wondered who that wander- 

ance was quite as large as that of the ing Jew of Yankeedom, the "Old Leather 

popular director of revels and the jokes Man," was, and what episode in his life 

he cracked in the course of the sales were led him to spend his later years in futile 

still more frequent and side-splitting, trampings through rural New England. 

He was, moreover, a complete master of Dressed in leather and carrying a staff 

all the arts of lure, and I used to marvel in his hand, he passed through our little 

at the skill with which he would egg one village at rare intervals, paying no heed 

buyer on against another until the highest to the small boys who hooted at his heels, 

possible price was obtained. and, so far as I know, never begging his 

Once he held me spellbound while he bread. Rumor declared that he had 

recommended some simple article of been disappointed in a youthful love 

domestic use and adornment as a treasure affair and that he hibernated in a cave in 

that could never be replaced as it was the Connecticut, where he lived on roots and 

only specimen of its kind in existence, herbs. I should really like to know his 

solemnly assuring the buyers that any history and what brought his strange 

one who was fortunate enough to se- career to an end. 

cure this exquisite example of domestic Another character whom I recall was 

art would find himself in the possession "Comical Brown," an entertainer whose 

of something that would give him rank periodical appearance in the town hall 

far above that of any of his neighbors as was hailed with delight by the entire 

a "connosure." Stimulated by his elo- population. Brown carried neither com- 

quence the bidding became frantic, and at pany nor scenery and kept his expenses 

its close he congratulated the buyer on his down to the minimum. So popular was 

wisdom in a voice that was almost tear- he that a few posters displayed in the 

ful in its emotion. Then, resuming his blacksmith s shop or on trees a week 

businesslike tones, he exclaimed: "Here s ahead of his coming seldom failed to pro- 

another just like it !" and everybody ex- cure for him a crowded house. .His 

cept the discomfited buyer roared with entertainment consisted of a monologue 

laughter. introducing all sorts of jokes and conun- 

The Friday evening prayer-meeting in drums and although many of these bore 

our village never failed to attract both old the hall-marks of Joseph Miller they were 

and young, the men sitting on one side of none the less effective, 

the aisle and the women on the other, A more elaborate and costly show was 

while unregenerate youth loitered out- "Washburn s Last Sensation," in which 

side the church to escort the girls home, variety actors and Indians shared the 

Once only did I venture into the meeting, honors with the venders of lemonade, 

not for purposes of prayer but that I Years afterward John T. Kelly, of the 

might seize the girl of my choice before Weber and Fields organization, told me 

my cousin who was lurking outside could that he had travelled with the company 

get ahead of me. On this occasion I wit- in the double capacity of artist and owner 

nessed two elderly rustics engaged in their of the lemonade privilege, and that it was 

favorite pastime of praying at one another, his custom to put a strawberry in each 

While all heads were bowed in devo- glass as a lure, at the same time offering 

tion one of these interlarded his supplica- certain pecuniary emolument to the boys 

tion with: "And if they be enny on us for each strawberry they brought back. 



William 



BY E. W. KEMBLE 



ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR 




UR cook, Pinky Shell, 
says " this place is too 
dog -gone slow" for 
her, and if she " can t 
dig up a few culled 
folks what s got some 
social quality" she ll 
"jes hoof it back to 
the city." 

As I had not succeeded in engaging a 
hired man as yet, although I had a dozen 
applicants, summer tramps one and all, I 
concluded to look for a " person of color." 
I got in touch with the article needed. 
He had been porter on a Pullman, could 
cook some, was special nurse for several 
gentlemen of prominence, waiter in ho 
tels and private families. If I wanted 
"recommends" he could show them. 
From a dirty leather wallet he unfolded 
a dozen torn and greasy letters, every one 
lauding his abilities and every one written 
in the same hand, but signed by names 
that would make the hall of fame look 
foolish. His name: "William Hickweed." 
"Jes call me Hick, and I ll git yer 
yes, sah." Did he know anything about 
horses? "Used ter be pussonal jockey 
for Colonel Blossom of Kaintucky in his 
spotive days." The only live stock on 
our place was an old Kentucky saddle- 
horse named Daniel Boone. "Danny," 
as we called him, had been left by the 
doctor who had rented the farm before 
us, and used him "for his feed." He was 
gaunt and wild-eyed and had a hairless 
tail that pointed upward and outward, 
his movements were uncertain, as he had 
any number of different gaits one front 
gait, two back ones, and several side ones 
you were never sure which one he was 
going to use. He would shy at nothing, 
and allow the most rip-roaring automobile 
to pass him without twitching an ear. I 
had tried but once to ride this beast. As I 
led him from the stable he started to back 
down the road and would have dragged 
VOL. LXXL 32 



me across the county line had he not 
punctured his hind quarters on a barbed- 
wire fence, when he shot forward and 
tried to use my chest as a door-mat before 
" singlef ooting " it back to the barn. 

I wished to send a message to the vil 
lage, so I asked William to saddle " Dan 
ny." "He is gentle but very playful," I 
remarked. 

"Ah m used to dat, boss. Ah likes a 
hoss what s got sperrit." He was leading 
"Danny" from the barn when "Danny" 
began his backing tactics. He backed 
over the flower-beds, into the pump, and 
broke it, across the road, into the vege 
table-garden, straight across the potato- 
field, into the stone wall, and not being 
able to back any farther he tried to kick 
the wall down. William held on like grim 
death, and getting one ponderous pedal 
in the stirrup, mounted him. Then the 
movement became a forward and uplift 
ing one first rearward and skyward, 
then sideways and undulating. 

William s face assumed a different hue 
at every new movement ; from livid green 
it faded to dull ashen gray, then back to 
umber, and from umber to mauve with 
a dash of violet. Gradually the beast 
ceased its calisthenics and stood with 
ears thrown back snorting but weak- 
kneed. "Danny s" feelings had been 
hurt. He couldn t throw William, and 
he was crestfallen. "Reckon I done got 
his sperrit broke, de old rapscallion of 
a. . ." William didn t finish, for "Dan 
ny" made one forward plunge, and strik 
ing a two-minute gait, darted down the 
dusty road toward the village, and Wil 
liam, humped over "Danny s" shoulders, 
clinging to the scrubby mane with both 
hands, went with him. A prayer went up 
for William s safety an answered prayer, 
for soon I saw them turn into the state 
road at an easy canter, and I knew Wil 
liam would return safely. He did, an 
hour later, but on foot. "Where s Dan- 

497 



498 



WILLIAM 



ny?" I asked. " Don t ask me, boss; fo 
all I know he s backin hissef to New York 
City; he ain t pinted dat way, but he s 
gwine dar. I reckon he ll git dar less he 
change his mind. I done delivah you 
message, but doan ax me bout no hoss, 
dat am outa de question." 

As William limped around the corner of 
the house I sauntered over to the barn, 
and there stood "Danny." He had come 
home " across lots." I unsaddled him 
and turned him into the pasture. 

William proved a veritable jack of all 
trades. The garden thrived under his 
careful management, and Pinky Shell 
concluded to remain. I have given them 
an old phonograph, and William enter 
tains "the girls" nightly at his quarters. 

Pinky was given to the intemperate 
habit of overeating, her weakness being 
griddle-cakes soaked in pork fat. She 
would place a pyramid of these delicacies 
before her, and they would disappear as 
doth the summer mist at sunrise. Wil 
liam delivered a lecture to her one day 
on the evil of such "high living" for one 
of her "bulk." She weighed close on to 
two hundred. He grew eloquent as he 
summed up the ills that would follow. 
"Pussons what ovah load de scales an 
cause dem to groan, should trim close on 
de viands what dey is supposed to nourish. 
You-all is ovah nourished. Youah fig- 
ger depicts dat, you-all is liable to suffah 
degenerations of de body in most places." 
As William continued to enumerate the 
dire ills that would follow, Pinky gave a 
feeble squawk and sank to the floor in a 
faint. William s face grew ashen gray as 
he shuffled about the kitchen, clasping 
his hands together, giving vent to his 
alarm in groans of anguish. "Lawd, 
lawd! what hab I done?" he muttered. 
I allayed his fears by telling him that 
Pinky had simply fainted and would soon 
be all right, and that the pancakes prob 
ably had as much to do with it as his dis 
course on diet. 

Pinky recovered. As she rose, slowly 
and with much effort, to her feet, she gave 
one withering glance at the trembling 
William, pointed her fat finger toward 
the kitchen door, and fairly hissed : "Out 
of dis kitchen, nigger, you git." William 
got. The feud was on. William must 
leave. Pinky would not live in the same 



place with a "witch-doctor," let alone in 
the same house. I argued, and plead 
with her. She finally concluded to stay 
on one condition "Dat Willyum is to 
keep clar of de kitchen an not obtrude his 
hoodoo face into my doin s. Dat law is 
iron bound from now an so forth on." 
Those were her very words. 

We had taken into our summer home, 
from one of the city missions, a little lass 
of fourteen, a mere wisp of a creature, 
frail and delicate in mould, but the very 
embodiment of grace and beauty. The 
congestion and din of the noisy city 
streets had preyed upon her little body, 
but her keen enjoyment of the beautiful 
things in nature had been left untouched. 
She flitted among the flowers, called to 
the birds, and clapped her frail little 
hands at every new vision that met her 
eager eyes. The woods, the hills, the 
little lake that snuggled in the valley 
brought forth childish exclamations of 
glee. 

William became greatly attached to 
the child, and she followed him around 
as if he were her appointed guardian. As 
he worked in the garden she busied her 
self with weeding, while he told her mar 
vellous stories of Moses in. Egypt. "De 
culled race neber done hab a greater man 
dan Moses. He was a born leader and de 
chillun of Isrul was all ob de culled race. 
You must understan dat fust an last, Miss 
May." This astounding bit of informa 
tion the child accepted with absolute 
faith, as she did all of William s wonder 
ful narratives. " Yes, chile, he was a born 
leader after de great Jehova teched him. 
Befo dat he was jes a ornary ole witch 
doctor. When ole King Pharo refuse ter 
let de chillun of Isrul go to whar dey want 
ter, Mister Moses, he ups and rains down 
frogs and snakes an grasshoppers till yer 
can t move around comfortable like, dey 
so thick. He pester dat ole King so much 
dat he jes throw up his hands an say, f er 
de lub o Mike, git out an dey git. Ob 
course de good book done say dat de 
Lord sen dese snakes an sich, but I has 
my spicions, chile. Ah blieve de debbil 
done mix up in dat somehow. Ole Mister 
witch-doctor Moses, he know how dey 
come, but so soon as he git out in de wil 
derness de Lord tech him an he change. 
He ain t a witch-doctor no mo. He riz up 




He was leading "Danny" from the barn when "Danny" began his backing tactics. Page 497. 



wif power dat wuz gib him, den he be 
come de great leader. He walk by faith, 
he talk by faith. He just trust in de hand 
what guide him. He writ dem laws be- 
kase de great Jehova tell him what ter 
write. He jes listen, chile, an ef yer jes 
listen, an blieve, it ll come to yer, ain t 
no doubt bout dat, de good book jes plum 
full er men what blieve and listen, den 
dey go ahead an do it." 

The child would listen intently to Wil 
liam as he filled her eager mind with 
stories from the "good book." He made 
them so much more entertaining than she 



was wont to hear at the Mission Sunday- 
school. He reasoned differently and she 
liked his reasoning; especially was she 
affected by his simple belief in regard to 
the Deity. "God, you know, is good; if 
yer good, yer give out good. Yer can t 
give out evil, kin yer ? Can t be bof; got 
ter be one or tother. Ef de Lord s son 
spent his time healin de sick, stan s fer 
reason dat de Lord don t send sickness. 
If he did, his son wouldn t spen his time 
undoin what he done sent. No, chile, 
dat ain t reasonable. Evil and goodness 
don t mix, how yer gwine ter keep evil 

499 



500 WILLIAM 

out? Jes ask fer goodness, den sit still William was always courteous, listened 

an expect it. It ll come, an, honey, de attentively to his directions in regard to 

joy dat comes wif it, why yer whole little the medicines, when they were to be given 

body jes tingle wif glory." and when changed, and invariably bowed 

" Can a little girl like me get it ?" stiffly as the old doctor left the room, 

" Jes try it, Miss May. Why it was jes then snorted, and his whole expression 

made fer chillun, dey git in easier dan was one of contempt. I passed this over 

grown folks." as a mere whim, a peculiarity of his race, 

Through the summer days William and and concluded that he merely took offense 

the little girl were constant companions, at the old physician s pomposity while in 

His "good-book" stories, as the child the black man s presence. Faithful and 

called them, were her constant delight, constant in his devotion, worn and weary 

When his work was finished he took her with his long vigils, he was urged to rest, 

for short walks among the hills, or on a He would not listen to the suggestion un- 

fishing trip in the neighboring lake. One til he was told that his little charge was 

sultry afternoon, toward sunset, William well again and past all danger, and that 

and his little charge returned from a long the old doctor s visits were at an end. 

tramp. The old negro was carrying the William s face was wreathed in smiles at 

little girl in his arms. Her head hung the welcome news. He grasped the puny 

listlessly on his shoulder and her flushed hand of the little girl as his eyes filled with 

cheek burned crimson against the white tears. "Chile, we hab won!" he whis- 

of his faded shirt. pered, and the thin parched lips answered 

"Reckon de heat bin a little too much back: "We have won." I called William 

fer her. She come aroun all right so soon to my study to learn of his future plans, 

she git rested up," he murmured, as he as we were soon to return to the city, and 

carried his little burden to her room, thank him for his loyalty to us and the 

That night the child tossed and turned little girl. I told him that I felt that his 

with a raging fever. The doctor was sent care and devotion during her serious ill- 

for and pronounced her "a very sick child, ness had as much to do with the child s 

seriously sick." William, with tear-filled recovery as did the medicines prescribed 

eyes, crouched beside the pillow on which by the good doctor. The old negro 

the little head lay. With his wrinkled shuffled uneasily as he fumbled in the 

brown hand he smoothed the fevered pocket of his coat, tugging at a bulky 

brow, crooning to her, "You is all right, package which he extracted with some 

honey. Dey ain t nufnn ter be afeard of. effort. He placed it on my desk, his 

De doctor s medicine gwine ter cure de wrinkled face aglow as he uncovered a 

little body." pasteboard box of goodly size, in which 

The directions were given to the old the pills and powders prescribed by the 

darky as to the treatment the child was physician were closely packed, 

to receive. The women of the house were " Dar dey is, boss, in deir nachul state, 

only to be called in case of extreme dis- jes as dat ole humbug lef dem," he hissed, 

tress. As the old doctor passed from the I gazed in astonishment, as he fumbled 

room, after arranging the medicines to be in the box, drawing forth pill and powder 

administered, he paused and, looking in- until the desk seemed fairly covered with 

tently at the child, shook his massive them. 

head. William, still soothing the burn- "Sit down, William, and explain this 

ing brow, turned to the child and whis- to me," I demanded. He dropped into 

pered: "It s all right, honey." The days the nearest chair and clasping his wrin- 

wore on, and though the recovery was kled hands together in his lap began the 

slow it was sure. William was the watch- story. 

er at the bedside. The little patient fol- " When dat doctor done leave de room 

lowed his every move with eager eyes, de fust time he come to see Miss May, I 

Seated in a rocking-chair, he swayed know dat he ain t de one to cure dat chile, 

gently back and forth as he retold his How does I know it ? Why, boss, de fust 

stories in subdued tones. Old Doctor time he come inter dat room whar she 

Hyde made his visits with regularity, lay burnin up wif de fever, what was de 



WILLIAM 



501 



very fust thing he do? He done shook 
his head you seen it. I seen it, and wust 
of all, Miss May seen it. He ain t got no 
faith an hope, dey done fled befo he be 
gin. Jes so soon as you an dat doctor 
lef de room I goes ter dat chile an I sez: 
Honey, dey is hope ef yer got de faith, 
an yer git de faith jes as easy as yer kin 
give up hope. Which yer gwine ter do ? 
An she whisper in dat soft and gentle 



like she was a queen. Twice durin de 
year all ob her followers would gather to 
gether an hab a ceremony what last fo 
several days and nights. I never forget 
dem scenes. Dey would bring dem what 
was ailin in body an mind to her, an 
she would mix a charm in a old copper 
kettle an as de vapors rise she sing out a 
chant, what say for de most part: Does 
yer blieve? Dem what was needin 




"I drap on my knees beside de bed an my ole heart jest flow plum full ob glory. 



voice of hers: Faith. I drap on my 
knees beside de bed an my ole heart jest 
flow plum full ob glory. I watch wif her 
all dat night; you remember every time 
you done stole inter de room ter gaze at 
her, you spect I was dozin off, but I 
warn t. I jes close my eyes in one long 
prayer fer dat chile, dat she would con 
tinue strong in de faith. Way back in de 
dark days I lived in Louisiana, de mammy 
what brung me up was a Voodoo. She 
live on de shore of Lake Pon cha train, jes 
back of New Orleans. She done pass fo 
a great woman in dat section an she wuk 
a heap of cures mong de culled folk what 
come to her. I grew up ter blieve in 
what she done. De culled folks treat her 



help answer her [back an sing: Yes, we 
blieve. When my mammy begin ter git 
feeble I done took her place, an I wuz 
known in dem parts as de conjur man. 
Soon de law done clap his hand on us an 
we had ter break up. Den I come Norf. 
I find a place wid a fambly what live in 
Delaware. De missus was one of dem 
folks what casts glory an light on" dose 
what s round about her. She done change 
me from a conjur man to believe de way 
she did. I had de faith but I wasn t usin 
it right. Bimeby I begin ter see things 
her way. It was jes like switchin off 
from de branch line onter de main line 
and goin plum thro . I had ma ticket, 
faith was what she called it, an all I 



502 YOUTH AND I 

needed was ter change cyars. I done it, don t need to read more. I wish I had 

an I hain t never had cause ter regret it. your faith." 

I done tole Miss May about my believin s "Thanks, boss. I m powful glad yer 

long time befo she fell sick wid de fevah. ain t angry wif me. I know I done right. 

Dem pills an powder gwine ter do her no If de ole doctor didn t blieve his pills 

good. She low dat. Dey wasn t mixed gwine ter cure her, how he gwine ter 

with faith, so dar dey is, in deir nachul spect her to blieve ? Got ter mix em with 

state, untouched." faith, an he didn t do dat." 

For some moments we sat in silence, The old darky rose, bowed politely, 

the old negro firm in his belief, and I in and shuffled out of the room. The fol- 

doubt. He must have read my thoughts, lowing day he took the train for the city 

as he drew from the inner pocket of his as special escort to the little girl on her 

coat a small, shabby note-book which he homeward trip. Soon after their depar- 

handed to me. " Why, dar it is, boss; it ture I drove to the home of the old doctor 

tells yer all about it." I turned the worn and paid him for his services during the 

and discolored pages on which were summer months. As he handed me the 

written in a delicate feminine hand, and receipted bill he spoke feelingly of the 

read aloud: "Whatsoever things ye de- little girl. "She seemed to be a trusting 

sire, when ye pray, believe that ye re- little creature, and they always make good 

ceive them, and ye shall have them." patients, but as for that old coon, he cer- 

" Dat s it, boss, faith dat s what I keep tainly riled me ; seemed to resent my visits, 

tellin Miss May when she lay in de shad- Your cook told me he was a witch-doctor; 

der ob death. Dey is mere, ef yer wish rather dangerous to have his kind around 

ter read." in the sick-room. Guess he was faithful 

I closed the little book and handed it enough to follow my instructions, or the 

to him. "No, William," I replied; "I child wouldn t have pulled through." 



Youth and I 

BY MRS. SCHUYLER VAN RENSSELAER 

You have the right to sing, you who are young, 
But no such right as I who had not sung 

In any sort for long, 

But now can bring to evensong 
A voice that, as it finds once more the will, 
Finds the forgotten strength and skill. 

You have the right to laugh, as thus far free 
From tears, but no such right as rests with me, 
Who knew and banished them, 
Who grafted on life s bitter stem 
Buds that drew sweetness from the sap of pain, 
And, when they blossomed, laughed again. 

You have the right to crave peace and content, 
But no such power as I to circumvent 

Unrest and vain desires, 

For ere the floods rose and the fires, 
I owned a land where all I wished came true, 
And so need wish no wish anew. 




ThE POINT OF VIEW 




THERE are few things more com 
panionable than an apple-tree. To 
have your daily horizon bounded by 
an orchard is to live very close to nature. 

So firmly do I believe it that I built my 
country house in the heart of one this 
was literally true; in other words, 
\pple Orchard " ma -de the house subservient to 
the orchard and pitched my tent 
on the top of a gently undulating hill. At 
its foot the apple-trees lay in lovely sym 
metrical lines, breaking into single blessed 
ness with the upward slopes, curving with 
the sweep of the road, grouping themselves 
oddly on the lawn, and the most rounded 
beauty of all brushing the veranda railing 
and reflecting her blushes in the big glass 
door. 

April brought this exquisite touch, and 
September was not to be outdone, for she 
hung scarlet apples among the yellowing 
leaves, picture apples, blood-red; and the 
sun s long kisses, and my front door made 
a shining frame for so much loveliness. 

Springtime in an orchard ! That is an 
old, old story, so old and yet so eternally 
new. Surely the buds swell faster than they 
did last year; surely they never crept out 
all in a day and a night, no matter how 
wooing the sun, or how tender the south 
wind. Was it quite like this twelve months 
ago? 

This wealth of rose and white in a setting 
of chrysolite green, these days of blush and 
bloom, this drenching sweetness, this sym 
phony of bees in heavy-laden boughs ! 

Did they lose their bridal veils with the 
first veering of the wind ? Were the water 
ways white with petals where my dainty 
crabs grew thickest, and were there drifting 
scents and pink and white patches on the 
lawn so soon? 

How you miss the blossom even when you 
watch closest for the fruit ! How tame the 
delicate fringe left clinging to the shell, and 
in reality how quickly comes the generous 
fulfilment of promises ! 

Summer in your orchard ! Is it not im 
memorial ? Can you ever forget its check 
ered light and shade, the blue and gold that 
filtered through from the sky, the rounding 



of the green fruit above you, the first blush 
that stained the cheek of a June beauty? 
June apples ! How the sight of one makes 
a boy of you again, how they glamour over 
middle age, how they revive the sunny days 
of youth ! 

And what of seedtime and harvest ? The 
gathering in of your spoil when the winesaps 
and pippins turn red and gold, and maturity 
is at its zenith of completion, when the hay 
cocks are curing in the midday heat, and 
with the setting of the sun comes a still 
more ravishing sweetness mixed with a drop 
of rue from the life everlasting. 

And the mornings, what of them ? Keen- 
breathed, golden, serene, when the asters 
open their violet eyes, and the briars that 
have defied you all the growing months 
make a scarlet network at your feet and 
catch in the frosted cobwebs. 

But does love and loyalty fail you with 
the waning of the year? I do not slight 
my orchard boughs when they are bared to 
the mercy of the east winds. I still see 
something beautiful in their sturdiness of 
limb, their dormant vitality, their sombre 
outlines. Against the gold of winter sun 
sets they weave much fine tapestry, they 
are not russet-clad like the oaks, they do 
not make sad music like the pines. I find 
that throughout the seasons they grant me 
confidence and cheer. 

But aside from so much egotism my 
orchard is a treasure-house for song-birds. 
Even in the depths of winter I have heard 
a heartsome note from some wayfaring wax- 
wing as he lingered over a well-seasoned 
pippin. And April brings to my door 
choirs visible and invisible in the shape of 
feathered tenants that make furtive spots 
of color flitting in and out, so shy they are 
of humanity. The blue jays are there- 
saucy chatterers and the bluebirds them 
selves, those azure-winged treasures, and 
there are golden warblers and red-hooded 
cardinals, and now and again a flash, a 
flutter, and the memory of a scarlet tanager 
he is more a dream than a reality and 
added to these is an innumerable company 
of sober-coated, white-vested choristers. 

So, with song and scent and color, with 

S3 



504 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



blossom and fruit and the glorious looking 
forward to a springtime resurrection, I 
come to my orchard slopes as a child runs 
to his playground. 



T 



HIS morning I wrote on "The War 
ring Factions in Mexico." This 
afternoon I got out the Beauty Page. 

And such is my life; Monday I penned 

a Fashion Letter, Tuesday a biographical 

sketch, Wednesday called attention to the 

results accomplished by the pull-together 

spirit of Calif ornians. What the rest of 

The Humor of the week it will be my lot to deal 

One Newspaper with, no man knoweth. Things 

happen momentarily, and what 

cometh the next instant in newspaperdom 

no mere man or woman may forecast with 

assurance unless man or woman be very 

yellow indeed. 

The affairs of Ireland continue in an 
ominously unsettled condition, and it be 
hooves us to mark time on the unsettled- 
ness; but nothing more, for so many of our 
readers have the "dhrop" in their veins. 
In Europe, generally, labor troubles and 
warfare disrupt nations large and small, and 
we must at least try not to mix locations 
and broilings. Over in Europe American 
wives are seeking release in divorce courts, 
and we must assume a knowledge of nobility 
magnificence and nobility degeneracy. In 
southern Italy earthquakes are laying low 
man and man s handiwork, wherefore the 
public will find of interest a bird s-eye view 
of earthquake catastrophes. There s a sore 
famine in China, and the tragedy of the 
situation must be presented to the sym 
pathetic American people. And, of course, 
we must keep in touch with the latest acts 
of violence in Russia, perhaps be forced to 
anticipate a few. We must try to master 
the technical terms of English politics, talk 
familiarly of "In" and "Opposition," do 
our best to get the hang of Secretary of 
State for War, etc., etc.; for just now every 
one is very knowing in regard to English 
politics; then, too, republican America is 
tickled to hear of all those sturdy labor 
leaders that have ousted all those afternoon- 
tea dandies. No dearth of subjects, plenty 
doing. 

I was once something of a student, a dig 
ger, loved history and the getting-down to 
the root of things; scorned padding in 



writing, long space- filling rot; railed at in 
accuracies and cheap generalizations, little 
thinking of a day I was to spend good honest 
working-hours at the veriest skimming and 
an ensuing space-filling. In these great 
word-factories one cannot take time to 
think; one just typewrites. 

When ambition led me from the blessed 
isles (Hawaii) to the antipodes (Chicago), 
the goal was magazine writing, not a news 
paper job; but the periodicals I thought 
the suitable ones for work I had taken as 
my standard, maintained an inhospitality 
so persistent as to discourage the brightest 
hopes, the most vaulting ambition. I was 
forced to turn to the lesser "rungs on the 
monthly ladder of fame," and these being 
not only lowly in character but low in purse 
I finally offered my wares to the daily and 
Sunday press. 

At first I was a free lance, but free-lancing 
proved too uncertain; very happy and gay 
was the month the account-book showed 
one hundred dollars, very sad and forlorn 
the one-hundred-cents-a-month season. So 
in the course of time I let my wings be 
clipped and bound myself for steady pay to 
all day in an office-chair. A free gypsy such 
as I at an office-desk ! 

But I have tried to down the gypsy and 
toil steadily the stven long hours demanded. 
The "sitting" makes me frantic I want 
to swing a golf-club as of yore, I long to take 
my horse Akiahi and gallop away miles into 
solitude as of yore. I hunger to climb moun 
tains and bathe in the sea. I feel driven 
to camp in the woods weeks at a time as 
I was wont in the good old past. Some 
day, some day, I must, I will, go back to the 
freedom and the beauty; now I live in the 
city and earn money that in the future I 
may live out of the city. (Do I not know 
that thousands of city-doomed dream this 
dream, thousands that will never realize it ! 
Let us hope there will be country life in 
Heaven.) 

Every bright, beautiful morning that I 
enter the dingy newspaper building I feel 
like a miner being swallowed up in the 
bowels of the earth, saying farewell to sun 
light and vital air and joy. I am a wor 
shipper of beauty, and I toil amid the most 
squalid surroundings, our "plant" unhap 
pily placed in the very centre of a factory 
district. I am a sun-worshipper, and my 
office-window looks out on a narrow alley. 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



505 



I am an apostle of cleanliness, and have to 
spend six days a week in a room about as 
clean as a village railway-station, the win 
dows caked with dust, grime everywhere. 
I love "sounds and sweet airs that give 
delight and hurt not," and under me the 
heavy presses pound and rock, over me the 
stereotypers or "make-ups" frequently 
drop a "form" whose fall almost makes me 
jump out of my skin, while down in the 
alley giant trucks rattle over cobble-stones 
and teamsters wrangle in the profane fash 
ion of their kind. I like a cool place in 
which to work, and there is a great power- 
pipe in one corner of my room which, sum 
mer and winter, throws out stifling heat. 
I have an extremely fine sense of smell, and 
the little hotel across the alley burns street- 
sweepings for fuel. 

I want to read devotional poems, I want 
to read "The Philosophy of English Litera 
ture," I want to read songs of the open road, 
I want to read outdoor prose as well as out 
door verse. And what do I scan? Oceans 
of newspapers almost all the big ones 
printed from Philadelphia to San Francisco, 
from New Orleans to Minneapolis, and some 
English ones thrown in. 

" When Janwar winds are blawin cold," I 
get out a Fourth of July page; when mid 
summer adds its heat to the power-pipe, I 
write of Christmas decorations. When the 
squalid surroundings press heavily, I try to 
find lightsome verse for the paragraph-page 
man and sentimental verse for the short- 
story man. The Fashion Letter on the 
whole I do not dislike so much as I thought 
I should rather enjoy glancing over the 
reliable trade journal to find "what is 
going to be worn," for I am but yet a wo 
man in spite of the manly names I sign 
to the articles on specific gravity, the virile 
style I attempt in the articles on specific 
gravity. 

But let me be fair and look for gains, see 
if there exist compensations. I confess it is 
interesting to have even a superficial knowl 
edge of the scattered nations of the globe. 
The hurried view it adds to breadth if not 
to depth. I can write more readily than be 
fore the office-chair. I have gained in en 
durance; do not get so easily fatigued. I 
am more of a humanitarian since leaving the 
selfish seclusion of the study; I can tolerate 
crowds now. And in this "literature in a 
hurry," that I pass my days in scanning, I 



come upon occasional illustrations of high- 
class journalism that claim real reading; 
and once in a while in the darkness there 
flashes a gleam of real humor which I 
chuckle over at my tasks, through war and 
fashions, beauty and China. 

Another compensation I have is in cer 
tain growing friendships. There s a lean, 
dark-haired, pallid lad from up-stairs, the 
stereotyper s apprentice, who comes down 
at stated times and dives into the great box 
of waste-paper just outside my door, keen 
after reading-matter, "stories or anything." 
I name him "The Ferret," and save for 
poor, cheated-of-his-boyhood Ferret all the 
thrillers that come my way. (And once he 
brought me some reading-matter, news 
paper verse to "The Dead Rose of Desire.") 
I like the elevator man who, week in, week 
out, uncomplainingly travels up and down 
the elevator well. I like the scrub-woman 
who works so hard to conquer the grime in 
our office cells, and in her losing fight never 
loses heart, never grows bitter. 

And the small boys about the place are 
of perennial interest all so very small for 
the sixteen years they have sworn to. There 
is the little gypsy-faced messenger baby 
putting his head in at the open door and in 
quiring anxiously, "You ain t got no spe 
cial, have you ? " There s the regular office- 
boy whom I despatch in a hurried hour to 
bring a certain volume containing informa 
tion on the Roosevelt Dam. Hours later 
the boy appears after I have utterly for 
gotten I sent him after anything and says, 
with responsibility of aspect: "I found only 
a book on him." 

"Whom?" 

"Roosevelt Dam." 

Again this office-boy, on a commission to 
fetch a picture of Pavlowa. Again hours 
late he appears, when again I have for 
gotten both message and messenger. Equal 
to the occasion, with that constant "respon 
sible" attitude of his, he makes the an 
nouncement: "We did not have a cut of 
that gentleman." 

"Whom?" 

"Pavlowa." 

I find the janitor a character not lacking 
in interest, in appearance a plodding scrub- 
man but with a neat knack at a bit of car 
pentry work, picking faded flowers out of 
the waste-basket, asking for odd numbers 
of the Literary Digest, " Sometimes good ar- 



506 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



tides in them." I find the pleasant-faced 
youth recently promoted to "make-up" 
possesses a telling way of phrasing. 

"I have come to see about the. make-up 
of the Woman s Page. Mr. Brown has left 
us, you know." 

"How s that?" 

"He had a few words with Mr. Schenk 
(the foreman), and took off his apron." 

Ah me, ah me ! I wish I, like Mr. Brown, 
could "take off my apron." It is easily 
done it is so hard to do ! 



A STRANGE sense of misgiving is upon 
L\ me: this is my customary reaction to 
*- * a new and devastating thought. The 
matter is readily explained. For a long, 
long time I have thought of literature as 
youth s kindly instructor. One s 
Blind See ? knowledge of life, I had until late 
ly reasoned, is to be perfected 
through reading. "Reading maketh a full 
man," said Bacon; and by that I suppose he 
meant a well-informed, perhaps a wise, man. 
Life should have no ugly surprises, no genu 
ine amazements for the well-read. The 
springs of character and action, all motives, 
all causes and results these, made mani 
fest in books, should be so apparent to the 
Young Idea that all the dangers and diffi 
culties of life would be anticipated; its 
sweets, youth would be taught, are to be 
tasted judiciously; its temptations rejected; 
and all the rest of it. You know what I 
mean. In thought I have been considering 
literature as a kind of gentle panacea for 
"the thousand natural shocks the flesh is 
heir to." 

But of late came the revolutionary 
thought alluded to heretofore. It is this: 
How much does, how much can, youth un 
derstand of the life which literature pre 
sents ? 

Our schools and colleges are at some pains 
to offer courses in good reading. Our boys 
and girls read "Hamlet," "Macbeth," 
"Comus," "Henry Esmond," "The Old 
Testament Narratives." We need go no 
farther. Now comes the question: Can we 
reasonably expect these great works to be 
appreciated by those whose limited experi 



ence in life necessarily denies to them the 
acute power and pleasure of recognition? 
Perhaps a few illustrations may here be 
helpful. 

As the gloomy tragedy in "Macbeth" 
deepens, it is fitfully illumined by lingering 
rays of human affection manifested by the 
hero for the heroine. Macbeth keeps call 
ing his wife "my dearest love," and "my 
dearest chuck," and the like. You remem 
ber. You understand. But does a lad of 
sixteen understand ? When one was asked 
to tell what we are to learn from the fact 
that Macbeth continues to call his wife pet 
names, he said: "This shows Macbeth s 
utter demoralization." Nor am I sure that 
the boy is of Puritan descent. Again, in 
describing that fatal tournament whereat 
Lancelot was wounded, a hopeful wrote: 
"Lancelot and some strange knights had a 
list." I suppose that, if grim humor may 
be used in referring to so unctuous a theme 
as the Round Table, we might say that 
Lancelot listed when he left the field. 
Again, when a boy was asked to name the 
literary qualities which made Irving famous, 
he wrote: "Washington Irving is America s 
greatest writer because of his invulnerable 
grammar." Again, the heart-breaking cry 
of Macbeth to the Scotch doctor, 

" Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain," 

is construed in this manner: "Can } ou, 
doctor, cure a person of the blues; or, have 
you been successful in asylum work?" 

The mature heart (of whatever age) a 
poet can poignantly, even plungingly, 
fathom. But can the sad penetration of 
his darts affect the hard green heart of 
youth? I do not know. All of us admit 
that we receive from travel only what we 
take to it. Does not the same law apply 
to literature and our journeys into it? 
Young minds unused to reading are sel 
dom advanced readily by it. For example, 
what I call an athletic mind will collide 
violently with "Hamlet." And always I 
remember the wise Bacon s canny saying: 
"Reading maketh a full man." Observe 
that he does not say a boy or a girl. 




THE FIELD OF ART 





Fragment of the Western Frieze of the Parthenon left in place upon the ruins. 



Modern Views of Greek Art 



BY MARY MAcALISTER 



EVERY now and then some extreme 
modernist comes forward with the 
statement that the Greek inspiration 
has no place in the art of our time. Yet 
from a broad modern standpoint "classic 
art" has so greatly enlarged its scope and 
widened its horizon that it seems in no 
danger of dying out of the present-day 
world. What used to be called "the classic 
traditions" have long since died out, and 
given place to new conceptions of the ori 
gins of Greek art, and the tendency of 
modern criticism is also to revise old ideas 
of late classic styles. Any and all periods 
of Hellenic development are accepted in 
their relation to our own time, rather than 
as absolute, conservative ideals of beauty. 



Archaeology has, in our day, become one 
of the most vividly interesting and thor 
oughly alive of pursuits, continually open 
ing up new avenues of inquiry, and giving 
light and inspiration to the whole field of 
art. Archaeological discoveries of the last 
fifty years have shown that the Golden 
Age of Greek art was more than two thou 
sand years in the making. It is strange 
enough to think that previously it was re 
garded as a spontaneous growth, with ori 
gins veiled in impenetrable mystery. Now 
the adventurer into the great regions of 
knowledge where the story of Greek civili 
zation enfolds itself may become possessed 
of at least the main facts of prehistoric 
epochs long before Greek art became Greek. 

57 



508 



THE FIELD OF ART 



Much is still left for imaginative specula 
tion, it is true; behind the definite facts is 
still the unknown, the glamour of a baffling, 
eachanted past that eludes the researches 
of the most learned. 

The Homeric Iliad and Odyssey were first 
made to connect with history by the dis 
coveries of Schliemann, late in the nine 
teenth century. When the site of Troy 



King Minos of Knossos was the first result 
of the excavations in Crete. Many of the 
treasures unearthed there are familiar to 
visitors in American museums, not from 
originals, as a rule, but from very exact re 
productions. It was an astonishingly "pro 
gressive" and luxurious civilization that 
was revealed in the Knossos palace and 
other remains. There are many proofs of 




Greek amphitheatre at the University of Virginia. 
Designed by Fiske Kimball. 



was found, and later Mycenae and Tiryns, 
the Heroic Age was no longer merely myth 
and legend but a reflection, put into poetic 
form long afterward, of a real period in 
which there were "shining palaces, gay- 
colored garments rich with golden orna 
ments, beautiful weapons, and vessels 
painted and carved." 

Then came the discovery of that earlier 
civilization which proved to be the key to 
Mycenaean art, when, in 1900, Sir Arthur 
Evans commenced the famous excavations 
in Crete. He and the other experts who 
carried on the series of Cretan excavations 
in the years before the war, reconstructed 
what they named "Minoan" primitive art. 
And we know it almost as a modern fad, 
from which some of the very latest art takes 
its cue. 

The palace of the half-real, half -legendary 



the contact of Crete with Egypt, but formal, 
monumental Egyptian art and buoyant, 
experimental Cretan are very different. 
Modern artistic interpretations of Egypt 
often give the impression of audacity and 
"allure" according to some of these, old 
Egypt was full of such qualities. But her 
civilization appears really to have been al 
ways a conservative one, while the Minoans 
appear as the innovators of the ancient 
world. And they share the fate of most 
innovators. The little island domain of 
Crete, evidently far advanced in civilization 
while Egypt was at the height of her power, 
was destined to be merely the "Forerunner 
of Greece," and its art forgotten for nearly 
three thousand years. 

The art of Crete is shown in wall-paint 
ings, stone-carvings, pottery of distinctive 
design, and many objects of faience, ivory, 




The Hermes of Praxiteles, for all its remote serenity, is not so far removed from modern sentiment. 



and metal. The cup-bearer fresco of 
Knossos, a most striking figure of a young 
man, seems a prophecy of Greek concep 
tions of the human figure. Minoan figures 
of women, on the other hand, are most un- 
Greek, the constricted waist and flaring 
skirts far from all forms of classic drapery. 
The costume of a snake-goddess figurine has 
been compared, to the style of dress in vogue 
at the court of the Empress Eugenie) as well 
as to the Watteau style. It is this unex 
pectedness and inconsistency which attract 
the modern designer, out in the ancient 
world for novelty, and finding plenty of it 
in the new-old art of Crete. 



As a source of myth and legend Crete was 
always known. The Minos palace was 
identified as the spot from whence came the 
Minotaur tradition, and the bull, the double 
axe, and other symbols are believed to be 
connected with Minoan life and worship. 
But the forms of religious worship are un 
known; no separate temples have been 
found, only evidences of household shrines 
and of possible open-air cults. Authorities 
allow us to imagine that "The groves and 
rocky gorges of the land were no doubt peo 
pled not only by forms of the great gods, but 
also by crowds of spirits of mountain, wood, 
and stream, the ancestors of the nymphs and 

59 



510 



THE FIELD OF ART 



dryads of classical Greece." * Votive offer 
ings have been found in the legendary birth 
place of Zeus, the cave of Dikte. In some 
way the nature deity venerated in the Cre- 




Reproduction of gold cup from Mycenae. 
Courtesy of University Museum, Philadelphia. 

tan cave was associated with much later 
northern traditions and became great Zeus 
of classical conceptions. All this is but 
speculation; ancient Crete speaks only 
through art as yet. The hundreds of in 
scribed tablets found have not been de 
ciphered. So that we of the twentieth cen 
tury who gaze curiously upon Cretan art in 
our museums are free to judge its meanings 
as we will, unhampered by any greatly su 
perior knowledge of scholarly readers of 
hieroglyphs. 

The period in Greek history that has not 
yielded any notable examples of art, in spite 
of modern research, is that following the 
Minoan and Mycenaean era, after the north 
ern invasion of the mainland had spread 
through the ^Egean. From about noo to 
700 B. C. is the Greek Dark Age. At some 
time early in these unrecorded centuries of 
change the Ionian Greeks settled in Asia 
Minor. And in Ionia, on the Asiatic main 
land and adjacent islands, Greek art flour 
ished, both early and late, and there were all 
the varied influences and counter-influences 
in relation to neighboring peoples that are 
deeply interesting to serious students of an 
cient art, and very intricate to those who 
dip more lightly into the subject. Owing to 
Turkish rule and to present unsettled condi 
tions, archaeological explorations have not 
been exhaustive in this part of Asia Minor, 

* " /Egean Archaeology," by H. R. Hall. 



though important discoveries have been 
made. The British some time ago carried 
on their work at Ephesus under the direc 
tion of Mr. D. G. Hogarth; the American 
Society for the Excavation of Sardis, under 
Professor Howard Crosby Butler, of Prince 
ton, has dug up extensive remains of ancient 
Lydian civilization of different periods. 
This whole area, overlaid as it is with late 
Greek and Roman remains, is looked upon 
as the newest field for classical research. 

Asia Minor had much to do with the de 
velopment of archaic art, while Oriental in 
fluences were being both adapted and re 
jected, in the final stages of progress toward 
the Greek high period. These final stages 
are rich in suggestion. Naturally the vigor 
and vitality of archaic craftsmen have 
things to convey to our age of change and 
uncertainty in artistic ideas, and it is easy 
to trace their influence in American sculp 
ture of to-day. 

When it comes to explaining just how 
Hellenic art achieved perfection the wisest 
and most learned are up against the un 
known again. Nothing that came before 
the fifth century accounts for the supreme 
distinction, the joyous freedom, and the 
sanity and proportion of such examples of 







Octopus vase from Gournia, Crete, found by 

University of Pennsylvania Museum 

Expedition at that site. 

the climax of achievement as there are left 
in the world. Every one knows how few 
these examples really are. There is the 
great heritage of architectural ruins in 
Greece, in Sicily, at Paestum. Their fallen 
glories have been enough to hand down the 
classic idea of building. In the United 
States it seems to have taken a new lease of 
life: the seventh American-Greek open-air 



THE FIELD OF ART 



511 



theatre, of a type especially designed for 
dramatic representations, was recently fin 
ished at the University of Virginia; a city 
in another State is completing a copy of the 
Parthenon for civic uses; and more convinc 
ing than direct copies is 
the subtle mingling of 
the classic with the de 
tails of some of the new 
est skyscrapers. The 
authentic original 
sculpture of the great 
classical period that is 
left is so limited the 
examples can be count 
ed in a moment. As for 
our knowledge of paint 
ing, that comes mostly 
from vases. The bright 
coloring that was really 
Greek from the Myce 
naean period we cannot 
know, and have to pic 
ture it with only the 
white and black, red, 
and buff, that we actu 
ally see as very insuffi 
cient evidence. 

A new theory about 
Greek vases was first 
brought forward in the 
book on "Dynamic 
Symmetry," by Jay 
Hambidge, issued from 
Yale in 1920, and claim 
ing the discovery of a 
mathematical system 
of measurements as the 
basis of design, used by 
the ancient Egyptians 
but fully developed by 
the Greeks. To the 
uninitiated the system 
would seem to be a 
most difficult one to be 
used with facility to 
day, yet it is already 
being tried in the teach 
ing of art. The au 
thor of this book is by 
no means insensible to the Greek vase as 
"an artistic miracle," even though one of 
the finest is called "a theme in double root- 
five." 

The Parthenon frieze has remained a mir 
acle beyond dispute. The mutilated frag 
ments of it can convev a thrill of the fifth 




V 



Reproduction of cup-bearer fresco from 
Knossos Palace, Crete. 

Courtesy of University Museum, .Philadelphia. 



century B. C. in the atmosphere of the 
British Museum, and we can dimly imagine 
what it must have been in its entirety, 
newly created and placed upon the building 
it was made to adorn, within the outer col 
onnade, its low relief 
gleaming with color in 
an indirect, diffused 
light. That procession 
of horsemen, chariot 
eers, and townspeople 
afoot, proudly ap 
proaching the seated 
gods, illustrating a real 
festival of Athens, 
touched the heights of 
a civic idealism that 
belongs wholly to the 
antique world. To 
dwellers in an Ameri 
can city of to-day it is 
as incredible as a 
carved presentment of 
a phantom city that 
never really existed. 

In fourth-century 
sculpture there is some 
thing that has been 
found to be nearer mod- 
ern sentiment. The 
Hermes of Praxiteles, 
the young messenger of 
the gods with the in 
fant Dionysus, for all 
its remote serenity, 
seems not so far re 
moved. It is almost 
sentimental, if such a 
thing could be in Greek 
art. But sentimental 
ity does not enter into 
Hellenic conceptions, 
where results, however 
they may have been ar 
rived at, are direct and 
sincere in the way so 
hard to comprehend in 
this sophisticated age. 
After all, perhaps the 
intangible quality of 
greatness that is so baffling is nothing very 
exalted, but only the impress of this sin 
cerity, a reverent simplicity of outlook all 
but lost out of the modern world. It is 
not alone the simplicity of the ancient 
creative spirit that is so rare in modern art , 
but the simplicity of the old spirit of work- 



512 



THE FIELD OF ART 



manship can hardly live in the present 
world. 

The great qualities lingered a long time 
in the world of antiquity. No hard-and- 
fast limits of date are now placed upon ap 
preciation of classic beauty. The old- 
fashioned art criticism treated late Greek 
productions in a general way as decadent. 
Nowadays we are much too well acquainted 
with artistic decadence for any such view, 
and the Hellenistic period appears as a "new 
movement," in spite of all the copies and 
adaptations of older masterpieces, and their 
diminished religious significance. 

Hellenic art and learning were brilliantly 
revived after the conquests of Alexander the 
Great in several of the localities pictur 
esquely known as "the kingdoms of the 
Diadochi, or Successors." Alexandria was 
Greek in the midst of Egyptian traditions. 
Pergamon, on the other hand, had inherited 
traditions of the old Ionian cities in her ter 
ritory. The island republic of Rhodes is 
regarded as having transmitted the old 
ideas most directly a democracy with a 
purer Hellenic art. This late era is pre 
sented as one of private wealth, commercial 
activity on a large scale, and cosmopoli 
tanism. Such characteristics are familiar, 
bringing us down from the heights, more 
into reality, and very great works sprang 
from the newer sources of inspiration. The 
Venus of Melos herself is the most conspicu 
ous example of late, composite art. No 
remnant of ancient sculpture appeals to 
modern taste more than the Victory of 
Samothrace, the "Winged Victory" of the 
Louvre. This beautiful body of a woman, 



vaguely connected with the commemora 
tion of a sea victory, cannot be associated 
in the modern mind with ideas of decadence. 
Though the date is not definitely fixed, the 
latest opinion is that it was the creation 
of a great artist about 250 B. C., and of 
Rhodian inspiration. 

Of course the real change came over 
Greek art when it became the sesthetic ex 
pression of the Roman Empire, subject to 
imperial ideas and to expansion in a new 
sort of utility. The distinctly Roman style 
is apparent to the student of antiquity, 
and is well understood and used as a dec 
orative style at present. 

And we well know that the fall of Rome, 
the end of pagan art as it was typical of the 
classic world, did not put an end to Greek 
art. It is strange that the first revival of 
it, when some of the classic forms and motifs 
were taken over as a part of early Christian 
art in Byzantium, should have been a return 
to Eastern influences from which the Greeks 
took so many centuries to escape. Then, 
after the passing of centuries, came the 
Italian revival, when old classic forms 
flashed into new life in the splendid reign of 
beauty which produced the Renaissance. 

The Renaissance ideas were far enough 
from the old Greek standards, and art in the 
world to-day is confronted with a thousand 
circumstances the Greeks could never have 
dreamed of. The enormous developments of 
modern science are driving art into the new 
channels, and the wildest modernists are not 
challenging old Hellenic standards when 
they maintain that perfection, once reached, 
cannot be reached along the same lines again. 




Reproduction of silver cup from Mycenae. 
Courtesy of University Museum, Philadelphia. 

A calendar of current art exhibitions will be found on page 7. 



It 

ll! 




f row a drawing by W. J. Duncan, 

SUDDENLY HE FELL AWRY INTO THE HALF-STANDING, HALF-LOLLING POSITION OF A 

PUPPET WHOSE WIRES HAVE BEEN CUT. 

"The Man with the Ironic Mask," page 556. 



514 



ScRiBNER s MAGAZINE 



LXXI 



MAY, 1922 



NO. 5 



Russia of Yesterday and To-Morrow 

BY JOHN HAYS HAMMOND 

Author of " South African Memories," etc. 



I 



T was in the winter of John Rhodes. By way of comparison 
1897-98 that Mr. and contrast it might be said that Rhodes 
Gregory Wilenkin, the was interested in the industrial develop- 
financial agent of the ment of a country chiefly as a means of 
Russian Government the territorial expansion of the British 
at London, and Doc- Empire; that is, Rhodes s aspirations were 
tor Rafalovitch, who pre-eminently political, while Witte s par- 
acted in a similar ca- amount interest was for the expansion 
pacity at Paris, had an interview with of his country s industries, rather than 
Mr. Leopold Hirsch and myself regarding for extension of its dominions. Witte s 
the future industrial development of Rus- ambition was to bring Russia to a high 
sia. At that interview they extended state of industrial development, and to 
us an invitation from M. Witte, after- consummate this purpose he was r willing 
ward Count Witte, the financial minister to sacrifice such frontier territory as was 
of Russia, to go to St. Petersburg to dis- not essential to Russia s political integ- 
cuss the subject further with him. We rity. Witte comprehended the political 
accepted the invitation, and in the early weakness of an overextended empire, 
spring of 1898 went to St. Petersburg. Like Rhodes, he was a man of command- 
In the meantime, in order to obtain data ing personality. Both were over six feet 
to enable me to form an impression of the in height and broad in proportion. Each 
potential resources of Russia, I sent sev- was imbued with the belief that he had a 
eral of my assistants to Siberia and other great mission to perform in enhancing the 
parts of the Empire, and upon arrival prestige and power of his country. There 
at St. Petersburg I received from them was in Witte a certain Oriental imper- 
a preliminary report conveying the de- turbability, in contrast with the nervous 
sired information. At that time I was energy and responsiveness which char- 
practising my profession of a consulting acterized Rhodes. Either would have 
engineer in London, and as a representa- been a great factor in the history of any 
tive of Cecil Rhodes had become ac- nation, and either would have exerted 
quainted with Mr. Leopold Hirsch in con- commanding influence if he had been born 
nection with the financing of some of the under the Stars and Stripes. Both were 
Rhodes mining properties in South Africa, in pre-eminent degree self-reliant and re- 
Hirsch was the head of L. Hirsch & Com- sourceful, both were dictatorial in their 
pany, a well-known London financial firm, methods. Rhodes had more the spirit of 
Sergius Witte was then at the zenith of compromise in attaining his ends. Witte 
his career, and was justly regarded in Eu- was more rigid but was compelled at 
rope as one of the most highly qualified of times to make compromises to maintain 
all the great statesmen of his day as an his position and influence. Witte had a 
empire-builder, though perhaps in the eco- far more difficult problem than Rhodes, 
nomic rather than the political sense. He because of the lack of appreciation of his 
was second only in this respect to Cecil policies by his relatively ignorant coun- 



Copyrighted in 1922 in United States, Canada, and Great Britain, by Charles Scribner s Sons. 

New York. All rights reserved. 



Printed in 



5*5 



516 RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW 

trymen. Rhodes could, with confidence, my friends, with the ostensible desire to 

appeal to the enlightened self-interest of be polite "after you, Alphonse " of- 

the Englishman. Witte was handicapped fered me the place of honor. Suspecting 

by a selfish bureaucracy, and by a court their motive, I could not help turning 

camarilla opposed to any economic or upon them a knowing smile, which must 

political change that would militate have conveyed very clearly my thought; 

against their control of Russian affairs. spoken, it would have been: "I suppose 

It is a commentary on the provin- you fellows are afraid of bombs." At any 

cialism of Americans that they know so rate our keen-witted host understood 

little of the life of Sergius Witte, one of perfectly and did not try to hide his 

the great statesmen of his time. Few amusement at the embarrassment of my 

know of him other than through his con- friends. 

nection with the Portsmouth Treaty. At luncheon Madame Witte presided, 
His real achievement was as a captain of and took an intelligent part in the con- 
industry, for such he virtually was when versation. I recall the vivid interest 
finance minister of Russia. At our first Witte evinced in Rhodes. I told him, in 
interview with M. Witte I asked if the discussing England s attitude to Russia, 
reason that he sought English capital was that if Rhodes were the autocrat of Eng- 
not that Russia "had sucked the French land, and another man exactly like him 
orange dry," and was not disposed to al- the autocrat of Russia, the two would get 
low German capitalists and entrepreneurs together and settle all their differences, 
to obtain further measure of control The English Rhodes, recognizing that 
and thus stifle Russian industries. He Russia must have an economic outlet on 
frankly admitted that this was his object the seaboard, would favor Russia s occu- 
in seeking the aid of English capital. I pation of Constantinople her coveted 
then asked him if he would not like also "window on the Mediterranean" pro- 
to secure American capital for Russia, vided Russia would cease causing uneasi- 
and he replied that America was not an ness to England on her Indian frontier; 
international money power, and for that and that for the peace and welfare of the 
reason American capital was not avail- world, as well as for their mutual advan- 
able. This was before our victory over tage, Russia and England would har- 
Spain, and our resultant interest in world monize their foreign policies, 
politics, and his criticism was doubtless At the luncheon Witte warned Hirsch 
justified. Later, when America had be- and me to be prepared to meet German 
come an acknowledged world-power fol- interference in our plans. He also said 
lowing our great industrial development that we must, under no consideration, 
after the Spanish War, I jestingly re- pay anything in the nature of bribes to 
minded Witte of this remark. Russian officials; that, while there was a 
"Yes, you are right," he replied, "in good deal of graft, he had to confess, 
saying that America is now a star of the among Russian officials, unscrupulous 
first magnitude in the financial heavens, promoters had magnified the scandal, but 
but it will be a long time yet before she that very little money paid to the middle- 
will become an international banker." man for his introduction and alleged in- 
Less than a decade after this discussion fluence with the officials ever got out of 
America had loaned almost as much mon- their hands. 

ey to the bankers of Europe as the total We drove back to Witte s office. As 
sum of England s foreign investments. we were about to enter our droskies, Mr. 
From Witte s office we proceeded to his Hirsch expressed a desire to ride with 
house, where we had luncheon. At that Witte on the return home. To this the 
time there were rumors that the Nihilists latter demurred, saying that " Mr. Ham- 
were " out to get" him, and when he in- mond was a more dependable bodyguard, 
vited some one member of our party, because he belongs to a republican form 
which consisted of Mr. Leopold Hirsch, of government, and the Nihilists would 
Captain Money, and myself, to drive be disposed to show him more considera- 
with him in his drosky a diminutive tion than they would an Englishman, in 
victoria which had seats for only two spite of the fact that England was well 



RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW 



517 



known to be the asylum of persecuted 
Nihilists." 

The private coachmen of Russia are 
selected from the fattest men of their 
class. That they are fat shows they are 
well fed and indicates the prosperity of 
their masters ; wherefore the coachmen of 
the minister of finance of the empire was 
one who bulked inordinately. Coachmen 
even resort to padding to attain the req 
uisite bulk. I had a sense of comfort in 
the reflection that our coachman might 
serve as a shield from an assassin s bullet, 
but would have felt more secure had he 
been armor-plated. Notwithstanding, I 
could not help feeling somewhat anxious, 
and was relieved when we arrived safely 
at our destination. 

After a few days in conference with 
Witte, we decided to make a trip into the 
Ural Mountains, and thence into south 
eastern Siberia. Through the kindness of 
Prince Khilkof, the minister of transpor 
tation, a charming Russian nobleman, 
who had attained his practical knowledge 
of railroading starting as a locomotive- 
driver on one of our Western lines, we 
were given a very comfortable private 
car to take us to a station not far from 
what was then the eastern terminus of the 
Trans-Siberian Railway. From this sta 
tion we went southward for several hun 
dred miles into the Altai Mountains on 
the border of Mongolia. 

Travelling in a troika over the almost 
impassable Russian roads (which is com 
parable, in discomfort, only to a journey in 
a dead-axe wagon over the rough roads of 
western America) proved very exhaust 
ing to my friend Hirsch, who was unac 
customed to such discomfort, having 
hitherto incurred no greater physical 
hardship than that of his customary 
morning horseback ride in Hyde Park, or 
fishing and stalking deer on his estate in 
Scotland. Therefore we were delighted 
to find en route a most hospitable host 
and very comfortable quarters at the 
Ivanisky estate. It was indeed an oasis 
in the desert, two hundred and fifty miles 
from the nearest railway-station and a 
thousand miles from any town of signifi 
cant size. 

Ivanisky s story is full of romance. 
Sent as an exile to Siberia some forty-odd 
years before, whither he was followed 



shortly by his loyal and plucky wife, he 
had settled in the foot-hills on the north 
ern slope of the Altai Mountains. In his 
younger days Ivanisky had acquired 
some knowledge of mining, and was for 
tunate enough to find employment in 
working a small gold-mine owned at that 
time by a fellow exile. Under the laws 
regulating exiles those who showed a 
disposition to be law-abiding were al 
lowed, after a time, considerable latitude 
(and longitude), and could take up their 
residence in localities remote from police 
supervision. Ivanisky told me that, 
having served his full period of pro 
bation, he was at liberty when I saw him 
to return to Russia. He preferred, how 
ever, to remain where he was, as he said 
that his family and nearly all his old 
associates were dead and gone, and he 
elected to spend his remaining years in 
this remote part of Siberia. 

I examined the little mining property of 
Ivanisky s, which consisted of some hun 
dred and odd acres of gold-bearing 
gravels, or "placers." It was being 
worked in a crude way, but amply an 
swered Ivanisky s financial requirements. 
We made him an offer for the property, 
which he very promptly turned down, 
saying that, while the sum offered was 
a fair one, he preferred to keep his gold 
in a gravel bank than to deposit his 
money in any of the banks of Siberia. It 
was far safer, he said, to have his wealth 
in that form. From this mine Ivanisky 
derived an income of from fifty to a hun 
dred thousand dollars a year, varying 
with the amount of work done upon the 
mine, which in turn depended upon the 
income he required. 

The Ivanisky home was the only one of 
any importance or size within a radius of 
many hundreds of miles. It would have 
been to any one else a dreary existence, 
but he found diversion, curiously enough, 
in raising trotting-horses. It was not a 
spot well adapted to the purpose, as there 
was hardly a level acre of ground within 
many miles of his stables. Notwith 
standing, he had laid out a half-mile 
undulating track, and sent the man who 
was in charge of his stables to California 
to study scientific methods of breeding 
and training trotters. 

The old gentleman (for gentleman he 



518 RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW 

was in every respect) was a genial soul, forwarded to Marinsk, whence it was 
He was well on in the eighties at the time sent by special messenger on horseback, 
of our visit. He loved to dispense hos- Our interpreter, a German, translated it 
pitality, and provided most delightful from the Russian into German, and for 
entertainment for us during our visit, the edification of my friends I gave them 
His sole amusement during the long win- an English version of it, but the text 
ter nights was, together with his wife, to was so mutilated in transmission from 
listen to the raucous music ground out Petersburg, that all we could make out 
from one of the early phonographs, which was that there had been a naval engage- 
in some way he had obtained. The ment between the Spanish fleet and ours; 
repertoire of the primitive phonograph but as to which had won we were left in 
was almost entirely limited to negro doubt, although the version seemed to be 
minstrel songs and soi-disant humorous in favor of the Americans, and as an 
dialogues. Our good friends did not un- American I was confident that such was 
derstand a word of English, but neverthe- the case. We never did know, in spite of 
less seemed highly amused at the minstrel many telegrams of inquiry sent on our 
jokes. They prevailed on me to translate way back to Moscow, exactly what had 
those jokes and songs into Russian. This happened until we reached that city. 
I did through a German interpreter, but On our way back to the railway-station 
the humor seemed to disappear through atMarinsk,westoppedadayatIvanisky s. 
my rendition, and I fear that unwittingly Our entertainment on this occasion was 
I did my friends a disservice in detract- beyond the cavil of an epicure. I should 
ing from the amusement hitherto pro- blush to have to confess the degree to 
vided. which our conviviality reached. Suffice 
From Ivanisky s, as a base of supplies, it to say, we began with champagne early 
we outfitted for a trip into the Altai in the morning, and were duly provided 
Mountains. Our route was through a with caviare and other thirst-producing 
country devoid even of trails, and, though morsels to enable us to respond by drink- 
it was the month of May, there was con- ing bumpers to the innumerable list of 
siderable snow on the northern slopes of toasts proposed. It was a trying ordeal 
the hills. Fortunately we had remark- for Hirsch, Money, and me to meet the 
ably sure-footed Cossack ponies, which demands of the occasion. We were not 
were able to negotiate treacherous places accustomed to champagne toasts and 
covered over with thin ice or incrusted "no heel-taps" in the morning, but we 
with frozen snow. We trusted a good could not sidestep this conventional obli- 
deal to the so-called instinct of the ponies gation without showing a lack of appre- 
(which is really judgment born of ex- ciation and wounding the feelings of our 
perience), and, with the exception of an generous host. It was a relief when we 
occasional tumble into a soft snow-bank, retired at midnight for a few hours sleep 
we met with no mishap. It was inter- before starting on our trip early the next 
esting to observe how the ponies made morning. 

their examination of suspected spots by To our consternation, we found the 

rubbing off the snow with their noses, breakfast to consist chiefly of cham- 

and testing questionable ground by care- pagne, and all our resolution was required 

fully pawing. One night as we were pre- to maintain sobriety until the time that 

paring to go on a bear-hunt a messenger out host bade us adieu. As we stepped 

arrived from Marinsk, bringing to me a into our troika his farewell words were: 

telegram forwarded from Petersburg by " God speed you, but pardon the lack of 

the American ambassador, my friend Mr. true Russian hospitality of which I am 

Hitchcock, who had promised to keep guilty. You are the first guests I have 

me informed of the result of the naval entertained who were able to leave my 

engagement then imminent between Cer- house sober." After we were out of 

vera s fleet and our own, at the time we hearing all breathed a sigh of relief, but 

left Petersburg. It took us all evening to when we arrived at the river where we 

decipher this telegram. It had been sent were to leave the troika, we were flabber- 

in French from Petersburg to Moscow, gasted at the sight of young Ivanisky, 

translated into Russian there, and then scion of the family, who stood on the 



RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW 519 

brink of the river with a case of cham- brand of Rhine wine and one bottle of 

pagne to bid us a final farewell. He had champagne, if we would retain our reser- 

secretly taken a short cut, and, by driving vations. This delay upset all our plans, 

furiously, had arrived ahead of us. We and I decided to defer my trip, because 

protested against drinking more wine, it would have been impossible to reach 

abjectly pleading incapacity and point- New Haven in time to receive the degree, 

ing out the danger that we were facing which I had been informed could not be 

in crossing the river, which was at that given in absentia. However, Yale made 

time a raging torrent, due to recent an exception in my case, and the degree 

heavy rains. We explained that, even was given me. 

perfectly sober, it would be difficult for us When we returned to St. Petersburg 

to maintain an equilibrium to prevent the from Siberia we had secured sufficient 

dugout from being capsized. Firm in this information to justify an optimistic opin- 

resolution, we left young Ivanisky dum- ion of the attractive opportunities for 

founded. By good luck we succeeded in the investment of British capital. But, 

dodging uprooted trees borne by the swift unfortunately, at that period the political 

stream, and reached the other side safely, conditions in the Far East were very 

The last view we had of Ivanisky, Junior, disturbing, and there was considerable 

was as we climbed into another troika tension between England and Russia. Be- 

which was awaiting us. He held in either sides, the laws of Russia were not favora- 

hand an upturned bottle of champagne, ble to the investment of foreign capital, 

the contents of which he was emptying as there were clauses which made confis- 

on the river-bank. Then, according to cation possible. At a meeting between 

Russian custom, the empty bottles were Witte, Ethan Allen Hitchcock the Ameri- 

dashed to pieces on the rocks. can ambassador, Sir Nicholas O Connor 

At Marinsk I found awaiting me a cable the British ambassador, Leopold Hirsch, 

to the effect that if I arrived at New and myself, I pointed out these objec- 

Haven on a certain date (at the time of tions. While Witte was willing to modify 

the commencement exercises at Yale) my the laws regarding the tenure of property 

Alma Mater would confer on me an hon- by aliens, he was forced to admit that it 

orary degree. This news was as welcome was not an opportune moment to attract 

as it was unexpected. I figured out close- British capital. On this trip I discussed 

ly that I should have time to spend two the economic policy of Russia and Amer- 

days in St. Petersburg, and arrive in ica from the standpoint of a protectionist, 

London the night before the sailing of the to which economic policy Witte and I 

Kaiser William the Second, and immedi- adhered. I was greatly impressed with 

ately telegraphed my wife to secure sail- the plans Witte had formulated for an 

ing accommodations, and to be ready to intensive industrial development of Rus- 

start on that date. I arrived at London sia and Siberia. 

the afternoon as per schedule, and found Leopold Hirsch and I, on this trip, had 
all our trunks packed and ready for the made plans to secure the control of the 
steamer, which was to sail the next morn- platinum-mines of Russia, and succeeded 
ing. Just as we were about to leave the in tying up nearly all the important 
hotel a messenger from the steamship- properties. There was one large prop- 
line came to notify us that, owing to erty, however, that we thought essential 
the breaking of one of the propellers, to our proposed consolidation. It be- 
the sailing of the Kaiser Wilhelm der longed to Count Schuvaloff, of the famous 
Zweite had been postponed for a week, family of Russian diplomats. We ap- 
We were of course greatly disappointed, preached Count Schuvaloff on the sub- 
and especially so because my long and ject, and he invited us to luncheon, for 
strenuous trip, so successfully planned, the purpose, we thought, of transacting 
was of no avail, nor could we find con- business, as he had expressed willingness 
solation in the generous off er of the steam- to join in the proposed amalgamation, 
ship company to defray our hotel bills But, to our surprise, after luncheon the 
meanwhile, which, under the circum- count said it was not customary for him 
stances, the agent informed us, would to discuss business affairs au serieux, 
include the cost of a not too expensive and he turned us over to his business 



520 RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW 

agent, who professed sympathy with that reason he discussed with me the 
our plans. Unfortunately we could not progress of peace negotiations with con- 
remain to conclude negotiations, but in- siderable frankness. He told me that he 
tended to return shortly to St. Peters- had been very much opposed to the war, 
burg for that purpose. We never knew ascribing it to the intrigue of an unprin- 
just how it happened (though we had cipled coterie of the court camarilla, 
grave suspicions) that in our absence a In confirmation I recalled the fact that 
Belgian and French syndicate acquired Witte had expressed to me in 1898 op- 
control of the Schuvaloff property, and position to the Russification of the Far 
certain other interests comprehended in Eastern territory of Asia. He had been 
our scheme, and thus succeeded in de- unquestionably an advocate of world 
feating our consolidation. To obtain peace, since as an economist he realized 
the backing of the Russian Government the handicap under which the European 
in this enterprise, we had agreed with nations suffered in competition with 
Witte to refine the crude platinum in America, owing to the large cost involved 
Russia. Up to that time the Russian in their national defense, 
platinum, which represented ninety per While, as is commonly asserted, Witte 
cent of the world s production, was sent might have been playing the game of bluff, 
to be refined in England, and in that way which he thoroughly understood, never- 
certain English firms had secured the mo- theless I believe that he was sincere in 
nopoly of the manufactured product, en- stating that under no consideration would 
abling them to establish the market price he be a party to signing a treaty of peace 
of the metal for the world. Platinum was which involved the payment of an in- 
then selling at about five dollars an ounce, demnity to Japan. 

and Russia was producing about two At the time of the Portsmouth Con- 
hundred thousand ounces a year. Just ference in 1906 Russia was in a bad way 
before the outbreak of the World War the politically and financially : politically be- 
price of platinum had advanced to up- cause of the unrest aggravated by the 
ward of forty dollars, and in 1918 was in lamentable failure of the Russian army 
demand at one hundred and five dollars and navy; economically because of the 
per ounce. This obviously would have depletion of her treasury by the war and 
been for us a very profitable enterprise the great difficulty experienced in ob- 
if our scheme had been consummated, taining further foreign loans. Witte was 
Most of the world s platinum comes from indeed negotiating with French bankers 
the Ural Mountains, where it occurs in for a loan at this very time. This con- 
gravel deposits and is mined by the oper- sideration had doubtless much to do with 
ation of dredging, very similar to that of the practicable attitude of Witte at the 
dredging in working gold-bearing alluvi- peace conference, though he realized that 
ons in other parts of the world. Japan was also financially weak, that, in 

My next meeting with Witte was in the fact, Japan had reached the limit of her 
summer of 1905 at Portsmouth. During financial ability further to prosecute the 
the Russo-Japanese War, I had made an war. Witte did not fail to recognize also 
address before the American Academy of the fact " that Japan in the event of a 
Political and Social Science at Phila- continuance of hostilities would be very 
delphia on the subject of "America s seriously handicapped as her military 
Commercial Interests" in the Far East, operations advanced westward, because 
On that occasion I expressed the opinion of the increasing distance from her base 
that, irrespective of the merits of the of supplies." Russia had not been van- 
controversy between Russia and Japan, quished, he told me. Indeed, he said: 
a Russian victory would best serve the "Russia had only just begun to exert 
commercial interests of America in the her full strength, and to attain the co- 
Orient, et cetera, et cetera. ordinated effort in her military plans." 

Witte had been informed of this ad- Witte exerted himself, during the con- 
dress, the effect of which, coupled with ference, to win the confidence of Amer- 
the friendship that had developed be- ican newspaper correspondents and, 
tween us in 1898, induced him to regard through the press, to counteract the pre- 
me as a genuine friend of Russia. For vailing pro- Japanese sentiment. In this 



RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW 521 

he received valuable assistance from his Krivoschein, the minister \>f foreign af- 

old friend Doctor E. J. Dillon, and their fairs Sazanoff, and the prime minister 

efforts were entirely successful, much to Stolypin. 

the surprise and embarrassment of the My old friend, W. W. Rockhill, was 

Japanese representatives. Witte s re- then the American ambassador, but had 

pute as a statesman was greatly enhanced not as yet been able to present his creden- 

by the favorable terms, for such they tials to the Czar. At the time of my 

were generally regarded, which he se- visit, the relations between our govern- 

cured through his ability as a negotiator, ment and Russia were somewhat strained, 

and it is not surprising that the tardy on account of conflicting views regarding 

expression of appreciation by his im- railway lines in Manchuria. I studiously 

perial master caused him deep chagrin. avoided bringing Mr. Rockhill into the 

In the spring of 1910, Mr. Gregory negotiations, in order that my visit should 
Wilenkin, who was on a visit to this not assume anything of an official char- 
country as financial agent of the Russian acter, which otherwise might have been 
Government, extended me an invitation so regarded on account of my known close 
from that government to visit Russia to personal relations with President Taft. 
discuss plans for the development of its The result of this visit was most promis- 
industries by American and English capi- ing, for I had the assurance of the highest 
tal, under American auspices. He told Russian officials that, as far as consis- 
me that my financial connections here and tent with Russia s treaty obligations with 
in England and my knowledge of Russian other nations, preference would be given 
conditions was why the Russian Govern- to American and English capital in the 
ment requested me to take the initiative various enterprises we were to undertake, 
in this movement. After I had been as- My investigation confirmed the opinion I 
sured that the Russian Government was had formed in 1898 of the great impor- 
keenly interested in this plan, and was tance to Russia of a system of grain-ele- 
willing to make such an enterprise espe- vators throughout the country; also of 
cially attractive to American and English the need of a system of refrigerator-cars 
investors, I decided to accept the invi- to transport fruit and other perishable 
tation of the minister of finance, M. supplies from distant parts of the empire. 
Kokovtzoff, and started for Russia via We likewise discussed in a tentative way 
Berlin late in November. I spent a few the better equipment of Russian ports, 
days in Berlin getting what information et cetera. 

I could as to the relations, political and I sent two American experts, Doctor 

economic, between Germany and Russia. Davis, chief of the U. S. Reclamation Sur- 

My departure for Russia had been cabled vey, and Mr. Mackie, an expert in the de- 

abroad, and the German newspapers were velopment of the arid regions of the West, 

prepared to interview me. Of course I to make an investigation of the agricul- 

refrained from disclosing the object of tural resources of the southeastern part 

my visit, and from giving them any more of the Russian Empire. I also had secured 

information than was necessary to allay the reports of experts in the building of 

their suspicion. American grain-elevators, after they had 

My wife and my son Jack accompanied made a thorough study of Russia s re- 

me on this trip. At the Russian frontier quirements in this regard, 

we were shown every courtesy in having To get the imperial imprimatur of my 

our baggage passed without examination, agreement with the government officials, 

and a private car was provided to take us an audience was arranged with the Czar, 

to St. Petersburg. Mr. Wilenkin had He was then in residence at Tsarskoe 

come from London to meet me there, and Selo, one of his palaces about fifteen or 

to introduce me to the Russian officials, twenty miles from St. Petersburg. I 

I was accorded a very cordial reception, was instructed through the Russian 

and was soon assured of their desire to foreign office to present myself in evening 

conclude negotiations with me. I had dress, though my audience was to take 

chiefly to do with the minister of finance place about four o clock in the afternoon. 

Kokovtzoff, the minister of commerce I found myself in a quandary as to 

Timasheff , the minister of agriculture whether etiquette prescribed a white vest 



522 RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND tMVIORROW 

or the ordinary black evening vest. So frankly to L, and not to take up your 
I wore one, just which one I have for- time with lite pleasantries." He re- 
gotten, and carried the other in my pocket plied: "Ye Mr. Hammond, I would be 
prepared to make the necessary change, obliged if bu would speak perfectly 
if by good fortune I should be able to frankly wilme." Put at niy ease, I 
ascertain which vest was de rigueur. I said: "You Majesty, let me reassure you 
faced the ordeal of meeting the Czar of as to the cfcdence you repose in me by 
all the Russias single-handed and alone, suggesting lat should I be so indiscreet 
Although it was not later than four as to betr this confidence, you could 
o clock, it was dark when I reached the remedy al larm by placing me in the 
station. A royal equipage was there to Ananias C a club formed a few years 
meet me, with a Cossack footman gor- ago by Plident Roosevelt." To my 
geously arrayed standing at the door, query as 1 whether he knew about the 
There was no other vehicle at the station, club, the Jar smilingly replied he did. 
Not being able to speak Russian and to I told hin aat, inasmuch as Russia was 
make inquiry, I assumed that the carriage going on \ constitutional basis, an 
was for me, and without further formality Ananias C b would be found an impor- 
stepped in and was quickly driven off. tant instilion. The Czar asked me 
On arriving at what subsequently I ascer- whether ilvas true that America had 
tained to be one of the lesser palaces, I sympathize with Japan at the time of 
was first taken to a small reception-room, the Russc ipanese War, to which I re- 
I removed my coat and sat down for a plied in 5 affirmative. He inquired 
few minutes, when I was, as it seemed to why that is the case, and I told him 
me, summarily hastened back into the that the rmpathy of Americans for 
carriage and driven down the same hill Japan wa >oth because Japan was the 
we had ascended in coming from the rail- smaller nj on and the American s be- 
road-station. Fearing there had been lief in th( ighteousness of the Japanese 
some misunderstanding, I stuck my head cause, it 1 ng the impression in America 
out the window to protest in English, that the A r was brought on by Russian 
German, and French against being taken concessio;Jeekers belonging to the court 
back to the station, but seemed to make camarilla ,1 also told the Czar that the 
no impression on the driver, and I had Russian kvernment had forfeited the 
about become reconciled to the thought sympath>*f Americans because of the 
that there had been some confusion of frequent wish pogroms. He said he 
arrangements, when suddenly the car- could un< -stand that, but that the Jew- 
riage turned into a side road, which ish problt was a most difficult one, as 
brought me to the imposing palace where there we- Over six million Jews in Rus- 
I was finally to meet His Imperial Maj- sia mor than half the Jews of the en- 
esty. tire work [ I then asked him if the effect 
Here I had but a few minutes to wait of modif kg the administrative regula- 
when the Czar himself appeared. He tions, wl h restricted Jews .to residence 
was attired in the fatigue uniform of a in certaii Congested localities, would not 
Cossack. He advanced quickly, shook result in < minuting the" sore spots "and, 
hands with me cordially, and offered me if so, wl it could not be done. His 
a seat, asking pleasantly in perfect Eng- Majesty pared me that this was under 
lish how I had been treated by the Rus- consider; on. 

sian officials, and whether I was satisfied Then xpatiated upon the superiority 

with my trip. The Czar had been ap- of Amerlns over any other people in 

prised of my negotiations with his min- the indijial development of Russia, 

isters. Realizing that I had but a short where th problems were almost identical 

time to talk with him, and thus encour- with tho [which had been so successfully 

aged to disregard diplomatic usage, solved irJestern America. I also pointed 

" Your Majesty," I began, " I feel honored out that blitically it would be to the ad- 

by the confidence you have shown me in vantage j Russia to have American and 

your invitation to undertake the responsi- English pital, instead of German. In- 

ble task under consideration, and I pre- deed, I pntinued, it was a great mis- 

sume that you wish me to speak very fortune Russia that Germans had been 



RUSSIA >F YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW 



523 



allowed to establish thetrong foothold 
they had in Russian ind^tries; that the 
Germans were exploit! Russia, and 
would stifle the growth of her middle 
class, so indispensable tc Russia s finan 
cial and commercial indemdence. 

Emboldened by the Cz, s acquiescence 
in my views, or perhaps sabsorbed in my 
mission that I was unmi Iful of the im 
pression I was making, I onopolized the 
conversation for a time, ed continued to 
give him good fatherly a /ice as to how 
the interests of Russia, >olitically and 
economically, could be bit served. At 
the conclusion of our inte/iew, the Czar 
assured me of his approv; of the plans I 
had outlined and, wishingne success, he 
bade me a cordial au n 

Immediately following my audience, 
Sazanoff, minister of >reign affairs, 
called to see the Czar, wh told him that 
he had just had a very int esting and in 
forming interview with a an who spoke 
to him as "man to man, id not as sub 
ject to sovereign." 

Before leaving St. Pete burg, Ambas 
sador and Mrs. Rockhill ive us a bril 
liant dinner, one of many md attentions 
we received from them. A Rockhill was 
highly gratified with wha I had accom 
plished, and predicted at my visit 
would prove of great advatage to Amer 
ica s commercial relation with Russia, 
adding that I had also dor much to pro 
mote the entente cordiale f the two na 
tions. 

Another very interestii; dinner was 
given us by M. Kokovtz , minister of 
finance, at which his bro er-in-law M. 
Stolypin and Mme. Stolypii M. and Mme. 
Sazonoff, and other prom ent members 
of the Russian Governmenwere present. 
Poor Stolypin was assas lated a few 
months after. Several tempts had 
previously been made to a: issinate him. 
As a result of a bomb throM a few years 
before, he had a badly m ilated hand. 
Stolypin was always regarcd as a leader 
of Russian reactionary off als. He ex 
pressed great desire to seelmerica, and 
when my wife asked him > give us the 
pleasure of reciprocating Is hospitality 
if he came to America, he sook his head 
and said, "You little reali- the danger 
you would bring to your piceful house 
hold through my presenc evidently 
referring to further threa on his life 



by Nihilists. A few months later poor 
Stolypin fell a victim to the bullet of an 
assassin in the Royal Opera, on which 
occasion the Emperor himself was pres 
ent. 

When I left Russia I had with me, I 
believe, the most important packet of 
commercial opportunities ever offered by 
one nation to another, for I had succeeded 
in opening up a great field for the profit 
able investment of American capital and 
the expansion of her commerce. This 
was the view of American financiers, at 
all events. 

It was my ambition to have this 
achievement the crowning work of my 
career as one of those "unprincipled 
American exploiters," who are accused of 
leaving their comfortable homes to open 
up new territory in foreign fields often 
at the risk of both life and fortune, to the 
advantage of their critics, the stay-at- 
home beneficiaries of America s export 
trade. In Berlin, where I remained a 
few days to look into the much-vaunted 
efficiency of German industries, the ob 
ject of my visit to Russia was freely dis 
cussed by the press, and considerable 
apprehension, I learned, was created in 
the ever-watchful German official circles. 
From Berlin I went to London, via Paris. 
In London I got in touch with finan 
ciers who evinced a keen desire to par 
ticipate in the enterprise I had in hand. 
During my stay in London I accepted an 
invitation to have luncheon with Lord 
Rothschild at his office. It had been my 
custom, extending over a period of many 
years, to drop in informally and have 
luncheon with the Rothschilds at their 
bank once or twice during each of my fre 
quent visits to London. On these occa 
sions always the most interesting topic 
of conversation was my estimate of the 
wealth of Rockefeller and other rich 
Americans. Lord Rothschild invariably 
introduced the subject and, forewarned, 
I was ready to give him the desired thrill. 
He would usually start with some "piker " 
capitalist whose wealth did not amount 
to more than the paltry sum of one hun 
dred millions of dollars, and then worked 
up by queries until he reached the Ameri 
can Croesus, John D. Rockefeller. It 
would be an unpatriotic American who 
would belittle the wealth of a com 
patriot at a time like this, 



524 RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW 

ing modestly admitted, in reply to Lord financiers in Europe and in America, and 

Rothschild s question, that Rockefeller of the friendship that had developed 

was certainly worth five hundred millions through those associations, to which of 

of dollars, assuming an air of ultra- course I gladly assented. I went on to 

conservatism, I would allow him to extort explain, in answer to his question, what 

what was to him a delectable fact that effect the carrying out of my plans would 

Rockefeller was worth at least three- have on the welfare of the Jews in Russia; 

quarters of a billion dollars ; and when the that under no conceivable circumstance 

money-bags around the table stared at would they be affected adversely, but 

me with an expression of pleased sur- that, on the contrary, if I succeeded in 

prise, but not of doubt, I would in sub- enlisting the financial support of certain 

dued tone convey to them the fact that of my Jewish clientele I felt convinced 

in informed financial circles of America, that I should be able in time to contribute 

the Rockefellers wealth was estimated very greatly to the amelioration of the 

at over a billion dollars ! The interna- condition of the Russian Jew. I told 

tionalism of the Rothschild family, and him that there was a strong feeling of 

the utter lack of envy, is evidenced in the resentment in Russia, not only on the 

unmistakable pleasure which character- part of the government, but on the part 

ized the reception of this titbit of high of the people almost universally, against 

finance. the Jewish bankers of Europe and Amer- 

But on this particular occasion Lord ica, for the financial assistance they had 

Rothschild desired to see me in order to rendered Japan during the Russo-Japa- 

ascertain what I had accomplished in my nese War, and that one of the political 

negotiations with the Russian Govern- parties in Russia had capitalized this 

ment, and how my plans would affect circumstance in their partisan propa- 

the status of the Jews in Russia. I told ganda. 

Lord Rothschild that the Jewish question, The hostility of Jewish capitalists in 
as the Czar had said, was "a difficult the future would, I said, tend to accentu- 
one"; that there were in Russia six ate the tension now existing. On the 
million Jews and that their political and other hand, by the co-operation of Jewish 
social status was both deplorable and capitalists in the industrial development 
intolerable. They had been subjected, of Russia, I hoped to be able to effect 
not only to every conceivable form of gradually many reforms in the status of 
ignominy as a race, but had been cruelly their co-religionists. I left, assured that 
persecuted as well, and they had been I had impressed Lord Rothschild with the 
made the victims of innumerable fiendish fact that my plan did not involve a dis- 
pogroms. While expressing the sym- service, but, on the contrary, might prove 
pathy that must be shared by all humani- of great advantage to the Jews of Russia, 
tarians, irrespective of the questions of A few days after, I sailed for America, 
the inherent justice of the controversy Like a bolt from the blue I learned when I 
and of the responsibility for the po- reached New York that our government 
groms, I said the argument pro and con was seriously considering the abrogation 
had developed into a vicious circle of of our commercial treaty with Russia, in 
crimination and recrimination between retaliation for the refusal of that govern- 
the Russian authorities and the Jewish ment to grant America s request for pass- 
population. The former, I explained, ports into Russia for American Jews. On 
proclaim the fact that if Jews would ab- account of my close relations with Presi- 
stain from participation in revolutionary dent Taft, I studiously avoided every 
politics, they would be treated more action that might be represented by his 
liberally; the latter retorting that if they political enemies as an endeavor on my 
were treated more liberally, there would part to influence legislation on this sub- 
be no occasion to seek redress through ject. Moreover, I fully realized that 
political activities. Hence the impasse, endeavor on my part to frustrate the 

Lord Rothschild prefaced his allusion passport movement would be futile. I 

to the subject by reminding me of the did, however, warn my Jewish friends 

fact of the intimate relationship I had that the desired passports never would be 

enjoyed with many of the leading Jewish secured by threats and hostile legislation 



RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY A^D TO-MORROW 525 

against Russia. Subsequent events have that end, but without avail. In advo- 

confirmed this prediction. eating a more liberal policy, he estranged 

himself from the court and the bureau- 

As the chairman of the commission cracy of Russia, who thought his aims too 
of the Panama-Pacific Exposition, ap- radical; and, by the irony of fate, he lost 
pointed by President Taft to invite support of the liberal element, which re- 
European nations to take part in the garded him as too conservative. He fell 
exhibition to be held in San Francisco in between two stools. What a fall it was 
1915, 1 again visited Russia in 1912. Ow- for Russia and the cause of the Allies ! 
ing to the abrogation of our commercial At the time of my visit in 1898 the 
treaty with Russia, to which I have be- fundamental laws of Russia described 
fore referred, the Russian Government the power of the Emperor as "autocratic 
could not receive our commission offit- and unlimited," but since the opening of 
dally, but I was extended a personal invi- the first Duma, following the revolution 
tation to meet the members of the gov- of 1905-6, the word "unlimited" had 
ernment when we visited St. Petersburg disappeared, although the name and 
en route to Austria. It was then that I principle of "autocracy" was jealously 
saw Count Witte for the last time. I preserved. Russia was described in the 
found my old friend greatly changed "Almanach de Gotha" as "a consti- 
from the Witte of 1898, when he was at tutional monarchy under an autocratic 
the zenith of his power; now a disap- Czar." It was still a question whether 
pointed, embittered, despondent man, the emphasis should be placed on the 
believing himself, and rightly too, a word "constitutional" or on the word 
Russian Cassandra. It is interesting, "autocratic." The definition itself con- 
though it may not be profitable, to specu- noted the transition period through which 
late what might have happened if Sergius the empire was passing. But in 1910, as 
Witte had been retained at the helm of far as was observable on the political face 
the Russian ship of state, and if he had of Russia, the revolutionary spirit had 
been given the unqualified support of his become mollified, and the nation seemed 
sovereign and the loyal co-operation of destined to attain a more liberal form of 
his subordinates. Had Witte s policies government through political evolution 
prevailed, there is no question but that instead of through revolution. Russia 
Russia would have been far better pre- seemed about to begin an era of great 
pared to engage in the World War, pre- industrial expansion and prosperity, 
cipitated by the vaulting ambition of the Who could have seriously believed that 
Kaiser. Sergius Witte alone, of Russian within the brief period of seven years there 
statesmen, had the genius to foresee the would have been a Bolshevik Samson 
inevitable trend of political developments, born of the opportunity created by a 
He had, too, the ability to mobilize and world cataclysm to pull down the temple 
to co-ordinate the resources of the coun- of the mighty Russian Empire, though 
try in preparation for the catastrophe, erected, unfortunately, on the quick- 
Witte, I think, will go down in history as sands of political oppression instead of 
a victim of the system that resulted in the upon the solid foundation of the " consent 
overthrow of the monarchy the system of the governed"? 
to which is to be ascribed the present de 
plorable condition of the country. His To foreign investors Russia will be 
fall from power was a great calamity, not found a very attractive field. The vast 
only for Russia but for the world, as opportunities will grip especially the 
events have shown; but it would seem imagination of Americans conversant 
that he was predestined to failure. His with the development of our own great 
position in the political life of Russia was West, for the physical geography of many 
altogether anomalous. As a statesman parts of Russia and Siberia bears a strik- 
in the Russia of his day, he was an ing resemblance to that of western 
anachronism. Foreseeing the need of a America. 

more liberal government to forestall the The problems presented in the indus- 
revolution that was otherwise inevitable, trial development of Russia, the con- 
he used his influence to the utmost for struction of systems of transportation, 



526 



RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW 



the opening of the mines, the erection of 
grain-elevators, the creation of new in 
dustries, the introduction of improved 
methods of agriculture, of a system of 
refrigeration to move the perishable prod 
ucts all these, and other complementary 
problems to be solved in the development 
of the great natural resources of that 
country, will not be new to the American 
captain of industry. 

Furthermore, Americans will enjoy in 
the new era a significant advantage over 
the peoples of other countries, because 
there can never be any political jealousy 
between Russia and our country. Russia 
has always held Americans in high esteem 
and admiration, and there exists among 
the Russian people a sincere friendship 
for Americans a friendship that exists 
in spite of the controversy over the ques 
tion of the Jewish passports. 

Heretofore about two-thirds of the 
trade of Russia has been in the hands of 
the Germans, and every effort had been 
made by them to prevent the extension of 
commerce between Russia and other na 
tions. A large part of the exports of 
America to Russia have gone through 
German channels and have been credited 
to Germany s exports. Germany enjoys, 
of course, the advantage of proximity to 
Russia, but, in view of the betrayal by 
her of Russian interests at the outbreak 
of the war, it is hardly conceivable that 
she will enjoy again the advantages that 
she derived under the treaty of Bjorke. 

This treaty was made in 1905 by Witte, 
because of political pressure applied by 
Germany on Russia, at that time in the 
throes of the Russo-Japanese War. The 
treaty was tantamount to establishing a 
German economic protectionate over a 
large section of Russia, and had become a 
most onerous burden on her industry. 
As Russia has within her boundaries 
most of the raw material required in her 
basic industries, her policy will be to 
establish a protective tariff in order to 
build up her home industries. By reason 
of the greater earning capacity thus 
created, higher standards of living will re 
sult, and with her immense population 
Russia will in time provide a great home 
market for many of her industrial prod 
ucts. 

It is my confident opinion that, under 
the right kind of government and indus 



trial development, Russia will be able to 
create in the not remote future a national 
wealth greater than any other nation in 
Europe with the single exception of Great 
Britain. 

The empire of Russia embraces one- 
sixth of the surface of the earth. Its ex 
treme dimension from east to west is 
6,000 miles almost twice the distance 
from Maine to California, with a stretch 
of 2,300 miles from north to south. 
European Russia alone is larger than all 
the rest of Europe. The total population 
of the empire is 170,000,000, of which 
130,000,000 are in European Russia. 
The largest city is Petrograd, which, until 
recently, had a population of 2,000,000 
almost as large as Berlin or Vienna. 
There are in Russia 35 cities with an 
average population of over 100,000, and 
3,000 towns having from 3,000 to 10,000. 
Upward of 80 per cent of the population 
of Russia, being agriculturists, dwell in 
villages. 

With the exception of America, there 
is no other country under one flag with 
so great a variety of climate, of soil, and 
of mineral wealth. It is often stated by 
enthusiasts, in describing Russia, that her 
potential resources are greater than those 
of any other country. This is true if we 
make the single exception of our own 
great land, for I believe that America has 
been blessed in respect of its natural re 
sources in a far greater degree than any 
part of the globe comprising a like area. 

Within the boundaries of Russia are 
the most extensive timber tracts in the 
world. In European Russia alone they 
cover a territory ten times the aggregate 
area of our New England States. The 
timber industry of Russia is capable of 
enormous development and expansion. 

Before the World War Russia pro 
duced more wheat, rye, and oats than any 
other nation. There are in Russia exten 
sive deposits of iron, coal, lead, copper, 
gold, platinum, petroleum, and other 
valuable minerals. The country too will 
be able to provide an abundance of labor. 
While the labor is as yet crude and lack 
ing in technical skill, it is the opinion of 
Americans who have conducted mining 
and other industrial operations in that 
country that there is the possibility of 
developing a most efficient class of arti 
sans from the great Russian proletariat. 



RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW 527 

All agree that while the Russian peasant is narrow bureaucracy, as was the case in 
illiterate and ignorant densely ignorant Russia), men who were leaders for politi- 
indeed he possesses in an exceptional cal reforms, whether by peaceful or by 
degree resourcefulness and "native wit." revolutionary measures, have almost al- 
Physically he is equal to, if he does not ways been theorists and visionaries, 
excel, the peasant of any other European These men had not the advantage of 
country. Given native intelligence and actual administrative experience, and for 
industry, which the Russian has, and edu- this reason they often advocated Utopian 
cational advantage, which he will have, reforms which, however, they were quick 
one is justified in having an optimistic to repudiate when later they themselves 
view of the future man-power of Russia, were confronted with the responsibility of 
The Russian peasant, contrary to the the conduct of government. Russia has 
popular impression, has a peaceful and been cursed as well as blessed by a class 
kindly disposition, but as his knowledge of "intelligentsia," which in other coun- 
of the world is extremely limited, he has tries as well often renders a great dis- 
become an easy prey to the false political service to the cause of real reform and 
and economic doctrines foisted on him by progress, through advocacy of unrealiz- 
unprincipled political agitators. able ideals. Many of the leaders of 

The opinion often expressed is that reform could be justly stigmatized as 
Russian political thought is so thoroughly unintelligent intellectuals. This will ex- 
indoctrinated with socialistic theories plain the attitude of mind of many up- 
that it will take a long time to eradicate right and patriotic Russians who are 
Bolshevism from the body politic; and affiliated with the proletariat dictator- 
that it will require not years but genera- ship, under the less reputable leadership 
tions to restore economic and social order of Lenine and Trotzky. There is another 
from the chaos incident to the aftermath class of statesmen, who served under 
of the Soviet regime. I do not share this the former Russian Bureaucracy; these 
view, for even now the Bolshevik die- have been proscribed by the Soviet dic 
tators themselves acknowledge the igno- tators, and now reside outside of Russia, 
minious failure of that fatuous and tragic They will fortunately be available for fu- 
experiment in Marxian economics, and ture administrative service. \ 

from sources unbiassed and authoritative It is the deliberate judgment of those 
we learn that Bolshevism virtually has who are familiar with the history of the 
spent its force, not only outside of its own Mirs, the Zemstvos, the Co-operatives, 
boundaries, but within the confines of and the more recent Dumas, that the 
Russia itself. There may be, most likely Russian people possess no mean capacity 
there will be, a recrudescence of Bolshe- for self-government. These institutions, 
vism in certain European states and else- which contributed such signal service in 
where, where the political conditions are the amelioration of the conditions of the 
unstabilized, as the result of the debacle peasants, following their emancipation in 
following the World War. But future 1861, (and who subsequently aided the 
attempts to establish Sovietism as a prin- proletarians of the vast industries estab- 
ciple of government will be sporadic only, lished under the fostering administration 
and foredoomed to failure, incompatible of Witte), have been almost entirely sup- 
as it is with the genius of modern civiliza- pressed by the political vandals of Soviet 
tion. Russia. While the function of these in- 

Many persons unfamiliar with their stitutions legally was economic and soci- 
history question the capacity of the Rus- ologic, the people were nevertheless af- 
sian people for self-government. This forded considerable opportunity to learn 
unwarranted pessimism arises from the something of the political phase of govern- 
misconception that the de facto govern- ment. But these institutions will be re- 
ment is the exponent of Russian political vivified, and will become important fac- 
belief. Nothing is further from the tors politically in the regeneration of 
truth. History has repeatedly shown Russia, which country under a constitu- 
that in the political evolution of auto- tional form of government is destined to 
cratic governments (especially where the be one of the greatest of the great world- 
administration was in the hands of a powers. 



The Suffrage Torch 

MEMORIES OF A MILITANT 



BY LOUISINE W. HAVEMEYER 



ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 



[FIRST PAPER] 




CAME by right of 
heritage to the suf 
frage cause. My 
mother and her asso 
ciates were interested 
in it and were friends 
of the pioneers of the 
movement. Susan B. 
Anthony and Lucy Burns were familiar 
names to me in my childhood. I was 
for a long time a fellow pensionnaire with 
Lucretia Mott s granddaughter in a 
French family in Paris, and Mrs. Harriot 
Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth 
Cady Stanton (she who inserted the 
equal-suffrage clause in the woman s con 
stitution and, therefore, was the cause of 
the ensuing struggle), was the head of my 
first political party and my guide and 
friend for many years. It was Mrs. 
Blatch who insisted that I could speak; 
that I must speak; and then saw to it 
that I did speak. I think I spoke just 
to please her. How well I remember 
that first time that I spoke to an audi 
ence ! It was at a large meeting at my 
own house, and Miss Helen Todd, of Cali 
fornia, in order to answer our antisuffrage 
critics, was to tell us what the women of 
her State had already done with the vote. 
I was to introduce Miss Todd, and as I 
stood trembling amid the elaborate dra 
peries of purple, white, and green, the 
colors of the Woman s Political Union, if 
any one had asked me if I were upon the 
platform or the platform upon me, I 
should have given it to the platform. 

However, I soon became a seasoned 
campaigner, and I remember how amused 
I was during the last days of our long 
struggle when a call came from North 
Carolina for " Mrs. Havemeyer," because 
528 



they wanted "a speaker of national repu 
tation." 

I always appreciated Mrs. Blatch s 
encouragement and discipline, for, when 
we entered the World War, I was able to 
serve my country in a small and humble 
way, and I spoke continuously, while the 
war lasted, on Liberty Loans, land army, 
food conservation, economy and relief, 
and conducted a "jam campaign," in 
which the women of several counties (one 
of which was Fairfield County, Connecti 
cut, where Clemenceau had spent his six 
years of exile), made and shipped, the 
first year of our war, thirty thousand 
pounds of jam to the wounded soldiers at 
the front, and the second year increased 
it to forty thousand pounds. I also 
started and won out in a running fight of 
four years with the administration in 
order, for the sake of efficiency, to secure 
for our Army Nurse Corps relative rank 
similar to that in the Canadian and Aus 
tralian armies. 

But all that is in a story by itself. I 
mention it to prove that one can learn to 
speak. Often when I stood upon a plat 
form sometimes very weary I was 
obliged to stop and think what was my 
subject for that occasion, but once started 
I forgot everything else and thought only 
of what I wanted to say. I enjoyed the 
speech as much as any one, and, although 
I frequently felt elated, never, I can truly 
say, did I feel conceit. 

One of my best friends settled that 
question for me early in my career. 

"My dear," she said to me, "you ve 
got the gift of gab." 

After that, no matter what thanks, 
what eulogies I received, that terrible 
word was ever before my eyes ; and hum- 



THE SUFFRAGE TORCH 



529 



bly and modestly I sought to banish it 
from my sight. 

Again, in my early married life I was 
encouraged to support the suffrage cause. 
My husband firmly believed in the en 
franchisement of women. "If a woman 
does not know how to vote, she d better 
get busy and learn," he said, and when I 
was but a bride he stood beside me while 
I signed a great petition for woman s 
rights that was to be presented to our 
governor in Albany. 

Of course, I thought I would have my 
franchise by return mail, but alas ! I was 
many times a grandmother before that 
came to pass, and only after a long and 
bitter struggle, including six years against 
a President and an administration that 
hesitated at neither legal nor illegal 
means to subdue and imprison us. 

The record of that struggle throws a 
dark shadow upon the otherwise brilliant 
pages of our history. A little band of 
women, women as valiant as those patri 
ots who, disguised as Mohawks, threw 
the taxed tea overboard in Boston harbor 
a century before, they fought and con 
quered President, administration, sena 
tors, representatives, governors, and legis 
lators, and finally the word sex in con 
nection with the federal amendment was 
obliterated forever. 

It goes without saying that my art 
collection also had to take part in the 
suffrage campaign. The only time I ever 
allowed my pictures to be exhibited col 
lectively was for the suffrage cause. As 
a proof of the deep and bitter animosity 
against us among certain classes, I may 
say that some of our best -known and 
important collectors not only refused to 
attend the exhibition, but threatened 
to withdraw their patronage from the 
dealer who had kindly loaned me his gal 
lery for the exhibition. For those of my 
readers who enjoy humor I may add that, 
at my second venture, some of my op 
ponents had so far changed their minds 
as to become contributors to it. 

My posters were beautiful ! After the 
fashion of France I adopted the three- 
striped poster only, instead of the 
French tricolor, I used our party s colors, 
the purple, white, and green. I well re- 
VOL. LXXL 34 



member how delighted I was to see the 
fine effect they made hanging on each 
side of the entrance to the gallery, as well 
as in the most important windows on 
Fifth Avenue, where with a great deal of 
tact and a little assurance I managed to 
place them. 

Furthermore, the only time I ever 
spoke upon art matters was at one of 
these exhibitions. The party needed 
funds so badly that we had to find an 
excuse to charge an entrance fee of five 
dollars, instead of the usual one-dollar 
admission. I had to be the excuse. I 
spoke upon the art of Degas and Miss 
Mary Cassatt, whose work was for the 
first time creditably exhibited in America 
and formed about half of the exhibition, 
while the other half was made up of an 
unusually interesting collection of old 
masters. To contrast the old with the 
modern gave me a most attractive pro 
gramme; but nevertheless, probably on 
account of the enthusiasm it excited and 
the wide publicity the exhibition re 
ceived, I was very much frightened at 
this venture into a new field of oratory so 
different from anything I had ever at 
tempted before. It was very easy to 
talk about the emancipation of women, 
but art was a very different and difficult 
subject. I knew every art critic in Amer 
ica would be ready to challenge my re 
marks about Degas, and, as I had brought 
his first picture to America and had been 
his friend and champion for over a gen 
eration, they would be curious to hear 
what I would say about him. Fortu 
nately for me I met the dean of our art 
critics, and he gave me some advice. 
"Mrs. Havemeyer," he said, "if you 
don t want to be reported as advertising 
some soothing syrup or a * popular hair 
tonic, write down every word you intend 
to say. After you do that you can say 
what you please, but release only written 
stuff to the press." "Oh," I gasped, "I 
wish I hadn t said I would do it; I never 
wrote a speech in my life; but I have 
given my word and I suppose I must go 
through with it, and we simply must get 
the money ! If I write a speech, will you 
run your pen through me? " He saw my 
feeble joke and encouraged me, and we 
spent some delightful hours together 
which always did me good, for they made 



530 THE SUFFRAGE TORCH 

me feel that nothing was too hard to try reveal the unfair, cruel laws and the hard 
to do \vhen it was worth doing. conditions to which women were sub- 
After a long midnight vigil the dying jected. The daily remarks of our oppo- 
embers of my once cheerful fire saw the nents appearing in our newspapers were 
last flourish of the pen to my speech, and, usually answered in some conspicuous 
lest I should do anything foolish, I mailed way. In fact, it was the one window 
it at once to my friend. The following which never failed to attract attention, 
evening I received a number of typed even businessmen, whether for or against 
copies labelled "For the press," and my us, confided to me that they had formed 
dear critic wrote me a kindly letter in a habit of passing that window just to 
which he called my maiden midnight ef- see what the next novelty would be, for 
fort a "sluicy " speech. After I had read we did not forget the huge bulletin-board 
his letter I did not care who heard me I outside the door. 

had something to say and I said it, and As Washington s birthday approached, 

we made a lot of money. Another art the chairman of the window committee 

dealer a French dealer had my speech said to me sadly: "Oh, why are we so 

printed for circulation among his art poor? I want an eagle for our window, 

patrons abroad, and he sent me a great and I don t know how to get one. Just 

many complimentary copies which we think of a great eagle in the window with 

sold for the benefit of the cause. a streamer in his bill with Votes for 

I think I did a bit of good in an art way Women on it ! Oh, dear ! Why are we 

also, and I felt very happy afterward so poor?" 

when some one would say to me: "You Her distress was so genuine I felt I 
made me understand Degas for the first must either laugh or cry, but I only said to 
time " ; and I laughed over one dear friend, her, "I will try to get an eagle for you," 
who told me he was so nervous about my and I disappeared. The next day I tele- 
speaking, fearing that I might break phoned them, " Get your window ready 
down, that, although he had bought a for the eagle," and by afternoon a huge 
ticket, he was afraid to come and hear me bronze, too heavy to lift, was rolled in by 
speak. Later he came to hear me preside several men and put inplace; it filled the 
at "The Shop," and, as it w r as a bright window, and in ils bill was the purple 
afternoon with plenty of fun, I hope he streamer with "Votes for Women" on it 
changed his mind. done at top speed by another w r orker. 

The bulletin-board announced daily every 

I must not fail to tell you about "The attraction that the mind of woman could 
Shop," a great empty shop with a seating think of. We announced days for the 
capacity of about one hundred and fifty, clergy to express their opinion on suffrage, 
loaned to us until rented by a kind days for lawyers to do the same thing, 
friend, and directed by some of the bright- days for men of science, for men of busi 
est women of the Woman s Political ness, for men in every profession in life; 
Union. The window committee saw to we even had convicts or reformed convicts 
it that the biggest crowd on Fifth Avenue to speak for us. We encouraged speak- 
was always in front of our window. "The ing for and against suffrage it meant 
Shop" became so well known that discussion, and discussion meant interest 
strangers could call a taxi at any terminal and publicity; publicity was tour greatest 
in our city, and all they had to do was asset, that open-sesame to the ignorant 
to say, "The Shop," to be whisked off and uninterested feminine mind public- 
and landed as quickly as possible at our ity which awakened their curiosity and 
building. In the window there was a their intelligence. It was wonderful how 
little theatre \vhere the history of suffrage we secured so many speakers. Speakers 
was illustrated with dolls. There were would offer their services, friends would 
maps in colored sands indicating the en- bring them. Every one knew some one 
franchised and unenfranchised parts of \vho could speak, and that some one knew 
the United States, and leaflets in our some one else. Even opponents and our 
party s colors upon which were printed formidable politicians found it embarrass- 
short sentences to catch the eye and to ing to refuse; popular actresses would f re- 



THE SUFFRAGE TORCH 531 

quently fill our hall and often also fill We scored that day as we never did be- 

our meagre exchequer, for I can imagine fore. I placed my little grandson Upon a 

no order, religious or lay, that was ever chair and said: "Friends, if the men of 

poorer than our party ! Pioneers are your generation will not grant us justice 

rarely the wealthy members of a com- now, you may be sure this generation 

munity, and I have often, when asking for will ! " The little fellow, thinking it was 

funds, had women pledge the price of a time to do something, began to clap his 

dress or of some article of wearing-apparel hands vigorously, which the audience in- 

and do without it. The devotion to our terpreted as his approval of my remark, 

cause was sincere and complete. Yes, at and caused much amusement, 

an election when I called for watchers at The activities of "The Shop" lasted 

the polls think of it a needed precau- for over a year, and then, alas, our day of 

tion in the old days of State referendum doom arrived and it was rented, and we 

many a young school-teacher or working were obliged to move out and close it up. 

woman with pale cheeks and weary eyes, "The Shop" was always considered a 

would come up to me and say: "Mrs. brilliant feature of our campaign. 

Havemeyer, I will watch at the polls until Now, before I go on to tell you more of 

school begins," or " I will watch until my our devices for attracting public atten- 

factory opens," which meant a loss of tion and appealing to the sympathies of 

needed rest and a very early rise. the people, before I speak of "The Suf- 

We held some very brilliant meetings frage Torch" or "The Ship of State," or 

at "The Shop." Such were those when we of our later prison experience, I must tell 

answered the antisuffragists criticisms, you as briefly as possible the history of 

when we had one-minute discussions for the movement. 

and against suffrage; on those days the In 1915, when I was requested to speak 

hall was packed to the doors. At another in Seneca Falls on the centennial of Eliz- 

time we would answer the prevailing abeth Cady Stanton s birth, I requested 

slogans of the day, such as: "Woman s Mrs. Blatch to tell me what she remem- 

place is in the home !" "Would suffrage bered of her mother, and to give me some 

break up the home?" Our answer to of the details of the beginning of suffrage, 

that was to put as many happy married She said: "Suffrage began about seventy 

couples upon the platform as it could years ago in a little town near Seneca 

hold, and they all testified that it did not Falls. One hot Sunday morning in July 

disturb the home in any way. During the my mother and Lucretia Mott were dis- 

debate a large box was sent up to the plat- cussing the woman s constitution they 

form ; the chairman opened it and found it were writing. Suddenly my mother said : 

was filled with orange blossoms corsage Lucretia, I think I will put equal suf- 

pieces for the women, and boutonnieres frage into our constitution! Lucretia 

for the men; they made the platform ap- threw up her hands and exclaimed: 

pear as if June had come and many wed- Why, Elizabeth, they will think thee is 

dings had taken place. That meeting crazy, but my mother did put it in, and, 

counted for the suffragists ! crazy or not, the suffrage clause was in- 

Again, our opponents sneered that suf- serted in the new constitution, and for 
frage was only a passing fad, that we were over seventy years the battle raged hot- 
not really in earnest but seeking notoriety ; ly." It was defeated whenever it was 
and as quickly again our bulletin-board reported in Congress. In the form of the 
announced that on the following after- Susan B. Anthony Amendment, it was 
noon there would be four groups of suffra- shut up in Congress s strong box by the 
gists, three consisting of three generations, judiciary committee for twenty-five years 
and one of four generations; and we were at one time. But Elizabeth Cady Stan- 
as good as our word. I presided at that ton s propaganda spread over the West, 
meeting, and it was very touching to see and slowly, State by State, won the vote 
Mrs. de Groot leading the group of four through the referendum. In the East 
generations and to hear her tell us of the little was done until the militant move- 
early struggles and of her friendship with ment in England created a renewed inter- 
the emancipators. est for it in America, and eventually four 



532 



THE SUFFRAGE TORCH 



of our Eastern States determined to try 
and win the franchise through State refer 
endum. Again Mrs. Blatch s astute po 
litical sense saw defeat ahead. She said to 
me: "We cannot do it! We are trying 
to do too much at once. If we concen 
trated on one State we might accomplish 
it, but we shall never carry them all." 
She was right; after a brave struggle 
against great odds and against a hostile 
administration, the suffrage cause in four 
States went down to defeat. The differ 
ent suffrage organizations broke up or 
combined as they saw fit. My party, 
the Woman s Political Union, of which 
Harriot Stanton Blatch was president, 
joined Alice Paul s party, which sought to 
win suffrage by a constitutional amend 
ment. A year after we joined the Con 
gressional Party, as it was then called, 
they did w r hat old politicians called the 
"cleverest thing women ever did": they 
formed a national woman s party, with a 
single platform, and that was the passage 
through Congress of the Susan B. An 
thony amendment, which said that " the 
rights of citizens of the United States to 
vote shall not be denied or abridged by 
the United States or any State on account 
of sex." 

The National Woman s Party, as the 
new organization was called, had no polit 
ical affiliations. Their business was to 
pass that amendment ; they begged their 
sisters in the West to help them with 
their vote, they exerted every known 
means known to women at least to 
bring enough pressure to make Congress 
pass the measure, and at last, after thrill 
ing experiences, some of which I am going 
to tell you of, they succeeded in passing 
it in June, 1919. Then came the struggle 
for ratification ! The amendment had to 
be ratified by thirty-six States in order to 
become a constitutional amendment, and 
again a dark shadow crosses the pages of 
our history as we. have to recoftl the op 
position and treachery of a number of 
States, of their governors, and of their 
legislators. 

There you have the briefest outline of 
the suffrage movement. A detailed his 
tory of it will no doubt be written later; 
probably many will be written, and by 
those far more capable of writing one than 
I am. But you see I did not begin this 



chapter to write a history of suffrage, but 
only to tell you of my personal experiences 
with the movement. 

Well, to go back to "The Shop," which 
had to be closed. Mrs. Blatch s fertile 
brain was already hatching a new scheme 
for publicity. The parade was already 
a thing of the past; prejudice, with vul 
gar flippancy, had frowned upon parades, 
had jeered at and spat upon the bluest 
blood in the land because they walked 
sedately shoulder to shoulder beside the 
humblest worker who, like us, was asking 
for her freedom. A few years later, when 
the Great War was declared, all the women 
of the land could march and march to 
gether under Uncle Sam s banner in any 
and every parade. I watched the Presi 
dent as he passed my windows in the 
Liberty Loan parade in 1917. He had 
the land army in front of him women 
with their hoes and their wheelbarrows, 
and the "women s motor corps" behind 
him, women in khaki and their stretchers 
and their ambulances, and no one even 
commented upon woman s parading but 
then, even men can learn a good bit in 
two years when war pounds it into them ! 
As the parade was no longer interesting 
enough to excite publicity, what could we 
do? Mrs. Blatch called me to her office 
one day and asked me if I would go "up 
State" on a speaking tour for about ten 
days. I consented, and said if she had no 
objections I would take my landaulet car 
as I would be more comfortable and it 
would make me entirely independent of 
time-tables. It could be easily opened if 
necessary to speak out-of-doors, and one 
great advantage would be that I could 
take my organizer along with me. Every 
thing appeared to be satisfactorily ar 
ranged, and I was to go my ways and 
await further orders. 

THE TORCH 

I was visiting on Long Island about a 
week later when one morning what was 
my surprise to see Mrs. Blatch s secre 
tary come to my hostess door, and have 
her thrust into my hand a piece of wood 
that looked to me something like a torch. 
Well, it was the celebrated Liberty Torch, 
as great a piece of campaign publicity 
work as Mrs. Blatch ever did. 

"Here, take it," said the secretary out 




a 



o 

_ 

J 



M 



a 

J3 



-p 



533 



534 



THE SUFFRAGE TORCH 



of breath. " It has been at Montauk, the 
eastern coast, and you are to take it to 
the western limit of New York State. 
Mrs. B latch wants you to be at the old 
Academy of Music in the city just at 
noon to-morrow," and all in a breath she 
continued: "Can I get my train back? 
I have only four minutes to catch it; 
don t you think I can ? I must, can t I ? " 
"Sure," I answered, knowing suffrage 
necessities, " there is my car, jump into 
it; James" this to the chauffeur "don t 
miss that train ! It may be a minute 
late." They did not even hear my last 
words, as they were spinning down the 
road to the station, and I stood there 
holding the ugly brown thing in my hand. 

"Look," I said to my hostess, who still 
stood dumfounded at this little scene, 
and holding up the torch; "the paint 
isn t dry on it and what has a torch to do 
with suffrage anyway?" 

That same question kept my mind busy 
the next morning as I approached my 
destination. Traffic had delayed me a 
few minutes, and, as I drew near the old 
Academy, I saw the familiar "lunch- 
wagon," which we used for a speaker s 
stand, and a number of women ran 
toward me all calling out at once to 
hurry up, as they were waiting for me, 
and "Don t forget," they added, "you 
are to speak on the torch." As I ran, 
the torch was thrust into my hand; I 
was "boosted" onto the stand, while 
about thirty cameras were trying to 
"snap" me. All I recollect was that I 
had an intense desire to step out of the 
lunch-wagon and walk upon the number 
less straw hats that spread out before me 
like an endless field of grain. The lunch 
eon-hour had assembled one of the largest 
audiences I ever spoke to, and almost ev 
ery man wore a straw hat. I suppose the 
new situation excited me ; I lifted the torch 
as high as I could and for once I did not 
have to think the words came to me as 
if by inspiration; I could not utter them 
fast enough; I feared the moments would 
pass before I had told those men all I 
wanted them to hear. The torch, I told 
them, was like the one that lighted up 
our harbor, like the one held aloft by the 
Statue of Liberty it stood for liberty and 
for freedom the freedom we were seeking 
and it greeted the strangers who came 



to our shores and it did not welcome men 
only no, but rather men and women 
alike, bidding them welcome to the land 
of the free and the home of the brave. 

But I must not bore you with a cam 
paign speech; my audience liked it, and 
it ended with a rousing cheer, as the 
men went back to work, many stopping 
long enough to speak to me and to 
promise they would vote for us. 

Sunset of that same day saw me rolling 
along by the upper Hudson, trying to 
make Beeman, where I was to meet my 
organizer and to fulfil my first engage 
ment that very evening. 

It had been a long and exciting day, but 
I thought I should have only a house or a 
theatre meeting, which were comparative 
ly easy to do; but to my surprise that 
night I was to have my baptism of fire, 
my first street meeting; I was told I was 
to speak at the opera-house, and I proudly 
communicated the fact to my companion, 
a very dear but dainty sister-in-law, who 
liked me but never could see why I liked 
suffrage. Alas ! when we arrived at the 
opera-house I was not to speak inside of 
it but on a busy corner on the outside of 
it. "And great was the fall thereof," I 
said, as I mounted the "Jewel Box" the 
name given my pretty landaulet, and I 
began with a few boys and ended with a 
big crowd. I cast a triumphant glance at 
my sister-in-law, but it was lost upon 
her I found she was treating the small 
boys to soda-water. My other meeting 
was in the slums ; it was the first time we 
had met the men of the slums, and I was 
afraid of them oh, so afraid ! How 
foolish ! for we became the best of friends, 
and even at that very meeting a laborer 
returning from work in shirt-sleeves and 
carrying an empty dinner-pail came up to 
me, and handing me a bit of silver said to 
me: "Lady, I do hope you win out." That 
fixed the status; after that they were all 
my friends. 

My organizer was past master at the 
game, or she could not have averaged 
seven speeches a day for ten days, ar 
ranged garden-parties where the whole 
town turned out with a splendid brass 
band, have taken me into the very camp 
of the antis, and have discomfited them at 
the State Fair by her tactics on publicity. 



THE SUFFRAGE TORCH 535 

At Chautauqua the great gates, contrary be done. It meant tremendous publicity, 
to rule, admitted our automobile, and we both in press and movies, and the public 
rolled up to the immense auditorium, were all interested. It was a bright windy 
which was generously offered to us and day when I presented myself for duty, the 
where I spoke to one of my largest audi- tugs were decorated with our colors, the 
ences. My organizer had a chain of deco- whistles blew from shore to shore, and we 
rated autos accompanying my "Jewel were finally told to start. While lashed 
Box" up and down the Mohawk Valley, together in the middle of the river, I, with 
She got suffrage into clubs by clever ruses an appropriate speech, was to deliver the 
when the antis tried to keep it out. She torch to our sisters in New Jersey, and 
would call it a simple luncheon or an in- with another speech our sisters in New 
formal reception. I recall one huge af- Jersey were to receive it. All went well 
fair at Schenectady, where the opposition for a time. I was a bit dizzy trying to 
was so strong that I suggested speaking dodge cameras, but when I arrived in 
without rising in order to make it more mid-stream that dizziness assumed alarm- 
informal, and it was one of the most ing symptoms, and I began to get anxious 
sociable and convincing meetings we ever about my speech. I knew what a poor 
held. sailor I was, and I was afraid in the in- 

The torch leaped into notoriety with creasing wind my condition might prove 

bounds and strides, and as the paint dried, discreditable to the suffrage cause, 

although I always maintained it was a " Hurry up," I said anxiously. "Let 

clumsy thing to hold, I became deeply us get this over with as quickly as pos- 

respectful toward it. I was surprised to sible. Where is that Jersey boat?" I 

see how it impressed audiences whose noticed a look of consternation on the 

minds seemed to grasp the visualized faces of the committee, and just at that 

analogy of woman s suffrage to the Lib- moment a small motor-boat came along- 

erty Torch. side of the tug, and some one shouted : 

To better illustrate my remarks I "The party over there forgot to get a 

noticed, when any one took hold of the license to come out." 

torch, it was always lifted up, held high, "Good gracious!" I gasped. "Will it 

or waved in the air. My audience left be long?" 

no doubt that it expressed a big idea "No, no," some one said soothingly; 

to them. In Chautauqua, in the big au- "come and lie down, and you will feel 

ditorium, the audience surged around the better." 

platform where I spoke, and as I finished I did not wait for a second invitation, 

my speech they begged to be allowed to for we were now tossing wildly about, but 

hold the torch, which they did with. deep promptly lay down I don t know where, 

reverence, causing a delay of over an for there isn t any place to lie down on a 

hour in our schedule, which it was difficult tug, but I just lay down. I closed my 

to make up, although campaigners are eyes and tried to think of my speech and 

supposed to be indifferent to "hours." of our great cause! It was no use I 

After the. torch had accomph shed its became more wretched every moment, 

purpose in New York State, Mrs. Blatch and I was about ready to commit my- 

planned a very spectacular transfer of it self to the waves when a cheery voice 

to the New Jersey branch of the Woman s said: 

Political Union, the transfer to take place " Now, Mrs. Havemeyer, Jersey is here 

in the middle of the Hudson River under and we are waiting for the speech." 

the very shadow of the Statue of Liberty. Would you believe it, friends? I got up 

Unfortunately, Mr. Blatch died very sud- and made that speech ! I blessed the 

denly just at that time, and Mrs. Blatch father of the great river, and the brave 

was obliged to sail at once for England, men of the Empire State who were to give 

Her last request before sailing was that I us our freedom in the coming elections, 

should take her place, and, of. course, I and I confided the sacred token of liberty, 

felt I could not refuse. I assure you I the beloved torch, to our sisters in the 

had no appetite for speechmaking in the neighboring State, and hoped in the com- 

mid-waters of the Hudson, but it had to ing elections their mighty men, headed by 



536 



THE SUFFRAGE TORCH 



the President himself, would lead them 
on to victory ! The whistles screeched, 
the ferry-boats puffed and wheezed; the 
crowd cheered, the press wrote madly, and 
the camera and movie men ground away 
like frenzied hand-organs the threat 
ened fiasco ended in a glorious finale. I 
went home despising myself as an arch- 
hypocrite, pretending to be seasick and 
then being able to make a speech at a 
moment s notice, and that without an un 
pleasant sensation. I believe firmly to this 
day that I was seasick ; and I really don t 
know what happened to me that I was so 
easily cured. 

"I saw you in the movies; you were on 
the Hudson River in a boat," said a 
friend to me a short time after, who had 
just returned from California. 

"Did you?" I asked eagerly. "Did I 
look seasick?" 

"Not a bit," was the answer, and I was 
still more puzzled. 

A day later I crossed the Hudson again. 
This time to start the torch upon its ca 
reer in New Jersey. Not only the antis 
but a hot day greeted us in Newark. The 
asphalt was soft and gooey as the crowd 
gathered around my car. My audience 
had "warmed up" before I began, and as I 
caught their attention I was congratulat 
ing myself that Newark w T as not as bad 
as I feared. Suddenly, from out of the 
crowd came a tall, raw-boned man full of 
booze and talk. He staggered to my car, 
braced himself up, and said, as respect 
fully as hiccoughs would permit: 

"I want to shake Mrs. Havemeyer s 
hand ; I am the father of nine children and 
I hope she gets the vote." 

Several men stepped hurriedly from the 
crowd, took hold of his arm, and at 
tempted to draw him away. He resisted, 
of course, and wanted to continue to talk 
to me. I saw my opportunity to let him 
plead the woman s cause. I drew back 
and let him be plainly seen as he con 
tinued his drunken chatter. I never saw 
a crowd of men more moved or more 
ashamed. It was a spectacle, and some 
how they seemed to feel responsible for 
it. They could not escape the question so 
solemnly put to them: Was a man or a 
woman the more worthy to be a citizen, 
to make the laws that would at least give 
a mother equality over her children ? At 



last my visitor was coaxed away and I 
had no heart to start in again. I closed 
by saying: 

"Men, look to it that some day your 
daughters don t turn upon you and say: 
Father, oh, father, why didn t you give 
us a right to help make the laws which 
might protect us, and which must affect 
every condition under which we live? 
Remember, it may be their nine children 
whom they cannot protect because you 
deny \vomen the right to vote." 

I carried the suffrage torch through all 
the great watering-places on the Jersey 
coast, and then, worn out with the heat 
and fatigue, I returned home, leaving it 
in the custody of a group of young cam 
paigners. 

"Remember, young ladies," I called to 
them, as I motored away; "the torch 
is not an easy thing to take care of." 

The very next day it was stolen, and, 
although we were heart-broken, we at 
once tried to make the misfortune count 
for publicity. The New Jersey branch 
offered a large reward; the antis said we 
had had it stolen; I am not sure we did 
not hint that the antis had it stolen them 
selves, but, as we were about to give it up 
for lost, it appeared at headquarters, 
brought in by a man who said he found it 
in a street-car in Philadelphia. He was 
handed the promised reward in a check. 
He said politely that he was for suffrage 
and wished for no reward, and, indorsing 
the check back to our party, he handed it 
to our chairman and left, wishing us good 
luck. 

For a long period the torch was our 
leading lady, and even years later I had 
to carry it in a parade in our neighboring 
State of Connecticut, as well as the still 
more popular "Ship of State." 

I was the originator of that emblem, 
the greatest crowd-gatherer I ever saw, 
and it happened in this way. When Mrs. 
Blatch was obliged to return to England 
so suddenly, and leave us to run the 
party, we all felt a sense of responsibility. 
It was growing late in the season, the 
days were shortening, and the evenings, 
the only time we could get hold of the 
men for a street meeting, were growing 
very dark. New i York must be held! 
How could we attract the crowds? 

"Ladies, what are we to do?" I asked 




537 



538 



THE SUFFRAGE TORCH 



as I walked into headquarters. "How for you," I would answer and I would 
can we replace the torch?" No one soon have a big crowd about me. 
knew. Just then in walked the torch- I should tire you if I attempted to tell 
maker herself. Immediately a suggestion you of all the arguments that little em- 
came to me. blem enabled me to make. For instance, 
"How soon can you make me a little I would say: "Good women were good 
ship to replace the torch?" I asked her. ballast on the Mayflower, why should they 



In about ten days," she answered. 

"All right," I 
said. "I will pay 
for it. And now I 
will tell you what I 
want." 

In about ten 
days a little ship, 
whose centreboard 
tapered into a stick 
so we could hold 
it, was ready. It 
was made and 
rigged to look as 
much as possible 
like the Mayflower, 
and on the end of 
every spar was an 
electric light which 
outlined the ship so 
it could be distinct 
ly seen even in the 
blackest darkness ; 
the port and star 
board beams bore 
green and red 
lights, which gave 
it a finishing touch 
and made it seem a 
very attractive toy. 
The electric wiring 
was attached to a 
battery which I 



not be now on our Ship of State ? 

"it 




No matter where I went ... I had but to 

light my little " Ship of State " to 

collect a crowd. 



Or 

was a woman 
who climbed over 
the side of that 
ship, and was the 
first to put her foot 
on Plymouth Rock. 
She claimed this 
land as a home for 
men and women 
alike, not men 
alone." Or again: 
"Suppose a man 
and his wife had 
paid their passage 
on a ship and as 
they were about to 
go up the gang 
plank, they were 
stopped, and the 
woman was told she 
could not go on 
board. 

"Why not? 
asks the man. Oh, 
because she is a 
woman, he is 
told. 

" But 
paid her 

have signed all the 
papers, agreed to 
every condition. 



I have 
way, 



carried in the bottom of my automobile, It is all right, stand aside and let her go 

and a button gave me control of the up. 

lighting. No matter where I went from " No, he is told, she cannot go on 

the largest city to the smallest village, I board. 

had but to light my little " Ship of State " " But why not ? persists the man, who 
to collect a crowd. Wherever I went my is getting hot under his collar, 
organizer saw that the papers inserted a " Because she is a woman, is the in- 
print of the ship, and the people would different answer. 



come out to look at it. In the manufac 
turing towns the small boys would crowd 
around me and beg: 

"Please show it to us, Mrs. Have- 
meyer." 

No ! Go get your fathers and mothers, 



When I see my crowd are getting a 
little "hot," too, under their collars, I 
drive home my argument and say: 

"Friends, that is the state of things 
you men are tolerating to-day. There 
isn t a woman in the land who does not 



too, to come out. I have something to subscribe to and obey the laws. There 
say to them and then I will light it up isn t a woman in the land who, if she has 



I WOULD NOT GROW OLD 539 

property, does not pay her taxes taxes The leading lady of the town was usu- 

to support a government that deprives ally asked to sit in my car and snap on the 

her of her rights, a woman who in every lights at my signal. It made splendid 

way supports the Constitution of the publicity and often made a friend for the 

United States, and yet she is told she party or a contributor to our always de- 

cannot go on board our Ship of State pleted treasury. 

just because she is a woman." The "Ship" flashed out its lights up to 
That illustration never failed me, and the very day before our defeat in 1915. 
many are the votes it brought to us. Or We had put up a good fight and had de- 
again: I hold up the ship without light- veloped our political instincts; the cam- 
ing it, and say: "Friends, you want to paign had "toughened our sinews and 
see how my ship looks? It is dark, is it summoned up our blood." It had pre- 
not? You see there can be no light where pared us for the coming struggle, the 
there is no freedom, but when you men great fight when we had become a na- 
give us our freedom in November, then tional party, and Susan B. Anthony s 
my ship will look like this," and as I say federal amendment was our only plat- 
it I snap the button and the thirty-three form. Those were the days when a 
lights with the red and green ones at its little band of women had to fight single- 
port and starboard sides flash out in the handed an administration and a polit- 
darkness, and one hears the ohs and the ical organization armed cap-a-pie against 
ahs, and great applause follows. them. 

(Mrs. Havemeyer s second article, "The Prison Special," will appear in the June number.] 



I Would Not Grow Old 

BY CATHERINE ISABEL HACKETT 

I WOULD not grow old, loving wind-swept grasses 

Too much to have my eyes grow dim; 
Bowed pines sighing as the warm wind passes, 

Sunset tawny on a mountain s rim. 

I cannot feel youth die, for gay music thrills me 

Too much to have my feet grow slow; 
Fear of gray years in the future chills me, 

I cannot let my short youth go. 

I would not grow old, for I love light laughter 

Too much to bear thought of tears; 
I want days filled with dawn-flush, and no night after; 

I must have gladness all my years! 

Too much I love small bits of beauty- 
Whistling winds or the touch of rain, 

To bear old age, or to walk in paths of duty- 
Exquisite rapture lost in pain. 

I fear touch of age on precious gifts I treasure- 
Far-off glint of wings in cloudy blue, 

Voices at evening, and dear beyond measure 
The look in the eyes of you, 

... 

To-day there was an old man, walking slowly down the street- 
I saw his face and ah, how old age can be sweet! 




Notre Dame de Paris. 

From the garden of St.-Julicn-lc-Pauvrc, which is entered through the old Gothic church of that name, hedged in from 
the gaze of the curious, screened by stately trees, one gains n unique view of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. 



Seven Etchings of Paris, Amiens,^ 
and Chartres by Robert F. Logan 

IN the following reproductions, principally of Paris, the artist has successfully 
obtained view-points of his subjects which are a little out of the ordinary and 

consequently full of interest. 

We see the stately towers of Notre Dame de Paris looming up behind the quaint 
old houses on the Isle de Cite, while in another plate, under the very nose of the 
magnificent Cathedral of Amiens, busy market scenes are being unfolded. Again, 
we have an unusual view of the church of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet, constructed 
in part after the plans of Charles Le Brun, a child of the parish, and situated at the 
eastern end of the Quartier Latin. 

The Pont Marie, reminiscent of Baudelaire and Theophile Gautier, the Pont 
Neuf with its sombre arches and quaint carvings, and views of the stately Cathedral 
of Chartres, complete this unusual group of etchings. 

These etchings reproduced by permission of Alpfionse Le Goupy, Paris. 



540 




Lc Pont Marie, Paris. 

Built, liy the engineer-architect Miirie, il connects the Isle St. Louis with the right bank and is one of the oldest 

and most romantic of Paris bridges. 



541 




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543 




L Eglise de St. Nicholas du Chardonnet. 

Finished at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it is an agglomeration of styles, the tower belonging to an earlier 
church, while a side-chapel has been torn away, leaving blind lancet windows like scars in the ancient walls. 



544 




The Cathedral of Chartres. 

It is crowned by two of the most magnificent of Gothic towers in existence. The present church, embellished with splendid 

rose windows and sculptures, is built above a grotto of the ancient Druids. 

The crypt dates from the eleventh century. 



VOL. LXXI. 35 



545 



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546 



Commuting from Mont Estoril 

to Lisbon * 

BY NORVAL RICHARDSON 

Secretary of the American Legation, Portugal 



ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 



C 



ONTRAST is in some 
ways just as much the 
spice of life as variety 
especially if the con 
trast is in one s favor; 
and it surely is when, 
in winter, one walks 
along the sunny paths 
of Mont Estoril, smells the spicy fra 
grance of geranium and stock, pauses a 
few moments in an avenue of palms, 
catches a glimpse of an emerald sea gently 
washing a beach of white sand and while 
doing all this reads in the European edi 
tion of an American paper, three days old, 
that the whole of the United States is 
being swept by a terrible blizzard. It 
seems impossible to believe that such con 
trasts exist, especially when one realizes 
that straight out across the emerald sea, 
only three thousand miles away, is that 
snow-swept country. 

The little station at Mont Estoril is 
built facing the sunny beach ; ivy gerani 
ums cluster about its red tile roof; a solid 
stone wall forms the road-bed of the rail 
way and creates a bulwark against high 
tide. The emerald sea is in reality a wide 
bay, outwardly placid, yet a deceptive 
entrance to the Tagus which leads across 
perilous sand-bars to Lisbon. The an 
cient fishing town of Cascaes drowses in 
the curved line of the rocky shore, its 
fortress, once the summer home of Portu 
guese kings, a landmark for all incoming 
ships. Fishing-boats are scattered over 
the calm water sailboats that seem to 
belong to centuries long past, left over 
from those hundred glorious years of 
Portugal. There is real romance in their 
large sails of orange and yellow and wine- 
dark red; their gondola-shaped hulls, 
their Phoenician prows all suggestive of 
epic adventure. Surely, their mission 
must be more poetic than merely that of 



furnishing food to modern Portuguese 
citizens ! 

As one waits at the station for the ar 
rival of the "business man s special" to 
Lisbon, many other things in sight are 
suggestive of that far-away time when 
Portugal led all the nations of the world. 
The fishwives passing down the road bear 
their flat, heavily laden baskets on their 
heads with the superb carriage of those 
whose ancestors had learned to master 
the sea ; their bright handkerchiefs 
stream out behind them as they speed on 
fleet feet from village to village. The full- 
throated voices of peasants shouting "A 
Burro" to their tiny staggering donkeys 
makes one hear again the shouts of brave 
mariners braving the gales. A huge bull, 
led by two men wearing the black knitted 
caps, a style which has come straight 
down from the Phoenicians some of 
them look as if they were the very caps 
themselves gives a clew to the tradi 
tional sport of the country, for they are 
leading the bellicose beast to Alges, where 
he will amuse thousands next Sunday in 
a bloodless fight. A flock of turkeys, most 
well behaved and following in soldier-like 
fashion the direction -indicated by their 
master, march from house to house to 
offer themselves for sale. And donkeys, 
carrying venders of fruits and vegetables 
whose heads are arrayed in dazzling red 
and yellow scarfs, are trotting by just as 
others like them have trotted for years 
unnumbered. Of course, there is the 
flaunting contrast of modern life; auto 
mobiles, motor-cycles, even motor-trucks 
may pass by occasionally; and the calm 
sea is sometimes disturbed by motor- 
boat and dashing hydroplane. But no 
where has the ugliness of modern life 
crept in; the most recently built cottage 
or villa follows the traditions of centuries 
of building in Portugal. 

547 



548 COMMUTING FROM MONT ESTORIL TO LISBON 

Commuters assemble leisurely. Why station platform all a matter of how 

not? Even if they miss the nine-thirty much steam the wood fire is producing 

express there will be the slow train in half that morning. The passengers climb in, 

an hour. And as for reaching Lisbon so find plenty of comfortable seats those 

early, what does it avail one ? No shop- wide aisles and seats of English coaches 

keeper with any self-respect would think the Christmas horn is blown again, and 

of taking down his shutters the equiva- without any jar or noise of any kind the 

lent of opening his doors before ten train glides off to make two more stops 

o clock. Morning was meant for sleep before going straight on to Lisbon, a mat- 

or at least quiet repose and the undis- ter of some seventeen miles away, 

turbed reading of yesterday s change of The first stop, at Estoril, gives one 

government. No one should work until time to glance at a beautifully laid out 

after a midday breakfast. Besides, there and partially finished imitation of Monte 

is a long, sunny afternoon to be got Carlo. There is a rather splendid hotel, 

through somehow. The rhythm of For- an impressive thermal establishment, two 

tugal! semicircular buildings for shops and, 

When you enter the little station and crowning an eminence, a building dig- 
look about for the ticket-office you may nified by columns and handsome arches 
be a bit puzzled. Then your glance falls which is destined to be a casino. These 
on a tiny little window, just large enough buildings centre about a vast park of palm 
to pass your hand through. It is set very avenues, fountains, miniature waterfalls, 
low; you almost have to lie down to see and flaming flower-beds. The back- 
through it with one eye. When you ground is an extensive grove of pines. It 
achieve this position, your eye meets the is all a Portuguese financier s dream, left 
black eye of the ticket-agent. Now you unfinished in the aftermath of war. One 
must take away your eye and apply your day it will surely be famous, for it has 
mouth to the window and ask for a ticket, much to recommend it over the too fash- 
Then you remove your mouth and apply ionable Riviera, particularly its milder 
your ear to hear how much it is going to climate. 

cost. All this takes time, a great deal of The next stop, Sao Joao do Estoril, a 

time and develops long-unused muscles little farther on, shows only a small sta- 

but no one is pressing you impatiently tion with pleasant hedges and a road 

from behind. leading toward a small town on the beach. 

"One thousand and eight hundred By this time the coaches are well filled, 
reis !" the ticket-agent hisses in your ear. Friends have greeted each other this 
At first you stagger at the tremendous very formally done with bows and hand- 
sum, and do a little calculating which shakes all down the aisle and conversa- 
ends with the realization that, in your tion becomes animated in the usual Latin 
o.wn exceedingly good money, all this manner. Almost every known language 
amounts only to eighteen cents. You is heard. Above the undercurrent of 
hand out two one thousand reis notes and Portuguese, much English is spoken, some 
await the change. But the ticket-agent French, and, now and then, a guttural 
has never been known to have the change. German phrase. 

If the train is on the point of arriving you Two English ladies, who got on at 

give up the fight and add two hundred Mont Estoril, begin an excited discussion 

reis to the agent s salary. over their experiences of the night before 

A timid whistle is heard in the distance, at the Casino. Though their ages are un- 

the station-master comes out and blows certain, their reputations are surely not. 

a little horn for all the world like those Garden-party hats with long veils, sweat- 

we used to blow at Christmas time and ers uncompromisingly home-knitted, solid 

the passengers rise languidly from benches boots, woollen stockings, tweed skirts 

under palm-trees and stand in readiness, all stamp them unmistakably, even if one 

The train appears, coming casually round did not hear their explosive voices, 

a cliff where sprigs of ivy geranium brush " My dear, it s really most extraor- 

the engine s smoke-stack, and comes to a dinary ! Do you see ! I put two pence 

very gentle stop, often quite beyond the ha penny on thirteen I always play 



COMMUTING FROM MONT ESTORIL TO LISBON 549 



thirteen and, just fancy, it came up ! 
Extraordinary, wasn t it? But, my dear, 
the most appalling thing happened. You 
know that frightfully vulgar Mrs. Sla- 
tings-Roberts. She was sitting next me. 
My dear she claimed it said she had 
put two pence ha penny on thirteen her 
self ! What did I do? I simply looked 



to those at play so they could shift quick 
ly from roulette to tea-tables before un 
friendly inspectors entered the building. 
In the centre of the one large room is the 
roulette table which seats about sixteen 
people. Those who cannot find seats lean 
confidingly over the heads and shoulders 
of the more fortunate ones. The Portu- 




Mont EstoriL 

One catches a glimpse of an emerald sea gently washing a beach of white sand. Page 547. 



at her, my dear! The result? Oh the 
croupier paid us both." 

To appreciate fully this conversation, 
you would have to spend an evening at 
the Pequeno Casino the Little Casino 
the most intimate family gambling-place 
one could well imagine. In reality it is 
only a small cottage set back in a delight 
ful garden with one or two thoroughly 
sympathetic policemen standing at the 
door. One is inclined to wonder that any 
officers of the law are necessary at such a 
gentle place until it is learned that they 
are there simply in the interests of the 
patrons. You see, gambling is forbidden 
in Portugal and, if the government sud 
denly decided to open its eyes, these 
pleasant attendants would give the signal 



guese say that this little casino is run 
only for the diversion of British spinsters 
and widows who come all the way out 
from England, not really to escape fogs 
and endless rains, but for the sole purpose 
of spending cosy afternoons and eve 
nings about a roulette-table. The chips 
are so large and of such low value that 
one can grow daringly reckless and lose 
the large sum of fifty cents an evening. 
One spinster, who is always at the door 
at the opening hour, five o clock they 
say she hasn t missed an afternoon during 
five winters immediately buys a stack 
of chips which she puts in her reticule- 
there is no word that expresses so per 
fectly her bag and, playing them care 
fully according to some system until they 



550 COMMUTING FROM MONT ESTORIL TO LISBON 

are all gone, has tea, smokes a cigarette, The train now leaves the coast and 

and then returns to the hotel apparently comes to an almost abrupt stop as it at- 

quite happy, feeling no doubt that she tacks the gentle grade which leads across 

has been outrageously daring and im- the peninsula that forms the dividing 

moral. Any sort of gambling, you know, line between sea and river. On one side 

gives one the feeling of being something a pine forest, the trees bent and leaning 

of a devil even if one only loses fifty from the effect of the north wind, stops 

cents after three hours of hard work! the view; on the other side a stretch of 

In the coach, seated next the English barren land, really moors, extends to a 
ladies, are four Portuguese men a pros- distant mountain range the Serra de 
perous ship-chandler, a doctor who has Cintra. Against the sharp blue sky, 
office hours in Lisbon, a politician per- clearly distinct in the crystalline atmos- 
haps minister for foreign affairs last week phere, on the topmost peak of those 
and a rich exporter of sardines. They mountains of the moon, looms the grand- 
talk in that extraordinary language in opera castle of Pena, a perfect reproduc- 
which ishes and owngs seem to dominate, tion of a mediaeval stronghold built only 
a language in which nothing is called by seventy years ago by one of the sons of 
a name that vaguely resembles any that that Coburg family that allied itself to so 
you have ever heard before; for a simple many ruling houses, 
train is called " o comboio "; a carriage is When the high point of the ridge is 
"trem"; a knife is a "faca"; a fork is a passed, the train begins to roll gaily 
"garfo"; and only " thank you " sounds down-hill, and a panorama that is full 
the least bit familiar as " mui to obrigado " of historical import and actual beauty 
almost a third cousin, by marriage, to gradually unfolds. To the right stretches 
"much obliged." The four men discuss the broad mouth of the Tagus, so broad 
politics with wonderful gestures and that one sees the surf breaking against 
speculate upon who will be in next week s the calmer waters of the river; on the far 
cabinet ; then one nudges another and shore bleak sand-dunes gradually give way 
calls attention to a very dapper gentle- to fertile hills and gaily colored villages; 
man in smartly cut suit, spotless white and still farther on, in the blue distance, 
spats and monocle, who is sitting a little too far away to be seen, are ruins of 
way from them. Roman cities, Moorish strongholds and 

" Manoel s secretary ! What s he do- remnants of Lusitanian civilization, 

ing here?" Mind you, a republican Over a near hilltop one sees a group of 

would not be caught saying King Manoel Moorish towers, golden in the sun. The 

or even Dom Manoel. sight brings a thrill. One wonders if, 

"Looking after the Braganza estates, I after all, he has not suddenly been trans- 
suppose." ported back a thousand years, and is ap- 

"Ah and where is Manoel now?" preaching the abode of some mighty 

"As usual playing tennis at Nice," Saracen chief. But a turn in the road 

the other one replies with a disdainful dispels illusion, and shows a fort with 

shrug and an envious glance at a king s perfectly modern equipment placed on 

secretary. Republicanism does not seem ancient foundations. Then Sant Amaro 

to have quite eradicated the traditional comes into view, a village of pink-and- 

glamour of thrones. white houses with red tile roofs and palms 

A woman with eight children this is and eucalyptus-trees, and a miniature 
small for a Portuguese family; a recent bay filled with fishing-boats with orange- 
prime minister boasted eighteen sons by and-red sails. It is exactly like a stage 
the same wife is dispensing cocoanut curtain, just those colors vivid blue 
candy and quince paste with generous sky, vivid blue water, vivid green shrubs, 
hands. She is undoubtedly accepting and vivid red roofs. Nothing is subtle or 
immediate peace for future trouble, subdued. It is all vibrantly intense. 
However, the children are strong and Far ahead, the broadly curving shore- 
lusty and exceedingly pretty; they ap- line which makes this part of the river 
pear quite capable of managing such rich almost a bay stretches along with gay 
food. villages set in green surroundings, and 



COMMUTING FROM MONT ESTORIL TO LISBON 



551 



ends at a point which is made salient by 
the sparkling white Tower of Belem 
one of the most beautiful buildings of the 
world and as perfect to-day as it was 
four hundred years ago when it was built 
to defend Lisbon from invasion by sea. 



bougainvillea, appear in shady groves, 
their gardens coming down to the railway 
and even crossing it to reach the sandy 
shores of the river. Modern villas clus - 
ter near the railway, small but resplen 
dent with an overdress of glistening 




Modern Portuguese Villa. 

Resplendent with an overdress of glistening tiles . . . with roofs curving upward at the corners 

and finished with metal ornaments. 



Just beyond this tower rise hills congested 
with houses Lisbon. 

Romance and adventure are all along 
the way. Villages slip by with immensely 
suggestive names: Paco d Arcos the 
Palace of Arches; Cruz Quebrada the 
Broken Cross; each with a story of days 
when pirates waited until the dark of 
night to come stealthily ashore; or sail 
ing crafts swept by on their way to un- 
conquered, unknown lands; or Roman 
galleys rode triumphantly along to claim 
country and people ; or even those vague, 
shadowy Phoenicians landed at these very 
same inlets. Old crumbling villas, cov 
ered with protecting ivy and gorgeous 



green, yellow, blue, pink, and white tiles, 
each one of them with roofs curving up 
ward at the corners and finished with 
metal ornaments - a decoration which 
some roving mariner originally brought 
back from the land of pagodas. Now 
and then a bare, forbidding fort rises on 
a jutting point, its crumbling walls and 
battlements proclaiming the need of pro 
tection from those dangers which came 
so silently from the sea, and the sugges 
tion of Moorish architecture, showing in 
a pinnacle or dome, giving ample evi 
dence of its original builders. And all the 
while, floating by or moored in some shal 
low inlet, are strange old ships as redo- 




Caes de Sodre. 

The Caes de Sodre is not beautiful but it has great interest in that it appears to be the connecting link with so 

many interesting and remote places. Page 555. 



lent of adventure as the face of an old 
crusader, and no more really a part of 
to-day than the forts which were built to 
keep them at a safe distance. 

There is so much suggestive in the 
scene that one wonders if some of this 
left-over romance is not still living in the 
people of this country; and one turns to 
their faces in the effort to find, in flesh 
and blood, what so abounds in stone and 
mortar. The conductor, passing so 
leisurely up and down the aisle, catches 
one s attention. He is not at all one s 
preconceived idea of what a Latin looks 
like; nor does he suggest other Latin 
races; but then, one must remember that 
this Iberian land was populated with so 
much more than purely Latin blood. The 
infiltration of Moorish and Gothic and 
Celtic characteristics makes for a very 
distinctly marked race. Gray eyes, 
rather far apart and severe, set in olive 
skin and framed with black lashes that 
make them gleam both dreamily and in- 
552 



tensely; a thin face with aquiline, rather 
delicate features; and an economical use 
of flesh on both body and face all make 
this man quite different from what one 
who has travelled in other Latin countries 
would naturally expect. He is in no way 
Spanish; he is not at all French; he has 
little of the Italian geniality; he is purely 
Portuguese perhaps more really Gothic 
than anything else. 

As the train approaches Lisbon the 
modern villas grow more numerous and 
the shore-line becomes dotted with quaint 
little bathing-houses. Alges the Coney 
Island of Lisbon is a suburb which com 
bines a nice sandy beach with a park 
where trees, jolly awnings, comfortable 
willow chairs and cafes make a day s ex 
cursion from the city only a matter of 
ten minutes within the reach of all 
classes. Even in the early morning, when 
it is deserted, it still has the air of being 
all ready for gay visitors. 

The Tower of Belem marks the real 



COMMUTING FROM MONT ESTORIL TO LISBON 



553 



entrance to Lisbon. It is the point at 
which entering war-ships salute; it is the 
line at which the city s customs are 
drawn; and it is the salient object which 
fires one s imagination and makes live 
again those glorious hundred years of 
Portugal, for clustered near it are so 
many of the best things the country 
boasts. The tower itself, seen from the 
car window, is an elaborate structure of 
white stone a combination of Gothic, 
Moorish, and Manueline architecture. It 
would be difficult to imagine a building 
more ornate. It has. all the charm of a 
fairy fabrication; it appeals immensely 
to the imagination. Towers, turrets, 
elaborate traceries, winding stairs, pin 
nacles, balconies, drawbridge, moat all 
stand out against a background of river 
and sky like some fantastic dream. 

And across from the tower, seen from 
the other side of the train, above a grove 
of Judas-trees in full bloom, springs up 



the church and convent of Soao Jeronymo 
another building of enchantment. The 
exquisite detail of the main portal is 
fairly gleaming in the sunlight; it seems 
too delicate and fragile to be actually 
real; its Gothic, Moorish, and even In 
dian sumptuousness, showing above the 
dainty freshness of the flowering trees, 
makes it appear quite like a mirage 
especially when one looks beyond and 
sees, dominating the crest of a hill, the 
monumental pile of the Ajuda Palace. 
The contrast is a bit bewildering. One 
building is so convincingly the work of 
man, so solid, so permanent, so uncom 
promisingly a safe abode for mere mor 
tals; the other is more an imaginary 
structure the sort of thing one might 
dream of and never expect to see realized. 
History is about one on all sides now. 
Buildings, monuments, gateways, statues, 
all recall famous names. Here it was that 
Henry the Navigator came to see the 




Tower of Belem. 
It would be difficult to imagine a building more ornate. It has all the charm of a fairy fabrication. 



554 



COMMUTING FROM MONT ESTORIL TO LISBON 



ships he had fitted up sail off to conquer 
the world; there is the spot where Vasco 
da Gama and his followers passed the 
night in prayer previous to starting off on 
that perilous voyage which was to end 
in the discovery of a new route to India; 
a tall marble column bears a colossal 
bronze statue of Affonso de Albuquerque, 



packages, and stand impatiently in the 
aisles. Perhaps it is the effect of the 
scene without that has made them rest 
less. Once within the real boundaries of 
the town the change is very noticeable. 
The river which, a few miles back, was 
so suggestive of old Portugal is now a 
modern, animated harbor. The docks are 




Fish Venders. 

They are superb, these fishwives, real Amazons . . . the backbone of Portugal. Page 555. 



whom many consider the greatest of Por 
tuguese administrators; a pink-and-white 
palace set far back in a grove of pines 
transfers one quickly to the past century, 
for it was here that recent kings have 
lived; the Necessidades Palace, dark-red 
and white, rising out of extensive gardens, 
brings history almost up to the present 
day, for it was here that Manoel lived 
until he was forced to give up both throne 
and country. 

Though there are still ten minutes more 
before the journey will be finished and 
the train stop at the Caes de Sodre, in the 
heart of Lisbon, the passengers hurriedly 
gather together their hats and sticks and 



lined with all sorts of vessels. There are 
tramp steamers, many of them with 
names that appeal to the American- 
John Preatiss of Portland ; Mary Thomp 
son of Norfolk: there are tank-steamers 
and coal-barges; far out in midstream 
looms the huge bulk of a transatlantic- 
liner reducing everything else to absurdly 
small proportions. A River Plate steamer 
is just coming up the river, all the way 
from Buenos Ay res; a French liner, boast 
ing three smoke-stacks, is leaving for dis 
tant Brazil; a dapper Portuguese boat is 
making ready to go straight to Madeira, 
then the Azores and the Canaries; a Brit 
ish schooner is dropping anchor after a 



COMMUTING FROM MONT ESTORIL TO LISBON 555 

long voyage from Cape Town ; another trying to remember that this city no 

is on its way to Angola boats from every longer belongs to the past that was so 

part of the world going to every part of living on the journey there, he is in very 

the world. great danger of being run over and 

Warehouses and sordidly commercial knocked down and carried entirely away 

structures line the way, though, now and in the rather reckless form of transpor- 

then, a picturesque old church covered tation that is passing through the square, 

with blue-and-white tiles and some an- Motors and trams and carriages appar- 

cient neglected palace give evidence of ently vie with one another as to who can 

what this busy river section looked like go fastest. After one has dodged and run 

in the days of the great Manoel. madly for the narrow sidewalk, still he 

Now the air becomes almost overpower- is far from having reached safety, for 
ing with a stifling scent. The fish-market here he comes straight into a procession 
announces its proximity. Surely, all the of fishwomen. And here a word of eyes, 
fish in the world are being offered for warning! They are superb, these fish- 
sale fresh fish, dead fish, fish in oil, and wives, real Amazons, strikingly hand- 
fish in salt. One has the feeling that he some, the backbone of Portugal I grant 
will smell of fish for the rest of his days, them all that but lurking in the corner 
Then the market comes into view, close of their eyes, which apparently are bent 
beside the track, with its hundreds of fish- only upon selling fish, is a mischievous 
women arranging their baskets prepara- gleam. Spotless white linen has an irre- 
tory to starting forth, barefooted, their sistible fascination for them. You can t 
skirts girded up about them, heavy gold blame them, with their constantly fish- 
earrings in their ears, gold necklaces hang- scented clothes. But give them the right 
ing down over their negligible corsages, of way, don t force them to move an inch 
to peddle their wares up and down and out of their paths, for if you do, their 
through every street of Lisbon. baskets will tilt casually, and you will find 

The Caes de Sodre is not beautiful but yourself splattered with a thin stream of 

it has great interest in that it appears fishy water that necessitates an immedi- 

to be the connecting-link with so many ate return home. 

interesting and remote places scattered The Square safely crossed, you jump 
over the globe. The sailors lounging on into a tram which, to your consternation, 
the benches there could probably tell you begins, without apparently the least 
of any seaport you might ask them about ; thought of danger, to climb the precipi- 
the little cafe on the corner, decorated in- tous hill. If a Portuguese notices your 
side and out with tiles that depict the alarm and overhears the prayers you are 
maritime story of Portugal, is always stammering that the brakes are in work- 
filled with ships captains that are either ing order, he will most considerately try 
leaving or just arriving; the pavements to reassure you by telling you that you 
are banked with vegetables and fruits, are ascending the Rua Alecrim Rose- 
their venders standing under signs that mary Street and that no evil can over- 
announce the best route to reach some take you in Portugal as long as there is a 
unheard-of African port; straight ahead, bit of rosemary about; then, further to 
out of the centre of the square, a street divert your attention from what you are 
leads directly up the steepest hill one is now certain is immediate death, he will 
likely to find in any city. No wonder Lis- point to Lisbon, unfolding beneath and 
bon calls itself a rival of Rome in this re- above you, bland and smiling in its pink- 
spect ! And all the time, while one is and-gray dress. The rhythm of Portugal ! 




The Man with the Ironic Mask 



BY JOHN D. WILLIAMS 

ILLUSTRATIONS (FRONTISPIECE) BY W. J. DUNCAN 



I 



r* 

fi 



MPRESARIO GER 
ALD JAY CARTON, 

husband of the famous 
actress Mrs. Carton- 
one of the few non- 
Yiddish managers in 
the theatre and 
therefore not finan 
cially successful was sitting on a high 
stool in the box-office, beside the ticket- 
seller, delightedly watching a huge, dis 
tinguished-looking audience pour through 
the lobby of the Gotham Theatre into the 
auditorium. 

It was the first performance of the new 
drama "Possession." But it was just 
barely the first performance. That after 
noon the chief actor had disappeared as 
completely as if the earth had opened and 
swallowed him whole. However, Im 
presario Carton had not been forty years 
in the theatre without encountering simi 
lar emergencies. The understudy had 
been located, rushed to the theatre; 
found to be letter-perfect, in fact, sur 
prisingly equipped with his own wigs, 
clothes, and make-up, and at that very 
moment was pacing up and down behind 
the curtain ready to go on for the lead 
ing part. " Slips," explaining the star s 
indisposition, had been printed and in 
serted in the programmes. There was 
also a " stretcher" in front of the theatre 
announcing the fact. Thus far nobody 
had asked for his money at the box-office. 
So Impresario Carton was happy. He 
radiated his usual, optimistic, fun-loving 
self. He talked mostly to himself but 
he talked incessantly quoting, para 
phrasing, laughing at his own jokes, quiz 
zically knitting his brows as he invented 
a new one, laughing in turn at that. A 
trace of the dandy a hang-over of the 
boulevardier that was once a real figure 
on the Avenue, was discernible in the 
556 



cracked monocle that hung from his neck, 
and the care with which he every now and 
then punctuated his remarks by giving 
sharper points to the ends of his tiny, 
waxed mustache. 

When Madison Square was the centre 
of New York fashion and i4th Street its 
art zone; when people dined and did not 
merely eat; when the best part of every 
gentleman s afternoon was religiously re 
served for calls or a cocktail tour extend 
ing from the Lafayette, up the Avenue, 
with stops at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the 
Manhattan Club, to a gathering of wits in 
the grill-room of Martin s; when Mac- 
Gowan s Pass was the Ultima Thule of 
coaching and sleighing; when there were 
no motors nor taxicabs, and millionaires 
were as scarce as tired business men; 
when a man was honored for his culture 
rather than his success, and life was an 
enchanting vintage to be tasted, not de 
voured; when correct dressing was a 
ritual as important as one s good name, 
and to be a beau sabreur, a fine sports 
man, or a brilliant raconteur were careers 
sufficient unto themselves; in short, when 
everybody was somebody, time a device 
for renting houses, and money a topic only 
for tradesmen Gerald Jay Carton was a 
celebrity, as distinguished as a festooned 
Corinthian column on that decorative, 
leisure-loving, wise living, Appian Way. 

Of the catastrophe that had just sur 
vived his play abandoned by its chief 
actor on the opening night Impresario 
Carton gaily declaimed: "Doubt that 
this star is fired; doubt that he ll ever 
know how I wish he had never been hired ; 
but do not doubt my show." His face 
was red with merriment, his eyes sparkled 
with fun, and he chortled, as he thought 
up his own lines, all the while watching 
the goodly line at the box-office window. 

But in less than two hours Impresario 
Carton was badly in need of another quo 
tation, and he had none. For once he 



THE MAN WITH THE IRONIC MASK 557 

was dumb, but, as always, uncomplain- sion," he had no thought of being priest 
ing. A thing took place that even his but acolyte to the play. It had been 
encyclopedic knowledge of the theatre given him to read, and at once he so loved 
could not compass. His carefully re- it that he declared he would act a door- 
hearsed understudy an actor of vast ex- mat in it merely to be within sight of its 
perience suddenly lost possession of all lovely scenes and sound of its exquisite 
his faculties. In a trice he was as useless lines. As a matter of fact he had been 
to the play as a locomotive to a train when cast for a minor character in the first act 
its wheels are making millions of revolu- -with something vaguely said about 
dons without advancing it an inch. "understudying the lead," but so vaguely 

Many who read this doubtless saw it that it did not appear in his contract, and 

all that night at the Gotham Theatre; was only casually mentioned again dur- 

but until they read these pages they will ing the rehearsals. 

never know what they really saw. Between themselves producer and au 
thor admitted they would have liked to 

II have given Silvain the part of " Marvin " ; 

but they also admitted that heaps of 

THE night Antonio Silvain, on very other producers and authors had thought 

short notice, brilliantly essayed the prin- the same way about him for other plays; 

cipal part in the drama "Possession"- for Silvain, plus being an artist, was a 

only suddenly to achieve the greatest and most lovable, interesting man. But there 

most inexplicable failure ever seen on a was that comic-supplement countenance; 

New York stage the few who were really belonging nowhere but in a circus-ring; 

in the know told one another that a great not merely laughably ugly but in action 

actor, an artist akin to the elder Salvini almost disgusting; not homely but, espe- 

in genius as he was in blood, was lost to dally if excited, horrifying, 

the theatre, broken upon the wheel of So that his acting opportunities were 

some mysterious mischance, a spiritual rare. A grim irony forbade him to do 

bankrupt within the hour. what he could teach others to do magi- 

Silvain it is best to put it just as he cally. But this night his chance had come, 

afterward explained it suddenly be- And then, for him the deluge; an artist 

lieved himself confronted by a vision. He buried alive, 
afterward denned it variously at various 

times, but never more clearly than to III 
call it his conscience embodied. He was 

pedantic and pseudoscholastic of speech, IT happened in the middle of the second 
and once, hating to be questioned any act, with a huge audience entirely with 
more, he left even Impresario Carton him. Silvain delivered his lines of the 
baffled by blaming his downfall on his text with the charm and freshness of ex- 
alter ego. He said it walked and had temporaneous thoughts until he was al- 
enormous eyes, this thing; that he had most half-way through his performance, 
been "got - by the evil eye in the ghostly As for the spirit of the piece, he was un- 
image of his finest traits; the traits he cannily brilliant easy in method, with a 
had discarded to get on because they sure, authoritative hold upon each scene; 
had made him fail all his life sensitive- never acting, always living the character ; 
ness, fairness, giving, never asking or ex- warming and perfectly pacing the other 
pecting, but, above all, a religious trust actors about him, like an amiable magi- 
in the ultimate triumph of certain theatre cian waving a wand. That indefinable 
ideals. It was never any use pressing him suction that takes place in a theatre when 
to tell, even years afterward, what it or a really good play, finely performed, pulls 
the thing was. His answers were maudlin; on an audience, had unmistakably set in. 
"the thing I ve done," "the ghost of the Then there was suddenly a good deal 
artist that was me." of noisy jostling, talking, and bustling at 

The disaster was poignant to the few the rear of the theatre apparently late 

who knew that, when Silvain first became comers colliding with the standees. At 

a part of the two hours traffic of "Posses- that, Silvain casually glanced out front; 



558 



THE MAN WITH THE IRONIC MASK 



looked again, and then stopped in his 
tracks, staring intently at the rear seats 
of the theatre. For a moment he stood as 
if transfixed with horror, but suddenly he 
fell awry into the half-standing, half- 
lolling position of a puppet whose wires 
have been cut. He uttered a low, far 
away exclamation as if through his 
bulging eyes; and then, fascinating but 
awful to see, as his enormous, thick-lipped 
mouth fell open, the make-up he had 
carefully laid on to give him the face of 
"David Marvin," benign and as lovable 
as an old bishop, gradually vanished and 
there came through the distorted features 
the preposterously caricatured counte 
nance of Silvain himself. 

The face exposed was even more out of 
drawing than Silvain s because the flat 
tened nose, with blood-red nostrils, was 
now distended wide from hard breathing ; 
the eyes gleamed, ratlike, with terror as 
if belonging to something cornered; the 
heavy jowls had dropped and could not be 
lifted; the cavernous mouth wide open 
and edged with flabby, wet lips tried 
hard to shut, but had not the strength to 
cover a lolling tongue and rows of black 
teeth. The act of transformation was as 
grotesque and as absorbing to look at as if 
a stone gargoyle had gradually come to 
life, and begun to pantomime its years of 
pent-up suffering. 

Taken as acting, it was rewarded with 
thunderous applause. And not unreason 
ably so, for the chief character in the play 
the plot was very like "The Bells"- 
was supposed to end in madness. The 
word "genius" flew from lip to lip. 

But, in the theatre, what passes for 
genius out front is often recognized as 
paranoia back stage. The people about 
Silvain, terrified for the fate of their own 
performances if he gave them no cues, 
expecting at any minute his complete 
collapse, gazed at him as if hypnotized. 
After the climax of the mad scene Silvain 
became more and more inaudible, but the 
audience thought this natural to the char 
acter until the effort to hear became try 
ing and irritating. Toward the end Sil 
vain mouthed the text until it was mean 
ingless. He was like a man, waked in the 
night, groping for his wits. 

The final scenes of the play seemed all 
the more interminable, because of Sil 



vain s incoherence. But the man s fine 
sense of responsibility was touchingly 
shown in the stubborn exertion of all his 
will to stress the last words of each speech 

so as surely to give the other actors their 
cues. After seemingly hours and hours, 
it was possible to signal for the curtain 
with decency. At last it was rung down 

and, of course, this time it would fall 
with a resounding, comic thud on the 
pitiful remnants of the glory that was 
Silvain, and the exploded hopes of a 
young, black-haired, pink-cheeked lad, 
sitting in the gallery. His hands were 
white like a girl s; they had been clinched 
together for hours. And his eyes were 
wet, but even after the curtain had fallen, 
he still stared at the stage. He could not 
believe what he had seen his best play, 
the work of years, ruined as if by a blight. 
Motionless, awe-stricken, the company 
huddled near the prompt entrance, and 
silently watched Silvain as he tottered 
through the lane they had automatically 
formed. He attacked the iron stairway 
with one or two firm steps, but soon was 
climbing slower and slower. He planted 
his feet as if they were separated from his 
legs on the top step, wavered, and then 
the door of his dressing-room slammed, 
and was locked. 

Silvain fell into an old wooden chair 
that screamed horribly as his limp body 
touched it. He swabbed the thick sweat 
from his forehead with the back of his 
hand and began to talk. 

"Well, here we are, all alone, David. 
Just you and me; just you and me, David 
Marvin. But him ! That loafer ! That 
bluff ! That ham ! Where do you sup 
pose he is ? He beat us, by God; he beat 
us just as I thought we were making the 
hit of our lives ! We re licked, David. 
Wiped out! La Commedia e finita! n 

All the while Silvain gazed fixedly at 
his own image in the long mirror, that, 
with its row of tiny footlights, he had 
rigged up for himself on one of the walls. 
He was mad. 



IV 



WHILE it would be much more telling 
and appealing to say so, the truth is there 
was not one atom of sympathy coming to 
Silvain; quite the contrary. He was piti- 



THE MAN WITH THE IRONIC MASK 559 

able, but not a pathetic figure; a pitiable warmth, but it was the warmth of a 
marplot; the assassin of a great play. He radiator; never the white flame of an in- 
had taken a bold chance; staked every- spired imagination, 
thing; even gambled another man s life It was extravagant of Silvain to expect 
and failed pulling the entire enterprise anything else of Bancroft, a workaday 
down with him. Even if he had succeeded product of a Western stock company, 
he would have only been another example but in discovering Bancroft s kinship to 
of the charge that an artist knows no the flea family, Silvain got a master s grip 
scruples. on his rival. Rehearsals of the play were 

Years earlier he had laid out a pro- not two weeks old when Silvain always 

gramme of revenge for all the roles that helpful to everybody in the cast, and al- 

had belonged to him; that had been de- ways deferential to the star or, if ready 

nied him for a reason that, he thought, with a suggestion, certain to whisper it to 

no playwright or producer of artistic him in a dark corner knew Bancroft as 

honesty should let stand in the way. So thoroughly as if he were his own brother, 

intense was his passion for acting, that They became inseparable. It was very 

what had once been an humble content- convenient for Bancroft because Silvain 

ment with a small part, out of love of a knew New York better than he, and Sil- 

fine play, became a cunning device for vain not only took an occasional drink, 

gaining any kind of a foothold in a com- Bancroft was glad to see, but knew 

pany trusting afterward to his acting where to get another, 

genius and fine Italian wits to fetch him So they had many parties in common 

the acting honors of the piece. -very common night after night, in 

So that when Impresario Carton and place after place. Silvain s thirty years 

the author of "Possession "pitied Silvain, residence in New York came in handy, 

after he had gratefully signed his contract When their usual haunts wore out, when 

for a small part in the play "alas, poor mine host shook his head, even at Silvain 

Silvain! I knew him well, Moffett. A and his "distinguished friend the star, 

fellow of infinite jest, a most excellent Mr. Robert Bancroft," there was always 

clown"- the laugh was really on them, the Italian quarter. 

And Silvain gave loud vent to it, all the Arm in arm, night after night, from the 

way down the corridor of that office-build- garlic to the spaghetti zone, thus went 

ing, until the lights of the approaching Silvain and Bancroft. The first was 

elevator cautioned him. rather short, stocky, broad-shouldered, 

For, as an actor, a constant habitue obviously physically powerful, looking 
of actors clubs, he knew that the star forty but nearer sixty, walking with the 
they had engaged for the principal part tiny, delicate steps of a toe-dancer, al- 
was for him, Silvain, as easy to show up ways wearing a black slouch hat and al 
as an amateur. More than that, he knew ways with his head down ever conscious 
what the sponsors of the play tried to for- of the gargoylian countenance. The sec- 
get that this star had the reputation of ond was tall, head erect, always with a 
being about as reliable as a flea, and that cane, certain to be taken either for an 
once he disappeared he was no easier to actor, a floorwalker, or one of the traffic 
locate. squad; and as conscious of what he con- 

Silvain was as correct in his reliance sidered his personal distinction as Silvain 

on the last fact as he was wrong in de- was of his personal extinction, 

pending on the first. Robert Bancroft, There they go now; they are just leav- 

the "Marvin" selected, was far from ing the basement of the Brevoort. Louis 

being an amateur just as far as he was has served them one of his wonderful 

from being an artist. He was an extreme- dinners onion soup, brook-trout, saute; 

ly good, safe, uninspired actor, with about guinea-hen casserole; potatoes chipped 

as much imagination as a reliable carpen- in cream; salad, just flecked with garlic; 

ter. He had personality and personal and a small flask of sh ! 

beauty, although obviously the face of a They have been together ever since the 

drinker. He had presence, authority, and rehearsal finished at five o clock. It is 

fine diction. In action he displayed now eleven. They are crossing the 



560 



THE MAN WITH THE IRONIC MASK 



Avenue toward the Washington Arch. 
Now they are skirting the Square. They 
are fearfully out of step, but Silvain trots 
along as if avoiding eggs, while his com 
panion strides like a cavalryman. Ban 
croft is talking very loudly, gesturing, 
waving his cane, so that the multitudi 
nous dingy denizens of the dimly lighted 
park stare at him as he goes by. He 
thinks that they know he is a famous 
actor. They think he is a hard-hearted 
landlord raising the little man s rent. 

Now they are passing the theatre of the 
Provincetown Players. 

"Once a stable, egad," says Bancroft, 
romantically waving his cane as if it is 
the sword of Rupert of Hentzau. 

"Well, the greatest protagonist of all 
times was born in a stable," answers Sil 
vain. 

Whereat Bancroft, already in his cups, 
and thinking the remark a joke, gives 
vent to his manufactured actor s laugh 
a raucous sound, just like a horse in 
vaudeville trained to duplicate the printed 
signs of laughter. 

This was their favorite nightly tour, 
week after week; and this night, as usual, 
the sidewalks were so littered with chil 
dren they had taken to the middle of the 
street. 

"The patient lives of the poor," Ban 
croft started to declaim. 

"The dirtiest of them can buy and sell 
us in happiness," interrupted Silvain. He 
had long since got ,to hate the stencilled 
actor in his companion. 

"But look here," he went on; "at one 
end of the village, the Provincetown 
Players; at the other, this." 

He took Bancroft by the arm and led 
him into the tiny Marionette Theatre, on 
Mulberry Street. 

It is a long, low, dimly lighted, but pic 
turesque hall, with charming imitation 
mediaeval banners on the walls. It is late ; 
the play is on; it is in Italian. The stage, 
not more than ten feet by eight, takes on 
the proportions of a normal theatre as 
one s imagination is excited by the thrill 
ing action. There is a delightfully col 
ored stage-setting, with castle walls and 
moats and knights of old, caparisoned in 
swords and shining armor. 

At this moment the audience was wild 
ly applauding and cheering a duel with 



broadswords between two puppet figures 
in armor, outside a very frightened but 
perky-looking castle. Crash upon crash 
resounded, and, as the heroes fought, they 
were so skilfully manipulated by unseen 
hands from above, that they themselves 
seemed to declaim the noble thoughts one 
heard. Shout after shout went up from 
an audience genuinely moved at the sight 
of the old duke defending his daughter 
and castle against the robber baron. 

Bancroft stood at the rear of the little 
theatre amazed at the sight, especially at 
the enthusiasm of the audience. At the 
thunder of applause he pricked up his 
ears like a terrier at the word "rats." 

"Wooden, aren t they?" he asked Sil 
vain, who was meantime busily whisper 
ing to the woman who manages the place. 

"Yes." 

"Worked on levers?" 

"Yes." 

"Gad, I d let myself be worked on 
lightning-rods in a thunder-storm if I 
could get a reception like that. What s 
the play ? Who controls the English- 
speaking rights?" 

"Petrarch.". 

"Who speaks the dialogue?" 

"A woman and a man behind the scenes 
in fact, this lady s husband speaks all 
the men s parts. Allow me, signora; my 
distinguished friend, the star, Mr. Ban 
croft. Mr. Bancroft Signora Spinnelli. 
And now whenever you are ready please 
show us the way, signora." 

Then Bancroft realized that it was not 
to the Marionette Theatre, but to a re 
sort of probably infinite possibilities, that 
Silvain had taken him. 

They climbed a flight of rickety stairs. 

Some gas-jets were lighted on the way 
by the signora, who soon "took the or 
ders," and, after lighting more gas-jets, 
left the men seated at a table at one end 
of a room as long as the theatre and di 
rectly over it. 

It contained some rather good pieces of 
Italian painted furniture, casually scat 
tered about as if stored there, all imita 
tions, but unexpected pleasures to the 
eye. There were two mediaeval cabinets, 
a refectory-table and bench, and a rather 
fine inlaid Venetian fireplace, now filled 
with the heaped-up ashes of burnt papers. 
Some chairs were sprawled along the wall, 



THE MAN WITH THE IRONIC MASK 561 

as if there had been a dance there, and it almost in the open ratlike-looking 

on the floor without a single self-explana- people walking up and down the side- 

tory sign, were scattered three mattresses walk, waiting for victims whom they 

covered with black velvet. could distinguish from detectives either 

Through the floor, from the theatre be- through knowing them for years, or, even 

low as they waited for the drinks Sil- more clearly, by the pin-point pupils of 

vain and Bancroft, even though they addicts eyes or their distended, glassy 

talked, could still hear plainly that sound stare. 

beloved of all actors and politicians, gor- Tiny, harmless-looking vials, rather 
geous applause. And all for wooden fig- pretty, and yet the remembrance of their 
ures, Bancroft thought. How wonderful power and the extraordinary metamor- 
it would be if only some of that cham- phosis they produced was staggering. To 
pagne of champagnes, as it filtered up think that such a simple little potion, as 
through the floor, could be bottled; to be white as snow, could first effect such en- 
released as one needed it. chantingly brilliant talk, such absorbing 

fantasies, and then so complete a pa- 

YT ralysis. 

Silvain remembered it all. He remem- 

Ix was dawn when Silvain left the place, bered -that he could not rouse Bancroft. 

He staggered down the rickety steps, and And then he remembered that he remem- 

pushed his way through the swinging bered about himself. It was the day of 

door, next the theatre entrance. He the dress rehearsal of "Possession." So 

paused on the sidewalk to steady himself, he left "his friend, the distinguished star, 

He was stunned for a second by the sun- Mr. Robert Bancroft" alone, 
light, the smells of vegetables, the shouts 

of venders, the drone of unseen thou- yjj 
sands, and the drone of things in his 

memory. He was drunk. But he grinned IT was fortunate for Bancroft, like 

a horrible grin, with the satisfied cunning many Irishmen, that he had a number of 

and shrewd calculation of a man whom retainers about him, in his home and at 

liquor effects more in the legs than in the the theatre. They were part pensioners 

brain. and part servants. There were two in 

He was grinning at the thought of the particular who were adepts in protecting 

last thing he had seen by the faint gas- him in just such lapses. He called them 

light in the room up-stairs. He had "the old faithfuls." Generally they knew 

loathed the sight but now was exulting where he was, what the matter was, and, 

over it. There he had left Bancroft, his even without instructions, were quick of 

collar off and his shirt pulled open about feet and glib of tongue with excuses to 

the throat, stretched out on one of the the panic-stricken or enraged manager, 

mattresses, his face as white as marble But this time the poor old things were en- 

against the black velvet. tirely in the dark, themselves completely 

With his feet now well under him, Sil- panic-stricken. They were too experi- 

vain pitter-pattered up Mulberry Street enced to show outwardly any anxiety as 

toward Washington Square, with thoughts they reassured Impresario Carton, 

of a bus, and the good it would do him But there was no Robert Bancroft at 

riding on top in the cool morning air. The the dress rehearsal, although the curtain 

clearer his head got, the greater he en- was held for him over an hour. The old 

joyed remembering. He laughed and faithfuls took turns running into the 

laughed as he recalled the details. theatre with fresh bulletins of apology 

It had been at Bancroft s suggestion and explanation, supposedly direct from 
after they had been drinking together for Bancroft, but really invented between 
hours and then at his pleading, that Sil- them on the nearest street corner. And 
vain, guided by Signer Spinnelli, had set still he did not come, 
out to get the stuff. And, sure enough, Finally the rehearsal had to go on with- 
it was easy to buy at the corner of For- out him. Silvain volunteered to "read" 
sythe and Delancey Streets. They sold the part of "Marvin." 
VOL. LXXI. 36 



562 



THE MAN WITH THE IRONIC MASK 



He did read it, seemingly from the 
manuscript, but with extraordinary ease 
and flashes of unexpected memory. 
Every now and then he would put down 
the manuscript, and do whole scenes 
letter perfect. It was an amazing feat 
of memory to the rest of the company. 
They not only marvelled at it, but cheered 
him as a surprising example of a "quick 
study." Everybody on the stage, down 
to mechanics and grips, hoped that he 
would get the part for the opening; even 
the lowliest loved him. 

Of course, Silvain had been privately 
studying the part of " Marvin," ever since 
the first rehearsal. But the masterly ease 
with which he went through the dress 
rehearsal was a brilliant, courageous per 
formance, and, except for his appearance, 
it was much truer to the author s inten 
tion of the part than Bancroft s. 

Impresario Carton, dazed by Silvain s 
resource, bravoed him; gave him a new 
coin one of his pet devices for flatter 
ing and exclaimed: "I had rather have 
an understudy to make me money than a 
star to make me sad." Inwardly he had 
no doubt but that Bancroft would be on 
hand for the first performance. Still, it 
was "clever" and "nervy" of "poor old 
Silvain," to get through the dress rehear 
sal so smoothly. 

"Quite like the good old times ! Now, 
in the days of Palmer s Theatre I remem 
ber Augustin Daly once said to me 

VIII 

Ax three o clock that morning the re 
hearsal was not over until two Silvain, 
making sure that he was not followed by 
either of Bancroft s minions, was again 
climbing the rickety stairs that led to the 
room over the Marionette Theatre. As 
he approached the top landing the faint 
light under the doorway showed him that 
the gas-jets were still burning. 

The whole house was as quiet as a 
church. 

He pushed open the door leading to the 
room, the gas-jets flickered in the draft, 
increasing the dimness. 

He looked at the mattress. 

Bancroft was not there. 

He had got away. Silvain s heart sank 
at the thought. 



But he had not got away. He had been 
up and had partly dressed himself. He 
had apparently started to leave the place, 
and then it was plain that Spinnelli had 
done good work; that he had dissuaded 
him with a fresh supply. 

There he was, propped up against the 
wall, his right hand outstretched toward 
the window facing the street, as if he had 
thought of opening it. Blood had been 
flowing for some time from his inert left 
arm. Obviously he had accidentally 
jabbed the needle of the hypodermic into 
an artery. 

On the floor beside him were a spoon, 
a water-jar that had spilled empty, and 
two little brown vials, also empty. 

Silvain picked up the vials and looked 
alternately at them and at Bancroft. 
One vial had contained morphine and the 
other heroin. Bancroft had not only 
doubled his dose but mixed the drugs. 

His head was buried in his chest, his 
eyelids, when Silvain lifted them, showed 
a sightless stare. There was no pulse. 
The body was as rigid as stone, and it 
seemed much smaller than Bancroft s. 

Silvain leaned over the body and lis 
tened for breathing. Not a sign of it. 

He did not know what to do next, so he 
lifted Bancroft s outstretched hand, but 
it was like ice. He had to drop it. It 
rattled against the floor like fleshless 
bones. 

Then Silvain wiped the sweat from his 
grimacing face, and got up from his kneel 
ing position. 

"Bob! It s Silvain! Wake up!" He 
grinned with terror as he spoke. 

Nothing; not a movement nor a mur 
mur. 

Silvain made the sign of the cross on 
his sweaty forehead, cautiously got up 
from his crouching position, and at one 
spring flung himself through the door 
leading to the street. 

IX 

LATE that afternoon there was a heavy 
pounding on the door of a room in the 
dingy little Hotel Marblekead, on Sixth 
Avenue. At the same moment the tele 
phone inside the room, began ringing as if 
it were a fire-alarm. The din went on 
for some minutes until it was redoubled 



THE MAN WITH THE IRONIC MASK 



563 



by a man inside the bedroom alternately He panted like a race-horse eager to get 

screaming "Spinnelli ! It was Spin- away. 

nelli!" He was in the theatre, dressed, made- 

At this the uproar was further aggra- up, and mulling over his lines, just be- 

vated by the voice of a man in the corri- hind the curtain, long before the orchestra 

dor pounding on the door. began the overture. He begged the stage- 




"Bob! It sSilvain! Wake up!" Page 562. 



"This is Mr. Carton s secretary, Mr. 
Silvain. They want you at the theatre 
right away. You may have to go on to 
night in Bancroft s part. Please hurry 
up. Do you understand ?" 

By that time Silvain had recovered 
himself. The riot of noises had caught 
him sound asleep, his head covered by the 
bedclothes. But he calmly answered the 
telephone and at the same time the man 
outside the door; their messages were the 
same. 

Soon Silvain, quite himself, had all 
preparations under way for the great 
hour. It had come at last. A part as 
good as King Lear; and a superb play. 



manager to keep everybody away from 
him until the end of the play. 

The artist then submerged the man, 
and, with the rise of the curtain, Silvain, 
through that gorgeous imagination that 
was his, that uncanny, miraculous faculty 
of self-loss, was totally displaced by the 
venerable, kindly old "David Marvin." 
Like a hypnotist, and yet seemingly with 
out effort, playing with the audience, and 
not at it, he held the vast throng spell 
bound, until until 

" Sancta Maria ! Sancta Maria ! What 
is that at the back of the house ? It s him 
back from the dead 

"Look at his face so white and his 



564 



THE MAN WITH THE IRONIC MASK 



eyes so bulging I ll never be able to get 
away from them 

"He ll always be there every night 
at the back of the house staring 

"All white, just as I left him and a 
touch like ice 

"The evil-eye of the dead 

"I m doomed doomed " 

X 

IMPRESARIO GERALD JAY CARTON was 
sitting alone in a dark corner of the Go 
tham Theatre, two days later, watching 
the scenery for "Possession" being carted 
to the storehouse. 

It was all over. Silvain and Bancroft 
had fought their duel. Both had lost, 
both had disappeared, leaving Impresario 
Carton to pick up the pieces and pay the 
check. 

Poor little roly-poly Impresario Car 
ton ! He was so silent, so comically pa 
thetic. If only a quotation would pop 
into his mind to buck up his spirits ! But 
he was mute, and for some time motion 
less. But presently he stirred a little, 
began to hum, and that old-fashioned 
courtesy which was always his came to 
the fore, warmly if not gaily, as somebody, 
uttering his name, groped toward him 
through the darkness of the auditorium, 

It was Bancroft. 

"The old faithfuls" had found him. 
It had taken time but they, too, had 
often bought "supplies" for him from 
the ratlike people at Forsythe and De- 
lancey Streets. Only this time it had 
taken so long to revive him that they had 
not gotten him to the theatre until ten 
o clock. 

It was his arrival that had caused the 
bustle, talk, and confusion. He saluted 
friends, was warmly and excitedly saluted 
by them. But he was principally anxious 
to elbow his way to the head of the centre 



aisle. And at last he had got there con 
spicuously. 

He wanted revenge, he wanted his sud 
den dramatic presence to strike terror in 
Silvain, he wished he had the pow r er to 
paralyze him with a look. 

And he had done just that. But 
irony of ironies he did not know it. 

At the sight of Bancroft, Silvain seemed 
to have become inspired rather than terri 
fied. 

Then followed that thunderous ap 
plause. 

Bancroft, as if nailed to his tracks, had 
gazed dumbly, and had listened wide-eyed 
at the apparent triumph of his usurper. 

Effaced on an opening night by an 
understudy, by a human caricature, a 
gargoyle ! He could never show himself 
in a theatre again. 

He never would. He would not only 
flee from that theatre but the theatre. 

But great actors, like great generals, 
may retire, they may even flee, but they 
never surrender. So there stood Ban 
croft- back again. He showed not a sign 
of his recent orgy if anything he was 
handsomer than ever, stick in hand, 
jaunty of manner, tailored within an inch 
of his life. 

"All dressed up and no play to act," 
Impresario Carton smilingly greeted him. 

"Mr. Carton, I wish to explain to you 
the dastardly deed done in your theatre 
the other night when " 

But he got no further, for Impresario 
Carton burst into loud song. It had come 
the quotation! He was gay. As if 
oblivious of Bancroft s existence, he paro- 
died at the top of his voice, the old Beran- 
ger song to Lizette. 

Theatre, O Theatre, 
Tu m as trontpe toujours; 
Mais vive Le Theatre! 
Je veux, Cher Theatre, 
Boire a nos amours. 




Library 



~<<M 1 









After the Ball 

BY GILBERT PARKER 



a 



I 



T was one of the poor 
est districts of the city 
of Montreal. In its 
dirt and its grimness 
it was not surpassed 
by the slums of Lon 
don or New York. In 
summer it had refuse 
in the streets, and its odor was bad; in 
winter it had bleak cold and grinding 
poverty. To the eyes of those who lived 
in better quarters, it was hell. The French 
Roman Catholic families were cared for 
somewhat by the priests and the sisters 
who had the district in charge, but the 
few English Protestant families were left 
in a state not easily described. No phil 
anthropic Protestant ladies came to the 
district and the condition of the few Prot 
estant families was deplorable. 

In one home was Jean Roone and his 
family. Roone had been a worker in a 
great sawmill at a low wage, not sufficient 
to bring up his family of five and to care 
for his faithful wife, who had been an 
English girl in a cheap music-hall when 
he married her, at eight dollars a week. 
He was good-looking when they were 
married and she had been as happy with 
him as poverty and misery will permit. 
She had a quick temper and no religion, 
for her people had belonged to circuses 
and cheap shows, and she had gone to 
school only about four years of her life. 
She was very pretty in a tousled sort of 
way when she married, and buxom and 
taking, and had had no lovers she was 
only seventeen. She was exceptionally 
virtuous for one of her class. One day in 
the winter she had slipped and fallen on 
an icy pavement after her performance 
at the music-hall, and Jean Roone, who 
had attended the performance, helped her 
up, and as he lifted her had a thrill he 
had never felt before in his life. She was 
magnetic in those days and the end came 
soon. 

He went to the music-hall every night, 
took a twenty-five-cent seat, and then 



walked home with her. She was not very 
happy in her home, and when at the end 
of a week he proposed to her she accepted 
him. They went to a registrar s office 
and were married, for he, though French 
through his father, was a Protestant, and 
then followed months of wild happiness, 
for she was deeply in love with him and 
he adored her. After the first child was 
born things went well for a while, then 
she realized that another child was com 
ing, and the second child was born a year 
after the first. Again a child was born 
at the end of the third year, and then 
troubles began. Times were hard and 
they became harder. Work was not 
steady and the expenses of the home did 
not grow less. In course of time six 
years two more children came, and 
now love, as it had once been, declined, 
and little remained of the old romance. 
Year by year the struggle to make both 
ends meet went on. 

At last Jean said to her in English, for 
they talked in that language: "Things 
go not well, Meg. Wages are low and 
they ll be lower, and I not feel well no, 
bagosh ! " 

She was in an irritated mood this day, 
and she replied: "If wages go lower we 
can as well peg out. It s too hard now. 
Five children and us two on ten dollars a 
week! It s starvation, that s sure. I m 
sick of it all. I earned eight dollars a 
week myself before I married. You re 
getting little more." 

He fired up. "P r aps you wish you d 
not married me, hem?" 

"P r aps!" 

Then suddenly she relented, for the 
look in his face hurt her. She went over 
to him. "Jean, you re not well, you say. 
I m sorry. If you get real sick, what are 
we going to do ? ... But never mind, I ll 
go out, and earn ten dollars a week in the 
music-hall again ! " 

Poor creature, she did not realize that 
her day had passed forever at the music- 
hall, that she was no longer young and 

565 



566 



AFTER THE BALL 



pretty and taking, and that there was no 
manager who would employ her. Jean 
knew this well, and he stared for a mo 
ment at her, then he said: "Them places 
ain t so easy to get now. You re not 
sixteen no." 

There was a mirror in the room on the 
wall. She went over to it and looked in, 
and then a queer change came over her. 
She swung round on him. "I ain t got 
any looks no more. Why, my face looks 
fifty, and I m not twenty-seven. That s 
what marriage has done for me. My, 
what a fool I was ! " 

"Nom de diable, I thought we d been 
happy, Meg, even when things was bad, 
but I made a meestak. Sapristi!" 

Suddenly she repented. She caught 
his head to her breast. "You not well, 
my Jean that worse than all. I m not 
myself to-day. What s the matter 
now?" 

He looked at her sadly. She had al 
ways been neat and clean even in their 
direst poverty and now she looked worn 
and tired and dejected, but wholesome 
and clean and patched. She had been a 
good wife to him. He said: "I not know 
what the matter is, but I not feel well 
this past three months. I not sleep well. 
I have no real strength any more no. 
I not know what to do. If I must give 
up work, we starve, Meg!" 

She drew back with sudden fear and 
looked at him. "You not so well as to 
work, Jean ! That s bad. You have had 
meat, but the rest of us have not had 
meat for a month. You must not get so 
sick as to give up work but yes, you 
shall give up work if you have to, Jean." 

The haggard look in his shrunken face 
tortured her. She turned her head away, 
then went about her work, thinking hard. 
Jean was sick, and that would mean 
Heaven knew what. If Jean were taken 
from her, what could she do? Her heart 
was in her throat. She went and looked 
at the five children in one bed. As she 
stooped over the bed, the eldest child 
waked. It was a girl, who resembled her 
mother greatly in all ways. She had dark- 
blue eyes, pale but not scrawny cheeks, 
and a mind that thought quickly. She 
stared at her mother and the look in the 
face startled her. " What matter, mother 
what makes you feel bad?" 



The mother did not reply, but stooped 
down and kissed the child and tucked her 
in. It was early November and winter 
was near. Snow would soon come. She 
shook her head, no more, and the little 
girl, understanding, as only the children 
of the poor can understand, cuddled down, 
but lay long in the night thinking hard 
of the look in her mother s face and of 
the strange way her father had acted of 
late. She was very sensitive. 

Next morning when Meg got up to 
light the fire and make breakfast bread 
and porridge, no butter, and tea for her 
self and children, and the same with a 
little ham for her husband she did not at 
first call Jean. But at last, seeing he did 
not move, she went over to the bed and 
spoke to him. 

"Jean, get up; breakfus will be ready 
ver quick." 

Still he did not rise. She touched him 
and he did not respond. She stooped and 
looked at his face. His eyes were open 
but there was no light in them. He was 
gone forever. 

She did not cry or exclaim. She looked 
at him in horror. He was dead; he had 
been dead about an hour. He had waked 
with a sharp pain at his heart, had gasped, 
and was gone. He had died of a combina 
tion of heart and kidney disease. 

She sent for the doctor and undertaker 
by the eldest girl, who, like her mother, 
had not exclaimed when she saw her 
father dead, but had comforted the other 
children, and helped to dress the young 
est; then after a hasty cup of tea and 
plate of porridge had gone for the doctor 
and the undertaker. For one so young 
she knew her way about well. Her name 
was Denise. 

The funeral took place two days after, 
and the undertaker, doctor, and others 
had to be paid, and the total bills for all 
the funeral expenses, etc., were some 
sixty-nine dollars. Meg had but three 
dollars and her home. There was naught 
to pawn and the undertaker pressed. He 
must be paid and she had promised him 
that he would be paid. What was there 
to do ? She must keep her word and pay 
him. But how ? She could not go on the 
music-hall stage. That was over forever. 
Yet her experience of the music-hall came 
to her aid. She would earn the money 



AFTER THE BALL 



567 



and pay the undertaker and the doctor. 
Coming from a shop she passed a drill- 
hall, and then came to her mind that she 
could give a ball at fifty cents a head, and 
pay for the burial of Jean. She went at 
once and secured the drill-hall for fifteen 
dollars. She had a gift for organization, 
and it became known in the district that 
Meg was trying to pay for her husband s 
funeral by a ball. It startled the Roman 
Catholics, it shocked the Protestants, yet 
when the night came there were four 
hundred who paid for admission to the 
drill-hall, and Meg took the money at the 
door. Refreshments had to be paid for 
inside, and they were paid for at fifteen 
cents a head, and the final result was 
that the funeral indebtedness was paid, 
and there were sixty dollars over. At the 
ball a violin and a concertina had pro 
vided the music, and neighbors who 
wished to be kind and who admired Meg s 
pluck, helped to make the affair a great 
success. She plainly showed by this one 
act that she was an unusual woman. 
Curiously enough, it was the influence of 
heredity and early association. Had she 
not been connected with the music-hall 
she would have been wholly at sea. 

The next day a Protestant lady, who 
had lately come to Montreal, visited the 
district in a philanthropic way. She had 
heard nothing of the ball, and she came 
by accident to Meg s house first, as it was 
at the beginning of the street. She was 
admitted. Meg was not at home, but 
Denise was, and when the lady came in 
Denise talked to her. 

"Where s your mother, little girl?" 
asked Mrs. Medley, looking round the 
orderly room which showed extreme pov 
erty, yet taste and cleanness and orna 
mentation. 

"She s settling up about the ball- 
sure," answered Denise. 

"About the ball what ball?" Mrs. 
Medley asked, looking at the black 
dresses of the children. 

"The ball last night to pay for father s 
funeral." 

"To pay for father s funeral!" Mrs. 
Medley exclaimed. 

"Yes, at fifty cents per head. Father 
was buried six days ago, and the funeral 
had to be paid for, ma am." 

Mrs. Medley was horrified. A ball at 



fifty cents a head to pay for a funeral ! 
It struck her as dreadful. A ball to be 
arranged by the mother of five children 
in a house like this a common work 
man s cottage. It seemed almost phe 
nomenal and improper. 

"I don t understand," she said help 
lessly. 

"Lots of things we can t understand, 
but they re true yes," said Denise. 

At that moment Meg entered, and saw 
Mrs. Medley with surprise. "It s my 
mother that made the ball," said Denise, 
and looked inquiringly. 

" I ve come to see if I can help you peo 
ple in this district in some small ways. 
Things don t seem very bright here now," 
said Mrs. Medley. 

"Things ain t never very bright down 
here no. Wages are low, and we ve lit 
tle enough to eat and wear. And when 
there s death 

"You give a ball to pay the funeral ex 
penses," said Mrs. Medky severely. 

For an instant Meg looked as though 
she could cut the lady s throat, then she 
lashed out. 

"You come here the first that ever 
come to see what we do and how we do 
it, and help us in small ways. Then, 
when you find a poor honest woman gives 
a dance to pay for her man s funeral, you 
turn up your nose and are shocked yes ! 
Well, if you don t like it, you needn t. 
It would be better to let the undertaker 
not be paid, or the doctor, or other bills, 
would it? Is that the thing Christ 
taught? I ll face my judgment-day with 
no fear. My dead husband would bless 
me for letting people get pleasure out of 
his death, if it made his home happier, 
and paid what he couldn t pay. Chris 
tian religion what is it if it ain t to pay 
debts honestly made? You are rich, 
mebbe, and you come down here to us 
poor, because you wish to do something 
good, and when you find an honest wo 
man like me, who gives a dance six days 
after her man s death, you re startled. 
There s oceans between us. You don t 
you can t understand Haven t you 
stayed long enough eh?" 

Mrs. Medley rose to go, startled by the 
attack made upon her. Tears were in her 
eyes. She was no hypocrite, she was only 
conventional, and she had not understood, 



568 



AFTER THE BALL 



but she was beginning to understand with 
difficulty. 

"I can see a little of what you mean. 
I have never done this work before. My 
husband died six months ago, and I 
wanted to do something to help my fellow 
creatures. So I began this work here. I 
didn t realize that no one ever came here 
before like this. Few women like you 
have the gift of organization. You are 
not like other women, I see. How did you 
come to organize the ball? . . . Don t 
send me away, please. I honestly want to 
know. I d like to help you. Of course I 
was startled at so unusual a thing, as who 
wouldn t be? But you ve explained it 
all. How were you able to do it?" 

"I was on the music-hall stage before I 
was married at sixteen. I came of a fam 
ily of circus people and cheap-show peo 
ple. I ve had a happy married life, 
though poor." 

"That explains so much," said Mrs. 
Medley. " I have a brother in the music- 
hall business, and can now understand 
how you did what you did." She came 
close and looked into the clear, yet sad, 
blue eyes of Meg. 

"You are a remarkable woman, and 
you ought to get on. What can I do to 
help you?" 

She took a purse from her pocket, but 
Meg said: "No, put it back, madame, 
I ve enough to go on with. I ve sixty 
dollars over the cost of the funeral but, 
yes, I can go on ! In any case I couldn t 
have taken your money, except if my 
children were starving, and it d have hurt 
me to do that, and I d have paid it back ! 
I know what the world will think about 
this ball. It s in the papers to-day, but I 
don t care. I ve done what s put my 
conscience right, and my children will 
have food I ve earned for them." 

Mrs. Medley said: "You have for 
given me, and I d like to help you. I ll 
try and think it out. You ve got a mind 
of your own, an original mind, and you re 
young yet. You should only be at the 
beginning of your life-work." 

" My life-work ? It is to earn bread for 
my children, and I ll do it, and I ll not 
borrow, beg, nor steal. If I keep my 
health, I ll do it. I seem to have waked 
by the death of my Jean. I ll keep awake 
now. I know what some Roman Cath 



olics think of what I ve done, and the 
Protestants too, and yet they come to my 
dance. I d do the same thing over a 
hundred times, yes, I would, bien sur!" 
She smiled. "We ll see what God does 
for me now. I ain t ashamed of it." 

Mrs. Medley said: "Of course you re 
not ashamed of it. It s a matter for your 
own conscience, and Heaven above, and 
you meant only to do good. I m going 
now, but I ll try to help you to find 
work for you to do. You want work, I 
suppose?" 

" I want work to support my children, 
and I ll get it too if I can." 

At that moment there was a great 
noise outside the house, and looking out 
of the window they saw a crowd of 
boisterous boys and men shouting at her 
house. They were chiefly from outside 
this district, and had come to challenge 
her on her giving the ball to pay for her 
husband s funeral. As they clamored 
there came a knock at the door, and when 
Meg opened it a young man stepped in 
side. 

"I m a reporter of the Comet," he said, 
"and it wants to know about the ball. 
There s a feeling it was sacrilegious, but 
what s your point of view ? Why did you 
give the ball?" 

His blond face had a sort of sneer on 
it; his manner was patronizing and fa 
miliar. 

" Why I do this or that s my own busi 
ness, and I won t tell the public why I did 
it. I m my own mistress. I don t care 
what the public think. I m not a bad 
woman, as all know." 

"Well, the crowd out there seem to 
think otherwise." He pointed to the 
street, where men and boys were noisy 
and insulting in their r emarks . They were 
evidently organized before they came. 

Meg opened the door, and the reporter 
of the Comet stepped outside. He was 
greatly nonplussed by the will and fiery 
temper of the woman he had come to in 
terview. She had qualities quite her own, 
and it was clear she meant what she said. 
Yet he now had a "story" apart from an 
interview, and this pleased him. It would 
be a sensation to the public to have a wo 
man of the lower class refuse an interview 
so firmly and so bitterly. Here was the 
excited crowd outside. What would she 



AFTER THE BALL 569 

do with it, this six-days-old widow and the by the ball to pay for the funeral and to 
heroine of the pay-for-the-funeral ball? give me something besides. Eh, wasn t 
He soon knew and he chortled with glee, that right ? Wasn t it right to pay honest 
Meg saw the crowd, and it roused her debts by a ball?" 

spirit. She looked at the noisy men and "Dancin on a dead man s grave!" 
boys for a minute, then, in her plain black shouted a man in the crowd, which gasped 
frock, she stepped forward to the middle at his boldness, for she had almost con- 
of the doorway with Mrs. Medley behind quered them. 

her and the Comet man on the edge of the "Dancin on a dead man s grave to 
crowd. She had gifts of her own, got from pay the dead man s funeral debt. Would 
her earlier life and inherited from her he object? He knows that the dancin 
parents now dead, and her stage expert- was made by a woman that loved him, 
ence. By nature she was a good actress, and wanted to see his home clear of debt 
but she was not acting now. She was in and the children fed. Dancin ! He d 
dead earnest, and her face showed what dance in heaven to think the woman that 
she felt. She looked at the crowd in loved him was with a breakin heart doin 
mingled surprise and anger, but there was this but yes ! Do you think it was no 
a touch of pride in her anger. Uncon- trial to me? All my neighbors know I 
sciously she realized that she had an loved him, and was straight with him 
audience, and the spirit of the stage came while he lived. I love his memory now, 
out unknown to her. Her fuzzy hair was and I ll stand my chance at the last day 
always well brushed. She was by habit for what I ve done. It was done all right, 
neat and clean, and, though of medium and my neighbors thought so or they d 
height, she seemed to tower over the not have come to the ball." 
noisy crowd. "It was a damned good ball too!" 

: What you folks doin here? You shouted one who had been at it. "It was 
don t belong. This ain t your district, no insult to the dead. It was an honor. 
No, you re out of your beat. You not She s a brick, that widow Roone. Three 
belong here. What you want eh?" cheers for the widow Roone! She s all, 

"We want to give you blazes for the all right." 

ball when your husband was only dead The crowd laughed, then burst into a 
six days. That ain t decent no!" cheer. It had all come right, and the re- 
shouted a man. porter of the Comet chuckled, for he had 

"It ain t decent no," she repeated, a splendid story for his paper. This low- 
"It d be more decent to owe for the class woman was a genius in her way, and 
funeral and burial, eh? Wot you givin he meant to say so. She had loved her 
me? I loved my man." Her voice got husband, yet she had swallowed her 
thick and broken. "I loved him so I grief, and with a dollar and a quarter as 
wanted his soul to be at rest. And could her only capital had brought off this 
it have been w en we were starvin and magnificent coup. She had paid for his 
his funeral expenses wasn t paid ? Was it funeral and had a balance to go on with 
easy to crowd down my grief, and do that to keep her house. It was unusual, it was 
thing? It wasn t. It hurt me terrible, a stroke of genius. The clear thing was 
but I pulled myself together and I done it. that she had a white heart and had initia- 
But, yes, I d do it again, no matter what tive and courage and will-power and good- 
the world thought. I have five children, ness. And now her neighbors had gath- 
and I had five quarters that was all, ered and the vast majority of them were 
and my man was gone from this world, in her favor. Some were not, but that 
I had to fight for them and for myself, was envy and jealousy. There was 
There was the bill of the burialman and naught to be said of her but what was 
all, and I had to pay it. How? By good. He came forward to her and said: 
takin from some charity society? No, "You ve given me a splendid interview, 
I ain t built that way. I couldn t no. madame; I don t want anything better." 
I told the undertaker I d pay him and he She frowned and stepped back into the 
believed me. He took the risk, he was house as the crowd cheered and presently 
white. And I went out and earned enough dispersed. Mrs. Medley was alone with 



570 AFTER THE BALL 

her. "That was an eloquent and con- to keep my children from starving 

vincing speech," she said. "You ll do bien stir" 

well in life. I want my brother to know Mrs. Medley smiled. "You ll do far 

you. Perhaps he can give you work in more than that. You ll have success and 

his office, or even older parts on the music- good luck. You have the true thing in 

hall stage." you. Good-by. God bless you ! You ll 

" No, I ve finished with acting. I m too hear from me again." 
old, and I have no looks, but I d like to With that she left the house, parting 

work for the stage." with Meg at the door, and made her way 

Mrs. Medley eyed her house and her to her brother s office in the city, 
dress. "You d be good in the dress de- That night, however, she was knocked 

partment." down by a motor-car and was badly in- 

"In the property-room and in the dress- jured, and, though the accident appeared 

making, eh? Well, p r aps I d know it by in the papers, Meg did not see the ac- 

instinct. My parents was on the stage, count of it, and waited without hearing 

I d like to go back to it. I would for sure from her for four weeks. Meanwhile she 

but yes ! " kept her house in order and tried to lay 

"I ll speak to my brother. He s hard, plans for the future. What could she do? 
but if he takes a fancy he ll do all he She could not go on the music-hall stage 
can." She turned to Denise and the four again, and, though she had been famous 
smaller children. "There are five chil- by the account, first of the ball and then 
dren and you did what was right. Dane- of her defense of it by the sensational ar- 
ing to pay an honest debt is no crime, tide in the Comet, it brought nothing but 
Even David the king [danced before the advertisement and cheap reclame. She 
Lord. Dancing is moral if it s a good was bitterly disappointed that Mrs. Med- 
dance and your dance was a good dance." ley had not kept her word, and yet, some- 
She put her hand on Meg s shoulders, how, she continued to believe in her. One 
"I like you, and I ll do what I can for music-hall manager came to see her, but 
you. You may go far yet." she did not suit the stage, and, though she 

Meg looked at her with sad, glad, said she could do other things, nothing 

startled eyes. " In these three rooms, and came of it. The ball had developed her 

with these five children, I may go far enormously. Imagination was alive. It 

but!" She looked round helplessly, had been the turning-point in her life. It 

Then she sank into a chair, leaned for- opened up the way to a bigger scheme of 

ward, and put her head in her hands and things. 

her arms on her knees. Denise and the One day she stood in front of a dress- 
other children crowded round her, and making shop and looked at the models in 
Denise put a hand on her shoulder and the windows. It interested her, yet she 
with the other stroked her hair. had never had dresses since she was 

"Don t feel so bad, muvvie, we ll be married that meant either style or finish, 

all right." Nevertheless she was better dressed than 

Mrs. Medley admired Denise greatly, any of the women of her class or in her 
She saw in her the making of a fine district, and she had always been neat 
woman. She had sensitiveness, feeling, and had a sense of decoration in her hum- 
temperament, and common sense above ble home and in her person. She had 
the ordinary. She was pretty and would made picture-frames out of old cigar- 
be prettier still in good time. boxes with ornamentations of putty, she 

Meg got to her feet with composure re- had made a rag carpet for her floor and 

stored. Her children called out her best had pasted the walls with plain brown 

qualities, gave her courage and self- paper from the stores, which cost very 

possession. She smiled, but rather sadly, little. A sense of style and decoration 

and her hands stroked the heads of her were in her. j Leaving the dressmaking 

bairns. "I ve got a fair start, and I ll be window, she passed a book-shop and in 

all right. Sorry, but where should I be the window she saw a fashion-plate maga- 

if it hadn t been for the ball ? It saved zine. She went in, bought it, and took it 

us and did no one any harm at all. I got home. Then she studied it and saw pages 



AFTER THE BALL 571 

of fashion-plates. After studying them The next day at four o clock she en- 
for two or three days she got some news- tered Mrs. Medley s house. It was a fine 
papers and began to cut out patterns, residence in a respectable but not fash- 
She was pleased to find that it came to ionable part of the town. She found Mrs. 
her so easily. She saw her way. She Medley in a rocking-chair, with bright 
would cut out patterns and sell them from eyes and a serene look. She reached out a 
house to house, not in this district but in friendly hand to Meg. 
a better district, and Denise was old "You look well," she said. " Is all well 
enough to look after the younger children with you? " 

while she was going from door to door. Meg told her of what she had been do- 

Denise saw what her mother meant and ing about the patterns and how well they 

her eyes brightened. It was curious how had sold. For a moment Mrs. Medley 

the touch of temperament made them feel sat without speaking, then, with a warm 

such a difference in their lives. Denise light in her eyes, she said: "I ve got it 

helped her mother in cutting out the pat- now. My brother was willing to give you 

terns. a chance, but he could not quite see how 

With twenty different patterns cut out he could use you. I see it altogether, 

of brown wrapping-paper in a carpetbag You can go into the dress department of 

Meg issued forth one morning, and going his business, and show Fordyce how you 

into a better part of town began her com- can save him much money by planning 

mercial travelling from door to door. At and cutting dresses for his actresses, 

ten houses she had no success, but she set Will you do it, if he consents?" 

her teeth and went on. At last she began Meg said: "I d slave myself to death 

to sell; and she sold a pattern for a dollar; to do it. I think I could I m sure I 

then she sold four more. It took her all could." 

day, but in the end she had five dollars, Mrs. Medley grew suddenly grave, 

and the cost had only been the brown "I don t know what the head, Madame 

paper and her labor. Raoul, will say. She s a difficult woman 

Her heart throbbed fast as she went and a snob, though capable. She may 

home. She had found the way to make a not like you, and if she doesn t it won t be 

living, not very distinguished, yet re- quite possible, I fear. But keep up your 

spectable, and she realized that her gift spirits. You ve begun so well you can t 

of talking had helped her with her sales, fail. My brother depends on Madame 

Next day she cut out more patterns and Raoul, and he would not go against her. 

then she went forth again. All day she Let us have good hopes. I ll arrange for 

tramped and sold only three patterns yet you to go to his place to-morrow at noon, 

it was successful, she felt it in her bones. when all the workers will go to lunch, and 

That night, as she ate supper with her you and he and Madame Raoul can meet, 
children, there came a knock at the door. I wish I could go with you, but I m tied 
It was a messenger with a brief letter from here for another fortnight, I fear, and no 
Mrs. Medley. From it she learned that time should be lost." 
Mrs. Medley had had an accident, that Meg nodded. "So I will go at the 
she had not forgotten her, but in her ill- time and see Madame Raoul well, we ll 
ness had waited until she could write her- see ! I not believe in being frightened- 
self. She assumed that Meg had seen the no!" . 

accident in the papers. There Mrs. Med- The next day at noon Meg, m her good- 
ley erred, for Meg s class seldom, if ever, fitting black dress, went to the office of 
read the papers. Now, would Meg come Fordyce Glynn, the manager and pro- 
to her house and see her, and she would prietor of the One Star Music-Hall, and 
have news for her. Meg told the mes- was shown to Ms office. It was empty, 
senger that she would come next day at She sat down and waited, but he did not 
four o clock, and when he had gone she come. Suddenly she heard a cry of 
drew her children toward her and thanked "Fire!" and she sprang up. The cry 
Providence for all that had come her way. continued and she ran out. A porter told 
A new and bigger horizon opened out be- her that a fire had started in the dress 
fore her, department, and she ran toward it. She 



572 



AFTER THE BALL 



had just reached the dressmaking depart 
ment when a woman rushed out of a 
burning room and slipped and fell, sprain 
ing her ankle. Meg was at once beside 
her, and lifted her up. 

"Oh, my God, the dresses will all be 
burnt," she cried, "and it ll be long be 
fore the fire-engine conies ! " 

Meg always kept her head in times of 
crises. "No, they won t all be burnt." 
She rushed into the burning room, and 
Madame Raoul, with her sprained ankle, 
began to descend the stairs with diffi 
culty. 

Inside the burning room Meg saw in the 
corner a fire-extinguisher which Madame 
Raoul had forgotten, and she loosed it 
and gave its contents to the flames. 
They grew less and less. She persevered, 
and by the time the fire-brigade had come 
she had the fire in hand. By this time 
Fordyce Glynn was on the scene. The 
fire-brigade chief said to him: "This wo 
man has saved your place. Without her 
it would have been lost." 

" Who are you ? " asked Fordyce Glynn 
of Meg. 

" I m Madame Jean Roone, and I came 
here to get work, sent by your sister, Mrs. 
Medley. I got work at once," she 
added, with a dry laugh. The chief of 
the fire-brigade had gone on directing his 
men. 

"Your work has been temporary in one 
sense and permanent in another," said 
Glynn. " You have a head on your shoul 
ders. First the ball, then your defense of 
it, and now this ! I engage you as fire in 
surance if nothing else." He laughed, 
for this woman had done him great ser 
vice. He loved character and he saw she 
had it. He was a man of moods, difficult, 
and yet stanch and true when his mind 
was convinced. 

"I wouldn t be very useful as fire in 
surance no, m s ieu," she said. 

"Well, then, you can go into the 
dressmaking department under Madame 
Raoul." His face clouded. He knew 
that this was a difficult question. He did 
not know what had happened to Madame 
Raoul. 

"I ve met her, m s ieu." Then she 
added: "She sprained her ankle and I 
helped her." 

"Well, of all the splendid luck!" he 



said. " If you helped her and saved this 
dress-factory, you re right enough here. 
That s sure. You were born with a 
lucky spoon in your mouth, by George ! " 

An hour later they all three met in his 
office, Madame Raoul with her ankle 
bound up, and Meg with her hair singed 
by the fire. 

Fordyce Glynn said: "I m hiring Mrs. 
Roone to help you in your dress depart 
ment, Madame Raoul. I hope all will go 
well." 

"If she s as good with dresses as in 
putting out a fire, she ll do all right. She 
helped me when I fell. I don t object to 
her staying." 

"That s good. With your approval, 
neither do I. What experience have you 
had, Madame Roone?" 

Meg told them about the patterns, and 
Madame Raoul raised her eyebrows. 
"That s the first time it s ever been done. 
You ve got ideas, and you ll do all right. 
Bien stir/" 

"I hope, Madame. I m green, but I 
can learn." 

"That s the right spirit come to 
morrow. We can t begin too soon. 
There ll be new patterns to make." 

Fordyce Glynn winked an eye at him 
self in a mirror. Madame Raoul was a 
splendid head of his dress department, 
and things were going well. "I ll give 
you fifty dollars a month to start with, 
Madame Roone." 

Meg caught her breath. Fifty dollars 
a month ! Madame Raoul shook her 
head at first in negation. Then she be 
came tranquil. It was all right. She 
liked this independent-minded little wo 
man, and her own place was secure. 

That night at home Meg celebrated 
the new course of life by having for sup 
per buttermilk pop, fried sausages, baked 
potatoes, and a dried-fig pudding. 

" It was good about the ball, mother," 
said Denise. 

Madame Roone nodded. "I hope you 
don t ever have to do it," she said. 

"I won t," said Denise, with a far 
away look. 

Did she have a premonition that she 
was in the end to marry the son of For 
dyce Glynn when her mother became 
head of the dressmaking establishment 
after Madame Raoul s death? 




Colleges and Religion 

BY AN INSTRUCTOR 

T is a doleful truth subjected to so-called weekly periods of 
that most of our prob- special meetings. Some noted divine, 
lems become bore- who particularly understood the student 
some before they are mind and psychology, held forth on the 
solved. And many a need of religion in our lives. A few of these 
problem has seemed men made favorable and sometimes last- 
incapable of solution ing impressions on a number of us. But 
for the simple reason usually we were aroused for the time it 
that for years it was never really faced, being the thing to attend the meetings, for 
Both of which observations, I believe, ap- lo ! even members of the football team 
ply to the subject of colleges and religion, were discovered on the front benches and 
"If the colleges are to retain their im- then we sank back into our wonted ways, 
portance," says Mr. E. S. Martin in a The last word in college evangelism is 
recent number of Harper s Magazine, to have two or three speakers, each pos- 
" they must be able to impart ... spiritual sessed of a particular forte. Thus a cumu- 
leading to minds that are fit to receive lative effect so termed is reached at 
it." " If they don t," he continues, " they the end of the period of special meetings, 
fail in their most vital office, in the use and each group in college has heard an 
that most of them were originally founded appeal specially adapted to it. Again, 
to serve. If they fail in that they lose it has been my observation that after a 
their leadership, which will go to men of week or two the great majority lapse back 
faith, as it always does." So Mr. Mar- into the old familiar paths, 
tin reaches the conclusion that what the One is reminded a bit by all of this 
colleges need is what all the world needs though, of course, the analogy is not per- 
religion. feet of crossing to France in 1918 with 
As a college instructor, I agree with some troops of color. When all was 
Mr. Martin that our colleges need reli- peaceful the "galloping dominoes," 
gion. The questions remain, How are jumped merrily on deck, and games of 
they to get it and of what sort is it to be ? chance were general. But whenever the 
When I was in college, the Reverend guns barked at submarines, usually sup- 
William A. Sunday paid us one of his posititious, the brethren gathered below 
famous flying visits. We crowded to see for a season of fervent and audible prayer, 
and hear him, of course. We gave him WTien the guns were silent again, the 
a voluminous vocal welcome, and he came click of the dice and the cries of coaxing 
back an hundredfold. At the conclusion were heard once more, 
of his discourse we were invited to hit the Now don t mistake me. I am not op- 
trail. And, as was natural, since to most posed to Mr. Sunday, nor to any other of 
of us that operation denoted stepping up the very earnest and devoted religious 
front, grasping Billy firmly by the hand, leaders who hold special services in our 
and getting a close-up of his physiogno- colleges. They have a real mission to 
my, we freely participated. Press reports stir us in religious matters. I am only 
of his service at our college were des- giving voice to doubts of long standing as 
patched all over the country. Many tele- to the permanent effects of such methods, 
grams were said to have been sent to the taken by themselves. And I wish also to 
folks at home telling of their boys having record my present fears that our college 
got religion. Some really did. The bulk authorities are prone to let the religious 
of us, however, considered Mr. Sunday s obligation be so discharged and argue to 
visit as an unusual diversion in the midst themselves that their duty lies entirely 
of a bleak February s bareness, and let it outside of that field, 
go at that. Is this true? Or has the college itself 
Then, I remember too, that we were a responsibility for the religious life and 

573 



574 COLLEGES AND RELIGION 

training of its students ? And if so, how in our colleges. What standards exist in 
is that obligation to be met ? educational theory, in teaching, in re- 
Mr. Martin is unquestionably correct search, in scholarship, in advancement of 
when he affirms that most of our Amer- professors, save the most artificial and 
ican colleges were founded for the purpose superficial? Above all else, where are the 
of imparting spiritual leadership. To standards of lofty moral ideals and lead- 
demonstrate this truth, we have only to ership to which the colleges throughout 
turn to the classes that graduated a gen- their departments once pointed their un- 
eration or so ago and adduce their testi- dergraduates ? 

mony. In these latter days, somehow, The Young Men s and Young Women s 
that emphasis has dropped out. And Christian Associations are performing 
not only is there a manifest lack of in- valuable services in our institutions. But 
terest in the subject of religion on the if the philosophy and ethic of Christian- 
part of the individual members of the ity are not presented on a basis of intel- 
faculty, but in some of our colleges a lectual parity with the non-Christian 
single course even, in the history or lit- systems of thought with which every stu- 
erature or philosophy of the Bible, in dent of philosophy is brought into con- 
recent years, has been omitted. tact, all the organized and unorganized, 
It is true that such courses are fertile paid and volunteer, work of a religious 
fields of controversy; that many colleges nature operating on our campuses lacks 
have become involved in acrimonious the solid foundation which the super- 
disputes over the teachings of some of structure calls for. 

their professors of Bible, So some au- The chapel services, both Sunday and 
thorities have taken the attitude that it is daily, are pressing problems in many 
far better to allow this field to lie fallow, places. The complaint is made that the 
Fallow fields, however, usually grow students are unresponsive to the eloquent 
weeds. And, although weeds are excel- appeals to which they listen Sunday after 
lent fertilizer when ploughed under on Sunday. And why not? If we do not 
the farm, they are not great thought- care enough to raise the philosophy of 
producers in the realm of the mind. In life of the Great Teacher to the intellec- 
religious matters, as in every other field tual level of other systems of thought, if 
of human endeavor, a neutral or negative we fail to consider it worth our while, at 
position can be assumed only with ex- least to offer instruction in Christian 
treme peril. So it would seem that to ethics, how, I ask, can a student s mind 
offer no instruction in religious subjects, be prepared for the truth preached from 
especially in the Christian philosophy the college pulpit on Sunday? It would 
and ethic, simply because it may lead to seem palpable that it is futile to appeal 
controversy, is to premise a logic which, to young people to rise above the ma- 
carried to its conclusion, would afford terialism of the day and follow the teach- 
sufficient reason for omitting instruction ings of the Master, when no really, ade- 
in every other field. quate instruction in Christian funda- 

American colleges were originally mentals is afforded. 

started as Christian institutions. The So we reach our first conclusion that if 

time has come for them to reaffirm their religion is to become vital in our colleges, 

faith. A definite stand for or against the colleges must imprint their official 

Christianity must be elected. No nega- stamp of approval by offering adequate 

tive or neutral position will suffice. For and attractive courses in the Christian 

so surely as any college attempts to oc- philosophy and ethic. We are not ad- 

cupy middle ground, just as inevitably vocating far from it that religion be 

will positive anti-Christian teaching and forced on the students. We are simply 

ideals creep in. If you doubt this, look arguing that it is as reasonable as it is 

around you. vital that in our colleges, which for years 

The great void in the world is the have been denominated Christian, real 

lack of standards: standards in business, instruction in the Christian philosophy 

in politics, in international relations in should be offered in the curriculum, 

fact, in every walk and avocation of life. Perhaps some may feel that because of 

Nowhere is this truth more manifest than personal religious convictions I am trying 



COLLEGES AND RELIGION 



575 



to inject into the curriculum something 
which is out of place. They may believe 
that colleges should be impartial on every 
subject, should simply present the facts. 
Individuals, however, grow from boy 
hood into manhood while in college. 
They thus develop whether the college 
takes cognizance of the process or not. 
It is inevitable. Life is difficult then. 
Inspiration, purpose, direction, and incen 
tive are they not needed? Is it unbe 
fitting the college to give some hints on 
the subject? If we do differentiate be 
tween incentives, then surely history must 
teach what incentives there have been. 
And are we unwilling to say, courageously 
perhaps, that for our students we are 
satisfied with nothing short of the highest 
and noblest springs of human thought 
and action ? If we affirm this as our faith, 
then it would seem that we have justified 
not only the teaching of the history and 
philosophy of Christianity, but also the 
holding up of Christianity as the nearest 
approach to, in fact as the consummation 
of, the finest and truest of life s aspira 
tions. Surely, no one honestly disbe 
lieves in the moral virtues of the Chris 
tian teaching. Those virtues, reinforced 
by the vision and power of practice, are 
the only corner-stones upon which we can 
build the character of our young men. If 
this be so, then we should demonstrate 
as best we can the "Why," and afford 
the opportunity of self -development along 
sound moral paths. The world needs 
equipped scholars and trained men. Yes. 
But it demands something more. It must 
have men of character. 

But what benefit, one may ask, will 
accrue, numberless courses of this kind 
being offered, if the students do not elect 
them? Here is a most significant fact. 
You will find the students themselves 
anxious that such instruction be given. 
I base this statement on inquiries which 
have been made among students, and also 
upon suggestions emanating from the 
students themselves. 

To offer courses in religion is but the 
initial step in a programme of a revital- 
ization of religious interest and life in our 
colleges. To impart true spiritual leader 
ship, the whole curriculum should be per 
meated with religious teaching and ideals. 

I know a professor of English, a teacher 
and scholar. He is not limited, however, 



by the bounds of English literature; for 
it is his belief that literature includes life, 
and that life is encompassed by religion. 
The students of this professor are one in 
their admiration and respect. And they 
all come forth from his course with new 
ideals and convictions. 

I remember talking one night last win 
ter with a student. He told me that 
when he got his discharge from the army 
and returned to college, he had made up 
his mind to loaf. He succeeded all too 
well and had narrowly escaped becoming 
a complete failure. In his senior year, he 
said, he got into the course of the pro 
fessor I have just mentioned. First, he 
became interested in the subject. Then 
he began to feel uncomfortable and dis 
satisfied with himself. The upshot of it 
was that before the end of the first term 
his whole attitude and purpose had un 
dergone a complete revolution. At the 
time I refer to he was seeking advice as 
to the most useful investment of his life. 
And all because of one professor whose 
subject was English. Conducting a class 
so as to effect such a change in a student s 
life must be close to religious teaching. 

My friend, the professor, is, however, 
somewhat of an exception. Those of you 
who know intimately the daily life of our 
colleges must have discovered the great 
dearth of moral and religious influence on 
the part of the faculties. This is evi 
denced not only in the conduct of their 
courses, but also in the lack of faculty 
attendance at chapel and other religious 
services. When a speaker for daily 
chapel is sought, or when the Y. M. C. A. 
appeals for teachers for Bible -study 
classes, the paucity of available candi 
dates from the faculty is another unmis 
takable sign. So true is this that, instead 
of those who do not participate being re 
marked, it is those who do take part who 
are considered quite out of the ordinary. 
When you ask the students who of the 
faculty have been of the greatest in 
fluence and help, you will discover they 
are usually the same few teachers who 
have identified themselves with the re 
ligious life of the college. "It is not the 
exclusive province of religious teachers 
to teach religion," says Mr. Martin. "It 
is the province of all teachers, and a 
teacher who cannot do it is by so much, 
less qualified for his job." 



576 



PALMORE 



Religion is more than a matter of in 
struction it is a part of life and of every 
day life. You remember the Master once 
said: "I am come that they might have 
life and that they might have it more 
abundantly." Where we seek to impart 
life, we must have examples. The nat 
uralness, attractiveness and power of 
Christianity can be seen most clearly in 
the lives of men. Thus, the religious life 
of our colleges will become firmly estab 
lished only when we have numbers of 
teachers who are, in every sense of the 
word, men themselves sympathetic, de 
sirous of helping and guiding their stu 
dents, understanding and loving youth. 
When faculties are crowded with such 
men intent upon inculcating in those 
under them the highest ideals, then, and 
not till then, will we begin to approach a 
solution of our problem. 

American colleges must soon decide 
whether they also are to forsake the foun 
tain of "living waters," and hew them 
out cisterns, "broken cisterns that can 
hold no water." It is my conviction that 
the world at least the educational world 
is waiting to-day for the emergence of 
some institution possessing the courage 
and initiative to revert to the strong, 



simple, productive standards of former 
days. Such an one assuredly would be the 
leader in a new day. 

But I was saying that teachers should 
be possessed of moral and religious lead 
ership. A teacher, one says, who is not 
only a scholar but a man interested in 
the general well-being of his charges. Is 
he not rare? Is it reasonable to suppose 
that we can collect faculties composed 
chiefly of such men? I counter: Was it 
not true that in former days teaching was 
considered a calling, a vocation on a plane 
with the highest altruistic endeavors? 
Was not a teacher held an exceptional 
person, one who, by his personality and 
character, his broad humanity and deep 
interest in men, as well as by his learning 
and attainments, was a veritable leader 
and maker of men? 

The question, then, to-day is this: Are 
we to return to our old ideas and con 
ceptions of what constitutes a teacher, or 
are we satisfied to lessen inevitably and 
immeasurably the enriching influences 
with which young lives are to be brought 
into contact? Must we not conclude 
that the real problem of the religious life 
of our undergraduates lies in the character 
of the men who compose our faculties ? 



Palmore 



BY ABBIE CARTER GOODLOE 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. H. HENKEL 



a 



A 



T Warrenton s excla 
mation and eager 
question, Penrose 
raised amused, toler 
ant eyebrows. 

"That? "he nodded 
imperceptibly in the 
direction of the beau 
tiful girl upon whom the young English 
man s roving glance had lighted. "That 
is Mrs. Michael Considine, late of De 
troit, Michigan, with Count Barbaresco, 
the Italian minister. The good-looking, 
red-faced young Irishman in their wake is 



her husband, Mike Considine, formerly 
her father s chauffeur." 

Warrenton gave another exclamation, 
this time of dismay. 

" She walks in beauty like the night, : 
he murmured, and added mournfully: "I 
don t understand in the least." 

Penrose shrugged his broad shoulders. 

"That s what her father said that 
and some other things not fit for repeti 
tion." 

From their vantage point in a corner 
of the roof-garden atop the Salle de Pati- 
nage, Penrose and his two guests, Follans- 



PALMORE 577 



bee, of Shawnee University, Ohio, and visional way at the table with his wife 

Seymour Warrenton, the celebrated young and the Italian diplomat. 

English novelist, watched the pageant of "It s incredible !" he murmured, 

"afternoon tea" unfold before their inter- " Incredible is the mildest word her 

ested gaze. father used in connection with the affair, 

In his double role of host and bona-fide I understand," said Penrose. "He was 
resident, Penrose was complacently satis- violently opposed to the metamorphosis 
fied with the little social comedy and its of a first-rate chauffeur into an indifferent 
setting. Never had Lake Leman been son-in-law. I have it on reliable author- 
more deeply blue, the Dent du Midi more ity that he had entertained hopes of a 
chastely white, the holiday crowds more princely, or at least ducal, alliance for his 
exhilarating. Life was certainly recap- daughter. It is easy enough of belief 
turing some of its pre-war leisureliness and when one knows his income tax. And his 
savor in the little Swiss resort. disappointment was natural enough a 

Besides his satisfaction with the mise- nobleman of whatever degree might have 

en-scene, Penrose felt also the glow which been counted on to spend his money and 

xvaits upon the accomplishment of a misbehave himself like a gentleman. The 

kindly deed. Good old Follansbee, on a Mike Considines are more uncertain in 

frugal, Sabbatical year s sojourn abroad, their reactions." 

and avid of literary adventures, was un- "Then why ?" 

affectedly delighted at the meeting ar- "Ah, who can explain the sentimental 

ranged for him with the young literary eccentricities of a beautiful American 

celebrity. And Warrenton, planning a heiress? Perhaps it was the spectacular 

lecture invasion of "the States" in the quality of her personality that demanded 

early fall, was glad enough to make the a surprise finish, the 0. Henry twist to 

acquaintance of the head of the literature her emotions. To have become an Ital- 

department of even so modest an educa- ian or Austrian countess or a French duch- 

tional centre as Shawnee, and receive the ess would have been such a conventional 

assurance that a series of talks on "The ending the social audience would have 

New Romanticism" would be financially guessed the denouement from the begin- 

appreciated at that institution of learn- ning, and the piece would have had only 

ing. a mild succes d estime. An accomplished 

The three gentlemen watched the ap- actress demands a more exacting role, 

proach of the beautiful Mrs. Michael greater opportunities. Life with some 

Considine with unconcealed interest. She one so far removed from her former sphere 

advanced toward them with incompa- of activities will not lack dramatic mo- 

rable grace, her lace draperies sweeping ments for Mrs. Mike Considine, I take 

backward with a Winged Victory elan it." Penrose flecked the ash from his 

which, if obviously calculated, was none cigar. "You ought to make her the lead- 

the less triumphantly effective. Her ing lady in your next novel, Warrenton," 

rough, dark hair, stirred enchantingly by he added after a moment s pause, 

the breeze from the lake, framed a charm- The young Englishman threw out an 

ingly animated countenance whose chief impotent hand. 

beauty was a pair of eyes that would have " Ah, the American woman is a mys- 
made the fortune of a cinema actress, tery to me yet ! Why doesn t one of 
The plume of Henry of Navarre was no your own men undertake the agreeable- 
more potent a cynosure than the white and difficult task?" 
ostrich that fell across the wide brim of "You do well to call it difficult. Per- 
her lace hat. As she swept past the haps there was but one American who 
crowded tea-tables all eyes followed her, could have lived up to the melodramatic 
and she left in her wake a froth of opportunities she afforded!" Penrose 
murmured exclamations and admiring glanced meditatively at Follansbee. 
glances. "She s the kind of glittering, incred- 

Warrenton drew a long breath and ible creature, I take it, that Palmore 
cast a baffled look at the young Irishman would have delighted to lay violent liter- 
just seating himself in an uneasy, pro- ary hands on and revelled in misrepre- 
VOL. LXXL 37 



578 



PALMORE 



^ 

senting through five hundred pages of 
slush." 

Follansbee turned an enigmatic eye 
upon Penrose. 

"Palmore!" he echoed. 

Warrenton leaned eagerly across the lit 
tle table. 

"Palmore? Is he one of your men I 
ought to know about? I don t think I 
ever heard of him." 

Follansbee looked at him gently, re- 

* t 

flee ti very. 

"No," he said, "no you wouldn t 
have heard of Palmore. There was a 
time He fell silent and drew at his 
cigar. 

Warrenton- turned his puzzled young 
eyes from the veiled implication in Fol- 
lansbee s to his host. 

"Who is Palmore?" he asked. 

Penrose smiled a somewhat embar 
rassed smile. 

"He was Follansbee s find ask him." 

Follansbee twisted his little iron chair 
sideways and gazed out at the blue lake, 
the birdlike boats, the motor-launches 
darting about. 

"Yes," he confessed at length, "Pal- 
more was my find. At the time I experi 
enced the emotions that Madame Curie 
must have felt when she discovered ra 
dium, or Speke when he came upon the 
sources of the Nile. If these comparisons 
sound ridiculous to you, remember that I 
had been teaching at St. Eusebius School 
for eleven years and had never encoun 
tered a trace of literary genius in any of 
my pupils until Palmore swam into my 
ken. He was the one talented and the 
one poor boy in the school. All the rest 
were the sons of rich but honest parents, 
and as dull as only millionaires can afford 
to be. 

" Palmore was a marked man from the 
first. I say man he was only a dreamy, 
poetic-looking boy of fourteen when he 
came to St. Eusebius, but infernally 
clever with a cleverness that assimilated 
knowledge in an astounding fashion. No 
need to ask him his schedule one had 
only to listen to him talk for five minutes 
to discover what studies he was interested 
in. When his roommate, Landis, flunked 
his Tacitus examination, Palmore casual 
ly disposed of him by remarking to me, 
Oh, Landis well, what could you ex 



pect of Landis? His formula s easy 
FO^L ! and I knew Palmore was taking 
the freshman course in Arkwright s 
Principles of Chemistry. 

"He got the Doane prize in his sopho 
more year, and the Reigate medal in 
junior oratory. But I m going too fast ! 
I like best to think of him a^fee was when 
I first knew him, in my freshman litera 
ture class. My lectures consisted of a sort 
of non-stop air flight across the whole 
expanse of world literature as a prepara 
tion for more specialized work later. As 
a matter of fact no one ever did specialize 
later, I believe, but St. Eusebius consid 
ered its duty done when it afforded a 
bird s-eye view of the literary landscape 
and an opportunity to make a safe land 
ing in some particularly pleasant field of 
letters. 

"As Alan Seeger puts it, I asked for 
nothing and expected less of my pupils, 
and I confess to a delighted astonishment 
at the enthusiasm with which my young 
est student, Palmore Eugene Palmore 
threw himself into the work. He ab 
sorbed it and w T as absorbed by it. The 
classics, of whose meaning and beauties 
most of the boys were naively innocent, 
were a delight, to Palmore. I caught him 
poring over the Odyssey as though it 
were an Alger story. He was in love 
with Nausicaa, I discovered. He blushed 
when I laughingly taxed him with it he 
had a trick of blushing like a girl ! . . . 

"One day we went on a hike, and at 
our camp-fire lunch I read him the open 
ing lines of the Agamemnon. I shan t 
easily forget the effe ct they had on him. 

" I d like to write something like that 
some day, he said quietly when I d 
finished. I looked at him, ready for a 
smile, but the tense expression on his 
white face, the glow in his fine eyes, struck 
it from my lips. It came to me suddenly 
that perhaps he might some day write 
something wonderful who could tell? 
... I felt a curious rush of emotion. 

"Later, when we came to the Middle 
Ages the Trouveres and Troubadours 
he burned with a martial, chivalric fire. 
For a while I think he fancied himself in 
the role of Charlemagne, of Roland. . . . 
And with the beginning of the last cen 
tury he fell under the spell of Keats. He 
came to my rooms one night with an ex- 



PALMORE 



579 



quisite little fragment or so it seemed to 
me. At least it had a touch of pagan fire. 

" Lover of high Olympus bright array! 
Thou last and dearest worshipper of those 
Who cast a golden glory o er the day 
When Hellas was the world ! hast chose 
To weave anew the spell of all that lorn 
And faded hierarchy? Hast thou sought 
To crown the lovely Psyche who was born 
A goddess when thou sang st? 

" and so forth. I believe Keats would not 
have disdained this tribute from a school 
boy. 

"And then it was Byron. He was 
caught up in that poetic maelstrom and 
beaten and buffeted to an ecstasy. Curi 
ously enough he had something of the 
beauty of the noble poet. There was 
the same perfect oval of the face, the same 
clear, brilliant eyes, the same deeply cut 
lips. I spoke to him of the resemblance 
one day when he was on one of his nu 
merous visits to my rooms and I could see 
that he was naively pleased. When he 
left me I watched him cross the campus 
and I swear he walked with a limp ! 

"His audacity knew no limits. He 
wrote a 5th canto to Childe Harold, 
bringing the errant knight back to Eng 
land ! He had mastered the Spenserian 
versification astonishingly well. There 
were whole stanzas that were good very 
good. I remember one or two: 

" Upon the wide Atlantic s restless blue 

No more we rode, sole monarch of the main, 
With but some passing ship that frightened 

flew 

Before the wind, to dare dispute our reign. 
As in a pageant entered we a train 
Of barks swift wing d and snowy in the 

glance 

Unclouded of the sun; at last did gain 
A narrow sea and slowly did advance 
Between two fair and smiling lands Eng 
land and France ! 
. 

And thus while gazing at the waves that day, 
I thought of other times, when on that sea 
Eight hundred Roman triremes plough d 

their way 

Toward Britain s isle and bloody victory. 
I saw approach in pride from Normandy 
The treacherous galley of th usurping king, 
The golden boy upon the prow, the three 
Gold lions on the mast, while loud did sing 
The armed host of Charlemagne the Con 
quering. 

And still a statelier vision saw I there- 
Spain s fleet advancing in half-moon array 



"Oh, you can smile if you want to!* 
All I can say is that I didn t. I thought 
his English canto a remarkable perform 
ance with something of the grand ges 
ture of the original. I grew enormously 
proud and fond of the boy it hurt me 
like the devil when he had finished at St. 
Eusebius and was ready to go to Yale. 
P ortunately I received my call to Shaw- 
nee that very summer and I consoled 
myself by thinking that the break in my 
surroundings would soften the blow of his 
loss a little. 

"He had been entered at Yale by the 
banker Henry Snelgrove, the rich friend 
of the family, who was giving Palmore 
his education. I had always secretly dis 
approved of the choice of an eastern 
university for a poor boy like Eugene, 
and when a month before the opening of 
college his benefactor was killed in an 
automobile accident, I wrote suggesting 
that he matriculate at Shawnee. I wasn t 
entirely disinterested, I confess. I had 
visions of a delightful continuity in our 
relations. 

"His refusal surprised me. It was 
the first hint I had of a Palmore differ 
ent from the one I had known. From 
what he wrote, I gathered that Shawnee 
wouldn t quite come up to the standard 
which he had set up for himself in the 
way of a university. I angrily insisted to 
myself that he was right that perhaps 
it wouldn t. As for the unwisdom of go 
ing to an expensive eastern college, it 
seemed that there were ways and means, 
somewhat indefinite, it is true; promises 
from the beneficiaries of the estate, who 
were cognizant of Mr. Snelgrove s wishes, 
which, unfortunately, had not been in 
corporated in the will. I thought Pal- 
more a trifle too optimistic, but, of course, 
I could say no more. I was so uneasy 
about the boy, however, and so interested 
in him that the next year when business 
connected with a small legacy called me 
to New York, I swear I was more pleased 
to find an opportunity to see Palmore 
than to collect my modest fortune. 

"I went to New Haven by an afternoon 
train and he met me at the station in 
response to my wire. There was a change 
in him even to myself I couldn t deny it. 
But he was unaffectedly glad to see me. 

" It s too good to be true ! he cried, 



580 PALMORE 

Jinking his arm in mine and dragging me " I hid my disappointment at my frus- 
across the campus, and he added with his trated plans with what art I could sum- 
old shyness: I ve got something to show mon and, pleading an early engagement 
you ! at my lawyer s for the following morn- 

" He had rooms in one of the expensive ing, I took a night train back to New 

dormitories in some indefinable way York. 

Palmore looked unaccustomedly expen- "It was three years before I saw Pal- 

sive too and bolting the door we settled more again. I met him on Fifth Avenue 

down to a comfortable smoke and dis- as I was passing through town on my way 

cussion of the two finished acts of a ro- to the north shore for one of my infre- 

mantic play built around Sir Walter quent summer outings. I have found 

Raleigh the treasure he had to show me. that it is only from Manchester-by-the- 

" He paced up and down while he read Sea or Pride s Crossing that one gets the 

and outlined the denouement of the plot, perspective from which Shawnee seems 

his eyes brilliant and daring, his hands an entirely admirable institution of learn- 

gesturing unconsciously as he talked. ing. After a year s hard work, with unin- 

"What do you think of it? he de- spiring undergraduates, I confess that I 

manded at length, stopping in his rapid sometimes feel the need of fortifying my 

walking. complimentary opinion of the college 

"It s great! I declared. You ve which offers me a living, 

caught the true Elizabethan spirit- " Palmore greeted me with his old-time 

there s the tang of salt water, the hot affection and enthusiasm. He was so ob- 

breath of adventure in every line. But viously glad to see me that I invited him 

I m not sure that it will be marketable/ to take luncheon an invitation which he 

I admitted dubiously. regretfully declined. 

" Oh, that flung out Palmore de- " I m more sorry than I can say that 

risively. Thank God, I don t care for I ve already got a date for luncheon at 

money, and a man can always live on the Ritz oh, don t think that I frequent 

next to nothing ! the Ritz daily, he added, laughing. I m 

" He threw himself into a big chair near with some plutocratic friends my old 

the window. roommate at Yale and his sister. It s 

" And as soon as "Sir Walter" is fin- quite an occasion, I assure you. Any old 

ished I want to " do " a play about Chat- joint is good enough for a cub reporter ! 

terton. That thing of De Vigny s is so "I looked my surprise, 

inadequate! I mean to do it from an " I didn t know you were a newspaper 

entirely different angle the Frenchman s man, I said. 

left out any hint of the genius. I want to " It s just temporary/ Palmore hast- 

make a big thing of it! ened to explain. I m trying to get my 

" Palmore began his rapid pacing again, play on, but it takes so deuced long to get 
and I sat smoking and listening to his a play placed and produced that I found 
visions translated into eager, trembling I had to do something while waiting, 
words. So complete and satisfactory Even playwrights have to eat! he con- 
seemed the resumption of our relations eluded on a note of somewhat forced 
that it was with a shock of surprise and jocularity. I smiled in company. Sud- 
chagrin that I was made aware, after an denly I remembered, 
elaborate dinner, that Palmore and I " Ah, it s the Sir Walter Raleigh play ! 
were not to have the evening together. I cried, and as he shook his head I added 

" I promised the fellows to go to this hopefully, then it s the Chatterton trag- 

musical show with them/ he explained, edy! 

It s a bore of course, but I m helping " Wrong again! he said with an em- 

with the sophomore play, and although barrassed laugh, you yourself suggested 

I m afraid " Fancy Free " will not be very that the Raleigh play would hardly be 

illuminating, still one has to get the hang marketable I simply couldn t afford to 

of these things. I think you know I d keep on with it. I can t tell you what it 

rather spend the evening with you/ he meant to me to have to give up the idea ! 

added feelingly. He paused an instant. And as for the 







Drav. ii by A. 77. Uenkel. 

" We ll leave it to your superior judgment which shall it be? Page 585. 



53! 



582 



PALMORE 



Chatterton play of course I realized that 
the public was not exactly crying for that 
sort of thing ! 

"Then what is it? I demanded. 
Have you gone back to the classics, as 
you once dreamed of doing ? 

""Agamemnon"? He evoked the 
remembrance with a sadly derisive smile. 
If I couldn t afford "Raleigh" and 
"Chatterton/* you may be sure " Aga 
memnon" was beyond my means! "A 
Man and His Money " is distinctly mod 
ern, but, he spoke with a rather por 
tentous dignity, I hope it is done in 
what shall I say? "the grand manner." 
I mean/ he elucidated, that while the 
theme is modern I believe the treatment 
will stand the test of time. 

" I tried to look intelligent at this cryp 
tic statement. 

""A Man and His Money" -I 
thought you knew little about money 
and cared less, dear boy ? I hazarded at 
last. 

"Palmore blushed he still preserved 
the trick of blushing like a girl. 

"Ah, that was a thousand years or so 
ago ! he murmured. Since then, believe 
me, I ve learned the value of money ! 



Of course ! I assented eagerly. I 
felt an absurd desire to help him put 
himself in an unassailable position. One 
doesn t lunch with friends at the Ritz 
without returning the gastronomic cour 
tesy, for example/ I added gaily and then 
wished I hadn t reminded him of the ob 
ligation. 

" Palmore looked at his watch hastily. 

" By Jove, you re right he ex 
claimed. He held out a cordial hand. 
I ll have to run for it ! he said and van 
ished in the crowd. 

" Six months later I received Palmore s 
wedding-cards and in the same mail a 
note from him. I read it with a sinking 
heart. 

" . . . She s the girl I took luncheon 
with that day at the Ritz. She s a wonder 
and a beauty and confoundedly rich. She 
tells me to say that she joins me in hop 
ing that you will surely come on to the 
wedding. 

"I couldn t, of course, compass that, 
but I sent a wedding-present and my best 
wishes. I had an odd conviction that if 
the silver flower-basket was a superfluity, 



my best wishes, at least, would be useful 
that Palmore, in some obscure way, 
had need of them. 

"The next year was my first Sabbatical 
year at Shawnee. I wasn t sorry to leave 
its academic groves for a while and es 
tablish myself in a New York apartment 
for a season of literary feasts. I had long 
arrears to make up. One of our faculty, 
who had spent the previous year in New 
York, turned his rooms in University 
Place over to me, and when I landed in 
the Pennsylvania Station on an afternoon 
in early September I had the agreeable 
assurance that a well-appointed pied-a- 
terre was waiting for me. I took a taxi 
and as we turned into the street I saw, to 
my astonishment, the announcement, on 
the boardings, of a theatrical offering by 
Eugene Palmore The Husbands of Su 
zanne. 

"I gathered from the press notices 
printed in large type on each side of the 
title that it had made a tremendous suc 
cess at the Kemble Theatre, but some 
way the name struck on me unpleasantly. 
I consoled myself by thinking that Pal- 
more might be able to explain away the 
title and lost no time in looking him up 
in the telephone book. Fortunately he 
was not far from me, and as soon as I had 
unpacked my slender wardrobe and eaten 
a solitary dinner at the Brevoort, I started 
to hunt up the Palmores. I discovered 
them occupying an apartment on Twelfth 
Street just off the Avenue, in one of those 
massive brownstone houses of an extinct 
type of architecture where the spacious 
ness of the high-ceiled rooms is counted 
on by a careful landlord to make up for 
the exiguity of the furnishings and service. 

"Palmore welcomed me effusively, and 
when Mrs. Palmore came, in answer to 
his call, her welcome rivalled his in 
warmth. She was as beautiful as Palmore 
had prepared me to expect, with an elu 
sive, high-bred charm and finish that led 
me secretly to wonder how he had been 
able to afford such an obviously expensive 
specimen of her sex. She had tact, too, 
and insisted on my taking her place in the 
small party the Palmores had invited 
that evening to see The Husbands of 
Suzanne. 

" We could only get four seats im 
agine ! she exclaimed brightly. The the- 



PALMORE 



583 



atre is sold out every night even this early 
in the season ! It s a tremendous success ! 

" Palmore looked at me uneasily. 

" Yes, a succes de scatidaleT he said 
with a little laugh. He put his hand on 
his wife s arm: You d better get Copley 
or that young Englishman to take my 
place, and leave me here with the Prof for 
a talk and smoke I ve an idea the Prof 
won t be interested in "The Husbands 
of Suzanne." 

On the contrary, I m most deeply in 
terested, I objected warmly. I m in 
terested in everything he does, I ex 
plained to Mrs. Palmore. 

" Of course you are, she agreed, and 
the taxi being announced at that mo 
ment, Palmore and I got in and started 
for the theatre. 

"Three hours later I found myself back 
at the Palmores. Mrs. Palmore still 
tactful had waited up for us, but after 
a few words had said good night and gone 
to her room, leaving Palmore and myself 
alone in his little den. 

" I would have liked well enough to get 
away without the talk that I saw I was 
in for, but Palmore showed a nervous 
eagerness to have me stay. As the door 
closed on his wife he turned to me quick 
ly- 

Of course I know what you re 

thinking ! he burst out, and as I hesitated 
he went on rapidly, you re thinking that 
"The Husbands of Suzanne" is a far 
cry from "Raleigh" or " Chatterton " 
or "Agamemnon" though Clytemnestra 
was hardly what you would call a respect 
able married lady, either, he added with 
a grin. Well, I think so, too, of course. 
He went over to the smoking-table and 
lit a cigar with a hand that trembled a 
little. 

" And equally, of course, it isn t at all 
the sort of thing I like to do or intend to 
do, he flung out. It s only an entering 
wedge. I can t tell you what I suffered 
adapting that dirty French farce to our 
stage! But I couldn t afford to let the 
opportunity slip, and at least it s a hun 
dred per cent cleaner than it was. Lord ! 
you ought to have read the original ! 

" I ll take your word for it, I said 
dryly. 

"He gave me a look that craved sym 
pathy. 



" Of course, I understand your con 
tempt for the thing, but the fact is that 
I needed the money like the deuce ! 
You ve seen my wife he broke off and 
threw himself into a chair near the table. 

"My dear boy, by far your most 
brilliant performance ! I murmured en 
thusiastically. 

" The most brilliant and the most 
expensive! He smiled a little. The 
truth is, I oughtn t to have married her 
until I could afford her and her kind. 
You ll agree that this is hardly the setting 
for her ! He threw out a contemptuous 
hand at the shabby room. Well I want 
to take her out of all this! I want to 
prove to her damned plutocratic family 
that she hasn t done such a rotten thing, 
after all, in marrying me ! And believe 
me, "The Husbands of Suzanne" is 
going to do the trick, Nestor! his old 
name for me. Gedney says the play ll 
net me around forty thousand this sea 
son. If it keeps going strong until spring 
they ll send out two road companies next 
year. And then there ll be the stock and 
movie rights His words trailed off into 
silence as he threw back his handsome 
head and gazed upward at the smoke- 
rings curling away into space with his 
hopes and his dreams. But if his thoughts 
were nebulous and fanciful, the expres 
sion in his eye was calculating and earthly 
to the last degree. 

" You ll see! he said, turning his 
businesslike look upon me. And when 
I get hold of this money I m going to buy 
a little country place somewhere and 
settle down to some big literary work/ 
He leaned forward and laid a hand on my 
knee. 

" I don t mind telling you, Nestor, 
that I ve been hatching the plot of a 
novel "Soul- Wings." I m fairly aching 
to get at it ! It won t be for the big public 
it will be for the good of my own soul 
primarily. I ve got things I want to say 
out loud and strong; thoughts that I 
can t find every-day use for, and which I 
want to enshrine in a book that s worth 
while. And if it turns out as well as I 
hope, I mean to dedicate it to you, if I 
may! 

"He looked at me, glowing boyishly in 
his old way, and I felt the rush of emotion 
he so often evoked in me. 



584 



PALMORE 



" You know how delighted I ll be to 
see the best that s in you, Palmore, and 
I ll be confoundedly pleased to have a 
share in it ! I said, getting up to go. 

"He went with me to the outer door. 
Oh, to get settled in my cottage ! he 
said. You must come and see it and I ll 
read you my magnum opus. 



it- 



I did see the cottage the next sum 
mer. It turned out to be a specimen of 
that sublimated type of architecture so 
prevalent in the resorts of the superrich 
on Long Island. I had accepted Palmore s 
invitation to stop over for a day and a 
night on my return from my modest re 
treat on the north shore, and was look 
ing forward eagerly to the pleasure of 
seeing him once more. 

"He met me at the little station with 
a car which gave me the first inkling of 
what I might expect in the way of a cot 
tage, and which carried us with the speed 
and ease of a Pullman sleeper through the 
big gates, up to the porte-cochere of an 
ample, half-timbered house whose win 
dows looked out upon several acres of 
expensive landscape-gardening. 

"At sight of the place I could not re 
press an exclamation. Palmore looked at 
me. 

" You re surprised? he asked after a 
short pause. 

" My dear boy, what a pot of money 
"The Husbands of Suzanne" must have 
brought you ! I made the detour of his 
embarrassing question as gracefully as I 
could. 

" Ah, that contemptible crew didn t 
bring it all to me I ve written a musical 
comedy since I saw you "Bright and 
Early"! He stood on the steps of the 
porte-cochere and looked about him. 
They gave me a generous contract, he 
murmured. 

"I gazed at him in stupefaction. 

" A musical comedy ! I echoed. 

"He turned upon me impatiently. 

" My dear fellow, some of the best 
writers are doing it the profits are enor 
mous. You ve simply no idea! He 
looked at his watch. We ll just have 
time for a smoke before tea Margaret s 
at the Casino watching the tennis match. 

"He led the way into the house and I 
noticed that the promise made by the 



handsome exterior of beauty and com 
fort within was amply fulfilled. Pal 
more s study was a delightful, big, square 
room, book-panelled, luxurious. A noise 
less footman brought in a tray with whis 
key, a siphon, and a bowl of frosted cubes 
of ice. I watched Palmore mix our drinks 
in fascinated silence. 

" Yes you ve no idea what a success 
ful musical comedy means, he went on 
ruminantly, looking up from the clinking 
glasses. Of course, I had no idea of do 
ing one, but " The Husbands of Suzanne " 
made such a stir that Ellwanger wouldn t 
let me rest until I had promised to write 
the book for Koravinsky the new musi 
cal genius he s discovered on the East 
Side. Koravinsky s a little Russian Jew, 
chock-full of temperament. I will say 
it s been tremendously stimulating and 
informing to work with him ! He looked 
at me somewhat belligerently. Those 
people are interesting, you know, and the 
piece was bound to be a "go." We got 
hold of a Tahitian dancer and a come 
dian that are the best ever. And the 
leading lady, Ruby La Verne, is a great 
little actress, take it from me ! 

" Splendid ! I murmured and stirred 
the ice in my glass. 

"Palmore regarded me for an instant. 
You don t understand you re surprised 
disappointed ! he said in a hurt tone. 

" No, no ! that is if I am surprised 
or disappointed, it is only that I 
thought you were working on "Soul- 
Wings." 

"Ah, "Soul-Wings"! It will be all 
the better for this experience, believe me. 
I ve learned a lot about human nature 
lately, he said eagerly. And, to be per 
fectly frank with you, I found that, after 
all, I couldn t keep up "Melrose" on the 
money from "Suzanne." Margaret was 
so plucky that first beastly, dull year 
I wanted to give her a home she would 
like. Any old house would have done for 
me, but you know what a woman s first 
home means to her. Well, that sort of 
thing the sort of home that would satis 
fy a girl brought up as Margaret had been 
costs money to get and to keep. Ell- 
wanger s proposition sounded like a mes 
sage direct from heaven to me ! More 
than ever I needed to make money. Her 
family was just waiting to see me fail ! 



PALMORE 



585 



I d pulled Margaret and myself out of a 
hole, and I had no intention of slipping 
back into it. I ll get enough out of 
"Bright and Early" to make me easy for 
a long while to come. 

" And in the meantime you ll be work 
ing on "Soul- Wings/" I suggested hope 
fully. 

" Indeed I will! he rejoined enthu 
siastically. I ve promised to write an 
article for Stageland "How I Broke into 
Musical Comedy" they re going to give 
me two thousand for it ! and a one-act 
farce comedy for Miss Severn s graduat 
ing class I m going to direct the pro 
duction, too, because they proposed such 
ridiculously munificent terms that I 
couldn t see myself refusing. And I shall 
run out to the coast for three weeks to 
help put the finishing touches to the pic 
ture they re making of " Good-bye, Broad 
way!" a screen comedy of mine but 
after that I intend to settle down to 
"Soul-Wings" ! He sighed a little. Of 
course, I d like to be on the heights, you 
know on the heights all the time, but 
life seems to be always calling to us from 
below! We re not going into town this 
winter. I m going into " winter quarters" 
out here and work like the devil ! 

"As he finished speaking there was the 
swift rush of an approaching motor, a 
babel of laughing voices in the hall, and 
in an instant Margaret flashed on our 
view at the open door of the study. I 
had just time to note that she looked more 
costly, more radiant than ever when she 
advanced toward me with outstretched 
hand and smile of welcome. 

" How beautiful of you to come to see 
us in our new home! she cried. Stop 
talking, Eugene, and let me show Pro 
fessor Follansbee over "Melrose"! and 
she dragged me off on a tour of inspec 
tion. 

"The house was a model of convenience 
and luxury, and I was as appreciative as 
even Margaret could have wished. 

" I don t wonder you two look forward 
to spending the winter out here instead 
of in town, I said enthusiastically. We 
were in the steam-heated sun parlor. 
This will be a bully place for Eugene to 
write. 

"She stared at me. 

"Did Eugene tell you that? She 



broke into a little laugh, and laid the tips 
of her slender fingers on my arm. Don t 
pay any attention to the old dear / 
never do ! she said. 

"My hard work at Shawnee was re 
warded the following winter by an invi 
tation to address the Institute of Arts 
and Sciences, and accordingly I found 
myself, late in February, once more in 
New York. I had intended staying over 
a day or two in order to run out to Mel- 
rose for a glimpse of the Palmores, but, 
to my surprise, I met them on the after 
noon of my arrival at Tiffany s. I had 
stopped there to leave my watch to be 
cleaned and regulated, and encountered 
them as I was going out. Mrs. Palmore 
was looking at diamond bracelets, and 
Eugene was standing uninterestedly by. 
His roving eye caught mine as I was try 
ing to slip by unnoticed. 

" Why, if it isn t the Prof! he cried, 
and laid a detaining hand on my shoulder. 
His wife greeted me very prettily. 

" But this is delightful ! she exclaimed 
and held up two bracelets for my inspec 
tion. We ll leave it to your superior 
judgment which shall it be? 

" They each cost a fortune, so it s 
fifty fif ty ! said Palmore in a stage aside, 
with mock melancholy. I thought I 
caught a hint of real distress though, in 
the face he turned upon me. 

"Fortunately my choice pleased Mrs. 
Palmore, and as a reward of merit I was 
invited, indeed coerced, into taking tea 
with them. As we drove rapidly up the 
Avenue to their expensive hotel, the im 
pression, I had somehow received, of fa 
tigue, of nervous irritability in Palmore 
was intensified. 

"We had tea in their private sitting- 
room our little two by four we can t 
afford a big suite, explained Mrs. Pal- 
more brightly. This hotel is ridiculously 
expensive and there s "Melrose" to be 
kept up. 

" Ah, yes, "Melrose" I thought you 
were to spend the winter there, I mur 
mured. 

" Impossible! broke in Palmore. I 
found it simply impossible under the cir 
cumstances. You see I ve been doing 
a musical comedy for Koravinsky. I m 
horribly fed up on them, but Koravinsky 
made it a personal thing it was immense- 



586 



PALMORE 



ly difficult to refuse. " Bright and Early " 
had been a record-breaker, and he s got 
a big family thought one more success 
would put him on Easy Street. By Jove, 
it seemed the only decent thing to do, 
you know. What are we here for if not 
to help one another? 

"I looked at Palmore in surprise. His 
glibness reduced me to silence but set me 
to wondering. Was he deceiving himself 
knowingly? I asked myself. 

"If Mrs. Palmore was more beautiful 
than ever, she was assuredly less tactful. 
She stayed with us until the softly 
chiming clock warned me that my dinner 
engagement with the president of the In 
stitute of Arts and Sciences made it im 
possible for me to remain longer. I had 
hoped that she would leave Palmore and 
myself to a solitude a deux, as formerly. 
In some indefinable way I got the impres 
sion that it was Palmore s wish not to be 
so left. At the door I summoned my 
courage. 

" % And how about "Soul- Wings"? I 
inquired with as much detachment as I 
could muster. Palmore shot me a de 
risive smile. 

" My dear fellow, I found I had to 
chuck that sort of highbrow stuff. It s 
as expensive a hobby as a yacht or a race 
horse. I can afford neither at present. I 
talked over " Soul- Wings "with Montross 
and he didn t see his way to publishing 
anything of that sort wants me to do 
a novel that comes to grips with the 
life of to-day. I m thinking of doing a 
story around that little actress in " Bright 
and Early" remember her? Ruby La 
Verne ? What that girl has seen and gone 
through ! There s life, there s tragedy 
for you I >;.. And the movie rights will 
be enormous ! 

"I bowed to Mrs. Palmore. I really 
couldn t stand any more. 

" Good afternoon, I said." 

Follansbee fell silent, drawing strongly 
at his cigar and looking out over the 
lake. 

"Well and did he do his little ac 
tress?" demanded Warrenton after a 
pause. 

"Eh? oh, yes yes, the little actress 
it sold around four hundred thousand 
copies, I believe. And then there was 
the story of the beautiful artist s model, 



who married a Russian prince, but ulti 
mately preferred her East Side tough; 
another story of a still more wondrously 
beautiful American who married an In 
dian rajah, and was rescued from death 
at the hands of her agreeable husband by 
a handsome young English officer and 
and others I ve forgotten, all equally im 
portant and true to life." 

"What a pity Mrs. Mike Considine 
had not appeared above his literary 
horizon ! " said Penrose. 

"Yes," assented Follansbee, "it was 
what I was thinking. . . . He was very 
industrious wrote five or six so-called 
novels in the next three years. They 
made him a fortune, but there wasn t a 
line of literature in any of them. For 
tunately, I didn t have to lie to Palmore 
about them, because I didn t see him 
in fact I never saw him but once again 
four years after that meeting at Tif 
fany s. 

"It was in the summer of 1916 the 
war had been going on two years, I re 
member when, one day, I received a 
letter from him. It was very short and 
to the point, totally unlike Palmore s 
usual charming prolixity. He informed 
me that he was going overseas and wanted 
to see me before going. It was out of the 
question for him to go West, he was so 
rushed would it be possible for me to 
come to him ? He had a fancy for seeing 
me before he left, and he was always my 
faithful and obliged friend, Eugene Pal- 
more. 

"Something in the note struck a chill 
to my heart. A wave of old affection 
swept over me and bore me via the Em 
pire Limited and a taxi straight to Pal 
more s white -stone mansion on upper 
Fifth Avenue the architectural embodi 
ment of The Heart of a Dancer, Tiger 
Lily, "The Off-Chance, and his other 
masterpieces. 

"I found him amid a welter of khaki 
garments, thermos-bottles, improved writ 
ing-tablets, and high boots which a 
harried valet, under his directions, was 
trying to pack into an officer s trunk. He 
dismissed the man, and offering me the 
only available chair, seated himself on the 
corner of a table from which he swept a 
mackintosh, a pair of rubber boots, and 
a first-aid case. 




Drawn by A. II. Henkel. 



"There s life, there s tragedy for you! " Page 586. 



5S7 



588 



PALMORE 



" I knew you would come ! 

" Of course I came ! I replied, trying 
to speak lightly, but the sense of forebod 
ing which his note had produced was in 
tensified as I gazed at him. He looked 
ten years older than when I had last seen 
him. The bright brown hair at the tem 
ples had turned gray, and there was a 
heavy look of restlessness, of defeat about 
him that tore at my heart. 

" So you re going overseas, I said, 
looking around me, glad to turn my eyes 
from Palmore s intent gaze. 

" Yes I think you ll agree with me 
that it s the only thing to be done, he 
replied. There was an acid edge to his 
words that made me look at him hastily. 

" What do you mean? 

"He blushed a little not the quick, 
evanescent blush that I had surprised in 
him so often, but the slow, dull red that 
burned darkly under the skin and looked 
as if it hurt. 

" Ah, don t pretend, he said earnestly. 
I m through with pretense ! I know 
and you know that unless I can get 
away from all this he flung out a con 
temptuous hand at the richness about 
him, as he had once done toward the 
shabby walls in Twelfth Street unless I 
can get away from all this and make a 
new start, I am lost. Do you think I 
have any illusions about the rot I ve 
been writing? I ve sunk pretty low, but 
not that low ! 

"He made the admission with an air 
of disenchantment that hurt me with a 
physical hurt. 

" If it weren t for Margaret I d chuck 
it all give it away to some charity, and 
start fresh with clean hands ! I won 
dered idly if there was such a phrase in 
the alienists jargon as the delusion of 
good intentions. But I can t leave her 
unprovided for, so it s all made over to 
her and I m off on the great adventure. 
Wish me luck ! 

"He leaned forward, speaking eagerly. 
For an instant I caught a glimpse of the 
old buoyancy, the old fire. 

" I may yet tread "the paths of 
glory," he urged wistfully. 



"I bit savagely at the end of my cigar. 
What are you going to do? I asked. 

" Drive an ambulance. I can drive a 
car better than I can drive a quill, he 
smiled forlornly, and it ll take me into 
the thick of danger. I ll get my lost 
literary soul purified by fire. You do 
believe that we poor devils of mortals get 
a second chance, don t you ? he pleaded. 

" I made consoling noises in my throat. 

" / m sure of it, went on poor Pal- 
more insistingly. I ll redeem myself. 
I ll see splendid, unforgetable things 
I ll meet Life and Death at last. 
You ll see ! I ll make something fine 
out of this ! I ll come back with an 
epic. . . . ! : 

Follansbee lapsed once more into si 
lence. 

"And did he?" queried Warrenton 
patiently, after a long pause. 

There was a little stir and Mrs. Mike 
Considine rose from the tea-table and 
made a triumphant exit through the ad 
miring throng, escorted by Count Bar- 
baresco and her husband. Follansbee s 
absent glance followed the little party. 

"What s that? oh, no no, he never 
came back at all. He was killed two 
months after he went over in the at 
tack on Courcelette." 

"Poor devil! What a pity!" said 
young Warrenton softly. 

"A pity?" Follansbee turned medita 
tive eyes upon the Englishman. "I 
think not. . . . The surgeon who was in 
the ambulance with him sent me the 
letter he found in Palmore s breast pocket. 
It was almost undecipherable the bullet, 
which killed him, had gone clean through 
it. But I managed to make out a few of 
the powder-burned, blood-stained sen 
tences. . . . 

" I have met Life and Death and am 
not fit to touch the hem of their gar 
ments. ... I see myself now for what 
I am . . . this has given me the measure 
of my inadequacy. ... I shall write no 
more. ... At last I, too, realize "the 
flavor of emptiness that comes to the 
writer who has tasted life and knows it is 
not to be put into printed pages. . . ." 



My Tennysons 

BY WILLIAM HARRIS ARNOLD 

Author of " My Stevcnsons " 

\\ITII PORTRAITS AND FACSIMILES 1 ROM MR. ARNOLD S COLLECTION 




POEMS, 



VERYBODY knows 
that "Poems by Two 
Brothers" is the ear 
liest book containing 
verses by Alfred 
Tennyson. Alfred 
was eighteen and 
Charles was twenty 
when J. & J. Jackson, printers of Louth, 
the market-town nearest to the Lin 
colnshire home of the Tennysons, ar 
ranged with the brothers to publish a 
selection of their poems, and actually 
paid them in cash and books the equiva 
lent of twenty pounds for the doubtful 
privilege. A few poems of the eldest 
brother, Frederick, were included . What 
induced the Jack- 
sons to enter into 
this unbusinesslike 
engagement docs 
not appear. More 
over, with amazing 
assurance these 
country printers 
produced the book 
in two sizes, an ordi 
nary edition priced 
at five shillings and 
a large paper edition 
at seven shillings. 
There was no high 
degree of merit in 
any of the poems 
and none of them 
have been included 
in the authorized 
editions of the writ 
ings of the poets. 
In later years 
Tennyson spoke of 
his large share in the 
book as "early rot. 
Of course there was 
no sale to speak of, 
but for the boys it 
was a time of rejoic 



ing. 



BY TWO BROTHERS. 



1 H.C NOS NOVIMtS ESSt 



Alfred and Charles (Frederick was 
at Cambridge) celebrated the day of pub 
lication by hiring a carriage with some of 
the money the Jacksons had paid; they 
drove to the seashore, fourteen miles 
away, and "shared their triumph with 
the winds and waves." To-day twenty 
pounds would not buy one single copy of 
"Poems by Two Brothers" as issued in 
its simple covers of drab-paper boards, 
with paper label. The original manu 
script is now one of the treasures of 
Trinity College, Cambridge. 

The next year, 1828, both Alfred and 
Charles matriculated at Trinity, where 
they soon became leaders of a literary 
group of aspiring students. A relic of 

this period, no\v in 
my possession, is a 
classical atlas which 
belonged to Alfred, 
and has his name 
written on the white 
lining of the front 
cover. Also in his 
delicate hand on the 
inside of the back 
cover is a list of 
classmates, doubt 
less the sympathet 
ic intimates of the 
young poet. Here 
among a score of 
names we find Mer- 
ivale, who became 
dean of Ely and the 
distinguished histo 
rian of Rome; 
Milnes, later Lord 
Houghton, the first 
biographer of 
Keats; Selwin, af 
terwards Anglican 
bishop of New Zea 
land; Buller, who 
gained fame as a 
Liberal statesman ; 
589 



"Martial, 



LONDON: 

PRINTED FOR W. SIMPKIN AND . MARSHALL, 

STATIOHM -HAM,-COIHIT; 

AND 1. AND J. JACKSON, L017TH. 



tDCCCXXVil. 



590 



MY TENNYSONS 



and Hallam, brother poet, the best be- sequent dispersal of Mr. Morgan s collec- 

loved. tion I secured this treasurable brochure. 

The subject for the English prize poem My Tennyson collection already con- 

at the University of Cambridge for the tained several extreme rarities the de- 



year 1829 was 
Timbuctoo. ; 
Tennyson was the 



successful compet 
itor. In accor 
dance with custom, 
the author would 
have read the 
poem in the Senate 
House, but then, 
as in later life, he 
had an aversion to 
all publicities and, 
by request, his 
friend Merivale re 
lieved him of the 
distasteful honor. 
"Timbuctoo" 
and Greek and 
Latin poems by 
C. R. Kennedy 
and.Gharles Meri 
vale were officially 
printed at the 
University Press 
under the title 
"Prolusiones Aca- 
demicse. : The 
pamphlet, though 
scarce, is not a 
rarity. When 
catalogued by 
booksellers and 
auctioneers, the 
Latin title is often 
ignored and only 
the contribution of 
Tennyson men 
tioned. Of course 
this distinction is 
due to the great 
interest in Tenny 
son; otherwise the 
pamphlet is of no 
importance. 

The existence of 



TIMBUCTOO. 



WHFCH OBTAINED 



THE CHANCELLOR S MEDAL 



AT THE 



CAMBRIDGE COMMENCEMENT, 



M.DCCC.XXIX. 



BY 



A. TENNYSON, 



OF THINITV COLLEGE. 




CAMBRIDGE 

Printed by J. Smith, Printer to the Unlvershy 



1829 



Facsimile of (he title-page of the very rare separate 
issue of " Timbuctoo." 



spair of many col 
lectors; now was 
added the earliest 
separate print that 
bears the name of 
Alfred Tennyson; 
presumably a 
unique copy. 

But, in such a 
matter, you never 
can tell. Years 
later, Winston 
Henry Hagen, of 
New York City, 
put in a bid of 
twenty-five dollars 
at Anderson s for 
what he supposed 
was the "Prolu 
siones," although 
the auction cata 
logue made men 
tion only of - Tim 
buctoo." It hap 
pened that several 
weeks passed be 
fore Mr. Hagen 
examined his. pur 
chase. He was 
surprised to find it 
comprised only the 
Tennyson poem. 
Mr. Hagen/never 
having heard of 
the little -known 
separate print, 
naturally inferred 
that the thin oc 
tavo was probably 
a defective copy of 
the "Prolusiones." 
To resolve his 
doubts he took the 
pamphlet to Bev 
erly Chew, one of 
the best informed 
Mr. Chew immedi- 



a separate print of "Timbuctoo," bearing of book collectors, 

the same date as the "Prolusiones," was ately identified it as a twin to my copy, 

unknown to collectors until about twenty Since this find was made another copy 

years ago, when a single copy came into has turned up in England, and is now in 

the market. It was bought by Albert J. the possession of Thomas J. Wise. The 

Morgan, of New York City. At the sub- Hagen copy (now in the extensive Tenny- 




Tennyson. 
From u \voo(l-en;, r;ivJnK by k. Krucl! made from photograph taken in 1888 by Barrautl, London. 



59 i 



592 



MY TENNYSONS 



son collection of John A. Spoor, of Chi 
cago) and mine are without covers and 
the edges are plain; Mr. Wise s copy is 
in original dark-crimson stiffened paper 
covers, with gilt edges. 
The separate "Timbuctoo" was 



known to collectors and dealers and there 
has been no lack of effort in the search for 
other copies, but, so far, only the three 
here mentioned have been discovered.* 

Tennyson was but twenty-one when he 
had the manuscript of his first volume of 




The Samuel Lawrence portrait of Tennyson used as frontispiece in 
Hallam Tennyson s "Memoir." 

" Blubber-lipt, I remember once Alfred called it; so it is, but still the only one of 
old days, and still the best of all to my thinking. " Page 594. 



printed from the standing types of the 
"Prolusiones"; probably only a few 
copies were struck off by request of the 
young author, for distribution among his 
friends. The existence of this separate 
issue of Timbuctoo" is now well 



poems ready for the printer. Returning 
home one night from a neighboring town 
he lost the precious sheets from his over 
coat pocket; they were never recovered. 
Though it seems an almost incredible feat, 
the young man actually rewrote all the 



* Unfortunately, the "Prolusiones" is open to juggling manipulation. The "Timbuctoo" portion, which has an 
individual title-page, may be easily detached. More than once, to my knowledge, the Tennyson poem thus removed from 
the official pamphlet has been offered for sale as the rare separate issue. However, such examples may be easily identified. 
The title-page of the poem as printed in the "Prolusiones" reads: 

Timbuctoo | A Poem | which obtained | The Chancellor s Medal I at the I Cambridge Commencement, | M. 
DCCC. XXIX | By | A. Tennyson | of Trinity College. 
There is no imprint. 

The title-page of the separate issue is the same as the foregoing but has in addition the arms of the university and 
this imprint: Printed by J. Smith, Printer to the University | 1829. Also, the title-page is preceded by a half-title which 
has on it only the single word, Timbuctoo. There are also minor differences in the spacings of the text, but enough has 
been said to enable any one to identify a pseudo separate issue. 



MY TENNYSONS 



593 



lost poems from memory. Six hundred 
copies were printed by Effingham Wilson 
under the title "Poems Chiefly Lyrical." 
The price was five shillings. The poet 
received eleven pounds as his share of the 
proceeds. My copy, in the original drab- 
paper boards, has this pleasing inscrip 
tion: "Mary Green from her affectionate 
friend A. T." Two years later another 
volume was printed, this time by Edward 
Moxon, who was destined to publish for 
Tennyson for many years. The edition 
was only four hundred and fifty copies, 
nearly all bound in drab-paper boards; 
mine happens to be one of a few in cloth 
of the same shade. Though issued in 
December, 1832, the date on the title- 
page is that of the following year, so the 
usual designation of the volume is "The 
Poems of 1833." 

A letter to Moxon of considerable bibli 
ographical importance in relation to this 
very book is printed, apparently without 
abridgment, in "Alfred Lord Tennyson, 
a Memoir by his Son." Actually only 
half the letter is given. Here it is in 
full, copied from the original in my col 
lection : 

"Dear Sir, 

"After mature consideration I have 
come to a resolution of not publishing the 
last poem in my little volume entitled 
Lover s Tale it is too full of faults & 
tho I think it might conduce towards 
making me popular, yet to my eye it 
spoils the completness (sic) of the book & 
is better away of course whatever ex 
penses may have been incurred in print 
ing the above, must devolve on me 
solely. 

"The Vol. can end with the piece titled 
to J. S. Half of this last I have received 
in revise : there are 9 stanzas more which 
it will not be necessary to send me if I 
remember right they only contained one 
material blunder viz Bleeding for 
Bleedeth. Should this last revise be 
already on its way it will be better for me 
to retain it, & if there be any other mis 
take, which is scarcely probable I will 
give you notice by letter. We who live 
in this corner of the world only get our 
letters twice or thrice a week: this has 
caused considerable delay: but on the 
receipt of this you may begin to dress the 
VOL. LXXI. 38 " 



Volume for its introduction into the world 
as soon as you choose 

Believe me, dear Sir 
Yours very truly 

Alfred Tennsyson." 
"P. S. The title-page may be simply 

Poems 

by Alfred Tennyson 
" (don t let the printers squire me) 
" Be so good as to send me five copies." 

In this volume first appeared many of 
the poems which have secured endur 
ing popularity: "The Lady of Shalott," 
"Mariana in the South," "The Miller s 
Daughter," "The Palace of Art," "The 
Lotos Eaters," "The Dream of Fair 
Women," and "The May Queen." 

Although Tennyson decided not to 
publish "The Lover s Tale," he had six 
copies of the poem separately printed. 
Five of these were given to friends of the 
young poet. The single copy retained 
was cut to pieces by Tennyson thirty-six 
years later, in preparing copy for another 
trial edition, much revised and enlarged. 
The poet was not content with this second 
effort, for the first published edition, 
again revised, was not issued until 1879. 

When, in 1907, Thomas J. Wise, after 
years of meticulous research, printed his 
exhaustive "Bibliography of Tennyson," 
he was able to record the existence of only 
two of the original six copies of "The 
Lover s Tale"; one of these in his own 
possession, the other in the collection of 
John A. Spoor. So much effort had been 
made by collectors and dealers in the 
search for this important rarity, it seemed 
unlikely that any more would be discov 
ered. But a few years later a copy turned 
up in Southampton and was secured by 
a firm of London booksellers, who offered 
it to Ernest Dressel North, the veteran 
dealer in rare books, then on one of his 
frequent book-hunting visits to England. 
Mr. North had a long-standing request 
from Charles Templeton Crocker, of San 
Francisco, to report at once should he ever 
come upon this particular rarity. Thus 
Mr. Crocker had the exceptional satis 
faction of adding the much-sought-for 
little book to his notable Tennyson collec 
tion. 

On a certain bleak night early in the 
year 1920, my wife and I were ensconced 



594 



MY TENNYSONS 



in our after-dinner chairs, one on each 
side of the open fire a veritable Darby 
and Joan. Several book catalogues had 
come in the mail of the day. I began with 
an unpretentious one issued by Edward 



THE 



LOVER S TALE.. 



r 



ALFRED. TENNYSON. 



LONDON: 
EDWARD MOXON 64, NEW BOND STREET.. 



Facsimile of the title-page of the very rare first 
issue of "The Lover s Tale." 



Ho well, of Liverpool. The first page did 
not hold my attention, but the turn of 
the leaf made my eyes pop, for there, in 
big type, was described unmistakably 
described one of the missing copies of 
the original trial edition of "The Lover s 
Tale." The price absurdly low twenty 
pounds ! 

I immediately telephoned the Western 
Union and gave a cable order. As I after 
ward learned, sixteen American collectors 
cabled to Mr. Howell. We were all too 
late; the little volume had already been 
bought by the most alert booksellers in all 
England, who quickly sold it to an eager 
collector. 

Nevertheless, this identical copy of the 
book now fills the long-empty gap in my 
collection. How it came into my pos 



session, more than a year later, is a secret 
I can only say that I am a very lucky 
book-collector. 

In 1842 Tennyson had many more 
poems ready for publication. These, with 
selections from the earlier books, many of 
them revised, were issued in two volumes. 
The edition of eight hundred copies was 
sold in a year, so Moxon brought out a 
second edition of a thousand copies. In 
the succeeding ten years six more editions 
were required to meet the steadily grow 
ing demand. 

Tennyson s business relations with his 
publisher were always highly satisfactory. 
The two men soon became friends, as this 
invitation for a week-end visit attests. 

"Mount Pleasant 
Eastbourn 

"My dear Moxon 

"Could you find time to come & see me 
next Saturday? There is a coach every 
other day all the way to Eastbourn* & 
on those days when this coach does not 
run if you come to Brighton by a fore 
noon train you will find a coach hither- 
ward at half past one. Answer me if you 
can by return of post for maybe if you 
don t come I shall flit. Beachy Head is 
worth mounting. I shall write to Lau 
rence by this post to come down with you 
that you may have a companion. You 
will arrange it together, 
ever yours 

A Tennyson 

* from the Golden Cross." 

The Laurence who was to accompany 
Moxon was doubtless Samuel Laurence, 
the artist who painted a portrait of the 
poet in these early days. A reproduction 
of it is the frontispiece of the first volume 
of Hallam Tennyson s "Memoir" of his 
father. Edward Fitzgerald thus speaks 
of the painting: 

"Very imperfect as Laurence s portrait 
is, it is nevertheless the best painted por 
trait I have seen; and certainly the only 
one of old days. Blubber-lipt I re 
member once Alfred called it; so it is; 
but still the only one of old days, and 
still the best of all to my thinking." 

In my collection is another letter to 
Moxon which speaks of the next poetical 
flight. The greater portion of the new 




" Facsimile of the "Bugle Song" from the manuscript of the songs from "The Princess." 



595 



596 



MY TENNYSONS 



poem had been written at Lincoln s Inn 
Fields. 

" Mablethorpe 
Alford 

T- .- Lincolnshire 

My dear Moxon 

"I find that I shall not be able to get 
away for a fortnight. I am putting the 
last touches to the Princess. I trust there 
will still be time when I come up to get 
the book out by Xmas. I shall be at this 
place for about ten days if any letters 
arrive send them on here 
ever yours 

A Tennyson" 

Tennyson s desire was gratified "The 
Princess; a Medley," came out in No 
vember, 1847. The first edition was two 
thousand copies; another issue was re 
quired in 1848. Two years later much of 
the poem was revised for the third edition, 
in which first appeared the six intercalary 
songs that so greatly added to the fame 
of Tennyson. I have an original manu 
script of five of these lyrics written by 
the poet before publication on a single 
folded sheet of note-paper. Each song 
differs more or less from the published 
text. At the bottom of the last page is 
this remark, signed "A T." These are 
not written regularly but just as they 
turned up." 

! The five lyrics of the manuscript are 
"The splendour falls on castle walls," 
"As thro the land at eve we went," 
"Home they brought her warrior dead," 
"Ask me no more," and "Thy voice is 
heard through rolling drums." 

There is a marked difference between 
the manuscript and the published text in 
the first two lines of the last-mentioned 
lyric. Instead of the printed form: 

"Thy voice is heard through rolling drums 
That beat to battle where he stands." 

We have in the manuscript: 

"When all among the thundering drums 
Thy soldier in the battle stands." 

At the end of the manuscript verse is a 
trumpet blare " Tara ta tantara." This 
was omitted on publication. The lacking 
song is "Sweet and Low" probably it 
had not yet been written. 

Whenever I show this precious sheet I 
tell a little story, relating to one of these 



familiar lyrics, which expresses the poet s 
dry humor. An aspiring citizen of our 
great country wrote to Tennyson request 
ing an autograph signature and senti 
ment. He received no reply. The man 
again wrote, repeating his request. Still 
there was no reply. The persistent one 
made a third effort. This time came a 
response, here reproduced from the orig 
inal: 




Tennyson first met Emily Sellwood 
when he was twenty-one; she was seven 
teen, a lovely girl of much charm. Emily 
was walking at the time with Arthur Hal- 
lam in the "Fairy Wood" of Somersby. 
To Alfred she appeared "like a light 
across those woodland ways." He said 
to her: "Are you a Dryad or an Oread 
wandering here?" After this first meet 
ing they saw little of one another for six 
years. Then the young poet escorted the 
fair one, a bridesmaid, at the wedding of 
her sister Louisa to Alfred s brother 
Charles. From that day friendship 
quickly ripened to deep affection, but, 
after three years, as there seemed to be 
no prospect of marriage Alfred s income 
being too small for the greatest of all 
ventures communication between the 
lovers was forbidden. There were ten 
long years of separation before the en 
gagement was revived. This was in the 
spring of 1850; in June the patient pair 
were happily made one. 

This mid-century year was a great year 
for Tennyson. During the very month of 
nuptial festivities, "In Memoriam" was 
published and greeted with general ac 
claim. Edward Moxon, his publisher, 
agreed to pay a small annual royalty. 
The office of poet laureate, made vacant 
by the death of Wordsworth, had been 
tendered to Samuel Rogers, who declined 



MY TENNYSONS 597 

it on account of his advanced years. The no copy can now be traced. Fortunately, 

post was then offered to Tennyson. Fol- one, which had been sent by Tennyson 

lowing time-honored custom, the new to Coventry Patmore in order that the 

poet laureate planned to attend one of latter might have an opportunity to pre- 

the queen s levees. Learning that Ten- pare an early and well-considered review, 

nyson was searching among his friends to was seen by Mr. Wise before Patmore 

find the required form of dress for the destroyed it in accordance with Tenny- 

occasion, Rogers came to the rescue. I son s injunction to "Burn or Return." 

have a letter in my collection written A subsequent proof of the poem was seen 

shortly after the function in which Ten- by Richard Herne Shepherd, who com- 

nyson says : pared it with the text of the first published 

edition. Shepherd removed the cloth 

"You will have seen that I kissed the covers from copies of the published book 

Queen s hand on the sixth. Rogers lent and inserted blank leaves between the 

me his court dress, the very same that printed pages. On these blank leaves he 

poor Wordsworth had worn. I hate all transcribed the many lines of the proof 

publicities & so was a little bit nervous that differed from the published text, 

but got thro very creditably." The books thus treated found ready sale 

to collectors and students, as they af- 

Tennyson and his bride began house- forded the only available text of the early 

keeping in the little village of Warning- "Maud." 

lid, Sussex. But one night a storm blew In the summer of 1904 a few books from 
down part of the wall of their bedroom the library of Sir John Simeon, then de- 
and through the gap " the wind raved and ceased, were sold at auction at Sothaby s. 
the water rushed." Moreover, they now Two of the items were thus described: 
learned that the dining-room and their "Maud and other Poems, Original 
bedroom had been a Roman Catholic proof-sheets of pages i to 128, first edi- 
chapel and that a baby was buried some- tion, unbound, 1855. 
where on the premises and, later, that a "Maud, Etc. another collection of odd- 
notorious thief and murderer had once proof-sheets. 1855." 
made the house his home. The nearest On the possibility that these sheets 
doctor and butcher were seven miles might have an extraordinary interest, I 
away. Altogether these traditions and made venturesome bids which happily 
conditions were too much for the newly secured them. When they arrived my 
wed, so they soon moved to Twickenham, attention was so taken by a certain item 
where they found comfort and conve- of recognized importance which came to 
nience. me from the same source, and to which I 

After two years the Tennysons again shall refer later in this article, that I gave 

decided to seek a new domicile. In a little consideration to these fragments of 

letter I have that was written to his " Maud " and, owing to other distractions, 

friend Flowers it appears the task was more than a year elapsed before I ex- 

not an easy one, for the poet says: amined them carefully. I was, indeed, de- 

"I am so engaged in flying about the lighted when I found that while these 

country in this wretched househunting proof-sheets do not form a consecutive 

business now in Sussex, now in Glouces- copy, they do comprise overlapping 

tershire or Yorkshire that I never can be proofs which embrace a complete text of 

sure of my whereabouts a day before "Maud" in which are not only all the 

hand." lines that the errant Shepherd surrep- 

At last a permanent home was found in titiously copied but also several lines and 

Farringford, situated near the village of many verbal variants hitherto unknown. 

Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. A few Thus my risky bids brought to me a series 
miles away lived Sir John Simeon, highly . of sheets (the only examples known) 

esteemed by the poet as friend and critic, which include the earliest existing text of 

About this time "Maud" was begun. "Maud." 

The poem was first printed in what Mr. In a letter in my collection written by 

Wise calls a "pre-natal " edition, of which Tennyson to his brother-in-law, Charles 



598 MY TENNYSONS 

Weld, there is this allusion to the new "... my heart almost bursts with in- 
poem: dignation at the accursed mismanage- 

"I received the other day a most flat- ment of our noble little army, that flower 
tering letter from Ruskin, touching poor of men." 

little Maud. I am glad that you too find No other poem of Tennyson has been 
something in her. It is a poem written in subjected to as many revisions. It was 
an entirely new form, as far as I know. I first published in The Examiner. The 
think that properly to appreciate it you original galley-proof, now in my posses- 
ought to hear the author read it and sion, bears noteworthy alterations in the 
this I say not in vanity but that to give poet s hand. As a matter of interest to 
effect to the long sweeps of metre, you all admirers of the poetry of Tennyson, I 
must have a reader who not only reads wish it were feasible to give these changes 
somewhat dramatically, but likewise has in detail, but to do so, and to show other 
a full voice and ample lungs." changes written by the poet on a subse 

quent page-proof, also in my possession, 

The published volume bears the title could only be satisfactorily done by re- 
"Maud, and Other Poems." Of these producing these early proofs entire. The 
other poems the most important are " The limits of magazine space forbid this in- 
Brook," "Ode on the Death of the Duke dulgence, so we must be content with a 

few manuscript lines on a sepa 
rate sheet which differ materi 
ally from the galley-proof, agree 

t- * f *+ 5 word for word with the page- 

/*< "CJrJt, /**f VU**- proof, and again differ from the 

poem as it appeared on publica 
tion in The Examiner. This bit 
of manuscript is now in my col 
lection. 













"Plunged in the battery smoke 
Fiercely the line they broke 

Cossack & Russian 
Reel d from the sabre stroke 
Shatter d & sunder d. 

Then they rode back as 
Before they rode onward 
Half a league back but not 
Not the six hundred." 

After publication the poem 
underwent more changes; al 
together the revisions and 
reversions of themselves would 
afford ample material for a 
separate article restricted to 
the story of this immortal bal- 

Facsimile of a portion of the manuscript of "The Charge l&d. 

of the Light Brigade." . . , , , r , 

Another letter from my col 
lection, though written many 

of Wellington," and "The Charge of the years later, must have place here; it al- 
Light Brigade." ready has been printed, but, unfortunate- 

The famous battle-ballad was written ly, with errors of transcription, 
in a few minutes. Tennyson s emotions "o i- " / 

at this time are revealed to us not only "Dear Sir, 

in the poem itself but also in a letter I "I cannot attend your banquet but I 
now have which was written shortly after enclose five pounds to defray some of it s 
the fatal " Charge." expenses, or to be distributed, as you may 



MY TENNYSONS 599 

think fit, among the most indigent of the Two years later, 1859, two more Ar- 

survivors of that glorious charge. A thurian poems, "Elaine" and "Guine- 

blunder it may have been, but one for vere," were ready for the printer. A few 

which England should be grateful, hav- trial copies which also included "Enid 

ing learned thereby that her soldiers are and Nimue " were struck off under the 

the bravest & most obedient under the sun. title "The True and the False. Four 

"I will drink a cup on the 25th to the Idylls of the King." Of these trial books 

health & long life of all your fine fellows, only two copies remain. One of them is 

& thanking yourself & your comrades in South Kensington Museum. How I 

heartily for the cordial invitation sent me obtained the other, the earlier of the two, 

I pray you all to believe me, now & ever, has been elsewhere told; it will now suf- 

Your admiring fellow countryman fice to say that this Tennyson rarissima, 

A. Tennyson " obscurely catalogued by an English dealer 
in second-hand books, became mine for a 

The project for a poetical rendition of few shillings. 

the Arthurian legends was entertained by The title of the second idyll, " Nimue," 

the poet for many years. It found its was changed before publication to the 

first expression in "The Lady of Shalott," more euphonious "Vivien." The pub- 

which appeared in the poems of 1833, Hshed volume, containing the four poems, 

and was followed in 1837 by "St. Agnes," bears the ever-familiar title "Idylls of 

and in 1842 by three more lyrics: "Sir the King." Ten thousand copies were 

Galahad," "Sir Launcelot," and "Queen sold in the first week. 

Guinevere." The 1842 volumes also con- In the spring of 1920, a few manu- 

tain " Morte d Arthur," which later be- scripts and books, which had been with- 

came part of "The Passing of Arthur." held when many years ago the "Rowfant 

The Arthurian scheme was broadened in Library" was sold, were sent to Sotheby s 

scope when fifteen years later Tennyson to be auctioned. The most important 

had his printers produce trial copies in of these was a manuscript in Tennyson s 

folded sheets of two epics under the title hand of "Nimue." The closely written 

" Enid and Nimue, or The True and the sheets of note size are bound in paper 

False." These were sent to critical boards; on the first leaf is this inscrip- 

friends with injunction to return to the tion: "F. Locker from Tennyson." I was 

author. Only three of these trial copies the successful bidder for this and three 

are now known to have survived. One of Tennyson s books which bear similar 

was presented to the British Museum by presentation inscriptions. Each of these 

Francis Turner Palgrave; one was be- three volumes has important manuscript 

queathed with other books to South Ken- additions in the poet s hand, 

sington Museum by John Forster; and Locker, for his own purposes, had 

one, discovered among the books of Sir printed a sumptuous catalogue of his 

John Simeon many years after his de- "Rowfant Library." My sensations of 

cease, was sent by Lady Simeon in 1904, early collecting days while reading his 

with a few other volumes from Sir John s descriptions of these very same presen- 

library, to be sold at auction. This was tation volumes are still vivid. Even the 

the certain item of recognized importance possibility that they might one day be- 

which came to me from Sotheby s in the come mine did not then enter my head, 

same package with the fragments of But undreamed-of treasures are the re- 

"Maud" already described. This trial ward of the patient collector. The little 

copy of "Enid and Nimue" is still in the row of first editions has grown and grown 

state in which it came from the printer ; until it is now the most important Tenny- 

that is, unbound and the folded sheets of son collection on this side of the Atlantic, 

each poem "stabbed" and separately The continued popularity of the " Idylls 

tied by cord. The title-page is lacking; of the King" had an effect in the first 

doubtless, it had not yet been printed choice of title for the next issued volume 

when the proofs were sent to Sir John, of Tennyson s poems. This was "Idylls 

There are a few minor alterations of the of the Hearth." Why the charming 

text in Tennyson s hand. designation was discarded does not ap- 



600 



MY TENNYSONS 



pear. It was a "stop-press" change. 
Not only had proof after proof been 
passed back and forth between author 
and printer to the extent of apparently 
nine revises in folded sheets, but also a few 
completed cloth-bound copies had been 
distributed, all bearing the felicitous title. 

Of the nine revises, the one in my col 
lection is the fourth, as is indicated by the 
Roman numeral IV written at the top of 
the title-page. There are many correc 
tions in Tennyson s hand, especially to 
the "Northern Farmer old style"; the 
Yorkshire dialect would be a stumbling- 
block to any printer. 

The new name, so hurriedly adopted, 
was the colorless "Enoch Arden, Etc." 
My copy of the first published edition was 
presented to the wife of the Reverend 
William Henry Brookfield, fondly called 
"Old Brook" by his intimates. As is 
well known, Mrs. Brookfield was a bril 
liant woman of rare charm who drew 
into their circle of friends nearly all of the 
London literary group of the mid-Vic 
torian period. The volume bears this in 
scription: 

r 






We hear little in these days of the no 
tion of the climacteric which maintains 
there are critical periods or turning-points 
in human life which occur when certain 
multiples of seven years are attained. 
Thus, the ages of 21, 35, and 49 are en 
dowed with unusual importance, and at 63 
years one reaches the grand climacteric. 
Be that as it may, Tennyson might be 
cited in testimony of the validity of the 
supposition. Though he had never be 
fore written a drama, other than some 
boyish attempts, in the decade following 
his grand climacteric he wrote no less 
than seven six poetical: "Queen Mary," 
"Harold," "Becket," "The Falcon," 
"The Foresters," The Cup"; and one 
in part prose: "The Promise of May," 
last of the series. Of five of these dramas, 
the exceptions being "Queen Mary" and 
"Harold," small special editions were 



printed in advance of publication for the 
use of the author. I have fine copies of 
four of these early issues. Of "The 
Foresters" only one trial copy has sur 
vived; this lone example is owned by 
Mr. Wise, whose Tennyson collection ex 
cels all others in interest and extent. 

It is no part of my purpose to refer in 
these notes to each and every first edi 
tion of Tennyson, and I leave unmen- 
tioned several of the very scarce privately 
printed issues. There is, however, one 
more rarity as yet lacking in my collec 
tion that I wish to speak of. 

The poem "Early Spring" was pub 
lished in The Youth s Companion of De 
cember 13, 1883. As Mr. Wise tells us 
in his bibliography, the poem was also 
printed in London in pamphlet form sim 
ply in order to assure the English copy 
right, and six copies only were produced. 
Although not published until 1883, 
"Early Spring" had been composed at 
least as far back as 1834, for a manuscript 
written in that year is still in existence. 
The poem in its original form consisted 
of nine stanzas, of which four only are 
identical, and these not verbally so, with 
the eight stanzas printed in 1883. 

Some years ago I spent a very merry 
Christmas in Boston. In one of the few 
intervals of relaxation from hilarity I 
found myself at the little stone steps that 
almost drop one into the alluring base 
ment bookshop of Goodspeed in Park 
Street. I had had happy business rela 
tions with Mr. Goodspeed for many 
years. Often he had written to tell me 
of a recently acquired book or letter of 
the sort I was interested in. This time I 
said to him: " When you have something 
important, especially if it be a Tennyson 
item, do not write to me about it but send 
the book or autograph itself. If I don t 
want it I ll send it back without delay." 

About a fortnight after this visit I re 
ceived a rather large thin parcel with the 
Goodspeed label. It contained the manu 
script of " Early Spring " written on a folio 
sheet as sent to The Youth s Companion 
in 1883. Following the poem, which is 
signed by the poet, is this message: 

"March 12/83 
Gentlemen, 

"My father begs to send you this new 
poem of his for your Youth s Companion. 



MY TENNYSONS 



601 



He has copied it out for you: & hopes 

that you will like it. 

I am 

Yours faithfully 

Hallam Tennyson" 

Of course Hallam Tennyson was not 
aware of the fact that the poem was not 
wholly "new" but was a radical revision 
of the unpublished verses of half a cen 
tury earlier. 

While I am still on the lookout for the 
little pamphlet, I can most truly say that 
I am not the least bit envious of those 
fortunate collectors who have acquired 
the very rare separate print of this charm 
ing poem. 

One more manuscript is to be men 
tioned. 

In 1868 Tennyson built a summer 
home, on Blackdown, Surrey, and named 
it Aldworth. Here in his eightieth year 
he wrote the little poem "The Roses on 



the Terrace." An early draft of these 
lovely lines is pasted in a scrap-book of 
autographs which evidently was once a 
possession of a member of the Tennyson 
family. The manuscript has slight varia 
tions from the printed form. Apparently 
Tennyson transcribed the poem, making 
two or three verbal changes, and then 
tore the original sheet into the three 
pieces for whose preservation we are in 
debted to the owner of the scrap-book. 
Below the poem has been attached a 
signature, probably cut from a letter. 

"Here on this Terrace fifty years ago, 

When I was in my June, you in your May, 
Two words My Rose set all your face a-glow, 

And now that I am white & you are grey, 
That blush of fifty years ago, my -dear, 

Lives in the past, but close to me today, 
As this red rose upon the terrace here 

Glows in the blue of fifty miles away 

A Tennyson" 







Facsimile of manuscript of "The Roses on the Terrace," with a 
signature of Tennyson. 



What Is the Matter with Your 

Golf Game ? 

BY JOSEPH COLLINS, M.D. 

Neurologist; Author of "The Way with the Nerves," etc. 



I 



F only they would let 
their unconscious 
minds work ! " said the 
golf "Pro" to whom I 
had commented on the 
rarity of even a fair 
drive from the first tee 
of a seaside golf course, 
where I awaited my turn while the early 
risers got under way. His words entered 
my stream of thought that evening, pre 
vious to sleep, when the amateur golfer is 
wont to recall the disasters and successes 
of the day s engrossing sport. I knew 
him as a successful teacher, but an indif 
ferent player. I now felt convinced that 
he was a practical psychologist as well. 

Why is the game that is favored as no 
other participating game was ever fa 
vored in the history of man played so badly 
in this country by the rank and file of its 
votaries, even by those who devote much 
time to acquiring the stroke; and why 
does our experience daily give the lie to 
the time-honored adage that practice 
makes perfect? Possibly it may be de 
nied that it is played indifferently, but 
I fancy that any one who has had oppor 
tunity to contrast golf in this country and 
Great Britain, or who has watched the 
game on international links, such as those 
of Cannes or Monte Carlo, will agree. 

There is a reason, and it is a psy 
chologic one. We are temperamentally 
not adapted to the game. As a people 
we are self-conscious, and self-conscious 
ness is fundamentally opposed to golf per 
fection. This infirmity, be it in an indi 
vidual or in a nation, tends naturally to 
diminish with age. In another generation 
we may look forward with confidence to 
being cured of our infirmity, or at least 
sufficiently relieved to attain such success 
in golf as we have in other sports. Aside 
602 



from our youth, our temperament, and 
our self-consciousness there are other rea 
sons why we do not play the game more 
satisfactorily, why those who are ad 
dicted to golf, as men in the past were 
addicted to drink or cards, do not give a 
better account of themselves on the links. 
We are obsessed with the belief that we 
are born golfers, and that we do not need 
to go through wearisome and laborious 
training. Before we joined up with the 
Allies the same conviction was expressed 
by a pacifist orator, then of Nebraska, 
who, decrying preparation, maintained 
that we went to bed peaceful burghers 
and arose the next morning valiant sol 
diers. Individually and collectively we 
soon learned we needed training, disci 
pline, and practice. 

Golf is largely a game of co-ordination 
of muscular movements, particularly of 
those of vision and those that produce 
the stroke. When any simple or com 
plex movement of co-ordination is ac 
quired very early in life, walking and run 
ning, for example, it becomes what is 
popularly called natural: that is, it be 
comes automatic, involuntary, and its 
direction is assumed by the unconscious. 
The conscious mind often takes charge, 
but when it persists in doing so for any 
length of time the results are affectation, 
pedantry, or even grotesqueness. The 
problem of the golf novice is to acquire a 
stroke that is as natural to him as his 
gait. An individual with slouchy, shuf 
fling locomotion can be taught to walk 
gracefully if he has no gross structural 
defect, particularly if instruction is begun 
before he has become set or fixed in his 
ways. It is the same with the golfer. 
He must acquire a stroke of some kind, 
then entrust it to the unconscious self to 
operate it. Every time the conscious 



WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOUR GOLF GAME? 603 

takes a hand in its direction it makes a his physician that he should have more 
mess of it, in the golfer s phraseology, exercise, and as bowling and quoits are 
Hence the player who is not expert, and the only outdoor games that a man be- 
who concentrates on pivoting, dipping yond middle age may play safely and 
the left shoulder, keeping the right elbow beneficially, games which scarcely exist in 
on a line parallel with the revolving torso, this country, the golf links throughout 
going back slowly, gripping with the right the country are thronged. Moreover, it 
hand at the top of the swing, and the score is good form in this country now to play 
of other things that he has been told he golf, just as it was a generation ago to ride 
must do to improve his game, usually a bicycle. It is health-giving or restor- 
finds that the more he attempts to do ing, it is diverting, and it is as care-de- 
any or all of them the worse his game be- stroying as it is the enemy of ennui, 
comes. He soon finds that he must learn Comparatively few of those who essay 
to swing his club rhythmically, and after to play the game have had any funda- 
that add force to it. To accomplish this, mental training in other games which call 
after he has been shown how to stand, for speed, accuracy, and co-ordination, 
to hold the club and to swing it, he must Therefore, when they are called upon to 
take a club, a bag of balls, and, if affluent, display the physiological and psychologi- 
a boy to chase them, and withdraw to cal factors upon which considerable de- 
some secluded part of the links and hit gree of success in golf is dependent, they 
the balls, one after the other, countless make a poor showing, 
times with force adapted to the drive, Not that training in other games is es- 
the approach, or the putt until the stroke sential for the golfer. Good baseball 
becomes automatic, until everything that " players do not, usually, make good golfers, 
makes for efficiency becomes unconscious. I recall but one of anything approaching 
This is what the real student of golf calls national fame who has advanced to class 
practice, and what the man who says A, and he has accomplished it by display 
" Oh, yes, I play golf," calls drudgery, and, of industry that would make Hercules en- 
it should be added, can scarcely be per- vious. For twenty years I have observed 
suaded to do. However, should he do him practising the same shot over and 
so he will soon become familiar with a over, day after day, until he has become 
sensation which is as pleasurable as listen- as familiar to me as the bunker for which 
ing to soul-moving music, or to landing I have a weakness. We so readily forget, 
a wary salmon, the sensation that comes or choose not to let it enter our minds, 
with making a perfect golf shot, and that the only way to be sure of doing a 
which the Caruso of the golfing world, thing well is to do it repeatedly in trial. 
Harry Vardon, has had so often, and for Exceptional co-ordination capacity is 
so many years, that he is probably no an endowment, a gift from the gods. It 
longer cognizant of it. has no relationship to intelligence, that 
The majority of beginners and golf is, to considerable degrees of intelligence, 
duffers cannot be persuaded that such In reality, some high-grade imbeciles pos- 
practice is essential. They want to go sess it to a very remarkable degree, as is 
to the links and play the game, and the shown by world-renowned pianists and 
good shot that they make now and then dancers. Any one can be taught to dance, 
leads them on to their golf destruction, but comparatively few become expert 
The greatest concession that they are even though they devote much time to 
willing to make to " form v is to take a few practice. It is very much the same way 
lessons which they fatuously believe will with the acquisition of a language. Fac- 
make golfers of them after they have been ile linguists may have conspicuous in- 
slicing or pulling to such an extent as to telligence and distinguishing mental gifts, 
bring on an attack of acute discourage- but many examples could be cited of 
ment, or after the Greens Committee has minds of the first order who found great 
called their attention to the fact that they difficulty in acquiring a foreign language, 
are a menace to the up-keep of the course Emerson, for example. Such capacity as 
and to the safety of the players. This one has for co-ordination by endowment 
type of golfer has, perhaps, been told by may be enormously added to by suitable 



604 WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOUR GOLF GAME? 

practice at a time of life when the tissues feres with that most important quality: 

are plastic, and the unconscious is not timing. I am not contending that they 

yet a jungle of repressions and a chaos cannot improve their game. Such con- 

of conflicts. Even after such time much tention would not only be absurd, but it 

may be accomplished by intelligent and could be contradicted by countless golfers 

persistent effort, but the price that one who have accomplished it. The point 

must pay is considered by many ex- that I wish to make is that golf is a mis- 

orbitant. tress who must be approached with plan 

Hence it is that the potential and am- and assiduity; to win her she must be 

bitious golfer must yield to the lure of wooed; to keep her she must be domi- 

the game in his early years. The com- nated. She is peculiarly susceptible to 

monest rejoinder that I receive from those the fascinations of youth, and easily re- 

to whom life is becoming a fear or a bur- pelled by the awkwardnesses and brus- 

den, and I counsel to make overtures to queries of age. 

Hygeia on the links, is: "I am not old One of the most frequent comments 
enough to play golf yet. I am reserving that the golf aspirant makes to his in- 
that for my old age." They may quite structor is that when he concentrates on 
as confidently make their reservation for keeping his body out of the swing, on not 
the hundred-yard dash, and with the looking up, or on the five or ten other 
same expectancy of making a creditable things that he has been told to do, or 
showing. Moreover, they are denying not to do, he forgets them all save one. 
themselves a pleasure, and a credit bal- He is a victim of the delusion that golf 
ance in the bank of health, which is a is a game of concentration. Concentra- 
great injustice to themselves and a detri- tion is a hindrance, not an aid. Indeed 
ment to the community. Some day we success with the game bears a close re- 
may have a constitutional amendment lationship to the vacant mind, or if not 
which shall compel every individual to entirely vacant, nearly so. Apprehen- 
learn the game of golf before he is twelve, sion, solicitousness, anxiety, concern, 
and to practise it twice a week after he is preoccupation are the emotional and 
twenty. It is likely to be more easily mental possessions that are inimical to 
enforced than the one that has wide pub- good golf. If they can be repressed into 
licity these days, and which furnishes so the unconscious, or better still, if their 
much material for European humorous genesis can be thwarted, the amateur s 
weeklies. chances of improvement will be enor- 

It is quite extraordinary that the mously enhanced. Before the drastic 

American man of affairs, industrial or enforcement of the Volstead act which 

professional, the astute politician, the one witnesses now in golf club-houses 

ambitious statesman lets himself believe particularly, the enterprising amateur 

that he can devote his life to attempting could borrow from alcohol to confront 

to satiate the minotaur success and then and combat these prejudicial mental 

"take up" golf and have a career in it states. But he had to borrow with great 

which will compare not unfavorably with prudence and circumspection, for what he 

his success in other fields. He pre- gained in abandon he lost in co-ordination 

tends not to understand why his game and more. Most successful golfers are 

does not improve, and he attributes recruited from the ranks of those who are 

his bad or indifferent play to lack of not readily seized by such mental states, 

practice, coddling himself with the be- or who, if seized, can by effort or ruse 

lief that if he could play "regularly" easily rid themselves of them, 
two or three times a week, it would be "I cannot understand why I go all to 

an easy matter to go upward in class B. pieces (or, as Mr. Harding is reputed to 

Not one in twenty would. Their con- put it, blow up) after I have been playing 

scious minds have too long been habitu- so well for nearly a week," is a remark 

ated to directing purposeful action; their that many of our friends make, and that 

lives have been devoted to enhancing so many of us make to our friends. It is 

awareness, and the conscious mind hin- attributed to some gross fault of technic, 

ders the golf stroke, particularly it inter- and, in reality, that is the immediate 



WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOUR GOLF GAME? 605 



cause; but the remote one, the one with 
out which the sad exhibition would not 
take place, is psychic. In a very large 
measure these causes are beyond the con 
trol of the will. By effort they may be 
dislodged temporarily, but as soon as the 
will ceases to be on the alert they are 
in possession again, throwing sand in 
the gear-box of muscular co-ordination. 
Nature and time are the great healers 
here as they are in every other field of 
disorder. 

Self-consciousness is the stumbling- 
block of the golf tyro, and sometimes of 
the seasoned golfer. Although one can 
not prove it, it is probable that the 
psychic structure of self-consciousness is 
largely constituted of unsolicited, unwel 
come darts from the limbo of repression 
into the stream of consciousness. No 
better illustration of its capacity for de 
moralization in a sport contest was ever 
seen than in some widely advertised tennis 
games of the past summer, in which a 
world-renowned and really great player 
was seized with spasmodic coughing as a 
defense or protective manifestation when 
ever it became fairly evident that defeat 
was looming up ominously. In the 
"good old days" the Britisher was wont 
to attribute such display to lack of - , 
a short word which has temporarily dis 
appeared from the usage of polite society 
in these United States. Nowadays we 
pretend to know that it was her con 
flict that interfered with the contest. 
Temperament explains it quite as well. 
Every one who has played games very 
much knows that he is often vanquished 
by an adversary whose game is inferior, 
and who has the reputation of being a 
good "match-player," usually an indi 
vidual who displays no outward signs of 
overconfidence, who plays every stroke 
for all it is worth, and who does not know 
he is beaten until it is announced to him 
by the umpire. In other words, he is 
a rather phlegmatic, self-reliant and not 
self-conscious person who has acquired 
a stroke, be it in tennis, racquets, base 
ball, or golf, which combines strength, 
speed, and accuracy, none of which is 
interfered with or inhibited by self- or 
sex-consciousness . 

The golfer who realizes that over- 
solicitousness, undue concern, and self- 



consciousness often interfere with his 
game, will ask how he may combat them, 
and he is likely to inquire if by taking 
thought or counsel he can liberate him 
self from their occasional or frequent 
dominancy. H has the same prospects 
as the actor or speaker has who suffers 
from what is called stage fright, as the 
doctor has in making graceful and im 
pressive entrance to the sick chamber 
before he has acquired the bedside man 
ner, and the tight-rope walker before he 
has learned to use the balancing pole. 
Few of them have to be psychoanalyzed 
before they acquire a fair success in their 
respective fields, and those who have to 
be thus investigated are not worth while. 

Naturally, one who finds it difficult to 
acquire the co-ordination necessary to 
ride a bicycle is not likely to make an 
expert tight-rope walker, and there are 
defects of temperament and emotion 
which seriously handicap the golfer, or 
would-be golfer. There are no short 
cuts to golfing proficiency. Those who 
are adapted to the game learn it easier and 
quicker than others, and play it better, 
but no one plays it well who does not work 
at it assiduously and intelligently. 

Successful golfers who write books and 
articles that enumerate and discuss our 
golf infirmities often differ as to our be 
setting sin. I hold no brief for the su 
premacy of "looking up," or for "getting 
the body into the shot," not even for my 
own predilection, "getting the hands 
through before the club head," or any of 
the other cardinal infractions as ob 
stacles to improvement of one s game. 
From a long and intimate experience with 
them I know that they are subject to 
diurnal, sabbatical, and monthly varia 
tion, and that they are prone to bunch 
themselves. Singly or collectively, they 
are inimical to equanimity, as they are 
the allies of self-concern and undue 
solicitude. 

Without entering the field of prophecy, 
I should say that golf in this country has 
come to stay. The investment in it is 
enormous; every year it is becoming 
larger, and the number who play almost 
incalculably greater. This country be 
gan to look up to such supremacy as has 
been vouchsafed it fifty years ago. In 
terest in outdoor sports began at about 



606 WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOUR GOLF GAME? 

the same time, and has kept pace with courses in Van Cortlandt Park. Be- 
political progress, dominancy of science holden as so many of us are to admoni- 
and invention, supremacy of corporations, tions of virtuous conduct presented in 
and transformation of religious thought, tabloid form, many believe still that the 
It is not unlikely that they and our posi- early bird gets the worm, but the early 
tion as a nation, such as it is, have been, golfer at Van Cortlandt is usually com- 
and are, interdependent. At least it is pelled to remain for an hour or two at 
true that as we have progressed materi- the first tee, and when he gets off to go 
ally, intellectually, morally, (although at a snail s pace over the links. It is no 
some do not admit the last), we have uncommon sight, I have been told, to 
become more addicted to, and dependent find a long queue of golfers at the first 
upon, outdoor games. Many of them we tee at daybreak, having curtailed their 
play very well, baseball, tennis, and polo, sleep, handicapped their digestion, and 
Golf we play badly, that is, the genera- jeopardized their health in the pursuit of 
tion that is now in its plenitude. pleasure and health. Indeed, a friend 
The rising generations will give a better relates that recently returning in the sub- 
account of themselves on the links than way at 3 A. M. from a dance, he encoun- 
their fathers and mothers gave, for they tered two of his friends making their way 
learn the game and make it an integral to the public links, that they might have 
part of their personality in the years a chance of getting off before the rush, 
when such acquisition is possible. The In the same way as the solution of the 
chief obstacle to our prospects of su- medical-dispensary problem in this coun- 
premacy in the golfing world is that, try is the establishment of pay clinics, 
owing to the expense of the game, we are where patients shall pay a reasonable and 
not able to recruit largely from the field just sum for medical or surgical atten- 
that has supplied us with our invincible tion, so is the solution of the golf prob- 
baseball material. There has been a lem. At the present time only the well- 
commendable movement upon the part to-do or the spendthrift can play golf, 
of some municipalities to develop public as it costs from five to ten dollars to play 
links, but so far they have not entered the a game even if one is economical. This 
souls of communities as they have in prevents enlisting and training recruits 
Scotland. Something more than links from the wage-earning class, to whom we 
must be provided by commonwealths if can most confidently look for great suc- 
we are desirous of making golf a part of cesses on the links. Every now and then 
our national consciousness and of our a Ouimet or a Guilf ord will come through 
national prowess. We need public links without the way being facilitated, but we 
to which men and women can repair, pay shall never get the pre-eminence in golf 
an appropriate green s fee, and get off that we have in some other sports until 
on their round the same day. There we make access to our links easy for those 
are few more painful spectacles than the who have natural facility for the game, 
throng endeavoring to play on the public and an insatiate desire to play it. 





An old sport who doesn t know that he is old, has no capacity for age in him, 
the eternal type of young blood. Page 608. 



Horse Pride 

BY LOUISE TOWNSEND NICHOLL 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALICE HARVEY 




saw 



HE first time 
Mr. Dietz (I never 
heard him called any 
thing else, and I don t 
even know his first 
name, although I 
could find it by look 
ing at the top of the 
first editorial column in the Orchard City 
Recorder) he was standing with his back 
to me, his hands behind him, in the office 
of the town s little chamber of commerce, 
the black ribbon of his eye-glasses dan 
gling straight, looking up with leisurely 
scrutiny at a wall map of Maryland. 
Here, I thought, was a James Whitcomb 
Riley or a Eugene Field (but are they 
good examples?), a man of the old-school 



type of dilettante-gentleman-journalist 
with wide experience, a quaint and quiet 
humor, and some philosophy of his own 
as to why it is better to spend, or at least 
to end, your life editing a tiny north 
Maryland daily than getting down to the 
office at eleven o clock three times a 
week somewhere on Park Row, or hav 
ing a special leather chair in some dim 
Gramercy Park or Forty-fourth Street 
club reserved for you in the late after 
noons. 

For that was the kind I thought he was. 
As a matter of fact, I was all wrong. 
Journalist could stand, but the other 
parts of the designation had to be changed 
gentleman was to be included in a 
larger term, and there certainly was never 

607 



608 HORSE PRIDE 

anything in Mr. Dietz of the humorous is old, has no capacity for age in him, 

dilettante ! I have wondered how any the eternal type of young blood, in a crash 

one so little whimsical got on so well with suit, old white shoes, driving-gloves, and 

horses; but perhaps horses, like women, high pique riding-stock around his neck, 

love really best the fierce, uncompromis- and with an old and yellowish straw hat 

ing pride and devotion of a man. tilted on his gray hair above a long face 

But just then I was so sure of his type with hard dark eyes and big, yellowish 

that I didn t even see my error when he horse-teeth. The dangling black ribbon, 

turned around like a shot a long, lean along with Riley and Field, had vanished, 
figure in crash trousers, white shoes, and Directly across the road from the hotel 

collarless shirt against which the dangling was the railroad station where, at that 

ribbon made a most effective thin black hot and lazy hour, all the taxis in town 

line at the remark of the chamber s were ranged up in the dust, waiting for 

secretary, who had now stopped tele- the afternoon train, their boy drivers, 

phoning, that we ought to know each chiefly colored, lounging in their seats 

other, since we both knew newspapers. I with nothing more seductively delightful 

didn t even notice that he himself looked to do than to yell at old Dietz and laugh 

something like a horse. I only noticed about the horse. Seldom did capricious 

that he was a little older than I had fate bring their butt, their chief comedian, 

thought so much the mellower his wis- so neatly onto their stage for them as they 

dom, the richer his reminiscences, the were set, like an audience, waiting for the 

more impersonal his humor ! And it was 3.45 ! They gave him close attention 

with infinite relaxation and relief that and a most appreciative hand ! 
I heard him say, eagerly, "What brings In the thick of the fanfare of gibes, the 

you to Orchard City?" for I knew that salvo of thinly veiled hostility, sat Mr. 

this was not curiosity, like all the other Dietz, and in the thick of it he jumped 

eagerness I had met so far, but was be- out to help me scale the high step; and, 

cause he hotly wanted to know what as firmly as he held Bronze Belle with one 

story I was on. And I looked forward, as hand the while, did he hold his grip on 

to the one personal treat of my Orchard this game of ridicule and rivalry, t He 

City half-week, to three-thirty that after- called back jest for jest, gibe for gibe, 

noon, when he said he would come to holding his own, not getting angry, not 

take me for a drive. showing that he was hurt or that there 

"I ve got a horse," he said with the was a chance of his being made to look 

studied casualness, the ill-concealed plea- ridiculous, until Belle had rushed us 

sure, which never wears off, with which through the gauntlet and careened around 

some men refer to their this year s the corner onto Main Street. But it was 

six-cylinder. Old-school again ! What pitifully plain that he was hurt, that there 

better sport for a gentleman- journalist ? was a tenseness about him of always being 

What better development of the dangling- ready for them, an alertness which knew 

ribbon motif than a pair of leather reins ? it might be called upon at any minute to 

"He knows a lot about horses," the wage war for the ancient dignity and 

secretary had said of him the day before, honor and value of horsemanship, the 

shaking his head sagely, and quite with- war which has already begun to seem 

out the amused tolerance with which he primitive and fundamental between 

had also said he was "a character," "an man-made and God-made means of 

awfully odd stick." transportation. That which was a long, 

But when I issued forth from my idle joke on which to thread the lazy days 

"hotel," through the restaurant and the for the nigger boys was life-and-death to 

proprietor s family assembled on the con- Mr. Dietz. And yet there may have been 

crete porch, differentiated from the side- some truth in what he said that they 

walk only by thin pillars, and saw Mr. hated his horses, that they were glad, and 

Dietz sitting in his runabout holding the laughed, when his other horse died. Yes, 

horse and awaiting me, I suddenly saw there was cruelty, the wish to do away 

what he was like, or what he looked like with something true to a type they did not 

an old sport who doesn t know that he know, in that long, raking fire of taunts. 



HORSE PRIDE 



609 



For two blocks of Mam Street he un- never wanting to live in cities away from 

penned his scorn of automobiles, and good dirt roads (I remembered how he 

talked of horses and how horsemanship had been devouring with his eyes that 

ought to be revived. He sat above me, familiar Maryland wall map), of the 

and well forward, and with his back just horses and the horsemen he had known 




He had never gotten over the assurance that every woman who saw him would admire the sang-froid, 
callous dash-and-swing of a cool-headed, cool-hearted, cool-handed blade like him.^-Page 610. 



. .the 



a trifle toward me, holding the reins hard 
and a little high, and the whip poised, 
sitting as he might have sat, and prob 
ably did, in 1895 a devotee to form, an 
upholder, left solitary, of a good thing out 
of style. He talked so rapidly, so jerkily, 
barely casting me a glance, and so much 
through his nose, that I could hardly fol 
low what he said. And he constantly 
threw out a quick, loud "Hi, boy!" to 
passers-by, fearful lest some one should 
take advantage of him, laugh at him be 
fore he had a chance to speak. 

He told me, jerkily, among the "Hi s," 
of always having run little papers, of 
VOL. LXXL 39 



and of Luke O Shaughnessy. He was as 
proud of Luke that nation-known news 
paper writer, whose name was more fa 
miliar to me than my own as if he were 
his own son instead of the boy he grew 
up with. He admired him more than any 
one else in the world, I think, as only a 
person who has fully developed one s own 
possibilities can be admired. It was de 
lightful to find unexpectedly the old 
haunts of a person as well known as Luke 
O Shaughnessy; it was delightful to find 
the link between these two widely diverse 
men, so different and so much alike. 
And, in the meantime, consciousness 



610 



HORSE PRIDE 



had been coming on me that it was not 
only the courtesy of the profession which 
accounted for this drive. The profession 
had something to do with it; but Mr. 
Dietz was a self-appointed official beau. 
He was not the fond and doting old beau 

rather the indifferent young blood who 
takes a woman driving to complete the 
picture, who entertains every woman 
visitor not for his sake but for hers. He 
had never gotten over the assurance that 
every woman who saw him would admire 
the sang-froid, the intrepid horsemanship, 
the callous dash-and-swing of a cool- 
headed, cool-hearted, cool-handed blade 
like him. He paid little attention to me 
personally; he took only one good look 
at me all through the drive, and it im 
pressed him very little, although here 
was a kind of appraisement in his eyes 
which seemed to say I might be useful 
to him in a matter he was thinking of. 
He would have liked me better if I had 
not seemed to him too old I was just 
about the same age as that which he had 
never realized that he had passed, and he 
preferred them younger than himself. 
But he found me a good listener. 

Gradually he got around to the horse 
which had died, and I knew we were com 
ing to regions which were Holy Land. 
"You like this horse?" he asked scorn 
fully. "You should have seen the Maid 

Maid of the Mist. She was a big gray 
pacer the best horse in the State. This 
horse is all right, the best I could get, 
when the Maid died but a man who s 
got horse pride wants the best horse in 
the State. I got a nasty case of flu this 
spring, and she didn t get the right care 
or exercise. When they told me she was 
dead I wanted to die too." 

We were very still for a block or two, 
tearing along a wide, shady side street, 
and just at the corner of Main Street we 
saw a newsboy, hawking. 

"The paper s out!" exclaimed Mr. 
Dietz, and he let Bronze Belie out to her 
capacity, headed for The Recorder office. 
I had wondered why we stuck so to the 
town, going up one shady street and down 
another, and getting in the way of trolley- 
cars, instead of making for the outlands 
where the orchards are. Now I knew. 
We had to be on hand when the paper 
was out. He brought me out a copy to 



read, sitting up in the runabout with a 
terrible fear that Bronze Belle would slip 
her tether and make away with me, while 
he retired into the little two-story office 
to read his in peace. I could see him 
there in the little room, through the 
screen-door, leaning back luxuriously, 
hidden by the eight pages which were to 
him as wonderful and ever new a daily 
occurrence as is dawn to worshippers of 
the sun. There was one other person in 
the shop a young girl, to whom he 
threw comments as he read; evidently 
the "one member of my staff," whom he 
had mentioned. 

"Read these two stories," he had said 
to me before he left me hitched, pointing 
to the two two-column spread heads on 
the front page. "That s an interesting 
thing. One of the stories is really not so 
good as the other, but it makes better 
reading it s all in the way it s handled." 

I read them, and also "Hetty; Her 
Half-a-Page"- a very well-done half. 
And then he came out again, bringing 
Hetty with him. 

"This is Hetty," he said with a pride 
which was almost tender. "She s the 
finest thing Orchard City has produced 
in a long time. I m trying to get her to 
go away and get on a big paper she 
writes as well as I do now." Then I saw 
how I could be of use, or how he thought. 
I could. But I also saw that Hetty would 
have no need of me. If I knew city 
editors at all, and I believed I did, that 
lovely child would have no trouble getting 
a job. She was the kind who could just 
walk in, and every one would be glad. 

If I were making Hetty up, instead of 
telling exactly how she was, I would not 
have her so adorable, so bewitchingly 
pretty, so really unusual it would sound 
forced and too conventional. But those 
are the ways she was and with it all so 
eager and nai ve, so unconscious of the 
fact that, with her charm and talent and 
fresh, eager lovableness, her way to what 
she wanted could not be anything but 
open. She was the kind of daughter, or 
reporter, that any one would crave to 
have. 

And it was partly as a daughter that 
Mr. Dietz thought of her, and partly as a 
beautiful woman companion, to supple 
ment and appreciate his own appearance 




Hidden by the eight pages which were to him as wonderful and ever new a daily 
occurrence as is dawn to worshippers of the sun. Page 610. 



and ability and horsemanship the last 
such companion, in all probability, that 
he would ever have; but it was chiefly 
as " the finest thing Orchard City has pro 
duced in a long time " that he thought of 
her as the best thing of her kind, which 
must, according to the uncompromising 
and simple code of a man "who s got 
horse pride," be recognized and shown, 
and given its award. Mr. Dietz loved 
Hetty, I think, more than he had ever 
loved any one in his intense, cool-hearted 
life perhaps not more than he had 
loved the great, gray, pacing Maid I 



cannot tell. But surely she was all his 
human loves rolled into one, as a younger 
person is so apt to be to an older one who 
has neglected love when he was young. 
How was he going to reconcile this with 
the fact that she was Orchard City s best, 
and that she must go right away and get 
herself a worth-while job? But for Mr. 
Dietz there was never, not even now, a 
conscious conflict. Hetty was the best 
and she must have her chance. 

Hetty herself wasn t at all sure how to 
go about it. She jumped in with Mr. 
Dietz and me and took the reins to drive 

6n 



612 



HORSE PRIDE 



me, and then herself, home, the day s 
work being done. "How do you like 
our horse?" she asked. "Oh, but you 
should have seen our other one ! I was 
too busy with the paper to keep her 
exercised." We talked as we went about 
Hetty s chances in New York, and I told 
her what I thought, and she didn t know 
whether she d have the nerve, and I said 
it was easy. And now that she was with 
us, he wasn t uneasy any more he didn t 
anticipate with "Hi, boy!" all the time. 
But once he gave us a startled glance, 
looking at me and then at Hetty. Per 
haps he was thinking that if she did get 
started in New York she might grow to 
be like me too old for him, never the 
same little lovely Hetty any more, and 
thinking of him more in my way than in 
hers. Sportsmen take big chances. Just 
for one second I caught that haunted and 
pitiable look in his eyes. Then we ca 
reened around that corner again into my 
hotel street, and our ride was done. 

Well, as a matter of fact, it wasn t I at 
all, but Luke O Shaughnessy, who got 
Hetty her first job. I took it out in writ 
ing her a couple of letters, giving her the 
names of editors to see, and urging her 
to come. But she was shy, and a little 
afraid, and said perhaps she would come 
in the fall. But when I went back in 
September to Orchard City to gather up 
the loose ends of the story I had been 
getting there in June, she had been gone 
two weeks. Luke O Shaughnessy, who, it 
seems, always goes back in that time of 
year to the country where he was a boy, 
for a vacation, had taken her back with 
him. He was going to give her a place in 
his syndicate until she got onto a paper, 
which he very sensibly thought was the 
best way for her to start. 

The Recorder office looked a little empty 
when I went in to see Mr. Dietz. The 
black oilcloth cover over Hetty s quiet 
typewriter had something the air of a pall. 

"Well, Hetty s gone, you see," he said, 
jerkily and through his nose. "I spoke 
to Luke about her when he came down 
. . . he d been following her work in the 
paper, anyway . . . he s never given up 
the paper. She never would have gone 
unless somebody came and had a job all 
ready for her. Luke can get her most 
anything, you know." He paused a 



minute before going on: "/ couldn t do 
anything for her but Luke knows em 
all, all the big editors. He ll get her 
placed, get her started. . . ." 

"You ll be lonesome," I volunteered, 
weakly forcing the issue. He gave me a 
quick look out of his horse eyes and closed 
his big mouth tightly over his big horse- 
teeth. He thought I was just making 
talk. All he said was : 

" She ll make good all right. She s the 
best there is, you know," as if he dared 
me to deny it. 

The secretary of the chamber of com 
merce that very patient and resource 
ful man who had threaded me a way 
through civic tangles for the story I was 
after came to see me off that afternoon 
on the 4.20, down at the "other station" 
of Orchard City, almost on the outskirts. 
And in the sketchy resume of conditions 
and characters and community in general 
which we made while we waited for the 
train, we came to Mr. Dietz, who, in a 
way so amazing for the editor of a little 
country daily, made fiction and history 
of the doings of the town. We saw him 
so plainly for a moment as we talked 
that extraordinary but not unusual type 
of newspaper man with so little conscious, 
so much unconscious, humor, seeing him 
self not at all but other things so clearly ! 
I knew so well the grim and rapid and 
preoccupied way in which he threw his 
situations into print, the hard eagerness 
with which he seized and wrote his fun- 
niness, never realizing for a moment what 
he was at ! If only Mr. Dietz were not 
the perfect sportsman, I thought, with 
sharp regret, getting myself into that 
same grimly eager mood of those who 
must always avariciously record, how 
perfect a specimen of the journalist he 
would be no, not journalist just plain 
newspaper man ! But, at any rate, it was 
through the newspaper man in him that 
the sportsman came so beautifully to 
flower ! 

And then the secretary was saying: 
"A queer stick," ruminatingly. "An 
awfully queer stick . . . but sometimes, 
I think, a rather unusual man ! Some 
times I think he has wasted himself here 
in this town . . . with a little newspaper 
and a good horse! Why, he and Luke 
O Shaughnessy were brought up here to- 




"This is Hetty. . . . She s the finest thing Orchard City has produced in a long time." Page 610. 



gether, you know, as boys. Look at Luke 
now . . . and look at Diet/ . . . well, 
some people get everything, anyway. 
..." The secretary didn t know, and I 
didn t tell him, that Luke had even gotten 
that one ultimate, precious thing the 
chance to help Hetty make her way, the 
chance to be the one she d turn to first. 

And thinking of O Shaughnessy, that 
>uccessful man, whose solid, accurate, 
able, never-ceasing work I knew, as did 
every other reporter in the country, and 
then of Dietz, and of his pride, his rigor, 
his consistency, his uniqueness, his splen 
did, utter, single-minded sportsmanship, 
I remembered what he himself had said, 
that day I took a drive with him. 

"This story isn t really as good as the 
other, but it makes better reading. It s 
all in the way it s handled." 



And that was just exactly it. 

Just then, by a chance, though really 
not by chance at all. but because this 
outskirt station was just about as far 
away as Mr. Dietz allowed himself to 
get in his circling afternoon drives, so as 
to be back to Main Street by the time 
the paper was off the press, he came driv 
ing by. 

When he caught sight of us, he veered 
up close, slowed his horse a little, and 
called out, nasally and abruptly and as 
if it didn t matter very much: "If you 
see Hetty in New York, tell her the Belle 
is getting into form." 

And he was off again, an old sport in 
crash and straw and pique stock, sitting 
a little forward, the reins held hard, tin- 
whip just poised. And, as he dashed 
away, I heard a colored taxi-boy hoot. 

613 




"Very considerate, my boy, but I fw-1 that I cannot leave you in the lurch! " -Page 615. 



The Drudge 

BY THANE MILLER JONES 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR G. DOVE 



S 



AMMY PUTNAM, 

junior member of the 
law firm of Putnam & 
Putnam, had been at 
work three hours 
when his distinguished 
father, Winthrop G. 
Putnam, came down 
to business. 

Sammy wearily glanced up from the 
long briefing-table. It was twenty-five 
minutes past nine. Court would resume 
at ten. 

"Ah, good morning, Sammy !" greeted 
his father crisply. 

" Good morning, sir." 
Winthrop G. Putnam disposed method 
ically of his silk hat, his cane and gloves, 
and, gazing blandly down into the busy 
street, daintily nipped off the end of a 
mild perfecto. 

Sammy hastily gathered his papers to 
gether, thrust them into a large envelope, 
and hurried toward his consulting-room. 
Winthrop G. Putnam turned from the 
614 



window and stood at his great desk 
the Putnam desk tranquilly enjoying his 
morning smoke. There was an air of ele 
gant leisureliness, a polished poise of de 
portment about him, in odd and incon 
gruous contrast to his son s hurried, un- 
restful expression. The son appeared 
harassed; the father superbly serene. 

"Ah, Sammy, preparing for court?" 

The junior member paused on the 
threshold. 

"Yes, father. I m trying to get into 
shape my address to the jury." 

Winthrop G. Putnam s intellectual fea 
tures expressed sudden interest. His eyes 
lit up with forensic fire. 

" I have decided to come to your relief, 
my boy. I will personally address the 
jury !" 

Sam Putnam stood leaning against the 
door-jamb. His earnest gray eyes were 
full of a troubled perplexity. 

" Why, yes, father. Certainly! That 
will be splendid !" 

He walked slowly into his own room 



THE DRUDGE 



615 



and sat down heavily at his desk. His 
father called after him: 

"By the way, I saw 7 at the hotel last 
evening Chairman Reid, of the State Pat 
ronage Committee. They say he is in 
terested in some case going on here. Was 
about the court-house yesterday after 
noon." 

Sammy sighed. His father had always 
exhibited a fruitless deference to those in 
power. 

He seized a pencil and pad, and deter 
minedly sought to fix his mind upon the 
coming fight. It was, of course, very fit 
ting that his distinguished and brilliant 
father should take personal charge of the 
supreme appeal in the biggest case that 
Sam Putnam had ever tried. And yet 
something perplexed and troubled him. 

Through the open door he saw his 
father stroll slowly to his desk and sit 
down. All his actions were without 
hurry ; graceful, dignified. Dignity of de 
portment was the inevitable flowering of 
that scholarly and distinguished life. He 
always had appeared to Sammy to be so 
sure of himself. 

Yet in a moment of rare confidence he 
had once admitted to his son that, in those 
first months after his father, Governor 
William H. Putnam, had died, some sev 
enteen years before, he had actually felt 
some slight misgivings. These misgiv 
ings, however, were soon dispelled. It 
gradually became almost a byword that 
Winthrop G. Putnam was a great lawyer. 
People somehow got to know that he was. 
And he himself knew that he was. 

Sammy remembered how as a growing 
boy he had watched the actual law cases 
drift past the doors of Putnam & Putnam. 
It was inexplicable to the youth. That 
pettifogger Smeed, and that unbearable 
little shyster Fred Burnham, down on 
the side street, somehow had managed to 
chase up and capture all the big cases. 

As the years went by, Sammy became 
automatically associated with the firm, to 
the extent, at least, of being permitted to 
sweep the offices, mop the floors thereof, 
and to turn over to his father to meet a 
laughably absurd temporary shortage of 
actual cash such sums of money as he 
could earn in small-court cases. The dire 
need of Sammy s stop-gap activities grew 
with the years. The present case, the 



Madison Realty Company vs. Lane, was 
the most important tried in the county 
in a decade. 

Sam Putnam passed a big hand impa 
tiently across his face as though to rid his 
brain of a perplexing problem. He told 
himself fiercely, as though to crush with 
finality the strange insistence of some 
intruding misgiving, that his father was 
indeed head and shoulders above every 
other lawyer in the State. 

Sammy abruptly seized his hat and 
reached for his law-bag. As he ap 
proached his father s desk his face was 
disturbed by curious lines of anxiety and 
indecision. The sheer burden of the big 
case, now in its final stages, weighed down 
his optimism. He paused at his father s 
side. He stood for a moment watching 
the white/graceful hand moving method 
ically over the legal cap. Suddenly he 
burst out: 

" Father, there is really no need for you 
to take time from your own work to ad 
dress the jury." 

Winthrop G. Putnam glanced quickly 
up, in mild surprise. 

There was in his questioning eyes a 
dawning expression of wonderment that 
somehow drove his son to precipitate ex 
planation. 

"For, dad, your article on The Sim 
plification of Criminal Procedure is very 
important, and I know how it distresses 
you to take your mind from your own 
work." 

Winthrop G. Putnam had risen from 
the great chair which his father, William 
H. Putnam, had bequeathed to him. He 
gazed with a very curious expression at 
his son. Then, as Sam hurriedly finished, 
that expression changed somewhat. 

"Very considerate, my boy, but I feel 
that I cannot leave you in the lurch !" 

Sammy sighed in relief. He somehow 
felt that he had just avoided an affront to 
his father which he could in no wise have 
intended. He warningly put it down to 
the long, wearying days over the case. 

" Thank you", father. Court-time now. 
I must hurry along." 

"The case will not reach the jury till 
after lunch, will it, Sammy? Don t, 
above all things, worry ! " 

All through the morning session Sam 
fought stubbornly, aggressively, ably. In 



616 THE DRUDGE 

the middle of the afternoon, when the "Now, I did not interrupt you!" de- 
last witness had stepped down, he was murred Sam illogically. 
dead tired. He listlessly gathered his He rushed his stop-gap manoeuvre to a 
papers together in some sort of order as conclusion, then sat down, comforted by 
Attorney Smeed for the defense was con- a slight batting of an eye vouchsafed to 
eluding, and glanced anxiously about him by one of the jurymen. He had got 
the big court-room. He beckoned his his points over, 
father. When the jury came in twenty minutes 

Winthrop G. Putnam strolled tran- after the judge had charged them and 

quilly over to the railing. Sammy looked sent them out, and brought a verdict in 

up into his serene and distinguished face, favor of Sam Putnam s clients, Winthrop 

"Please take the jury now, father." G. Putnam became the modest recipient 

Winthrop G. Putnam came within the of many hearty and loud congratulations, 

bar, and sat down a moment at the attor- He was indeed the master-lawyer. No 

neys table. He took from his pocket wonder that his name was nearly a 

some memoranda, glanced at the judge, household word. No wonder that he was 

then rose in his place. so good a lawyer that people determined 

Sammy Putnam sat in his. He was nearly to employ him. 

positive that he was completely conceal- As Sammy walked out into the corridor 

ing the anxious look that had no business he was in a glow. How brilliantly his 

to be in his sober gray eyes. father had spoken ! There was such a 

Men sat up in their chairs now. " Sam finish, such a scholarly polish about Win- 
Putnam s got his father to address the throp G. Putnam s public utterances that, 
jury. Gosh!" in his mouth, mere speech became rich 

The father spoke at some length. At oratory. Sam knew that his own work 
the end of two hours and fifty-five min- was sordid prose. All work and no 
utes the last grand superperoration had theory had been of necessity Sam Put- 
flowed from those fine, mobile lips, ush- nam s slogan. The law to him was a 
ered through portals of strong, white mere trade. He had always deplored his 
teeth. That voice, mellow, flexible, some- inability to sympathize with his father s 
how condescending, should, one felt with efforts to revive the English custom of 
all one s heart, resound in stately halls of wearing the academic gown in court. He 
judicial and legislative grandeur. went at a lawsuit as a business man went 

Sammy rose quietly and unostenta- at a business deal. 

tiously as his father sat down. He ad- In the vestibule he met K. K. Reid, 

dressed the judge in a non-musical, mat- He recalled that his father had told him 

ter-of-fact voice. that the chairman of the State Patronage 

" May it please your Honor, just one Committee was in town. He now hoped 

moment. I wish to read certain legal ardently that he had heard his father s 

propositions which I submit should form great speech. 

part of your Honor s charge to the jury." "By the way, Putnam," said the big 

He read them, then passed up a typed politician, "I wish that you would keep 

copy. "And in connection with para- Friday afternoon clear, if you can. I may 

graph four I submit that the address of phone you to run over to the capital. I 

my learned colleague was in all respects am not sure, but I may want to see you on 

apt, unassailable, and exemplary. For an important matter. Think you can ?" 

instance, when it was pointed out that "Oh, I think so, Mr. Reid," said 

And so on and so on. The upshot of it Sammy. 

all was that Sammy, under cover of this Winthrop G. Putnam came sauntering 
method, had in a hurried effort that through the vestibule. The three chat- 
extended into five minutes managed to ted pleasantly as they walked down the 
drive home certain salient points which broad driveway. 

his father s grandiloquence had hardly "I presume that the vacancy in the 

touched upon. supreme court caused by the regrettable 

"But had interrupted Attorney death of Judge Lindsay will soon be 

Smeed. filled?" Putnam senior mildly inquired. 



THE DRUDGE 



617 



Reid glanced at the old lawyer quickly. 

: Yes, I suppose the matter will be 
given consideration soon," he slowly re 
plied. "Been a beautiful dav. hasn t 
it?" 

Sam came back to the offices a little 
later than usual on Friday afternoon. 



"I ll just light my pipe if you don t 
mind." 

"I ll try not to mind much," laughed 
the big man. "Now, here s the point: 
there is, as you know, this supreme- 
court judgeship. And for two reasons, 
because you have earned it and because 













The phrase "Only, just at this particular time " how often he had heard it ! Page 620. 



"I m running over to the capital, dad. 
Will be back to-night, late." 

"Oh, ah something ?" There had 
been a question in his father s voice, but, 
instead of finishing his sentence, he be 
came absorbed in his manuscript. 

"Yes-s." 

Sammy took the 3.20 train. He 
reached the inner offices where things 
politically big in the State are born, at 
5.30. A clerk was deferential. "Yes, 
Mr. Putnam. You are expected. Please 
go right in." 

"Have a cigar," said K. K. Reid. 



we want to strengthen the court I we 
propose to offer it to you." 

Sam s pulses thrilled to a sudden great 
elation. The tears tugged at his eyelids. 
He set his lips against them in frowning 
disdain. 

Here was suddenly thrust upon him an 
honor which is the far dream of every 
young attorney with any vision left in 
his soul. A term in the supreme court 
meant success, placed him in the master 
class of lawyers. It was an unexpected, 
divine reward for what he could not bring 
himself to admit had been, after all, a 



618 



THE DRUDGE 



brilliant career at the bar, of over twelve 
years. Strange new joys in life ! His 
keen mind felt a sudden zest, eager to 
fasten itself upon the great judicial work 
which awaited him. There was an infi 
nite relish in his soul. He half rose and 
put out an impulsive hand. 

"Now, that s all right, Sam Putnam. 
I m doing this for the public. Once in a 
while a politician can do the right thing. 
You earned it and the public have a right 
to it. I don t mind admitting that I cold 
bloodedly canvassed the whole situation 
both among the lawyers and the judges. 
That was my business over your way 
Wednesday. You re the man, that s all." 

Sam managed somehow to get out of 
the office without executing any fancy 
steps. And then he had to walk, walk, 
walk ! More than once his jubilant steps 
took him shamefacedly past that august 
edifice where he had with anxious heart 
and brain a-tingle stood up before that 
bench of judges to argue cases that tri 
bunal of which he was himself now to be 
a member ! Ah, life was very kind and 
sweet ! 

Then, as he walked through the clang 
ing, high-vaulted depot he felt an arro 
gant touch of sheer pride. These people 
hurrying along did not know who he was, 
or that he was, to all intents and pur 
poses, one of their highest judges. 

He found his train made up, waiting on 
one of the tracks. He sat in the semi- 
darkness of the car and lit his pipe. 
Dreams, dreams ! He was obsessed with 
visions. That something sinister and 
dream-shattering lurked far back in his 
throbbing brain he may even then have 
dimly felt. He reached out awkward, 
yearning arms to this fuller life. It was 
intricately alluring. 

And his father, he would be so ... 

From somewhere came a sudden new 
and painful vision of his father, standing 
airily by his great desk the Putnam desk 
conferring favors, condescending; reas 
suring the clients who came to see Sammy 
of his own personal oversight of their ob 
scure affairs. The white hair was spare 
about the high-peaked, narrow forehead. 
Some sinister spirit of caricature pre 
sented Winthrop G. Putnam to his son s 
astonished mind a brilliantly ineffective 
figure of mere dilettanteism. With a pas 



sion indeed in those proud eyes to attain 
to the high things of life, he yet lacked that 
vital spunk for the mastery of life s drudg 
eries beyond which lies actual achieve 
ment. A man worthy enough among men 
had he been unharassed all his days by 
this wrenching, fierce ambition, placed in 
his breast by an all-ambitious nature, 
who, if she planted desire without ability 
to achieve, did not greatly concern her 
self, so that it be repeated in the boy 
with the gumption. 

Sam Putnam was appalled. He 
clinched his fists fiercely. It was gro 
tesquely untrue. And yet . . . And 
now he came to know that his father was 
a failure. He had fought against the 
recognition of it for fifteen years. More 
and more stubbornly had sinister hints 
darted out at him, grinning ironically. 
He had driven them resentfully back. 
How they had assailed him the past week ! 
He bitterly bowed his head to them now. 

But it would kill his father, this ap 
pointment. It would leave him passed 
over for his own son unequivocally ex 
posed, beyond all hope of cavil or camou 
flage, to a sneering world. 

Oh, if only something could, miracu 
lously even undeservedly turn up even 
yet ! What a buffoon was nature that 
she had tortured him so ! 

Sammy, understanding all now, wanted 
to strike a blow at this buffoon nature. 
He wanted to put his hand in his father s, 
as when a little child, and feel again that 
his own daddy was the biggest man in all 
the world. 

The train commenced to move. With 
a sudden audible cry Sam Putnam rushed 
from the car. He flung to the astonished 
porter a "Not going mistake," and 
trudged moodily back through the sta 
tion. 

With bowed head, lost in the intrica 
cies of wrenching thought, he walked the 
streets again. He saw places with bril 
liant lights people eating and dancing. 

Lights, too, gleamed from a great build 
ing before which he stood. He could hear 
the throb of machinery. In the basement 
great presses worked. Somehow this 
seemed to be a place that concerned him. 
He wondered fiercely what it could be. 
The printing-presses were flinging out 
leaves of news. Well? And then he 




"Thinkin" of motoring down to the old place 



to see my father soon." Page 621. 



knew ! Hungry reporters had inter 
viewed the big politician, and already in 
print there was the brief intelligence that 
was to kill his father. He realized that 
appointments are speedily made and as 
speedily announced, so that a hungry 
mob of office-seekers should not become 
unbearably importunate. 

He wheeled swiftly and stared up the 
long street. There was a taxi two blocks 
away. He raced for it. 

Yes, sir. I can run you out in twelve 
minutes." 



It seemed to him that the swift journey 
was to be unending. Past the great 
stores, then the old mansions of a former 
generation, and now the smart mansion- 
cottages, cold and unfriendly in the wan 
moonlight. Then over country roads, 
with now and then a nerve-centre of a 
few stores and clustering cottages, then 
the wide, clear stretch of country. His 
mind leaped ahead of the car in frantic 
hope and a more deadly fear. 

The car slid suddenly around a corner 
and swayed to the ditch. Sam sprang 

619 



620 



THE DRUDGE 



out and ran up the long driveway. A 
dim light burned in the vestibule. He 
pressed a bell-button, then glanced at his 
watch. It was twelve-thirty. They were 
all abed. 

Determinedly he jabbed at the button 
again. He fancied he could hear a far, 
tiny bell. 

There was a light. Then a nearer one. 
The door partly opened. The face of his 
big friend peered out ! 

" Why, it s Sam Putnam ! Hello, Sam ! 
What s up?" 

Sam brushed aside the semi-apologies 
that rose involuntarily to his lips. The 
occasion was raw, vital. There was no 
room for amenities. 

"I want to see you. It s very impor 
tant." 

" Come on in. Come in, man !" 

Sam turned and flung a word to the 
chauffeur, then silently followed Reid into 
a small library at the end of a long hall. 

"Have you given out the news yet 
about the appointment?" 

The big man looked up from his easy 
chair. He was puzzled at the vehemence 
of the young lawyer. 

"Why, no-o. I didn t happen to. To 
tell the truth, I was dog-tired and dodged 
them. Came straight out." 

In his relief Sam sank back limply. 

"A big mistake has nearly been made," 
he jerked out. "I suddenly realized it 
this evening. A terrible mistake ! " 

"Yes?" 

Sam leaned forward and looked with 
all the earnestness of his soul into the poli 
tician s puzzled face. "I ll tell you, sir. 
My father is the one man for the judge- 
ship. He would be at once an ornament 
to the bench and and 

"Why, yes, yes! A splendid ideal" 
heartily agreed the man. " Great ! " He 
sat flicking the ash from his cigar. He 
glanced appraisingly at the big, earnest- 
faced lawyer. " Fine idea ! Only, just at 
this particular time " He paused. 

A dull, heavy feeling of resentment tor 
tured Sam. It was as though some new, 
monstrous, crushing blow were aimed at 
his father. The phrase "Only, just at 
this particular time " how often he had 
heard it ! Quivering in dull anger, he con 
tinued his plea stubbornly. 

"So that I trust it is not asking too 



much on his behalf. You said I had 
earned something. Throw that in with 
the other considerations. The public 
would be delighted 

Reid held up a protesting hand. 

"I m a little afraid," he checked, "un 
der the peculiar circumstances of this 
particular appointment just at this time 
that A little later, perhaps, there will 
be ves ! the chief justiceship ! Ah ! 
Eh? That s it!" 

" It always has been a little later ! " said 
Sam Putnam bitterly. He looked rebel 
lious. The big man studied him atten 
tively, then spoke decisively. 

" I might as well say it, Sam. It can t 
be done. We could not afford to do it. 
You take it yourself or it will have to go 
to the Elkins crowd." 

Sam paced restlessly back and forth. 
He lit his pipe, puffed a moment, then 
absently knocked the burning tobacco out 
against one of the andirons at the fire 
place, and refilled his pipe. He turned 
upon Reid accusingly. 

"Well, then," he snapped, "you have 
been promising for some years to appoint 
a committee of three eminent lawyers to 
examine the antiquated system of crimi 
nal procedure in this State, with a view to 
its simplification. Now I have under 
stood that slated for this committee were 
Burleigh and that chap from the river 
counties, Henderson. Why wouldn t fa 
ther do as chairman of that committee? 
And let the damned judgeship go to the 
Elkins crowd!" 

"But, Sam, that s throwing away thou 
sands for the sake of what altogether 
would not amount to more than " 

" Yes, sir, but my father is eminently fit 
ted The people demand it ! It would 
be a crowning activity of a life of great 
purposes and high 

The big man studied the young lawyer 
curiously. 

"And you would do this for your fa 
ther? Think it over a day or two and 
come back to me then " 

"I don t need one minute to think it 
over. That I can do it that I have the 
power to get this position for dad is the 
important thing." 

He drew a chair up to the table and 
reached for a pad of writing-paper. 
Slowly he drafted a letter. Reid watched 



THE DRUDGE 



621 



him intently, a forgotten cigar in his hand. 
At last Sam glanced up. There was a 
look of deep satisfaction on his pulsing 
face that stirred the shrewd-eyed poli 
tician strangely. 

"Listen to this, please," urged Sam. 

" WINTHROP G. PUTNAM, ESQ., LL.B. 

" My dear Mr. Putnam : A committee 
of three eminent and distinguished attor 
neys is to be appointed to report to the 
legislature on the present condition of 
criminal procedure, with their recommen 
dations for its simplification. This is, as 
you know, an exceedingly important work, 
and I sincerely trust that you will accept 
the chairmanship of this committee. 
Should you feel that you could manage to 
perform this great public service, at some 
sacrifice, I admit, of your own private 
practice, the public would reap the bene 
fit. The committee should begin work as 
soon as possible." 

Sam paused and looked steadily at 
Reid. "There," he said. "Now, you 
send that letter, all officialed_up, to my 
father in the morning." 

Reid frowned thoughtfully. He medi 
tatively tapped his cigar-stub against the 
edge of the tray. 

"I can just about do this much, Put 
nam, and I will. The folks will stand for 
this. Wish you luck. You deserve it. 
Good-by." 

In the porch he reached again for Sam s 
hand. "By the way, I may stop over 
and see you in a day or two. Thinkin of 
motoring down to the old place, on the 
coast, to see my father soon. Sort of half 
forgotten the old chap lately. Of course 
he s all right, but I d sort of like to see 
him." He suddenly averted his face as 



he pressed Sam s big hand. " I ll not for 
get this business, Sam Putnam. And I 
understand ! Good luck ! " 

The following afternoon Sammy Put 
nam trudged wearily back from a stuffy 
session of the county court to the law 
offices of Putnam & Putnam. With a 
cheery word to his father, sitting at the 
great desk, he was about to pass into his 
own room when his father stopped him. 

"You might read that, my boy!" 

Sam took the letter and carefully read 
it. 

"Why, dad, this is splendid! Three 
hearty cheers ! " Then he added swiftly, 
his eyes upon his father s benign face: 

"And it seems somehow natural that 
this honor should come to you ! You ll 
make the sacrifice, won t you, dad? For 
the public weal, as the letter puts it." 

Winthrop G. Putnam s graceful white 
hands trembled slightly as he adjusted his 
cravat. He sought wholly to retain his 
poise of tranquillity, but Sam noted a 
vague, troubled questioning in the sud 
den tenseness of his regard. Was there 
some pitiful misgiving behind those nar 
row temples ? Winthrop G. Putnam did 
not know could not know but did he 
not dimly surmise that there might be 
something that he did not know? Sam 
noted with sharp apprehension the ques 
tion shaping itself upon those twitching 
lips. The proud face quivered the eyes 
debating, impelling, restraining. Then 
slowly a returning serenity coaxed back 
the old man s poise. Again he knew him 
self to be a great lawyer. 

" I feel that I am practically compelled 
to, my boy. And I trust that my exam 
ple will teach you that self-sacrifice is, 
after all, the true test of a man s great 
ness." 





From a photograph^ copyright by S. H. Chubb. 



Going to sleep after lunch. 



A Family of City-Bred Hawks 

BY S. HARMSTED CHUBB 

American Museum of Natural History 
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 




INTER had begun to 
show the first signs of 
decline, and lacked 
something of that 
vigorous defiance of 
earlier youth. The 
very ample garment of 
white which nature 
had worn was here and there beginning to 
look a little soiled and threadbare when a 
belated snow-storm was suddenly ushered 
in. Once more the earth was deeply 
robed in perfect white, and still the snow 
was driving hard from the northeast. 
March certainly came in lion s mood and 
did considerable roaring and storming 
during the days that followed, displaying 
no lamblike amblings of departure until 
almost overtaken by April showers. 
622 



Nature s table all set and ready under 
the shrubbery, where the white- throated 
sparrows and juncos had only to scratch 
the dead leaves aside to find abundance, 
was now buried, and the diners had gone 
to find shelter. Our own special guests 
had graciously accepted our urgent invi 
tation to the feast and were faring quite 
well on suet, bird-seed, and peanuts at the 
window; but for most small creatures it 
was a hungry time in the snow-covered 
world, and one marvels at the economy of 
nature which enables them to survive and 
even to enjoy life. 

The storm was driving harder than 
ever, hourly adding to the problems of 
livelihood, and developing the surprising 
resourcefulness of many humble crea 
tures. Looking out of the window, the 



A FAMILY OF CITY-BRED HAWKS 623 

only sign of life to be seen was a sparrow- difficult to hold this slender, tapering 

hawk perched on a high branch of an old morsel. With every pull it would slip 

locust-tree. from her grasp. She finally decided to 

We soon found that there were two swallow the last three or four inches 

sparrow-hawks about, and by the yth of whole, though even this was not a rapid 

March it seemed evident that they were method, for at intervals she would stand 

mated and were considering the locality erect and motionless to rest while the tail 

as a summer residence. wriggled slowly. Finally the last inch of 

We now saw them almost daily, and the meal waved a fond farewell and dis- 

the perfect domestic harmony, indeed appeared. Whether or not this tail was 

I should say affection, shown between faithful to tradition and " lived until sun- 

them, and the tender care and gallantry down," only the hawk can tell, 

on the part of the male, would seem to From this time on garter-snakes formed 

suggest a high plane of evolution, and re- a large part of the diet, although great 

minds one again that all the world is kin. numbers of the larger insects were also 

Indeed, what have we of altruism which devoured. 

may not have its beginning in the hum- Spring was now advancing apace. The 

blest creature ? spice-bush was in bloom and the hepatica, 

In accord with history and tradition suffering some delay from the late snows, 
the male was chief hunter, but very often was hastening to gain time, although not 
shared the game with his mate after the trusting unduly in winter s defeat, but 
" killing." Rushing to the back window, clad in its silvery furs prepared for the be- 
attracted by a loud call of killee, killee, lated blasts of Boreas, 
killee, killee, we would frequently see him The hawks were with us daily, and yet 
returning from the hunt with a rat, a the nest (for surely there must be one by 
mouse, or an English sparrow, and it this time) could not be found. How con- 
must be confessed that even small song- venient it is that most birds advertise in 
birds were not strictly prohibited under advance, by the collecting and carrying 
his liberal interpretation of the law. In of building material, that at a certain 
a moment the female would light on a place and time in nature s illustrious 
perch near by, whereupon the male would periodical a charming story is to appear, 
immediately remove the mouse from his But as the sparrow-hawks use no build- 
talons, with which the prey is almost al- ing material, simply appropriating a hoi- 
ways carried, and politely deliver it to low branch or similar cavity, we were 
his mate from his beak. sadly in need of a clew. 

One bright, sunny afternoon there was We explored every inch of the neighbor- 
an unusually excited call heard. It hood, investigating every tree which 
seemed that a garter-snake had glided seemed to give hope in a dead branch, 
forth from its hiding-place to enjoy the Like tramps we rapped at the basement 
early spring warmth, a circumstance of every old flicker hole, but got no re- 
which proved more fortunate for the sponse. While it was not to be expected 
"early bird" than for the early snake. It that the domestic centre would be found 
was most picturesque and exciting even very far from our immediate neighbor- 
to a spectator to see this fierce little bird, hood where the birds spent so much of 
slightly smaller than a nicker, flying about their time, it seemed as if the circle of 
from tree to tree as if in search of a more exploration must be enlarged if we were 
favorable stand, struggling with his writh- to be successful. 

ing prey. When the snake had been de- Fortunately, down-town duties did not 

capitated and several inches of its length necessitate neglect of the hawks, for Mrs. 

devoured, it seemed sufficiently subdued Chubb, realizing the urgency of the case, 

to be offered to the mate, although it was armed with good glasses, . selected a 

still wriggling when she accepted the of- strategic position on a hilltop, determined 

fering. She ate it with evident relish, to follow those hawks somewhere. It 

holding it firmly on the branch under her was not until a little after sunset that the 

foot while she pulled off small pieces, female gave her a clew. After flying some 

When the tail was reached it became very distance she disappeared not far from the 



624 



A FAMILY OF CITY-BRED HAWKS 



back of our own house and was not seen 
again that day. 

The point of disappearance, however, 
was so near our neighbor s roof that it 
suggested a new field of exploration which 
could be easily reached by means of our 
own hatchway and then a short run over 
the housetops. At the sound of footsteps 
on the tin roof above, the female hawk 
emerged from a hole in the rear wall be 



came even more attentive than ever, but 
assumed no responsibility for the eggs 
except as a most faithful assistant. He 
would bring home a mouse or a snake, the 
latter, judging from the excited tones, 
being particularly relished, call the mate 
from her eggs, stand near a few minutes 
as if enjoying her pleasure, and then take 
his place in the nest. After an hour s 
exercise, following the meal, she would 




f- roin a pfiotogi-aph, copyright by S. H. Chubb, 



Female hawk entering nest. 



tween three and four feet down from the 
top which had been provided for ventilat 
ing the air-chamber under the roof. But 
it was quite out of reach. Several days 
later a short ladder, a roof-hook, and 
ropes were arranged. The ladder was 
suspended from the top of the wall so 
that it could be easily drawn up and 
left on the roof when not in use. When 
these contrivances were perfected on the 
iyth of April, we were delighted to find 
four beautiful, buff-colored eggs, thickly 
sprinkled with dark-brown spots. The 
next visit, two days later, revealed a com 
plete set of five eggs, although six or even 
seven are sometimes reported. 

The incubation period which followed 
was intensely interesting. The male be- 



return calling and the male would re 
linquish his charge once more to the 
proper authority. These duties were 
carried out each day with systematic 
regularity. The sitting bird was always 
provided with at least one hearty meal 
and sometimes, after ten or twelve inches 
of garter-snake, served with a second meal 
later in the day. 

The birds became surprisingly tame, 
showing no concern when the ladder was 
thrown over the wall for the examination 
of the eggs, and did not hesitate to fly in 
and out of the nest even when children 
were noisily playing about in the yard 
below. 

All went well until the end of the second 
week of incubation, when a tragedy oc- 



A FAMILY OF CITY-BRED HAWKS 



625 



curred. The female suddenly disap- ly possible, for the new female was en- 
peared. While absolute proof of her tirely unfamiliar with her surroundings 
death is lacking, it is the only reasonable and conditions, not quite knowing what 
conclusion. In the first place, after the was expected of her even at feeding-time, 
last egg was laid she had not been absent and in every movement and action show- 
from the nest except for meals and brief ing characteristics strikingly different 
recreation, and had never left the eggs from those of her predecessor, 
uncovered during the night. 
The first intimation of 
trouble was early in the mor 
ning when the male was seen 
restlessly flying about from 
place to place and calling 
anxiously, manifesting un 
mistakable signs of anxiety 
and alarm. Bringing food 
later in the morning, he flew 
about with his prey, calling 
frantically, but all in vain. 
Thinking something might 
have happened in the nest I 
investigated and found the 
sitting bird was absent and 
the eggs cold. Finally, the 
male seemed to abandon all 
hope and gave way to a state 
of inert despondency, spend 
ing most of the afternoon 
perched quietly and dejected 
ly on a fence within sight of 
the nest. Toward dark he 
flew away, presumably to his 
usual roosting-place, but no 
faithful guardian returned to 
the nest, and an early descent 
from the roof on the follow 
ing morning showed that the 
eggs were still without cover, 
being decidedly cold to the 
touch. 

A few minutes later, al 
though still before sunrise, the male went Other evidence was found in her ex- 
to the nest and hopelessly glanced in at treme wildness. She would approach 
the entrance, then flew away and disap- the nest with much hesitation, flying 
peared in the distance. With the flight of toward the wall, then, her courage failing 
a sparrow-hawk he could have travelled at the last moment, would suddenly turn 
many miles during his absence, but how and disappear over the roof or to one side 
far and where he really went is interesting or the other. This performance would 
to imagine. We only know that later in sometimes be repeated six or eight times 
the morning he reached home in great ex- before she could gain sufficient courage to 
citement. enter the nest so closely associated with 

Had he been to a matrimonial agency ? human habitation, while her predecessor 
Hardly, but he was evidently introducing had shown no such fear. She gradually 
a new mate to the premises. It might be became more accustomed to her new sur- 
asked, may not this have been a case of roundings, but did not gain the confidence 
a " returned prodigal "? This seems hard- shown by both the former mate and the 
VOL. LXXL 40 




From a photograph by Mrs. S. H. Chubb, 



Finding the young hawks just hatched. 



626 



A FAMILY OF CITY-BRED HAWKS 



male. Yet she never allowed her fears 
to cause serious neglect of the eggs and 
really became a devoted stepmother. 

It would seem almost incredible, with 
out convincing evidence, that a strange 
bird should assume the duties of incu 
bating a set of eggs which were not her 
own, but similar instances have been cited 
by careful observers; for instance, Mr. 
James N. Baskett in his "Story of the 
Birds," as well as accounts by other re 
liable authors. 

We felt much apprehension, however, 
fearing that the self-sacrifice of this de 
voted second mate might be all in vain, 
for on two successive mornings after the 
tragedy the eggs seemed thoroughly 
chilled. But it is perfectly possible that 
our neighbor is to be thanked for saving 
the lives of the family, for the nest was 
directly over her apartment and not more 
than eight or nine feet above her kitchen 
range. However this may be, about two 
weeks after the stepmother had taken 
charge five helpless little chicks, covered 
with white down, were found in the nest, 
the period of incubation being thirty-one 
days. 



Development was so rapid that when 
they were two days old their eyes were 
wide open and they looked about with 
an air of considerable intelligence. For 
the first five or six days, so far as we could 
see, the food of the young birds consisted 
entirely of insects, dragon-flies, grass 
hoppers, beetles, etc., but later fragments 
of larger game were carried into the nest. 

Every day or two the young were care 
fully taken from the nest for examination, 
and were always rewarded with a few bits 
of raw meat. And how different their 
table manners from those of young song 
birds, who expect the food to be thrust 
well down their throats, while at first 
sight the hawks reach out and seize the 
food voraciously. 

When they were four days old they sat, 
or awkwardly tumbled about, for their 
first pictures. Even at this early age 
they were beginning to manifest in 
dividual characteristics, and were there 
fore entitled to distinctive names. Two 
of them were particularly individual in 
physique as well as psychology; the one, 
being perceptibly the largest of the family, 
with a rather more than correspondingly 




i a photograph, copyright by S, //. Chubb. 



"Big Bob," as usual, gets the first piece of meat. "Little Runty" in the middle foreground 

twenty-first day. 



A FAMILY OF CITY-BRED HAWKS 



627 



large appetite, who generally managed to 
get the first piece of meat and jostled his 
companions about with small considera 
tion; the other, a little under size, with 
undue amount of self-assertion. It 



no 



seemed, therefore, that no better names 
might be chosen than "Big Bob," "Rob," 
"Roy," "Remus," and "Runty." 



taken. Then, after being rewarded with 
a few bits of raw meat, they were quickly 
returned to the nest. Like most young 
things they were very good sleepers and 
often, after being fed, would suddenly 
drop off into dreamland before reaching 
their comfortable hole in the wall. 
During these operations the old birds 




From a photograph, copyright by S. H. Chubb. 

"Big Bob" wears a badge of honor on the left leg twenty-third day. 



On days when the light seemed favor 
able for photography an old hat, in which 
the young birds might nestle, was taken 
to the roof of the house. When they were 
a little older a piano-stool, with a piece 
of burlap thrown over it to give a more 
picturesque and comfortable surface for 
young bird-feet, was provided. The 
camera was then set up and focussed on 
the piano-stool. The ladder, previously 
made secure with ropes, was launched over 
the coping and the young birds, carefully 
deposited in a small basket, were drawn 
up to the roof where their pictures were 



did not manifest the slightest anxiety, al 
though the fierceness with which this 
species will often defend its young is well- 
known. Even the stepmother would oft 
en be perched in a tree within sight un 
concernedly preening her feathers while 
these liberties were being taken. She 
was, no doubt, reassured by the con 
fidence of her mate, who had enjoyed, I 
hope, a much longer acquaintance with us. 
When the young birds were sufficiently 
grown to remain out for fifteen or twenty 
minutes without showing symptoms of 
being homesick, a treat was promised to 



628 A FAMILY OF CITY-BRED HAWKS 

the Bird Club, which was composed of a is found in Florida or South America 

company of possible ornithologists. The wearing a decoration with which he was 

basket, instead of stopping at the hole in honored in your own home town of New 

the wall as usual, was lowered with a long York or Connecticut. We felt that five 

rope to the yard below, where the birds of these little bands would give us a 

were enthusiastically welcomed by an certain legitimate claim on our young 

excited and admiring delegation. It was friends, but they have not as yet reported 

later reported by one of the youngest safe passage to any given point, 

members of the Bird Club that the hawks The young hawks were now three weeks 

had given a lawn-party. old, and "Big Bob s" manners were even 

After being so intimately acquainted more boisterous than ever. This fact 
with this confiding and interesting little was disconcerting, for it was evident that 
family, to think of its finally launching a mistake had been made in early infancy, 
out upon the wing and never being seen The ruf us -brown wing -feathers which 
or heard of again, so far at least as the were appearing made it quite evident that 
identity of individuals might be con- " Big Bob " was developing into a female, 
cerned, did not seem perfectly pleasing, while modest little "Runty" was growing 
If only we could recognize the face of a the slaty-blue wing patches of the male. In 
bird as we do that of a human friend, so most species of hawks the average size of 
that we might know our birds even when the female is perceptibly greater than that 
found far from home! It is true that of the male. Unfortunately this rule 
something is known in a general way of does not hold in the case of the sparrow- 
the movements of certain species of birds, hawk ; hence the blunder. But a name 
and yet during the season of travel, either with which one passes from earliest in- 
by day or by night, we hear a voice or the fancy into youth is not to be discarded, 
whir of a passing wing, but who can tell As they grew older it was discovered 
"from whence it cometh or whither it that matters might be facilitated by sitting 
goeth " ? A friend of song is with us for a in their doorway impatiently squealing for 
season and is gone. Just when, and how the return of their parents from the hunt- 
far and where, in his boundless realm of ing-field. At least, so they seemed to 
blue, does he go ? And will he come an- think, for one or two of them might i be 
other season after biding his time on seen thus engaged at almost any time, 
tropical shores? The winter guest at On the i4th of June, when they were 
your window who became so trustful and twenty-five days old, there was much 
fed from your hand did he nest in an excitement when "Big Bob," the first to 
Arctic summer ? And will he return with desert her birthplace, launched forth to 
the snow and renew old friendships? test her untried wings. Taking short 

Many such questions will in time be flights from roof to roof she could see, 
answered by the Bird Banding Associa- if interested, the trolley-cars rumbling by 
tion, the management of which has re- in the street below. But an inherited 
cently been assumed by the Biological taste drew her toward the greener land- 
Survey at Washington. Indeed, even now scape in the rear of the buildings. Flying 
interesting reports which add much to to the near-by trees, assuming no respon- 
our knowledge in these matters are con- sibility for the direction of her excursions, 
stantly coming in. These bands, in sizes she trusted entirely to her devoted par- 
to fit all species, are made of aluminum ents to come and feed her where she 
and are very light and smooth. They might be found. Later in the day a 
can be placed on the young bird s leg be- second adventurer sallied forth, 
fore the nestling is old enough to be All of the following day the parents 
frightened and will cause the wearer no were hard pressed for game with which to 
subsequent inconvenience. Each band supply the unusual demands of the two 
is numbered and properly recorded with young birds who were indulging in new 
all the data pertaining to the case. and violent exercises, so that the three 

Of course, the great majority of these remaining nestlings were of necessity just 

bands are never heard of after the birds a little short in their allowance and did 

carry them away, but it is extremely in- much squealing in the doorway. And it 

teresting when it does happen that a bird should be noted, much to the credit of 



A FAMILY OF CITY-BRED HAWKS 



629 



the second mate, that during these stren 
uous times she seemed quite as devoted 
as the male. 

It was not until four days after "Big 
Bob" had set the example that the last 
nestling took flight. By this time the 
task of providing was somewhat simpli 
fied by the fact that the young birds 
were stronger in flight and lost no time 
in being drawn together by a common 
interest when fresh game was brought 



July they wandered away from our im 
mediate neighborhood. 

They were indulging in many new ex 
periences since emerging from the very 
limited horizon of earlier youth, and were 
undoubtedly beginning to enjoy a degree 
of independence. Just when a young 
hawk becomes entirely self-supporting is 
a matter of some conjecture, and how 
much of this ability is acquired by experi 
ence and how much is inherited instinct 




"Big Bob" and "Little Runty" squealing in the doorway twenty-fifth day. 



home. On one occasion there was much 
scrambling and flapping of wings while 
three hungry youngsters were awkwardly 
balancing themselves on a branch, all en 
deavoring to devour one small mouse, 
while at a little distance a fourth member 
of the family was greatly enjoying his 
ration alone. Suddenly losing balance, 
he fell into a tangle of vines and disap 
peared, which caused some alarm on the 
part of the old birds. He soon emerged 
from retirement but lost his precious 
morsel in the tangle. 

For a number of days we saw members 
of the hawk family frequently, but as the 
month of June waned the circle of their 
range was rapidly enlarged and we recog 
nized our friends only occasionally, and 
it seems likely that after the first week in 



is an interesting problem. Song-birds are 
certainly much more rapid in their de 
velopment. The young robin, for in 
stance, is hatched in about eleven days, 
and in another eleven or thirteen days is 
off on the wing. Between two and three 
weeks later a second brood generally de 
mands the undivided attention of the 
parents; and the members of the first 
brood, which seem quite mature only a 
few days after leaving the nest, must be 
ready to shift for themselves. In the fol 
lowing spring these young robins will as 
sume domestic responsibilities of their 
own. While, as a rule, the hawks do not 
breed until the second year, and as they 
raise only one brood in a season, the young 
birds undoubtedly enjoy a much longer 
term of parental assistance and oversight. 



The Grandfather 

BY JOHN JAY CHAPMAN 



THERE S a kind of morning prayer 

In the air 
That recalls the song and praise 

Of other days, 
And the lilacs all in bloom, 
And the sunny breakfast-room 
Open windows to the ground 

All around; 

Lawns a-glitter with the dew, 
Scents from many a field and flower 
In that early, quiet hour 

Greeted you. 

For, in coming down the stairs 
You could smell delicious airs, 
The whole country-place seemed theirs; 
Were they creeping in to prayers, 

Or passing through, 
Or visiting the vases freshly set 
On the mantel, in the corner cabinet? 
Was it lilies, was it pinks or mignonette? 
What they were I ll hardly say 

Roses, roses anyway! 

I smell them yet. 
Just a morn like this, and then 
Came the maids (there -were no men) 

One or two 

Decent maids; then jolly children not a few. 
And with shuffling of the chairs 
They prepared the place for prayers, 

Romping through; 
And scarcely grew more tame 
When the silent moment came. 

For they knew 
When Grandpapa appeared 
He was little to be feared 

By the crew. 

And their mothers were in bed. 
(For surely for such notions 
As family devotions 

There s little to be said.) - 

So the ancient prayers were read 
By that brilliant-eyed old man, 
Full of reverence, full of grace, 

To the children of his clan 
In the quaint old country-place 
That had nursed the elder race 

With its bloom. 

And he kneeled where they had kneeled, 
And the odors of the field 

Filled the room. 
630 



ThE POINT OF VIEW 



A I have no voice for singing, Chris 
topher always politely assents when 
I announce my intention of going 
warbling and going alone ! 

It is generally the second week in May 
that the thing happens, when the shadbush 
is coming into bloom and the deli- 
A-Warbling cate Y<> un g green is beginning to 
clothe the woods. Rapturous sea 
son! The soberest human spirit grows 
young as the newest-born lamb and gambols 
ecstatically. Oh, unfolding flowers ! Oh, 
pushing grass ! Oh, shouting, darting birds ! 
Bless ye the Lord ! 

Now, ideally, one should need no excuse 
for wandering indefinitely through spring 
fields and woods. But human nature is not 
yet quite ideal, and, disconcertingly, our 
careful virtues are sometimes found to be 
as mistaken as our faults. We consider it 
virtuous to be purposeful, to refrain from 
spending our time in pursuits that "get us 
nowhere." But, since a certain amount of 
irresponsibility is necessary to us, especially 
in the spring, we have had recourse to sub 
terfuge and, by inventing the thing called 
"nature study," have silenced our scruples 
and got what we wanted. As if the sum of 
the world s welfare could be increased by 
any one s identification of a scrap of green 
and yellow feathers as a magnolia rather 
than a myrtle warbler! Particularly when, 
in order to make the distinction, one has to 
leave one s husband s bread unbaked. 

There are various spots among which I 
may choose the scene of my warbler activi 
ties; but that which, on the whole, promises 
most is a patch of tangled bushes and young 
trees on the outskirts of a wood. Birds of 
all sorts love this place. It gives them both 
freedom and privacy, it supplies them with 
food, and it enables them to tease nature 
students to the top of their bent. That last 
is a very important point in warbler psy 
chology. 

Time was when I took, a bird book with 
me; but I always felt uncommonly foolish, 
sitting down under the trees, turning the 
pages feverishly, murmuring, "Two white 
wing-bars no, that s wrong a yellow 
throat well, maybe it is yellow, though it 



looks white to me. A black line through the 
eye. Oh! the creature s laughing at me." 
Moreover, the book was in my way when I 
charged in among the bushes in yet another 
effort to trace that black line, and I dropped 
it and lost it and had the mischief of a time 
finding it again. So now I take only a small, 
shabby pair of opera-glasses which I can slip 
into my pocket. Details as to wing-bars 
and eye lines I defer till I get home, with the 
comforting result that I forget or confuse 
them a little and so am enabled to conclude, 
"Yes, that must have been a Philadelphia 
warbler," when probably it wasn t at all. 

It will be perceived that warbling, as con 
ducted by me, is an entirely shameless pro 
ceeding. 

It is not wholly unmoral, however. On 
the contrary, I often perceive it to suggest 
and illustrate a complete philosophy of life. 
Patience, perseverance, good temper: those 
required attributes are obvious enough. 
And self-control. Only he who can rule 
body and spirit will ever get maddening 
tufts of feathers focussed long enough to see 
them at all. But the philosophy goes deeper 
than that. It finds its base in the great 
mysterious principle that the way to secure 
the best things in life is not to rush after 
them furiously but to wait on them with an 
open mind, and that he who seeks earnestly 
for some particular, explicit thing is quite as 
likely as not to find something else. 

In my case, I find that I can generally 
manage to start out on my quest with an 
open mind. I enter the patch of bushes and 
give myself over to destiny. The sweet 
spring influences surround me, the hills 
stand grandly beneath the radiant sky, the 
sun broods warmly how good life is, how 
infinitely peaceful ! I feel my whole being 
relax and expand in the oneness which is the 
soul of creation. Then, presto! a flash 
through the young leaves of a neighboring 
tree, a mocking-bird call, a glimpse of 
feathers in rapid motion, and my struggle 
is on. 

Not that there ought to be any struggle 
about it. The only rational thing to be done 
is to sit quite still. But this is not easy. 
Having advertised his presence, the warbler 

631 



632 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



betakes himself to a half-fledged tree in the 
middle distance, not near enough to be ob 
served in detail. There he perches on an ex 
posed limb which, if he were nearer, would 
make him an easy mark for the opera- 
glasses; and there, in spite of all his racial 
tradition and personal habit, he imitates my 
philosophy of sitting still. This is amaz 
ingly clever in him. He seems to know per 
fectly that if he stays there long enough 
and not so very long, either I will be 
tempted to rise and make rny way cautiously 
to him, persuaded that, for once, my policy 
of quiescence is a mistake. Whereupon, if 
I do this, of course, with a dart and a flash, 
he is gone, either farther into the thicket or, 
more likely, back to the spot I have just 
left. 

But quiescence has its delusions too. If, 
exerting my self-control, I resolutely stay 
where I am, my attention is besieged by 
conflicting influences. My gaze remains 
focussed on my chosen bird, but out of the 
tail of my eye I see what? Something 
stirs in the bush close beside me, a nameless 
presence emerges and goes softly exploring 
the leaf buds not three yards away. Shall 
I look at him ? The chance is so good. And 
perhaps he may turn out to be as interest 
ing as the creature perched over yonder. 
After all, it is part of my philosophy to take 
the blessings which the woods provide. So 
I unrivet my gaze from the tree and glance 
quickly at the bush. A summer yellow 
bird as familiar to me as a robin or a song- 
sparrow ! Back goes my disappointed 
glance to the tree, only to find that the 
unknown warbler has as completely disap 
peared as last winter s snow. 

It does not do, however, to yield to exas 
peration at this point. Rather, it is more 
than ever imperative to sit still. For most 
birds are curious; and, for all we know, they 
may have their own observations to make: 
"Forehead somewhat lined, shoulders 
stooping a little, ink-mark on the third 
finger that must be a scholar." Or: 
"Streaks of paint irregularly disposed, ab 
sent-minded expression, negligent attire- 
probably an artist." Or: "Glossy black 
with a narrow white wing-bar near the tip 
and a white band around the neck a 
clergyman." I flatter myself that it would 
take a pretty experienced warbler to classify 
me, my country life has involved me in so 
many avocations; and when I am in my 
best warbling humor, I sit and await the 



return of my bird with zest. He always 
comes in the end and frequently brings his 
mate with him. Then, for as long a session 
as I have the heart to keep Christopher 
dinnerless, the two of them appear and 
vanish before me, beside me, above me, 
around me, resuming full warbler activity, 
so that I can seldom scrutinize them, but 
giving me innumerable glimpses from which 
to build up an impression. Meantime, they 
discuss me in a fashion which I dare say I 
might find embarrassing if I understood 
it. 

So much for my days of wisdom and self- 
control. The other days are not so pleas 
ant to remember. There was, for instance, 
one morning when I spent three solid hours 
in pursuit of a nondescript mite. What a 
chase he led me ! Through tangled bushes 
and briers, over rotten logs, over the tus 
socks of a swamp, in and out among the 
trees. Never once did I see him clearly 
enough to get anything but the vaguest im 
pression of his markings, and when I reached 
home exhausted, I could only sigh to the 
hungry but uncomplaining Christopher: 
"Well, it must have been some rare speci 
men migrating through." But the next 
morning when, still tired and vexed, I was 
puttering in the garden, the tricksy fugitive 
of the day before came and sat on the gate 
post and, seeing him plainly and hearing 
him sing, I knew him to be a "summer resi 
dent," supposedly long familiar to me. The 
humiliation of this experience was extreme. 

On the whole, I am glad that the warbling 
urgency comes only once a year. May it 
never fail then, however. May no shad- 
bush season ever find me out of humor for 
going a-warbling. 



I BELIEVE that there is a civic law which 
prevents situating an abattoir in a resi 
dential or business district. But the 
law, narrow as usual, takes into considera 
tion killing-places of one kind only. Those 
who will inquire of their own minds will 
discover that there are abattoirs of 
many kinds, and that in each sort 
there is some very deadly work 
going on. Once, in a college classroom, 
where lectures on literature were dispensed, 
amid all the dulness therein, the sly and 
wicked thought came to me that something 
was going through an operation: we who 
listened thought that we were the victims; 
he who lectured imagined that he was the 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



633 



patient; but I really think that literature 
was the sufferer. "The operation was suc 
cessful, but the patient died." Now, that 
place was a very sinister kind of abattoir, 
and situated on a campus near the houses of 
intellectuals; moreover, it was a place man 
aged by a Ph.D. And the menace of such 
a fatal rendezvous lies in the fact that it 
may have a specious and inviting charm 
which all the more surely betrays. 

A consideration of the foregoing experi 
ence will lead one to believe that the place 
to kill literature is a classroom. I am per 
suaded that it can there be done to death 
very genteelly. Of course, all lectures on 
literature are not chlorine-like in their 
effects. I do know of teachers of English 
and of literature who are genuinely inspira 
tional. But there are others; and these 
others may really be indicted for murder. 
I say "murder" advisedly. It is not a 
criminal charge which can be brought 
against a butcher; but it is a true indict 
ment of many teachers. I say this with an 
understanding heart, for I am a teacher 
myself. However, like all malefactors, I 
hope some day to reform. 

If those who in their private abattoirs 
kill literature are criminals, then first-degree 
murder is the charge to be brought against 
those who kill incipient writers. I hasten 
to explain myself. In every school there 
appear, at intervals, strange solitary speci 
mens. Even in their early teens they are 
subtly marked by the divine afflatus. 
After an experience of twenty years in a 
preparatory school, I believe I can say that 
perhaps one student in seventy-five has that 
indefinable quality which makes me say: 
"Here is a future author. Here is a timid 
wood-thrush, strayed from mountain-dells 
of the soul into this roaring factory where 
the crowd is manufactured into automatons 
for passing college examinations. Here is a 
shy spirit, delicate with that divinity which 
comes from an early and an accurate under 
standing of much of the meaning of life, 
and who even now yearns for utterance. I 
must be careful. In this abattoir, God 
keep me from killing this young poet this 
lad who has it in him to be a writer ! " 

I really speak conservatively when I say 
that this matter of a teacher s recognizing 
and ministering to these waif wood-thrushes 
is possibly the most urgent and delicate 
matter that demands his attention. On the 
stupid, the slothful, the banal, the futile, 



the first-one-in-his-family-who-has-ever- 
read-a-book he must spend endless hours 
of tedious patience. Ixion had a May-day 
festival compared to the teacher of English 
tied to his wheel which grinds in the fac 
tory. But now and then the compensation 
comes. Some day, in reading a composi 
tion, amid much dreary plodding through 
such labor, the arresting moment arrives. 
I give this example of what I may term a 
clear proof of the elusive presence of genius. 
The assigned subject for themes had been 
prosy enough "A Sunset." I had read 
perhaps fifty descriptions of "the sinking 
in the west of the great red ball of fire." 
(Please note that the youthful mind, des 
perately earnest, always gravely supplies 
the amazing detail that the sun sets in the 
west). But now I come to something dif 
ferent: "The peace of the silent hills gives 
me a sense of things eternal. The hermit- 
thrush, like a calm elegist of light, melodi 
ously grieves over departing day. With 
wondering eyes I gaze into 

" The golden vertex of the west 
Over the foundered sun. 

And as I watch the beauty of earth fade, 
and the first stars glimmer like raindrops 
on the petals of the red rose of the west, I 
feel that beauty never dies. Its forms fade; 
but they are renewed, or else they are re 
placed by other forms as lovely. And this 
thought is the real reason why twilight 
brings me peace." 

Of course, perhaps the description is over 
done. But the age of the writer is only six 
teen; and the work was done offhand. I 
am hardly exaggerating when I say that 
young writers of this type fill me with awe. 
They may never develop into authors; but 
they have that true feeling, that mental 
alertness, that clairvoyant penetration of 
insight which are some of the characteristics 
of genuine writers. 

This is a second example of what I mean. 
The subject was "A Soldier." I read in 
numerable themes of ordinary soldiers- 
trite stuff that anybody can write. Finally 
I came to this picture: "I saw him standing 
in the railroad station at Nancy; and in 
stantly my heart made deep obeisance, for 
I knew that my mortal eyes were gazing at 
the Spirit of France. He was only a Poilu, 
and he was greedily munching a sandwich 
stuffed with onions. But he was the Soul 
of France. I marked, under his rough ex- 



634 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



terior, the indefinable gaiety of spirit that 
belongs to the people of his race. I saw the 
bright flash of merry blue eyes, softened 
when they turned southward toward his 
home in Provence, but vindictive when they 
sternly shifted to the north where lay the 
enemy. . . . After the onion sandwich 
came a cigarette a long and vile one, which 
he smoked with an avidity too ingenuous for 
grace. . . . His shoes were almost gone; 
his trousers were muddy with the mud of the 
Argonne; his coat was torn and dishevelled. 
His beard was of startling growth. Never 
theless my heart made obeisance to him, 
there in the railway station dirty, onion- 
eating, cigarette-smoking, homesick, daunt 
less, indomitable, glorious Spirit of France ! " 

But it is not only by composition that 
these thrushes reveal their presence. They 
are, almost without exception, the most 
silent and unobtrusive members of a class. 
It is usually painful for one to recite orally. 
They are retiring, unwilling to offer to an 
swer questions, whose answers they know 
far better than anyone else, and singularly 
given to blushing and stammering when 
called upon to explain the simplest matter. 
But if given a chance to write, these boys, 
one and all, will bashfully and with unerring 
ease, make a mark of 100 per cent. . . . 
Nor is it difficult to distinguish between the 
real thrushes and their imitators the blue 
jays who have a great deal to say, but who, 
after all, are more or less impostors. 

Out of the classroom, the gifted boys of 
whom I speak usually seem to be lonely 
fellows. They try to withdraw from the 
roar of the factory. They eschew football, 
as I think they will always turn from spec 
tacles of violence. They are not only in 
spirit retiring but in body also. These are 
the lads who take the long solitary walks, 
who, in so far as they are able, love to live 
as Milton did during his happy Horton 
period, or as lived the Boy of Winander. I 
do not mean that they are necessarily odd 
or curious; they are merely different. And 
to me they are the most interesting people 
in the world. Of a mature author it is pos 
sible for us to take the measure; but these 
lads are exciting in their nameless promise. 
The honor of interpreting the coming gen 
eration is theirs if their spirits are not broken 
by the grinding of the mill of education. 

"Much," said Johnson, in one of his 
many flings at Boswell, "can be done for a 
Scotchman if he is caught young." I am 



persuaded that much can be done for a 
poet if he is not caught young. When I see 
a lad of sensitive spirit, modest demeanor, 
and grave with that pure sadness that comes 
with a true if limited understanding of life, 
entering a modern American school, where 
a cruelly efficient system destroys individu 
ality in order to produce a type, my heart 
misgives me. And I hope that my feeling 
in the matter is not foolish sentiment. I 
honestly feel that I am having to do with 
a youth who has it in him to become one 
of the authentic voices of the race. I feel, 
in a certain way, that it is a pity to "edu 
cate" such a boy. A stereotyped course in 
school or college will usually do a lad of 
great promise more harm than good. He 
comes, to use Kipling s fine phrase, "in all 
the loneliness of wings." The danger is 
that he may walk out with the crowd. 

And what do I do for such a lad? I 
hardly do anything. My great aim is to 
keep him from being caught young by the 
Juggernaut of the system. I talk to him a 
little about the mere mechanics of style; 
but I seldom make an attempt to form it 
for him. I know that if I let him alone 
his own personality will take care of his 
style. I lend him books those especially 
of a type to stimulate his imagination. I 
try in a most unofficial way to recommend 
Malory, Spenser, the great legends out of 
lands other than England, and thus to fill 
his mind with "huge cloudy symbols of a 
high romance." 

There are, then, these wood-thrushes in 
the factories of our schools and college. I 
think we do too little for them. Perhaps it is 
not possible to prevent them from feeling 
strange and lonely; for such an attitude to 
ward life is probably natural in many young 
men of genius. The hustling efficiency of the 
modern school hardly provides for them. In 
deed, I am sure that a school does more for a 
plain fool than it does for a genuine poet. 
The old truism that a poet dies young in every 
man is a rather insipid saying. Should we 
not say: "A poet is killed young in every 
man " ? And, paradoxical as it may seem, ed 
ucation is most frequently the executioner. 

I have no remedy; perhaps there is no 
panacea. But I think that every school 
and college should be singularly solicitous 
to detect and to minister judiciously to its 
shy wood-thrushes who, alone amid a world 
of perishing things and people, have the 
magic to confer immortality. 




THE FIELD OF ART 





Reminiscences of Jacque s experience as a soldier. 



Rare Sketches by a Famous French Artist 

BY WARREN WILMER BROWN 

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE UNPUBLISHED SKETCH-BOOKS OF CHARLES JACQUE 



SOMETIME about the middle of the 
last century, George A. Lucas, an 
American gentleman who had decided 
to make his home in Paris, formed the nu 
cleus of a collection of art destined to rank 
among the unique museum possessions of 
his native country. 

Mr. Lucas continued ceaselessly to add 
to his art treasures during the fifty years he 
remained in the French capital, and when 
he died there a decade or so ago he be 
queathed them to the Maryland Institute 
in Baltimore, which was his native city. 



His reputation as a patron of the arts and 
as a connoisseur gavehim an influential posi 
tion among Americans living abroad, and it 
is stated by those that knew him best that 
from the first he kept in close touch with 
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cor 
coran Art Gallery, the Walters Art Gallery, 
and many of the important private collec 
tions in this country. 

He was on terms of the closest intimacy 
with many of the men who loom large in 
the history of modern art, notably those of 
the Barbizon School, and consequently was 

635 



636 



THE FIELD OF ART 



able to secure examples of their production 
that ordinary collectors could not get for 
any consideration. 

In view of the facts, it is not surprising 
to find that the collection, which is now 
housed in the Maryland Institute s hand 
some Renaissance Building, is of the most 



not so very long ago, of the Charles Jacque 
sketch-books. 

Jacque was born in Paris, May 23, 1813. 
He seems to have had no instruction in art 
save that he picked up from the engraver of 
geographical maps with whom he was ap 
prenticed in his early youth. 





This page reveals the sketching methods employed by Jacque in his mature period. 



diverse and, in some respects, the most 
unusual nature. It comprises paintings 
(among which are two Corots of modest 
dimensions, one of them, "Road to Ville 
d Avray " being a particularly fine example), 
palettes, prints, drawings, and intimate 
memorabilia in almost inexhaustible quan 
tity. 

The portfolios contain literally thousands 
of separate pieces and, since the tabulation 
of them has been in progress, a number of 
rare works have been brought to light. 

The examination of this rich storehouse 
of art proved a task of no mean order. It 
was started several years ago and is being 
enthusiastically continued by Alon Bement, 
director of the Institute. 

Especially noteworthy was the discovery, 



He did not waste much time with that 
"master" none of the biographies I have 
read even mention his name for he soon 
found a way to escape from the boredom of 
a life that was insupportable. This was by 
enlisting in the French army, and while his 
military duties doubtless occupied most of 
his time, his pencil was by no means idle, 
for the sketches comprise numerous viva 
cious references to his experiences at the 
front. 

After a period of about seven years, he 
returned to civilian life and turned his atten 
tion more earnestly than ever to his art. 
He painted considerably, but as time went 
on he paid less and less attention to his 
palette and brushes, directing his energies 
principally to etching. 



THE FIELD OF ART 



637 



Jacque was a man 
of the most versatile 
temperament and 
practical adaptabil 
ity. At one time he 
was absorbed, heart 
and soul, in cabinet- 
making; at another, 
chicken-raising was a 
hobby to which he 
was passionately de 
voted. 

Doubtless he 
found, as sometimes 
has happened to 
other amateurs, that 
poultry as a pragmat 
ic proposition is a 
delusion and a snare, 

but at any rate this phase of his career sup 
plied him subject-matter for a curious and 
now seldom seen book called "Le Poulail- 
ler," two beautiful editions of which, copi 
ously illustrated with his own engravings, 
were published in Paris in 1858 by the Li- 
braire Agricole de la Maison Rusique. 

It was very difficult for him to stay set 
tled in any one spot. First he was at 
Barbizon with Millet, then he was back at 
his studio in the Boulevarde Clichy, Paris, 
or else at Croisic, Brittany, where he had his 
chicken-yards and his furniture work-shop. 

Despite his wandering proclivities and his 
varied occupations, he was an adept in con 
centration where his craft was concerned, 




A familiar scene in rural France a fine example of the dignity and simplicity 
that characterizes even the quickest of Jacque s sketches. 



and his artistic progress was steady and 
rapid. In a surprisingly short time, he was 
known not only as a fine painter, but as one 
of the foremost etchers of his day. To him 
was attributed the re-establishment of etch 
ing in its old place of distinction and he was 
further declared the pioneer of its modern 
development. Many honors were paid 
him, culminating in the Grand Prix in 1889, 
twenty-two years after he had been made a 
member of the Legion of Honor. 

Jacque was an exceedingly prolific genius. 
His etchings alone numbered more than 
four hundred and it has been declared that 
at least half of them are of the first order. 
He died in Paris in 1894 in the studio he 
had built adjoining 
that of Gerome, an 
other of the celebrated 
contemporaries who 
shared his friendship. 
With the sketch 
books, Mr. Lucas had 
carefully preserved a 
clipping from Figaro 
of his obituary notice, 
written by Charles 
Chincolle. 

"One speaks of the 
etchings of Jacque," 
M. Chincolle said, "as 
of those of Rem 
brandt, Callot, and 
Claude. On a plate 
of ten square centi 
metres he evoked all 
Nature." 




Studies of horses from the sketch-book of the sixties. 



638 



THE FIELD OF ART 



He had been described during his lifetime 
by one of his companions as a man who had 
a "mania for moving." The remark was 
in reference to his inability to remain long 
in a settled condition and, as has already 
been indicated, it was unquestionably true. 

Like unedited letters never intended for 
publication, his sketches emphasize many 
facts regarding his artistic temperament and 
habits, and, in greater or less degree, they 
help to establish an understanding of his 
personal characteristics. A study of his 
sketches makes possible an entirely new 
concept of Jacque, both as a man and as an 
artist. 

The books are evidently of different crea 
tive periods, the smaller one almost a 
vest-pocket affair apparently being the 
earlier of the two. 

The subjects are those of which he was 
pre-eminently fond and in which he "spe 
cialized," and they furnish a clew to the 
secret of his eloquent style a style that 
was realistic yet always poetic and redolent 
of pastoral charm. 

Jacque, one would say, never went any 
where without seeing a hundred things that 



clamored simultaneously for separate atten 
tion, and his cahiers with their closely 
crowded pages a dozen drawings some 
times being found in the space of a few 
inches suggest that he did his utmost to 
make his fingers keep pace with his light 
ning powers of observation. 

He took the most minute care to conserve 
his impressions, and step by step the studies 
trace the route by which he arrived at the 
superb achievement of his dry-points and 
etchings. 

The effect is astonishingly vital and 
stimulating. Here, for instance, is a quiet 
barn-yard scene a pen-and-ink sketch- 
representing a peasant standing beside a 
loaded wagon, while close by a woman is 
kneeling on the ground, busy with some task 
of her own. 

Almost the whole range of farm life is 
recorded, not by any intricate, analytical 
method, but merely by a succession of de 
tached, often extremely fragmentary, com 
ments. 

And how vividly, how sympathetically, 
and how lovingly it was all set down ! Men 
at work in the woods; hay-making beneath 





Jacque loved to draw peasants at work in the field. 





Chicken-farming was one of Jacque s pet hobbies. 



bright summer skies; horses tugging heavy 
burdens; luncheon hour at the manger; vil 
lage streets where chickens are scratching 
in blissful peace; fagot-bearers, peasants and 
their wives engaged in chores of all sorts: 

These and many more of like nature were 
the subjects Jacque loved, and one fancies 
that in noting them he was filled with the 
ecstatic joy of the poet who finds a universe 
of wonder and beauty in the simplest things, 
for are not all the worshippers of nature 
closely associated in spiritual kinship? 

There are only one or two nudes in the 
sketch-books, and they are so rapid in 
stroke, so concise, that they must be con 
sidered only as memoranda scribbled off to 
fix in mind some particular movement of 
an arm, a leg, or the beautiful bend of a 
torso. 

Nowhere in the drawings is there a hint 
that Jacque was either a satirist or a re 
former. It has been pointed out that "he 
discovered the peasant before Millet"- who 
incidentally was one of his closest friends 
and whose influence is sometimes reflected 
in his style but it was not at all in the 
same way. 

If he were the least concerned with mak 
ing a cult of the peasant or "interpreting" 
him in the fashion of the painter of "The 



Angelus" and "The Gleaners," or some of 
his other colleagues, the proof cannot here 
be "iocated. On the contrary, it is plain 
that he was studying the human figure 
chiefly as an essential in the scheme of 
things and that, broadly, when he decided 
to introduce it in a composition he gave it 
no more importance than belongs to secon 
dary details. Predominant traits of both 
individual and type, however, were infalli 
bly suggested, even in his sketchiest efforts. 

It was domestic animals and fowls in 
which Jacque was primarily and most in 
sistently interested, and his sketch-books 
are fairly alive with them, beasts of burden 
predominating very decidedly. He was 
evidently particularly concerned with per 
fecting his knowledge of the anatomy and 
characteristic attitudes of horses. On page 
after page appear drawings of their heads, 
their hoofs, their bodies, from every possible 
angle and in every possible position. 

Problems of action, of foreshortening, or 
of modelling and values, are solved with a 
few lines, without any attempt, usually, to 
work over details or to polish down the 
rough places. If he did not get what he 
wanted the first time, he would hastily 
finish another sketch. 

More than once one comes across the 

639 



640 



THE FIELD OF ART 



expression of a broad, and it must be said, 
occasionally vulgar, sense of humor, but if 
he did indulge in a joke once in a while for 
his own amusement, he could also suggest a 
great deal of pathos. 

A memorable example is a sketch of an 
old horse. 

There is no sign of hesitancy nor of uncer 
tainty in the majority of the drawings. 
They pulsate with the buoyancy of life in 
the open. 

The larger of the books bears Jacque s 
signature and is dated July, 1865. Its con 
tents are all pencil-drawings that proclaim 
much broader technical proficiency than 
the others. They have, as it were, a more 
even sequence and are more orderly, some 
of them, in fact, being almost meticulous. 
All are "right side up," whereas those of the 
smaller book were entered in the most 
helter-skelter, haphazard fashion imagina 
ble, in whatever way the page happened to 
open and with no thought in the world for 
tidiness. 

The later sketches show powers approach 
ing maturity. Indeed, there is but little of 
the empiric or the tentative about them. 
The draftsmanship is masterly and the style 



of the utmost facility, but a tendency is 
noticed now and again toward the "finicky" 
that inevitably meant a greater or less sacri 
fice of vigor. 

While Jacque paid close attention to 
landscape when making these sketches, he 
studied it principally for background and 
environment purposes. There are, how 
ever, a number of charming paysages in the 
collection wide meadows with low sky 
lines (a pencil note on one was to remind 
him of a "ciel jaune"); bits of forest with 
trees in strong silhouette, long avenues 
shaded by poplars; pleasant farm lands with 
houses and barns in the distance (three of 
these, one of them a "detail," are marked 
Marly, July 9, 1862). He would also men 
tion, as occasion demanded, peculiarities of 
village and rural architecture. 

His was a painstakingly progressive 
method that took nothing for granted and 
that left nothing to chance or to instinctive 
understanding. One catches the dynamic 
impulse of untiring purpose in all this en 
deavor. It was Jacque s unroyal road to 
Parnassian virtuosity, and familiarity with 
it leaves no wonder in the flawless accuracy 
of his technic. 




Jacque could be extremely effective in purely lyric expression. 



A calendar of current art exhibitions will be found on page 7. 




A VIEW OX THE AMPEZ/O ROAD, BELOW CORTJXA. 






ScRiBNER s MAGAZINE 



VOL. LXXI 



JUNE, 1922 



NO. 6 



New Alpine Highroads 

A SUMMARY OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE DOLOMITES AND 
ELSEWHERE, BASED ON A JOURNEY OVER NEARLY FIFTY PASSES 

BY CHARLES LINCOLN FREESTON 

Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and author of "The Highroads of the Alps." 
ILLUSTRATIONS (FRONTISPIECE) FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 




LPINE highways con 
tinue to multiply 
apace. They repre 
sent, in fact, one of 
the very few things in 
which the world is 
richer since the Eu 
ropean War; for new 
roads were built in Tyrol from 1915 on 
ward, over passes that were formerly but 
footpaths; while one important develop 
ment, at least, was fructified only a few 
months ago. And where freedom of loco 
motion is concerned the conditions are 
ampler in other ways than was the case in 
1914. Since Italy acquired the major por 
tion of Tyrol, various Alpine roads that 
were previously closed to automobiles 
have been widened and made free to all; 
and be it mentioned that the new prov 
ince of Venezia Tridentina includes the 
whole area of the Dolomites. 

Then, too, the fact may be chronicled 
that Switzerland at last is falling into 
line with other Alpine countries. The 
triumphant way in which motor-trucks 
and staff cars ran up and down the lofty 
mountain roads of France, Italy, and Aus 
tria during the war served as an object- 
lesson which could not be ignored, and 
now we see motor diligences on the Fur- 
ka, the Grimsel, and other Swiss passes on 
which only slow and cumbrous horse- 
drawn vehicles were erstwhile allowed. 
Especially interesting is it to note that 
the farce of automobiles travelling up 



and down the Italian side of the Grand 
St. Bernard, but being barred altogether 
from the Swiss side, is now a thing of the 
past, and one may drive right through 
from Aosta to Martigny, or vice versa, 
without let or hindrance. 

Not merely in America, however, but 
in England itself the idea prevailed dur 
ing the touring season of 1921, that 
travelling on the Continent of Europe 
was still undesirable, if not impracticable, 
even after a long period of peace. With 
the double object, therefore, of studying 
post-war conditions in Alpine regions, 
and also exploring on the spot such new 
developments a& had been rumored from 
afar, I planned a journey on as compre 
hensive lines as possible, to include all the 
newly made or newly liberated passes, 
together with a number of old favorites 
on which the war mjght or might not 
have left destructive imprint^. 

The list was added to en route, as the 
result of one or two unexpected discov 
eries, and in its final form is printed on 
page 660. 

To those who knew aught of the Alps 
before the war, the first point to arrest 
attention in the appended list will be the 
preponderance of Italian passes. Of 
these, however, the following were Aus 
trian up to 1918 namely the Pordoi, 
Falzarego, Jaufen, Rolle, Tonale, Cam- 
polongo, Campiglio, Broccone, Ampezzo, 
Reschen-Scheideck, Brenner, Mendel, 
Toblach, San Lugano, and Gobera. Sev- 



Copyrighted in 1922 in United States, Canada, and Great Britain, by Charles Scribner s Sons. Printed in 

New York. All rights reserved. 

643 




A communication trench on the Falzarego Pass. 



four weeks, and the tale of the passes 
themselves was completed in three. No 
daily journey was begun or finished at an 
unusual hour, nor did the party fail to 
utilize the countless opportunities which 
the good weather vouchsafed for photog 
raphy. On three occasions, moreover, we 
rested for half a day, and furthermore we 
enjoyed a whole day s motor-boating on 
the Lake of Como all within the three 
weeks devoted to the passes. Nowhere 
was there any lack of food, and hotel ac 
commodation was plentiful. The only 
difference, indeed, between 1921 and 1914 
apart from the painful lack of British 
646 



and American tourists was the fact that 
the Dolomites area everywhere displayed 
the evidences of artillery warfare among 
the mountains. But though sundry vil 
lages had been battered, the work of rep 
aration was all but complete; trenches 
and dugouts were nearly all filled in and, 
with scarcely an exception, the roads 
themselves were in their pre-war state of 
superexcellence. Above all the glorious 
mountains towered in superb and unim 
paired grandeur, and, as I may proceed 
to show, are now more than ever accessi 
ble to tourists, owing to the provision of 
new roads. 




On the new Forcella Staulanza roucl. 



One of the most familiar features of Al 
pine territory is the prevalence of the cul- 
de-sac road as a type. It runs up a valley 
for a few or many miles, but comes to a 
stop at a point where only skilled en 
gineering and the expenditure of much 
money could carry it across a mountain 
barrier. Often enough there is a kindred 
local road on the other side of the range, 
but no means of bridging the gap. When 
a government or canton can be brought 
to see the desirability of making a through 
route, the engineers are set to work, a fine 
highroad with suitable gradients is built 
across the pass, and a new artery for loco 



motion is added, of which the highest 
portion is better graded and better sur 
faced than the original local roads. 

Now it may happen that the bridging 
of a gap in this way may open up quite a 
large tract of country which was formerly 
a terra incognita to the road tourist who 
had not time for divagations up and down 
by-roads of the cul-de-sac variety. Strik 
ing illustrations to the point may be found 
in the region of the Dolomites, where 
scores of miles of road may now be cov 
ered in a continuous journey, not a yard 
of which was known to the average 
tourist before the war, and simply as 

647 




Corvara, on the Campolongo Pass; a new through route in the Dolomites. 



the result of building a few miles of new 
road. 

No motorist, for example, ever saw the 
village of Caprile before the war, unless 
he approached it from the south, although 
it only lies a short distance south of the 
famous Dolomitenstrasse, or Dolomites 
Road. There was a narrow track from 
Andraz, on the Falzarego Pass, to Caprile, 
but it was hardly fit even for rustic carts, 
and in any case was barred to cars. Dur 
ing the war, however, a fine highroad, 
similar in width and quality to the Dolo 
mitenstrasse, was built between the two 
points above named, and by the bridging 
of this gap there is now available an unin- 

648 



terrupted and exceptionally beautiful 
route from Andraz to the Lake of Alleghe 
and the Agordo Valley, and thence down 
to Belluno through the impressive defile 
known as the Canal d Agordo. This 
route opens up Dolomite views of a char 
acter entirely unsuspected by those who 
had known only the Dolomitenstrasse and 
other famous passes. 

But this is not the only new develop 
ment of importance in the highly pic 
turesque area that lies between the Via 
Ampezzo and the Rolle Pass. From 
Caprile there was a local road to Pescul, 
with another further south from Fusine 
to Longarone, but there was no carriage 




The summit of the Grodner Pass (6,970 feet). (The newest mountain road in the Alps.) 



road over the Forcella Staulanza (5,817 
feet) between Fusine and Pescul. Inas 
much, however, as an excellent highway 
has been built over the Staulanza Pass, 
another through route is now available, 
from Andraz to Longarone. It further 
provides the means of a charming circular 
tour from Cortina as follows: Over the 
Falzarego Pass to Andraz; thence to 
Caprile, Pescul, Fusine, Forno di Zoldo, 
Longarone, Belluno, Canal d Agordo, 
Agordo, Alleghe, and Caprile, whence the 
Falzarego Pass may be rejoined for the 
homeward run to Cortina. The new road 
over the Forcella Staulanza, it may be 



added, passes right under the foot of 
Monte Pelmo, which towers impressively 
above a well-wooded scene, and the jour 
ney throughout confers an even more inti 
mate idea of the picturesque resources of 
the Dolomites than does the Dolomiten- 
strasse itself. 

Save for the portion above Caprile, all 
this new circuit is on territory that was 
Italian even before the year 1914; but 
during and since the Great War impor 
tant developments have been effected on 
the north side of the Dolomites road, in 
the region that was once Tyrol but is now 
Venezia Tridentina. New roads have 

649 




The local road leading to the Grodner Pass. 



been built over two lofty passes, while a 
third route that was barred to motor 
vehicles has been widened and rendered 
free to all. The last named begins with 
the Campolongo Pass (6,165 feet), from 
Arabba, on the Pordoi Pass, to Corvara, a 
distance of ten miles. From there it was 
not permitted until last year to continue 
northward to Bruneck in the Pusterthal, 
and consequently few tourists took the 
trouble to go over the Campolongo to 
Corvara and retrace their wheel-tracks. 
I may mention, however, that the road 
over the pass is excellent, while the re 
moval of the embargo on the Corvara- 
Bruneck road provides an alternative 
way of entering or leaving the Dolomites 
650 



region, in lieu of the route through Tob- 
lach and Cortina. 

The two passes over which new roads 
have been built are the Grodner and the 
Sella, at altitudes of 6,970 feet and 7,277 
feet, respectively. For several reasons 
they represent a development of high im 
portance. The Grodner is another illus 
tration of the difference effected in one s 
travelling opportunities by the bridging 
of a lacuna between two cul-de-sac roads. 
There was a local road from Corvara to 
Colfusch on the one side of the great bar 
rier of the Grodnerjoch, and on the other 
a road ran from Plan to St. Ulrich and 
Waidbruck, on the Brenner route. St. 
Ulrich was the centre of the toy-making 




Nearing the summit of the Sella Pass (7,277 feet). A road built by Russian prisoners in 1915. 



industry of Tyrol, and was often visited as 
such by those who had time for a horsed 
carriage journey from Waidbruck; but the 
motorist, who naturally prefers through 
journeys, owing to the great distances he 
has to cover in a comprehensive tour, may 
henceforth take St. Ulrich in passing from 
the Brenner to the Dolomitenstrasse, and 
at the same time be under no necessity to 
go round by Bolzano (Bozen). 

Of the new road over the Grodner, it 
may be said that it is engineered on mod 
ern lines, and though the surface has not 
yet settled down it will eventually rank as 
a fine road. Unfortunately, however, the 



previously existing local road between 
Colfusch and Corvara has not as yet been 
built up in keeping with the character of 
the new pass; not only is it rough and ex 
tremely narrow, but it is intersected by 
several five-barred gates at intervals. At 
the same time, it is quite practicable for 
those who do not mind driving a short 
distance over somewhat undesirable 
ground as a means to an end. And the 
road over the Grodner affords striking 
views not only in retrospect but in pros 
pect, and one sees the Langkofel at closer 
and more impressive quarters than from 
the Pordoi side. 



652 



NEW ALPINE HIGHROADS 



Similarly the Sella group appears an 
altogether different entity as seen from 
the Sella Pass. It is massive enough, one 
would have thought, from the Pordoi 
road, but on the Sella Pass one winds 
right round it at its very base, and finds 
it to be one of the most majestic massifs 
in the Dolomites. 

The genesis of the new Sella road is 



tinued to roll down and had rendered the 
road all but impassable by July of last 
year (1921), and on the north side of the 
summit I crossed one patch of boulders, 
some fifty yards long, at considerable risk. 
A few weeks later the road had become 
impassable; in fact, I have since met a 
leading Italian official who walked over it 
in September, and who refused to believe 




Summit of the Jaufen Pass (6,869 feet). 



different from anything else in this region. 
It was built for the Austrians by Russian 
prisoners of war, in order to provide a di 
rect means of transit to the Dolomiten- 
strasse from the Brenner. Its gradients 
and corners are properly engineered, but 
there is not a full complement of channels 
for the automatic carrying off of stone- 
falls. During the war these would be 
cleared away as soon as they were formed, 
but after the armistice it . was a moot 
point as to whether the new road would 
be allowed to fall into decay or would be 
taken over and maintained by its new 
owner, Italy. Meanwhile, the stones con- 



that I had crossed it on a car until I 
showed him a series of photographs which 
I had taken at various points en route. I 
hear, however, that the Italian Govern 
ment has decided not to abandon the 
road and nothing could well be more 
foolish than to sacrifice so useful and pic 
turesque a highway; consequently one 
may hope that the road will be in prac 
ticable condition by the time the next 
touring season comes about. 

In any case the tourist in the Dolo 
mites should go up the Sella Pass from 
Canazei, even if he can get no farther, to 
enjoy the magnificent view of the Mar- 




Karneid Castle, on the Rarer Pass. 



653 



654 



NEW ALPINE HIGHROADS 



molata from the summit. It is one of the 
finest prospects in the Dolomites, and 
should on no account be missed. But if 
the road is put in order over its whole 
length the summit will be best approached 
from the Grodner side, for then the Mar- 
molata bursts dramatically into view just 
as the summit of the Sella is attained. 
A barred road which is improved and 



Monte Cristallo, up which the Italians 
dragged six-inch guns and then held the 
position for two years. 

If the tourist has previously crossed 
the Ampezzo Pass on the way from Tob- 
lach to Cortina, there is no particular 
reason why he should go beyond the Lake 
of Misurina on the Tre Croci journey. 
The descent to Schluderbach is stony, 




The Mont Blanc range from the Petit St. Bernard (7,178 feet). 



thrown open to cars is of the same prac 
tical effect as a new highway in adding to 
the sum of touring convenience, and of 
the former class two noteworthy examples 
must be mentioned. The motorist is now 
free to make a round trip from Cortina 
over the Tre Croci Pass to the Lake of 
of Misurina, descending thence to Schlu 
derbach, and then returning to Cortina 
over the Ampezzo Pass. The Tre Croci 
road has not only been widened and made 
quite suitable for motor vehicles, but is 
also highly picturesque. It runs, by the 
way, close up to the base of the rugged 



and it is preferable to turn the car around 
by the lake and return to Cortina. 

Another road which was closed to cars 
while under the Austrian regime, but has 
been thrown open by the Italians, is the 
Karer or Costalunga Pass. This, it may 
be remembered, was part of the Dolo 
mites Road itself, but motorists had per 
force to make a detour by the San Lugano 
Pass when proceeding to or from Bozen, 
and only knew the Pordoi and Falzarego 
sections of the Dolomitenstrasse. 

The Karer Pass is not particularly in 
teresting on the east side, nor at the sum- 



NEW ALPINE HIGHROADS 



655 



mit, but is very attractive between the 
latter and Bolzano. There is first the 
Rarer Lake to be inspected, nestling in a 
wood below the level of the highway. It 
is only a pond in size, but its coloring is 
wonderful, reflecting every shade from 
emerald-green to lapis lazuli blue. Then 
comes the Latemar mountain group, seen 
to remarkable advantage through the 



acted on the Jaufen and the Campiglio 
Passes, as well as on the Karer and in the 
town of Bolzano itself. In every case, 
however, where the tolls exist the road 
surface is less satisfactory than on the 
toll-free roads. I can only assume that 
national assistance is accorded to certain 
roads and that the maintenance of others 
devolves upon the locality; and, as the 




A scene immediately below the summit of the Stelvio Pass (9,041 feet). 



trees at one point on the descent; and 
lower down, in the Eggenthal defile, there 
is a memorable picture of the castle of 
Karneid standing high upon a rock. For 
the future the San Lugano route, which is 
not essentially picturesque, may be dis 
carded in favor of the Karer Pass. The 
road itself, it may be added, is good on 
the west side, but more stony than is de 
sirable between the summit and Vigo, al 
though tolls are levied twice between 
Vigo and Bolzano. 

Mention of tolls leads me to state that 
these have been abandoned on the Por- 
doi and the Falzarego, but are still ex- 



Dolomite district suffered heavily during 
the war, administrative funds are none 
too plentiful. There is another road, by 
the way, on which a toll is charged 
namely, from Lavis, above Trento, to 
Cembra and Cavalese, and I found it 
very bad, but it would probably have 
been even worse, or closed altogether to 
motor-cars, if no toll had been imposed. 
The fact remains, however, that the 
post-war condition of the Alpine roads is 
for the most part vastly better than might 
have been expected. Only the Jaufen 
Pass displayed a lower quality of surface 
than on previous visits. The Stelvio was 




For taking a photo at this spot on the Tonale Pass in 1900 the author was 

detained in a fortress. 



as wonderful as ever, the surface of the 
road throughout being splendid, albeit 
one could see, as on all the ex-Austrian 
passes, adjoining trenches, dugouts, and 
the remains of barbed-wire entangle 
ments, while the custom-house at the ac 
tual summit was in ruins. A notice-board 
warned the wayfarer not to approach too 
near by reason of the presence of asphyxi 
ating gas shells. 

Other Italian roads which had surfaces 

like billiard-tables were the Broccone, 

the Gobera, the Mendel, the Brenner, the 

Reschen-Scheideck, the Ampezzo, the 

656 



Campolongo, the Pordoi, the Col de 
Sestrieres, and the Tonale. I shall never 
forget the glorious romp up the first- 
named one of the last and best engi 
neered roads built by the Austrians before 
the war although the ascent was pref 
aced by a momentary qualm, when one 
found the central arches of the great 
bridge at the foot blown entirely away, 
presumably by a retreating force. A 
temporary structure and a temporary 
road, however, were discovered lower 
down the river, and the pass was gained 
after a short, if somewhat awkward, de- 




This is all that is left of the fortress in which the author was interned in igog 

by the Austrians. 



tour. On the south side of the pass, again, 
it seemed as if one had reached an impasse, 
for reparation work was being carried on 
to such an extent that the main street of 
a village was all but blocked with mason 
ry. However, it was possible to wriggle 
through the obstructions, and I doubt not 
but that here and everywhere else in the 
Dolomite area the destructive effects of 
artillery warfare will have disappeared 
completely before the coming summer. 

Especially gratifying was the state of 
things on the Tonale Pass. I had ex 
pected to find it in poor condition, if open 
VOL. LXXL 42 



to traffic at all, as part of this fine high 
way had been shot away during the war. 
Artillery fighting on this route was seri 
ous, and no fewer than 6,000 Italian sol 
diers were blinded by the effects of shell- 
fire among the rocks. The town of Ponte 
di Legno, moreover, was badly battered. 
It has nearly all been rebuilt, however, 
while the surface of the road is perfect. 
At 4,000 feet on the way up the pass 
I saw the remnants of the fort of Strino,, 
in which I had a temporarily disconcert 
ing but amusing experience in 1909. Two 
or three hundred yards before it is reached 

657 



658 



NEW ALPINE HIGHROADS 



there is a glorious view of the Presanella 
peaks and glaciers, which I duly photo 
graphed, not knowing that there was a 
fort around the corner. A sentry had 
seen me wield the camera, and falsely re 
ported that I had photographed the fort 
itself a physical impossibility from 
where I stood. When I had reached the 



less. Twelve years later I photographed 
the mountains and the dismantled fort, 
with melancholy satisfaction. 

Touring, I may mention in passing, is 
now vastly more pleasurable in the region 
of the Dolomites and the approaches to 
Tyrol by reason of the fact that they are 
all under one government, and there are, 




The Pont du Berard (6,049 feet) on the Col du Parpaillon (8,671 feet). A rickety 
bridge and u i$ per cent gradient. 



top of the pass, where the Austrian cus 
tom-house formerly stood it is now in 
ruins a telephone order had been re 
ceived from the fort to send the car back. 
The descent was somewhat comic, as a 
couple of infantrymen boarded the ve 
hicle a short way down, and stood pre 
cariously on the springs at the back like 
a couple of footmen. On reaching the 
fort, moreover, I found a squad of sol 
diers across the road, presenting fixed 
bayonets at the tires of the car. Nothing 
more unpleasant happened, however, 
than the compulsory development of my 
negatives to prove that they were harm- 



therefore, no customs barriers to be 
crossed. Until Venezia Tridentina was 
created as a new Italian province, the 
Austro-Italian frontier ran through the 
very heart of the Dolomites. One had 
to pass two custom-houses if approaching 
Cortina from the south, or leaving the 
Via Ampezzo by the Delia Mauria, and 
again on the Tre Croci Pass, and though 
there was no motoring road to Caprile, 
any one who entered it on foot from the 
north had a frontier to cross. Then there 
was the Tonale to be reckoned with, while 
the Stelvio had also a frontier line at its 
summit. In the old davs it was even 



NEW ALPINE HIGHROADS 



659 



worse, for until the road over the Broc- 
cone Pass was built one had to cross two 
frontiers to reach the Rolle Pass. Now, 
however, every pass in what was once 
Tyrol is entirely Italian save for the 
northern half of the Brenner, and one may 
journey over all the most beautiful moun 
tain roads east of France and Switzerland 



berg Pass. Now that the Dolomites are 
Italian the simple course is to confine 
one s journey to France and Italy in the 
main, and merely cross Switzerland by 
way of the Rhone Valley and the Simplon 
Pass. 

Still, if one wishes to see more of Swit 
zerland by road than has aforetimes been 




The third stonefall on the Col du Parpaillon, about 8,000 feet up. 



without having to consider custom-houses 
at all, once Italy has been entered from 
the west. 

Nor is this all that has to be said con 
cerning the enhanced resources of the 
motoring mountaineer. The fact that the 
long-standing embargo on certain Swiss 
passes has at last been removed has in 
creased materially the tourist s opportuni 
ties of varying his routes. The gain is not 
so great, perhaps, as it would have been 
if effected earlier, for Tyrol was formerly 
one s chief objective, and as one had per 
force an Austrian triptych it was nat 
ural to enter or leave Austria by the Arl- 



feasible, there is a considerable tract of 
new country to be visited. Instead of 
turning off the Rhone Valley at Brigue, 
for the Simplon Pass, one may continue 
in a straight line to the Rhone Glacier 
and cross the Furka and the Grimse!, 
The Klausen Pass, moreover, which 
would have been highly useful to any one 
proceeding to the Arlberg, is now open to 
automobiles under certain conditions, but 
will not be extensively used by the aver 
age tourist from the west. As for the 
Grand St. Bernard, the fact that it is now 
free is a noteworthy concession, though 
the route is much less picturesque than 



660 



XFAV ALPINE HIGHROADS 



the Petit St. Bernard, and the surface is 
somewhat rough. Of automobile locomo 
tion in Switzerland generally, I may say 
that it is still subject in parts to total or 
partial embargoes, too numerous to de 
tail, but every tourist who enters the 
country with a car is handed a manual, 
for which a charge of three francs is made, 
and which sets forth in full all the regula 
tions as to Sunday travelling and barred 
roads throughout the whole country. 

As for France, the Alpine roads are 
more numerous than ever, and mostly in 
grand condition. Nothing could be 
better than the route from Grenoble to 
Turin by way of the Col du Lautaret, 
Mont Genevre and the Col de Sestrieres. 
The new road over the Col de la Cayolle 
is now available, though I like it less than 
the alternative route over the Col d Allos. 
The north side of the Col du Galibier was 
not in good condition in 1921, but is mag 
nificently picturesque at all times and 
worth a somewhat adventurous journey. 
One road there is, however, which should 
be definitely avoided, and that is the 
strategical route over the Col du Par- 
paillon, the highest road in France. It 
has been allowed to lapse into a terrible 
state of disrepair, being of little or no 
military importance, and though I crossed 



it in a sporting spirit last year I found it 
blocked, in four places, with avalanche 
falls which had to be severally cleared 
away by gangs of laborers before I could 
proceed. In many places, moreover, the 
"road" was barely as wide as the car, 
and had unfenced and crumbling edges 
throughout. 

Inasmuch, however, as the Parpaillon 
road is not conspicuously beautiful, and 
inasmuch as it is a mere side road which 
is in no way essential to a through jour 
ney, the fact that it is undesirable as a 
climb is of no particular consequence. It 
serves, indeed, by force of contrast, to 
emphasize the excellence of the majority 
of the Alpine highroads. Their charms 
are as great as ever, and even intensified 
after years of enforced absence owing to 
the war; incidentally, I may mention that 
I have never seen wild flowers by the road 
side in such prodigal array as during 1921. 
The available routes are more numerous, 
as we have seen, than in 1914, and fron 
tier formalities are much less frequently 
encountered. Gasolene is everywhere 
obtainable, and garages are to be found 
in plenty. Everything, in fact, points to 
a great revival in Alpine motoring, un 
questionably the finest of all forms of 
touring. 



ALPIM: PASSES LOCALITY AND ALTITUDE 



ALTITUDE 



PASS 

Stelvio, 

Col du Parpaillon, 

Col du Galibier, 

Grand St. Bernard, 

Col d Izouard, 

Col de la Cayolle, 

Pordoi, 

Col d Allos, 

Sella, 

Petit St. Bernard, 

Grodner. 

Col de Yars, 

Falzarego, 

Jaufen, 

Col du Lautaret, 

Col de Sestrieres, 

Simplon, 

Rolle. 

Tonale. 

Campolongo, 

Mont Genevre, 

Tre Croci, 

Forcella Staulanza, 

Costalunga, 



LOCALITY 


IN FEET 


Italian, 


9,041 


French, 


8,671 


French, 


8,530 


Swiss-Italian, 


8,110 


French, 


7,903 


French, 


7,716 


Italian, 


7.382 


French, 


7,382 


Italian, 


7,277 


French-Italian, 


7,178 


Italian, 


6,970 


French, 


6,939 


Italian, 


6,913 


Italian, 


6,869 


French, 


.700 


Italian, 


6,660 


Swiss-Italian, 


6,594 


] talian, 


6,424 


Italian, 


6,181 


Italian, 


6,165 


French-Italian, 


6,100 


Italian, 


5,93 


Italian, 


5,8i7 


Italian, 





I ASS 

Campiglio, 

Broccone, 

Col de Viste, 

Ampezzo, 

Col des Aravis, 

Reschen-Scheideck, 

Brenner, 

Mendel, 

Col de Porte, 

Col de la Faucille, 

Col de St. Cergues, 

Toblach, 

Aprica, 

Col du Cucheron, 

Col de Plainpalais, 

Col du P rene, 

San Lugano, 

Gobera, 

Col de Savine, 

Col de Leschaux, 

Col du Mont Sion, 

Col de Vence, 

Col du Chat, 



LOCALITY 



ALT/TUDK 
IN FEET 



Italian, 


5,4i3 


Italian, 


5,35 


French, 


5,266 


Italian, 


5,065 


French, 


4,9 J 5 


Italian, 


4,901 


Italian- Austrian, 


4,495 


Italian, 


4,475 


French, 


4,429 


French, 


4,33i 


Swiss, 


4,051 


Italian, 


3,965 


Italian, 


3,875 


French, 


3,871 


French, 


3,871 


French, 


3,818 


Italian, 


3,599 


Italian, 


3,339 


French, 


3,248 


French, 


2,966 


French, 


2,592 


French, 


2,461 


French, 


2,100 




From a photograph copyright by Harris & facing. 

Headquarters of the National Woman s Party, facing the Capitol at Washington, D. C. 



The Prison Special 

MEMORIES OF A MILITANT 



BY LOUISINE W. HAVEMEYER 



Il.I.rSTKAT/OXS ! KO.M I JIOTOliRAPHS 



[SECOND r.U KR 




HE ship flashed out its 
lights up to the very 
night before our defeat 
in 1914. It had been 
a great campaign and 
had developed our po 
litical instincts, it had 
" toughened our sinews 
and summoned up our blood" for the 
greater campaign to come when we had 
become a National Woman s Party, with 
Susan B. Anthony s federal amendment 
as our only platform; when a little band 
of women had to fight an administration 
and a political organization armed cap-a- 
pie against them. 

Now, every one knows that it needs a 
great deal of money to carry on a political 
campaign. Publicity is the great active 



agency, always publicity, publicity ! You 
must keep your cause always before the 
public, and in some way or another you 
must get the public interested in your 
cause. 

The Congressional Woman s Party 
(which started in 1913 and became in 
1916 the National Woman s Party) was 
headed by Alice Paul, a remarkable 
young woman of Quaker descent, inherit 
ing the valiant, stern determination of her 
sect and gifted with a wonderfully keen 
political instinct. 

When she assumed the head of the 
National W T oman s Party, she had worked 
for some time with the Militant Party in 
England, but her efforts here were un 
flinchingly directed to the passage of the 
Susan B. Anthony amendment, which 

66 1 



662 THE PRISON SPECIAL 

said: "The rights of citizens to vote shall Well, the President voted, but whom it 

not be denied or abridged in the United helped most you can better judge for 

States, or in any State, on account of sex." yourself when I tell you that only one 

Her intimate knowledge of the President s other man voted for us in his precinct; 

attitude toward us convinced her that but the next autumn, in his presidential 

only drastic measures would avail.- She campaign, one of the slogans was: "Vote 

felt that women would have to make a su- for Wilson ! He is for suffrage ! He voted 

preme sacrifice would have to conquer in for it in New Jersey . 

a hard battle or go under. Through the Alice Paul made appeal after appeal 

entire campaign Alice Paul uncompromis- to the President, but she brought back 

ingly held the party in power responsible to us nothing but hopeless disappoint- 

for the fate of the amendment. ments. In 1916 she sent the "Suffrage 

In order to make you understand the Special" to the Western States begging 

situation, I must, as concisely as possible, the enfranchised women of the West to 

speak of the President and his attitude help us*with their votes. This "Special," 

toward us during our struggle. The Presi- after a successful trip, with receptions, 

dent dominated in Washington; he had demonstrations, and publicity of all kinds, 

a Democratic Congress supinely yielding ended in June, 1916, in Chicago, where the 

to his will. We were opposed by a Presi- Republican convention was held. Then 

dent who felt himself absolute, and to and there the National Woman s Party 

whom the thought of mobilized woman- was formed; as I have said, it was a step 

power was as a red rag to an infuriated which politicians called an astute political 

bull. His education and commitment to move, and in truth it seemed so, for each 

suffrage was a long and difficult task, political party, almost at once, adopted a 

When the President was asked to help suffrage plank in its platforms, 

suffrage in 1913 he answered that "suf- The end, however, was not in sight; the 

frage was a question to which he had amendment was not passed until three 

given no thought." years later. There was a strong feeling in 

Immediately work was begun and car- many of the States against the amend- 

ried on so vigorously that in 1915, when ment, and a desire for each State to 

the four Eastern States, New York, Penn- settle the matter for itself through a 

sylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, referendum. There were strong advoca- 

made an effort to acquire suffrage through cates both for and against the amend- 

a referendum to the voters of each State, ment, but the opposition to it in Wash- 

the President, at the last moment, decided ington was intensely bitter on account of 

he would cast his vote for the referendum the administration s attitude. 

in New Jersey himself. My intention is not to give you a his- 

I well remember that campaign ! It tory of suffrage. Others will do that far 
illustrates how little we had to hope from better than I can; they will tell you "of 
our President. The last mass-meeting the underlying strategy" which often in- 
had been called for New Jersey, "the fluenced Miss Paul s plans, often caused 
antis" had even called off their workers, her to put on more pressure; they will 
knowing our cause was lost; but we val- describe to you that renowned room in the 
iantly kept on; the round-up was in Hack- "Little White House," as our headquar- 
ensack, where we gave a big luncheon and ters were called, where every one who 
held a huge mass-meeting in the evening, could affect suffrage had his record kept 
Doctor Anna Shaw and I were to be the of his words and attitude, of his actions 
speakers. At the luncheon it was an- for or against our cause; and the testi- 
nounced, for the first time, and as a great mony of those little slips of paper some- 
bit of news, that the President had said times made it a dangerous thing for the 
he would come out for suffrage and vote offender to be a candidate for re-election, 
for it upon Election Day. I recall saying Naturally the scene of action was trans- 
at the mass-meeting that for once I could f erred to Washington. The National 
wish the incumbent in the White House Woman s Party, after difficulties which 
had been a woman, for she would not have were deliberately thrown in its way and 
been able to have kept her secret so long, which would have discouraged any less 



THE PRISON SPECIAL 



663 



valiant body of women, secured a building 
for headquarters on Lafayette Square, a 
small park directly in front of the White 
House. From these headquarters issued 
the women who were to carry the banners 
with Wilson s contradictory words upon 
them, and to picket the President; the 
women who were to make demonstrations 



Nevertheless, when Miss Paul called 
me up from Washington and asked me 
to take part in a demonstration, and to 
bring my "grip" in case we should have 
to go to prison, I did just as she requested, 
for how could I do less with such examples 
before me! I asked the family if they 
needed me, and told them I was going to 



MS MRTY 




A group of suffragists who wore imprisoned for picketing 



in the park at Lafayette s statue; those 
who were to burn the President s empty 
words without facts spoken in Paris ; and 
lastly those who were to take part in that 
demonstration on the Sunday afternoon 
before our last defeat in a Democratic 
Congress and which led to The Prison 
Special, that entering wedge which helped 
to pass the amendment a few months later 
when the new Republican Congress had 
assembled in Washington. 

That last demonstration was the one I 
took part in the only one for I had al 
ways laughingly said to Miss Paul: "No 
picketing and no prison for me. I don t 
like the thought of either one." 



Washington for a few days. Our list of 
requirements was simple, a warm wrapper 
and a bottle of disinfectants. As I made 
my way toward headquarters, I noticed 
there was much activitv on Lafavette 

> 

Square, where groups of men and women 
were talking excitedly; other groups had 
assembled by the watch-fires which were 
always kept alive before the Little \Vhite 
House, to burn the President s faithless 
words. A great crowd had lined up on 
Pennsylvania Avenue. Something was to 
happen ! There was too much prepara 
tion and expectancy to doubt that. My 
heart began to beat, for I had no more 
taste for my job than Ancient Pistol had 



664 



THE PRISON SPECIAL 



for his leek. "Oh, there is Mrs. Have- 
meyer now ! " I heard several exclaim as 
I entered the Little White House. " Mrs. 
Havemeyer, Miss Paul is looking for 
you!" 

I put down my "grip," which hurt my 
arm, and stiffened up a bit, for there was 
a call-to-arms look about the women, 
and no one likes to be a slacker! Alice 
Paul took me into her office and explained 
that while there was still hope that the 
Senate might pass the amendment on the 
morrow, the chances were against us. The 
President had sent no help from Paris; 
she said she deemed it best to make the 
demonstration. If the amendment were 
to go through, the probability was they 
would not arrest us, and no harm would 
be done. If not, they would arrest us, the 
country would be inflamed through pub 
licity, and we would start as soon as 
we were released on the Prison Special, 
and seek supporters of the suffrage 
amendment from coast to coast to come 
to our aid. 

As Miss Paul finished she said: "We 
need you, Mrs. Havemeyer, for our 
speaker on the Prison Special. If you re 
main in prison only a short time, you are 
qualified; of course, all the members of 
the Special must have been in prison. 
Now, will you carry the American flag 
and lead the procession? I think the 
crowd will be friendly, although it is 
known we are going to burn the President 
in effigy. We have to do something dras 
tic, or they the administration, who are 
beginning to feel uneasy under criticism 
of their treatment of American women 
won t fight us." Alice Paul looked at me 
with her great dark, earnest eyes and the 
little ninety-pound figure was erect and 
expectant. 

"Yes," I answered. "What am I to 
do?" 

"Lucy Burns has charge of the demon 
strations. Do as she says, and leave your 
bag where we can send it to you." 

Well, there I was can you imagine 
how I felt? heading the demonstration, 
when fifteen minutes before the very 
thought of it had sent my heart beating 
as I saw the crowd assembling in the 
square. There were many of us there; I 
cannot venture to say how many ; I think 
a hundred went out. All were greeting me 



and I was trying to look unconcerned, but 
I assure you I don t think I ever had such 
a struggle for poise in my life. Fortunate 
ly, it did not last long, for suddenly Lucy 
Burns put a flag in my hand and said: 

"Mrs. Havemeyer, start right on. Go 
to the end of the square, cross the trolley 
and go down Pennsylvania Avenue and 
stop directly in front of the White House ; 
say what you have already said about 
women demanding their freedom. It 
doesn t matter much what you say. We 
have your written speech here for the 
press. Sue White will take charge of 
burning the effigy and leave the rest to 
me." 

Sue White, a bright mischievous chair 
man from Tennessee, gave me a peep at 
the effigy, which was nothing more than 
a small cartoon of the President, making 
some unkept promise as usual. Then the 
word to start was given. I stepped out 
and I instantly felt as placid and calm as 
if I were going out to play croquet on a 
summer afternoon. I crossed the trolley 
and turned down Pennsylvania Avenue. 
The crowd was dense/but I felt the mid 
dle of the Avenue was the only place for 
this demonstration, and I headed right at 
the crowd. They fell back on each side 
and it was fine, I can assure you. I lifted 
my head high and my flag higher, and 
looked about. I even began to think, 
which reassured me, for at first it seemed 
as if my brain just would not function. I 
saw a line of policemen so long that in the 
perspective it made them appear small. 
Also there were many of the military 
police, but they remained at a distance. 
My attention was attracted by something 
bright shining upon the pavement and I 
observed rows upon rows of fire-extin 
guishers. Those fire-extinguishers, to my 
astonishment, saved the day for me ! 
What could they be there for, what part 
were they going to play in the demonstra 
tion ? Was this to be a game between the 
bluecoats and the petticoats? I was so 
interested, I almost forgot my part. It 
was Lucy Burns who "put me on the 
game" again: 

"Here we are, Mrs. Havemeyer ! Now 
your speech," she said. I stopped sud 
denly. I planted my feet firmly, held up 
my flag, and very deliberately repeated 
our message to the President and people, 



^v 

while a great round, red-faced police cap 
tain with the brightest of gold braid and 
buttons stared at me, without opening his 
mouth. It was a jolly, good-natured cap 
tain of the administration who remained 
my faithful "serviteur" and well-wisher 
as long as he lived poor fellow, he died 
the following year. The game began. I 
withdrew to the railing to protect my flag 
and await developments. An urn about 
as big as a twelve -inch flower-pot was 
produced and placed upon the ground, 



Pai arv) 

THE PRISON SPECIAL 
4 "~^ 



665 



and dragged their resisting leaders across 
Pennsylvania Avenue to the curb, when 
quickly another row began and my atten 
tion was drawn to the curb. The mili 
tary captain was taking a hand in the 
game, and in our favor, too. He tackled 
"old Flathers, " the chief of police, and let 
him know jolly well he had fumbled. His 
patrol, the military patrol ! It was not 
there to be used by Flathers to take wo 
men to jail. Let him get his own patrol- 
wagon, he said. It was not his job to 




The arrest of suffragists. 
Thirty-nine of us were arrested that afternoon and taken to the station-house. Page 666. 



and a fire started in it; then the bluecoats 
rushed upon it, but the petticoats were 
too much for them. The fire brindled and 
kindled and crackled as if Logi the fire- 
god himself were on our side. The blue- 
coats became rough and the extinguishers 
were called into service, and played not 
only upon the fire but upon the women. 
I saw Sue White at the urn the flames 
flashed. She gave me a nod; I knew the 
deed was done. The bluecoats were grab 
bing at everything in sight, hoping, I pre 
sume, to salvage the effigy, but what 
could you expect with those active little 
fire-extinguishers shooting in all direc 
tions, and so many brass buttons, so many 
yards of gold braid to be protected ! The 
insignia, the great insignia, all that was 
left of manhood and the dignity of their 
rank, was to be guarded; and, not getting 
the effigy, they grabbed at the women 



arrest women, nor his men s either, and 
he wouldn t do it. And, bowing politely 
to the ladies, he helped them out of the 
patrol- wagon. The women remained long 
enough to give him a salvo of applause, 
and then in a brilliant dash were back at 
the game in an instant. 

Lucy Burns came to where I stood 
watching it all and said: "Now, Mrs. 
Havemeyer, I think it is time for you. 
Will you take this bundle and strike a 
match to it?" 

"Of course I will," I said. "Shall I 
throw it on the urn?" 

"Yes," she answered. "You can push 
those bits of lighted wood up with your 
foot, too." 

I tried to light the match; it broke, 
and Flathers caught sight of me. In an 
instant he was by our side. "Please, 
Miss Burns," he pleaded, "don t let her 



666 



THE PRISON SPECIAL 



" 



her. Please don t. . 

"Go on, Mrs. Havemeyer," said Lucy 
Burns, absolutely ignoring Flathers. 
"Don t pay any attention to him. Here, 
take this," for another bundle appeared 



doit! You know we don t want to take patrol-wagon, Avhich by this time had 

come up from the station and was full of 
prisoners. 

Thirty-nine of us were arrested that 
afternoon and taken to the station-house. 
How can I describe all that happened in 
the next two or three days ! 
As soon as we entered the 
station-house, one of our 
members, an athletic young 
woman, took "French 
leave." Her excuse to us 
was she w r as "heeded at 
headquarters." Political 
prisoners we never failed to 
consider ourselves, although 
subjected to infamous treat 
ment as common criminals. 
As we waited in the en 
trance-hall of the police sta 
tion the captain disappeared, 
and one of our party fol 
lowed him up and reported 
he was talking with the 
White House. Of course, 
only Tumulty was there, as 
the President was in Paris. 
A woman reported she had 
heard Flathers reply to a 
question over the phone, pre 
sumably from the White 
House. "Oh, indeed, sir, it 
is hard to tell, but a great 
many. They won t stand 
still long enough for us to 
count them. I guess there 
are a hundred." 

The police wanted instruc 
tions. The plot began to 
thicken and we began to 
scare the authorities by our 
number. What should, 
would, or could they do with 

from nowhere and another, an endless, us? Thirty-nine women! The greater 
ever-ready supply coming to us as if by part having had experience and knowing 
magic. Poor old Flathers! He almost and intending to exact their rights as to 
wrung his hands, and implored Lucy lodging and food. It was Sunday, every 
Burns to call me off, but I, knowing I had place was filled, and the house of deten- 
to qualify for speaker for the Prison Spe- tion was overflowing with the Saturday s 
cial, kept on throwing bundle after bundle crowd. The country was pretty well 
toward the urn. I whispered to Lucy 
Burns : "I believe I will have to kick him, 
to keep in the game." Then Flathers 
said with a groan : " Well, if you will have 
it, here, take her," and he laid his hand 




The District of Columbia Workhouse in which the suffragists 
were imprisoned. 

They put us in a jail discarded ten years before as unfit to hold 
a human being. Page 670. 



upon my shoulder and I was led to his 



aroused at the treatment and the abuse 
of their women at Occoquan, and the 
great club of publicity was in our hands 
and we were only waiting for an oppor- 
tunity to brandish it. 

After an hour or two of consultations 




A huge room, long and high, with dirty, impenetrable windows ... a steel box like another black Maria, 
with stairs at one end leading to many rows of galleries giving entrance to the cells. Page 670. 



by telephone and parleys, during which 
time the officers would come in to look at 
us and endeavor to identify us, so as to 
be able to make a charge in court against 
us the next morning, Captain Flathers 
finally announced to us that we were to 
occupy the police dormitory on the second 
floor of the station-house and that it 
would oon be ready for us. "And," he 
added, "ladies, I want you to come and 
see the beds made yourselves. Don t say 
they are not clean. I will hold my flash 
light on them while you look." 

"Very well, captain, but how about 
our supper?" asked Lucy Burns. 

"Oh, we don t feed you," he said de 
spairingly. 

"Oh, yes, you do," answered Lucy 
Burns; "milk and sandwiches to-night 
and poached eggs and coffee for break 
fast." 

The captain capitulated and sent for 
milk and sandwiches. After the inspec 
tion of the beds one member said face 
tiously to Captain Flathers: "You make 
us so comfortable, captain, I think we will 
want to spend thirty days with you." He 
clapped his hands to his head and fled 
without a word. After supper, reinforced 
by good things from the kitchen at head 
quarters for Alice Paul was too good a 
general not to look after the welfare of her 



fighting forces (and here let me say that 
the hilarity and the simple jokes and re 
marks were in reality proof of the strain 
we were under, for prison and a hunger 
strike are still formidable to the oldest 
and most hardened campaigner) we 
were taken to our quarters by the matron 
who was detailed to guard us, a suffragist 
herself, with nine children. It was not 
bad at all beds and lockers, that was all, 
and a clean fairly clean lavatory just 
outside. I was given the choice of beds. 
I could close my eyes and choose, as there 
was no choice. They all seemed to think 
I should mind it, but they didn t know 
how tired I was. 

"If I had about twenty more feathers 
in my pillow I should sleep like a farmer 
all night," I said. 

"Oh, Mrs. Havemeyer, take my pillow. 
I never use one," and a dear little slip of 
a factory worker passed hers over to me. 
Two years later, when I was speaking in 
Pennsylvania, she timidly came up to me 
and asked me if I remembered her. As if 
I could ever forget her, the dear child 
fighting for woman s freedom ! The win 
dows were flung wide open ; the matron 
turned out the lights, and I had not time 
enough to connect up my thoughts from 
Fifth Avenue to jail before I fell asleep. 

"Ladies ! Arise ! " It was the voice of 

667 



666 



THE PRISON SPECIAL 



doit! You know we don t want to take patrol-wagon, which by this time had 
her. Please don t. ..." come up from the station and was full of 

"Go on, Mrs. Havemeyer," said Lucy prisoners. 

Burns, absolutely ignoring Flathers. Thirty-nine of us were arrested that 
"Don t pay any attention to him. Here, afternoon and taken to the station-house, 
take this," for another bundle appeared How can I describe all that happened in 

the next two or three days ! 
As soon as we entered the 
station-house, one of our 
members, an athletic young 
woman, took "French 
leave/ Her excuse to us 
was she was "needed at 
headquarters." Political 
prisoners we never failed to 
consider ourselves, although 
subjected to infamous treat 
ment as common criminals. 
As we waited in the en 
trance-hall of the police sta 
tion the captain disappeared, 
and one of our party fol 
lowed him up and reported 
he was talking with the 
White House. Of course, 
only Tumulty was there, as 
the President was in Paris. 
A woman reported she had 
heard Flathers reply to a 
question over the phone, pre 
sumably from the White 
House. "Oh, indeed, sir, it 
is hard to tell, but a great 
many. They won t stand 
still long enough for us to 
count them. I guess there 
are a hundred." 

The police wanted instruc 
tions. The plot began to 
thicken and we began to 
scare the authorities by our 
number. What should, 
would, or could they do with 

from nowhere and another, an endless, us ? Thirty-nine women ! The greater 
ever-ready supply coming to us as if by part having had experience and knowing 
magic. Poor old Flathers! He almost and intending to exact their rights as to 
wrung his hands, and implored Lucy lodging and food. It was Sunday, every 
Burns to call me off, but I, knowing I had place was filled, and the house of deten- 
to qualify for speaker for the Prison Spe- tion was overflowing with the Saturday s 
cial, kept on throwing bundle after bundle crowd. The country was pretty well 
toward the urn. I whispered to Lucy 
Burns: " I believe I will have to kick him, 
to keep in the game." Then Flathers 
said with a groan : " Well, if you will have 
it, here, take her," and he laid his hand 




The District of Columbia Workhouse in which the suffragists 
were imprisoned. 

They put us in a jail discarded ten years before as unfit to hold 
a human being. Page 670. 



upon my shoulder and I was led to his 



aroused at the treatment and the abuse 
of their women at Occoquan, and the 
great club of publicity was in our hands 
and we were only waiting for an oppor 
tunity to brandish it. 
After an hour or two of consultations 




A huge room, long and high, with dirty, impenetrable windows ... a steel box like another black Maria, 
with stairs at one end leading to many rows of galleries giving entrance to the cells. Page 670. 



by telephone and parleys, during which 
time the officers would come in to look at 
us and endeavor to identify us, so as to 
be able to make a charge in court against 
us the next morning, Captain Flathers 
finally announced to us that we were to 
occupy the police dormitory on the second 
floor of the station-house and that it 
would Soon be ready for us. "And," he 
added, "ladies, I want you to come and 
see the beds made yourselves. Don t say 
they are not clean. I will hold my flash 
light on them while you look." 

"Very well, captain, but how about 
our supper?" asked Lucy Burns. 

"Oh, we don t feed you," he said de 
spairingly. 

"Oh, yes, you do," answered Lucy 
Burns; "milk and sandwiches to-night 
and poached eggs and coffee for break 
fast." 

The captain capitulated and sent for 
milk and sandwiches. After the inspec 
tion of the beds one member said face 
tiously to Captain Flathers: "You make 
us so comfortable, captain, I think we will 
want to spend thirty days with you." He 
clapped his hands to his head and fled 
without a word. After supper, reinforced 
by good things from the kitchen at head 
quarters for Alice Paul was too good a 
general not to look after the welfare of her 



fighting forces (and here let me say that 
the hilarity and the simple jokes and re 
marks were in reality proof of the strain 
we were under, for prison and a hunger 
strike are still formidable to the oldest 
and most hardened campaigner) we 
were taken to our quarters by the matron 
who was detailed to guard us, a suffragist 
herself, with nine children. It was not 
bad at all beds and lockers, that was all, 
and a clean fairly clean lavatory just 
outside. I was given the choice of beds. 
I could close my eyes and choose, as there 
was no choice. They all seemed to think 
I should mind it, but they didn t know 
how tired I was. 

"If I had about twenty more feathers 
in my pillow I should sleep like a farmer 
all night," I said. 

"Oh, Mrs. Havemeyer, take my pillow. 
I never use one," and a dear little slip of 
a factory worker passed hers over to me. 
Two years later, when I was speaking in 
Pennsylvania, she timidly came up to me 
and asked me if I remembered her. As if 
I could ever forget her, the dear child 
fighting for woman s freedom ! The win 
dows were flung wide open; the matron 
turned out the lights, and I had not time 
enough to connect up my thoughts from 
Fifth Avenue to jail before I fell asleep. 

"Ladies ! Arise ! " It was the voice of 

667 



668 



THE PRISON SPECIAL 



the matron, and some one called out 
sleepily : 

"Is it seven o clock already? Oh, 
dear ! " 

I was soon dressed, for I knew I would 
have first call on the lavatory, and it 
would take a long time to do thirty-nine 
"back hairs." When ready I sat down 
upon the steps, wishing the poached eggs 
and coffee would soon come. I noticed a 



I think, before I proceed to tell you 
what happened to us, that I should state 
that the Court of Appeals, the highest 
court in the District of Columbia, decided : 
"That we had a constitutional right to 
picket and that it was illegal to arrest us, 
illegal to take us to jail, illegal to sentence 
us, and illegal to imprison us." We, of 
course, brought large damage suits, but in 
quick succession two commissioners, the 




Arrival of the Prison Special in Charleston, South Carolina, 



row of chairs had been piled up to bar the 
entrance to our dormitory and a huge 
sign had been placed on them. I looked 
at it. Some wag, I suppose, had put it 
there. It read: "No man s land! Keep 
off ! " One tardy officer tore up the stairs 
to get at his locker. He looked at me as 
I pointed to the sign, threw up his arms, 
and fled. 

We were soon in the jail attached to the 
court-house, and from the moment we 
entered the doors our hunger strike be 
gan. We were quite sure we should re 
ceive short sentences, for public opinion 
had to be respected days only, not weeks 
nor months such as hundreds of others 
of our party had received during the past 
year. 



chief of police, Captain Flathers, and 
Zinckham, the warden of the jail he 
who could not remember who planned the 
night of terror, although admitting that 
some one did died or had been removed. 
A higher court was to settle our wrongs 
and we dropped this case, as we could 
gain nothing, and it would be an expense 
to carry it on. The administration must 
assume the responsibility of these unlaw 
ful acts committed in the very heart of 
our capital, the city dedicated to law and 
justice. 

To return to the jail, we were none of 
us hungry. We were crowded into a 
small, ill- ventilated room already well 
filled with negro women, the culls of a 
night in the slums, with one or two in- 



THE PRISON SPECIAL 



669 



teresting cases which the ladies began 
investigating, hoping for future reforms. 
There we waited until two o clock, when 
Mrs. Lawrence Lewis came in from head 
quarters, telling us there wasn t a chance 
of the amendment going through, al 
though, she added with professional en 
thusiasm, "the new senator from South 
Carolina had spoken for us as if he had 
been rocked in a suffrage cradle." We 



_ I stood quietly and answered his ques 
tions only by a movement of my head 
and received my sentence. As I passed 
out I felt some one catch hold of my coat 
and pronounce my name. I turned; it 
was Captain Flathers. "Mrs. Have- 
meyer," he said; " remember if ever you 
want a friend, send for Captain Flath 
ers ! ; There was a laugh, I thanked him, 
and joined the group outside. As the 




The Prison Special arriving at Chicago, 



had expected this and knew the judge 
was only waiting for news from the capi- 
tol to send for us. We were called into 
court one by one and sentenced to "five 
dollars fine, or five days in jail." Of 
course, no one thought of paying the fine. 
When it came to my turn, a young patrol 
man took off his cap and answered the 
judge, who asked what the charge was, 
"She struck a match," looking toward 
me. Even the judge had to smile, and 
those in court told me that he said, after 
I left the courtroom, that he was in 
sympathy with us and thought we should 
have suffrage. I always said afterward 
in my speeches that I supposed, if the 
match I struck had lighted, I should 
have received a life sentence. 



door opened to let me in with the other 
prisoners, a red-haired man exclaimed 
hotly: 

"I wouldn t blame you women if you 
blew up the capitol!" 

"You are from Jersey?" I asked. 

"How did you know?" he questioned. 

"Oh," I answered, thinking of my ex 
perience at the referendum; "there are 
men and men in New Jersey. You are 
one of the men. 

The next step was to file out into the 
prison van the black Maria a huge tin 
box on its side with slits just a few on 
top for gasping air only and narrow 
seats that you slipped off of. We did not, 
for they crowded us in so tightly that 
there was one row on the seat and another 



670 THE PRISON SPECIAL 

row on that row s knees. Perhaps that Come this way. Here are the stairs to 

was a good precaution, for when we the first floor." 

started we went lickety-slip, bouncing I looked about and saw a huge room, 

around corners, bumping into the curb, long and high, with immense dirty, im- 

almost tipping over; we should have been penetrable windows. From end to end, 

black and blue if not injured if we had from floor to roof, was a steel box like an- 

had room to move. It was a long ride, other black Maria, with stairs at one end 

but we finally stopped and some one who leading to many rows of galleries giving 

had been in prison before said: entrance to the cells which were back to 

"Oh, I hope they let us out here! I back, one sheet of steel serving for walls 

don t think they would dare to put us in to both rows, to divide them. The cells 

that old jail where we were so ill last had running water, a disgusting closet, an 

summer." iron support for a straw bed, one chair, 

But they did that is just what the and no light. I tried to collect myself 

authorities did. They put us in a jail and fall in with my companions cheerful 

discarded ten years before as unfit to mood. 

hold a human being, and when they knew " I won t take the ground floor," I said ; 
that several of our members had almost "it is too damp and cold, and those great 
lost their lives there from poisonous gases doors might slip and close us all in. Those 
on a former occasion. Let those who are cells are for solitaries and work auto- 
responsible for it read these lines, and matically. Let me go up one flight," and 
may posterity judge them as they de- I chose No. 7 on the first tier. The num- 
servel bers were the only distinguishing differ- 
After a few minutes wait we started ence. An Irishman might say: "As there 
on again, and the black Maria was backed was nothing to settle, we had soon done 
up to the door of that pestilential jail. I it." As no other prisoner was bad enough 
entered with the other prisoners, and as for the administration to put there, that 
the great double doors rolled with a rusty, entire jail was to be ours. The warden, 
clanking sound and closed behind me, with a greasy, moth-eaten coat and a 
there came over me a feeling which made head to match it, had said that we were 
me plant my feet together and stiffen up to be quite alone there and he would not 
as if it were not I but the reincarnation lock the cells as a great concession ! 
of those heroic women who could rise to The truth was that there was no room 
sublime heights of sacrifice and daring, for us in the other jail and they put us in 
I would have dared anything. My very this one, and probably not a cell door 
heart stood still for an instant, and then would lock if he had tried to lock them, 
bounded beneath my ribs and crackled The floor of the jail was many feet be- 
as the sparks of indignation snapped with- low ground level, and the cells were only 
in. Where was my Uncle Sam? Where about half the width of the building, 
was the liberty my fathers fought for? This left a long, damp, dark space on 
Where the democracy our boys were fight- each side where there was a long table 
ing for? I understood what nerved the with benches. Your feet would become 
hand of Judith, what enabled Jael calm- so cold it was impossible to sit there long, 
ly to drive a nail through Sisera s wretch- and as there was no question of touching 
ed head, or the courage of Corday to the bread or the tins of soup that were 
spill the blood of the cruel French ty- placed upon the table, we huddled about 
rant. I was fairly lost in admiration of the cells, trying to make the best of it. 
the possibilities that I knew were within Although some good voices sang quartets, 
me. I felt I must "come back," and I it was a dreary outlook. Two miserable 
softly said to myself: "And our flag flies little gas-jets flickered up from below, and 
over every building in this great city ! A the windows were black, as night set in. 
flag a woman made ! Is it possible that In describing it later for the benefit of 
only men shall be allowed to wave it ?" the Prison Special, I always said: 
Some one spoke to me and I was glad, "Everything escaped but the prisoners." 
for my very soul was out of joint. "Mrs. The gas vapors from the sewers escaped; 
Havemeyer, you must choose your suite. the fumes from the furnace escaped; the 



THE PRISON SPECIAL 



671 



water escaped ; and the gas escaped. The 
guards paced up and down, opening the 
great door as some prisoners came in, to 
throw another bucket of coal on a fire 
that might have been composed of atoms. 
Still the bucketful was enough to set us 
all coughing, and I had a suspicion that 
that was what it was done for. 

I was glad to cover the dirty straw of 
my bed with a sheet and lie down, and 



democracy abroad like a belated edition 
of an evening paper, and giving it to any 
little nation that would stand still long 
enough to receive it. Even those pretty, 
languorous, long-eyed Hejazians had it. 
Any "cutie" on the other side of the At 
lantic could have it, but it was denied the 
stout-hearted American women whose 
self-sacrificing mobilization for the great 
cause was the admiration of all and 





Senator Harding listened attentively while Mrs. Havemeyer made her appeal for a solid 

Republican vote in Tennessee. 



as a dear member came in to say " Good 
night" she slipped a real little pillow she 
had smuggled in, under my head, and I 
was alone in a prison and in a cell, and 
for what? Because I demanded for my 
sisters in America the democracy our 
boys yes, our boys, for man}- of our 
members had husbands and sons in the 
trenches were fighting for. "Fighting 
to make the world safe for democracy/ 
said our President. Whose democracy? 
And who got it ? The enemy, of course ! 
Many German women were actually sit 
ting in legislative bodies, and every na 
tion in Europe had suffrage but Spain 
and France. The women of America were 
to languish in a dirt}-, discarded prison, 
because they dared to ask for their democ 
racy, while our President was hawking 



one of the wonders of the war. 1 
thought of my work for the hospitals, 
of the thousands and thousands of 
pounds of jam and other contributions 
to be sent abroad; of my work for the 
Liberty Loan, for food conservation, for 
the land army; of my taking my pictures 
down from my walls and sending them to 
the Metropolitan Museum so they might 
have a Courbet Centennial Exhibition as 
requested by the French Government: 
and I almost laughed as I said aloud: 

"And here I am, lying on an armful of 
dirty straw." 

"Are you all right, Mrs. Havemeyer?" 
called out my neighbor in the adjoining 
cell. 

"Yes, fine," I called back. "But isn t 
it too funny? 



672 



THE PRISON SPECIAL 



If you intend doing anything out of in the headlines on the front page, and I 

the ordinary, you better take a look at do admit it was hard for my children to 

the "family tree" first. If you have not read in the morning papers that their 

any family tree, why, go ahead ; but if you little mother was in prison. But those 

have one of those wide-spreading, inter- telegrams, oh, those telegrams ! From 

locking branching affairs with shallow, them I gleaned I had stripped the family 




"Not on your life, captain," I exclaimed. "We are not going to be photographed like that. They might 
think you were arresting me. We will be taken shaking hands." Pages 675-6. 



wabbly roots, look out; it may give you 
a lot of trouble. Mine gave me trouble. 
The next morning telegrams began to ar 
rive. I blushed as I read them, for I knew 
that Zinkham, the greasy warden of the 
prison, must have read them too, or he 
would never let me get them. Telegrams 
from everywhere and every one. I sup 
pose the Woman s Party, with professional 
instinct, had done the publicity feature of 
the demonstration in New York. I was 



tree, I had broken its branches, I had torn 
up its roots and laid it prostrate in the 
sorrowing dust. What had the whole 
treeful of innocents ever done that I 
should treat them thus? Did I realize I 
had lost my citizenship? That telegram 
forgot that citizenship (real citizenship) 
was what I was fighting for and theirs 
as well as mine ! Did I know I could 
never sign a legal check again? I didn t 
and I haven t learned it since. Did I 



THE PRISON SPECIAL 673 

know I could never, never escape being her trembling arms, as if I had come back 
on an oyster-shell in society? Sacred from the grave, I cursed our Congress 
Mammon ! the curse was crushing ! But and the administration, and the family 
there were other telegrams which did tree, and my mind made a dash to think 
hurt tore at my heart and made me de- of some reassuring words. From the 
cide to return home at once. Also there chaos of my brain cells I drew forth the 
were comforting telegrams: Was I safe? following: "But sister mine, don t you 
Could they do anything for me? Don t know John Bunyan went to prison?" 
mind us, Although we are heart-broken, That broke the ice, and I tried to explain 
f you think you should stay. And my why I went into the demonstration. I 
little grandson went sobbing to bed walked all about that prodigiously im- 
because his grandma was in prison, and portant family tree, and I didn t touch a 
he loved her so because she was "a real twig nor a leaf, nor harm it by any re- 
sport." That gave me great pleasure, mark, and my sister even laughed when 
Then another about my sister: "Aunty I told her about the darky chauffeur who 
is very ill, if you could only come to her," " couldn t find my hotel." 
etc., etc. After having been welcomed back to 

Alice Paul was perfectly satisfied that the "main" part of the family, naturally 

[ should pay for the remaining days and there were just a few who thought I could 

leave. I had done the trick and was quali- cast a prison shadow still which might 

fied for the Prison Special. I promised, if darken their escutcheon. I returned to 

I could prop up the family tree and put a my home and my own fireside, feeling a 

little life into it, I should be ready to go greater sense of fatigue than I had known, 

the following Sunday, and then I returned even in my hard campaigning days. I 

to New York. I remember I was very was glad to be alone and think it over in 

anxious to be off, and waited and waited the comfortable glow of the fire. But I 

for a taxi. When the great door was fear my brain was restless,- and suddenly 

rolled open for me, I found outside a I thought of John Bunyan. 

miserable little taxi and as miserable a "Certainly," said I; "John Bunyan 

chauffeur, a small colored boy. I was went to prison and what a good thing it 

quite cross and roundly took him to task was he did ! Without it we should never 

for being so long in answering my call. have had that good man s manual and the 

He began to excuse himself and he bad man s guide, The Pilgrim s Prog- 
stuttered badly: "You see, ma m," he ress." At least, there is one instance 
said; "I-I drove up a-a-and d-d-down, where prison helped the things of this 
but-but I c-c-couldna find your hotel!" world. " How about others ?" I queried to 
I followed his glance, for I had not seen myself. Galileo seemed to rise from the 
the outside of my "hotel" myself. It fire and passed before my mental vision, 
took but a minute to see where they in- "Ah, there s another," I said, "who 
carcerated American women that ugly feared not prison, who was willing, like 
red-brick pile. I jumped into the taxi the genial old soul he was, to let his knees 
and made for home as quickly as possible, crack as he recanted old theories, deter- 
W T hen I arrived, as my chauffeur took my mining all the time that the world should 
grip and led me to the car, I saw my move on, and the pendulum should swing, 
daughter and my little grandson had come Bravo, old Galileo, the world is much the 
to meet me. I also noticed that instead better for you and your prison experience, 
of standing by the door and waving to Who next, I wonder?" I gave the logs a 
me as usual, the little fellow was peeping sharp rap, and who appeared but Martin 
from the farthest window at me as if Luther himself, his great books under his 
he feared I might look different or be arm, his inkstand in his hand, 
changed in some dreadful way. I took "Oho," said I; "the Samson of the 
care to be quite "as usual," and made no Middle Ages. He who feared neither 
reference at all to prison and he was soon Pope nor devil. If all Protestant people 
on my knee and we were chatting merrily from his day to this can take their prayer- 
together. I went at once to my sister, books in their hands and worship God as 
who was really ill, and as she held me in they see fit, without regard to creed or 
VOL. LXXL 43 



674 THE PRISON SPECIAL 

sect, they owe it to Martin Luther, the ship of the car, the arrangements for 

man who cared naught for prison nor all each day was a little masterpiece, and, 

its bars." as far as I know, there was not a 

"But these are men," thought I. "Is hitch from start to finish. Mrs. Helen 
there no woman who was not afraid of Hill Weed made our schedule, and she 
prison to help her cause?" I glanced at showed how admirably she could do it. 
the flames. They leaped up brightly, As I used to say in my speeches: "Here 
crackling as they broke and burned. I are the militants, and nothing broken. 
saw a figure rising from them, a figure We haven t even broken down. But we 
sitting firmly upon her horse, holding aloft have broken the record, for General Sher- 
her blue banner, and her dark hair fram- man on his great march marched only to 
ing her innocent peasant face. "La Pu- one sea. We have marched to both seas 
celle, Joan! Joan of Arc!" I exclaimed, and everywhere, like him, we havfe con- 
"You are indeed she, the brave girl who quered." The time-table was so perfectly 
feared not prison, the leader of armies in arranged that my family could reach me 
the mighty assaults and attacks that level at any hour by letter, telegraph, or tele- 
all obstacles and make you victorious over phone. The special was certainly a mar- 
your foes; the tender woman nurse, as velous bit of publicity, and I don t won- 
darkness finds you on the still bleeding der it attracted the admiration of old 
battle-field; the woman of her banner political campaigners, who told us we 
and of her vision ! Ah, she knew no fear had accomplished with that Prison Spe- 
of prison ! She knew her cause only, cial what they could not accomplish with 
You, dear child, who could cry when all their millions. 

spoken to harshly by rough soldiers, you Imagine a gaily decked car with its 

could draw your sword and refuse to busy crew our press chairman dictating 

sheath it until you had crowned your to her stenographers in one stateroom; 

King and France was free ! To-day, in the treasurer and banker combined click- 

this great war, it is not to their kings nor ing her coins taken from collections, etc., 

to their generals that the French soldiers in another; the news committee selling 

cry. Joan of Arc, we re calling for you, Suffragists ; the speakers for factories or 

they sing as they move into the trenches, designated parts of a city preparing their 

or go over the top. Their woman, their speeches or writing their reports. Oh, 

guardian, their saint. Oh, Joan ! Dear and the " home " was not forgotten. We 

little martyr, the world to-day is better, could not forget that woman s place was 

much better and nobler, because there in the home. We had a housekeeper, good 

was a peasant girl in Domremy who was Edith Ainge, a co-campaigner with me in 

not afraid of prison." the lost referendum days in New York in 

1915. She shared my stateroom. Ad- 

The next week with only the qualified ministering hot-water bags, pills of all 

consent of the "family tree," which by dimensions, headache powders, bandages, 

this time had stiffened up a little from its and simple remedies of all sorts, it was 

storm-and-stress experiences, I again took her mission also to call us down on neat- 

my grip and started for Washington. I ness and order. She was a marvel at 

had just time to board the Prison Special, dress-hooking, a good hairpin contributor 

which was about to start for its trans- and custodian of lost articles. She was 

continental trip. The car accommodated also the presiding judge of fair play when 

twenty-nine and there were twenty-nine we had but one room in a hotel, and that 

of us on board. (The judge, after sen- for a few hours only, and there were ap- 

tencing twenty-nine, asked how many plicants for twenty-nine baths with one 

more remained, and when told the num- tub, and twenty-nine naps with one bed; 

ber dismissed the cases. It was all in the we could afford no more. I can see her 

day s work. He was tired and was it pos- smoothing up pillows and tidying up the 

sible justice had given out?) Each one bath. Lucky for her, we were all too busy 

was assigned a specific duty to perform; to quarrel and no matter what "private 

for the organization of that trip the opinion" might be, there was very little 

planning of our schedule, the custodian- or none of it expressed aloud. 



THE PRISON SPECIAL 675 

Our " stops "were a clever bit of polit- circumstances, in order that you may 
ical strategy, planned in headquarters, understand the little incident which hap- 
We threw out anchor in any State where pened to me in Michigan. Alice Paul de- 
senators or representatives could be won, sired to have the women make a protest 
or where it was necessary to win over to the President upon his hurried visit to 
constituents to instruct their senators or America in 1919. The President for some 
representatives in Washington. I won t reason decided to land in Boston. There- 
tire you with too many details. I was to fore, a delegation of Boston women, car- 
speak whenever Lucy Burns told me to rying banners which as usual had his 
speak and I did. I was usually placed on words inscribed upon them, lined up in 
the programme as the first speaker, prob- front of the State House, where he was to 
ably, as I told my audience, on account of make his speech. For a long time they 
my size I would make a difficult target were allowed to stand there. Then sud- 
in case our audience were disposed to be denly they were told to leave. Knowing 
hostile. You must remember we were in they were well within their Constitutional 
the enemy s country in the South and rights, they refused to move. The police 
our itinerary carried us directly to South fairly fell upon them, handling them bru- 
Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, tally. They were thrown into jail and 
Texas, etc., and on to San Francisco, re- later thrown out again, some even with- 
turning by Colorado, Wisconsin, Illinois, out their clothing, which was flung out 
Michigan, New York, Massachusetts, after them upon the street. Never, since 
Connecticut, and disbanding in New York the days of witchcraft, did any incident 
City. I can honestly say I never experi- to women cause so much feeling, and no 
enced any trouble of any kind no cat- doubt the sympathy it gained for our 
calls nor hisses; my audiences were in- cause led to Massachusetts being one of 
variably quiet and respectful, interested, the first States to ratify the suffrage 
and often enthusiastic. Chattanooga, amendment. When I spoke in Boston a 
under the very shadow of Lookout Moun- short time after this disgraceful scene, 
tain, where the great Battle in the Clouds one of the ladies who took part in it sat 
was fought in the Civil War, was I think in the theatre where I spoke and I could 
the least sympathetic of all the places see how badly she had been hurt. Her 
we visited. We heard there "might be eyes had been blackened, her forehead 
trouble," but if true it missed fire. We had been jammed and scraped, and she 
marched into a hall not packed but well had an ugly bruise upon her cheek. As 
filled, and as usual I had to speak first, for publicity, it had aroused the country, 
I began by noticing that the hall was not possibly as much as the Prison Special 
packed, but I said I thought there were itself. After that the sentiment among 
as many present as there were when the the police force, wherever one went, 
Declaration of Independence was signed, seemed to be strongly in our favor. When 
and I hoped they would sign ours, etc. we reached Detroit the traffic force asked 
They seemed to like the idea they permission to be our escort during our so- 
warmed up to us and to our cause. Of journ in the city. As I stepped out of the 
the sentiment in that State against us car in the Detroit station, I was told that 
you may form some idea when I tell you the captain of the traffic police was there 
that at the large luncheon arranged for us and would like to meet me. The welcom- 
I sat by the leading and one of the wealth- ing committee begged me to make an ex- 
iest ladies in the city. Asked to contrib- ception and for the sake of publicity to 
ute, she told me under her breath she be photographed. 

would give us five dollars, but that her "Just this once, Mrs. Havemeyer," 

husband would turn her out of the house they pleaded, "and do be photographed 

if he heard of it ! Don t you think she with the captain. It will make such a 

needed the vote? good cut for the papers." I consented, 

While we were on our trip the deplor- and the captain stood straight and severe 

able Boston Common affair occurred- beside me. As I looked at him a thought 

an affair which awakened the indignation flashed through my mind and I saw a way 

of the country. I must briefly relate the to help publicity. "Not on your life, 



676 COUNTRY-BRED 

Captain," I exclaimed. " We are not go- of the and feeling, the mayor had or- 
ing to be photographed like that. They dered a platform built in the city park, 
might think you were arresting me. We and from two in the afternoon until six 
will be taken shaking hands." We shook o clock we held a crowd so dense and 
hands, and of course the photographer packed that as I rose to address them it 
snapped us in while we were still laugh- seemed to me it was a mass of heads as 
ing. The cut was in all the papers, and solid as the ground beneath me. After 
I received a great salvo of applause when an hour the crowd grew beyond the pos- 
I told of the incident in Carnegie Hall, for sibility of hearing us, and again, as in 
in New York also the police had handled Charleston, we went from the main 
the women brutally and shown themselves platform to speak to the newly formed 
to be little better than thugs disgracing crowds in other parts of the park. The 
their uniform. crowds did not disperse until we had to 
Miss Paul had prepared the way for us, desert the platform and go prepare for 
and everywhere we were received by the the "big dinner" and the evening meet- 
mayor or his representative who, whether ing. Twenty-nine days were consumed 
a sympathizer or not, recognized better in the trip, and we pulled into the termi- 
than our President did the futility of nal in New York City having acquired 
opposing us and the great voting force nation-wide publicity, having won many 
which was gathering impetus every friends sometimes as many as a hun- 
day. From our opening night in dred telegrams would be paid for and 
Charleston, South Carolina, when the handed to us to be sent to a senator or 
opera-house was packed from floor to representative or to the President in 
dome, and the overflow blocked traffic Paris, to ask him to work for the amend- 
at two street corners, and the committee ment. I think I may truly add we ac- 
beckoned to me to leave the stage in complished our task without an unpleas- 
order to go out and address them, to ant incident. The typewriters were still 
our great final mass-meeting in Carnegie clicking, and the coins still chinking, and 
Hall, we had immense audiences who the busy workers were " finishing up," as 
evinced for us large sympathy and keen I hurriedly left the car to go speak at 
interest. In New Orleans, the very heart Carnegie Hall. 



Country-Bred 

BY WILLIAM HERVEY WOODS 



HIGH in the canon walls men call the street, 
He reigns in sleek seclusion, potentate 
O er half the earth, cocooned in gilded state 

And silken ease that once a monarch s suite 

Alone endowed; and at his bidding meet 

Trade s commandeerers, on whose bluff debate 
Not only marts, but kings and councils wait 

To know if hungry nations yet may eat. 

But now he sits, head bent and eyes a-dream, 
A lonely man there in his lofty room, 

And wonders if along the old home hill 

Dogwood s in snow, and o er the purring stream 

A haunted wind breathes of the wild-grape bloom 
While all the dusk mourns with the whip-poor-will. 



A New Power in University Affairs 

BY WILFRED SHAW 

General Secretary the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan 



o 



UR American univer 
sities are changing 
these days; changing 
so rapidly that we 
have hardly had time 
as yet to realize just 
what is taking place. 
Not only have they 
doubled even tripled in size, almost 
overnight, as we reckon historical periods, 
but they have appropriated, as corning 
within their proper field, almost every 
phase of knowledge necessary to our com 
plicated up-to-date civilization. 

In a general way, of course, we have 
been aware of this development, but we 
have been slow, not to say reluctant, to 
acknowledge the new points of view it has 
set for us. Nor do we recognize just how 
and why these changes have come about. 
That little group of older colleges on our 
eastern seaboard, the direct heirs of the 
traditions and curricula of the mediaeval 
universities of Bologna, Paris, and Ox 
ford, have so fixed their traditions upon 
our conception of university life that we 
find it very difficult to see how different 
things really are nowadays. Yet it will 
not be hard to prove that our modern 
universities are farther from the little in 
stitutions our grandfathers knew than 
they in their turn were from the porticos 
where Abelard taught in Paris. 

This implies, of course, many new and 
puzzling elements in our whole scheme 
of higher education. Some of them, such 
as the expansion of the general field of 
knowledge, the growth of popular edu 
cation, coeducation, the interrelation of 
the university and our national life, and 
the ever-present necessity for increasing 
resources, are well recognized. But other 
factors, such as the developing organiza 
tion of undergraduate life, " student activ 
ities," the unavoidable complications of 
university administration, and, above all, 



the influences which have underwritten, 
so to speak, these developments, are not 
so generally apparent. It all means that 
we are still in an era of transition, with all 
the maladjustments of such a period ag 
gravating the difficulties facing the uni 
versity executive. 

It is the aim of this article to discuss 
one of these factors, a new element every 
where at work in our university system, 
but one that nowhere has been recognized 
for the force it really is. First of all, how 
ever, it may prove profitable to suggest, 
very briefly, some of the changes of the 
last few decades in which this new ele 
ment already has had its profound in 
fluence. 

In the first place the average college 
man nowadays finds his field immeasur 
ably broader than did his grandfather 
or even his father. We do not include the 
college woman because she herself is one 
of the evidences of the new dispensation. 
The classics, mathematics, rhetoric, phi 
losophy, and a modicum of specialized 
theology satisfied our forebears. Sci 
ence as we now regard it never bothered 
them. A few lectures upon "natural phi 
losophy," botany, zoology, and geology 
might be heard in the more progressive 
institutions, but laboratories, experimen 
tal apparatus, applied mathematics, and 
physical and chemical formulas were al 
most unknown. Modern languages were 
in disfavor, and historical studies were 
confined to the Greek and Roman world. 
Of the thousand and one subjects that fill 
a modern university catalogue this was 
all that came within their ken. Still they 
were satisfied that they knew what edu 
cation was, and, moreover, they were able 
to make sure, apparently, that the educa 
tional bolus was really swallowed and di 
gested. We of to-day cannot be so certain 
in these matters. 

It is also significant of this new era that 
our university students are increasing at 
a rate, proportionally, far in excess of the 

677 



678 A NEW POWER IN UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS 

growth of our population. This is in har- dowed institutions; but, either directly or 
mony with what Doctor James B. Angell, indirectly, it is from the graduates for 
so long the dean of American college exec- the most part that the money is coming, 
utives, used to call our "American pas- With the state universities this support, 
sion for education." This was, with him, at present, may be less evident ; but it will 
no flimsy theory; for even in 1871, when be forthcoming to-morrow. Meanwhile, 
he came to the University of Michigan, their alumni are active in securing the 
one person out of every two thousand legislative appropriations that support 
three hundred inhabitants of the State the institutions, appropriations which, if 
was a student at the State university, capitalized, would in many cases far sur- 
Now, after a lapse of fifty years, and in pass the resources of even the wealthiest 
spite of an enormous increase in popula- of the endowed universities, 
tion, the proportion has almost quad- This means that the alumni are now a 
rupled, one in six hundred and thirty-six, part of the university body. Not so many 
This record, of course, is far from years ago, when we used this phrase, we 
unique, it is only one specific example of implied the trustees, and possibly the fac- 
the extraordinary increase in the enrol- ulty, in a rather close and self-satisfied 
ment in our universities, which runs, in corporation. Sometimes a very literal in- 
the larger institutions, from five to twen- terpretation included the students as a 
ty thousand students. Some will doubt third element in the academic fellowship ; 
whether it is a "passion for education" though their position was ill-defined and 
that is inspiring these student throngs; it uncertain. But of late years, the alumni 
may be merely training, or perhaps social are insisting, and insisting effectively, that 
advantage just because it is "the thing they, too, are a part of the university, 
to do"- that is the impelling force. But Not content with words, for such a state- 
whatever their aim, their very presence is ment of his relationship to his alma mater 
an inspiring justification of our credo of probably would not occur to the average 
popular education and a challenge to our graduate, they are acting, and acting so 
ability to prepare them adequately for life effectively, and with such ample cash re 
in our complicated modern civilization. serves, that their new status cannot be 
This profound change in the educa- denied them. However, we may feel 
tional bill of fare, and the eagerness of about it, the alumni are in university af- 
young America for the feasts spread in the fairs as they have never been before and 
halls of learning, which we may at least they are there to stay, 
infer from our ever-mounting attendance 

figures, suggests inevitably another ele- JT 
ment in the situation. This is the extraor 
dinary physical growth of our universities THE great drives which have been made 
which has answered these new conditions, for funds to support many of our leading 
It implies, necessarily, an enormous in- colleges and universities furnish a con- 
crease in their actual and potential re- crete illustration of the power that lies 
sources. to-day within our great bodies of col- 
How have our educational institutions lege graduates. At a meeting of alumni 
managed to keep up, even measurably, as officers in American universities, held at 
they have, with the demand for the new Cornell University, May, 1921, an effort 
libraries, laboratories, recitation halls, and was made to ascertain roughly the total 
dormitories necessitated by our all-inclu- amount of gifts made since the close of the 
sive educational programme ? And, even war to American universities through 
more, how have they done it, when the alumni efforts. As far as was ascertain- 
students demanding these facilities have able from those present the total was 
been increasing at such a constantly ac- something over one hundred million dol- 
celerating ratio ? lars. It should be understood that this 
The answer is rather obvious through sum did not represent by any means all 
the support of their former students, the colleges and universities in the coun- 
Gifts, of course, have come from other try, nor were individual gifts, whether 
sources, particularly in the case of the en- from friends or from alumni, included. It 



A NEW POWER IN UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS 



679 



involved only the actual cash result from 
general alumni "drives." It might be 
added, too, that before some of these ef 
forts are completed the total will probably 
reach fifty million dollars more.* 

Here we have a result of alumni sup 
port expressed in its simplest and most 
tangible terms. But what are we to say 
of the intangible element which is a corol 
lary of this effort the personal interest 
and intelligent support of the graduates, 
as individuals, which this vast sum repre 
sents ? 

One of our leaders in the university 
world he was a college president was 
once asked what he thought of a pro 
posed effort toward the organization of the 
alumni of his institution. "What is the 
good of it?" he replied; "besides I have 
all I can do to manage the faculty and 
students." This was formerly the usual 
attitude. Even now there are those 
especially within our universities who 
still profess to believe that the less the 
alumni have to do with the institution 
that fostered them, except to furnish 
funds for an occasional building, sit on 
the bleachers at the big games or gather 
once a year to sentimentalize at com 
mencement, the better all around. 

We are fast coming to see things differ 
ently, however, though here we are not 
concerned particularly with the correct 
ness or falsitv of this view. The truth is 

/ 

tjhat it is a delightful example of what is 
usually called an "academic question." 
The alumni of our American universities, 
not only in the persons of occasional 
able and influential graduates in their 
councils, but as organized bodies, are 
beginning to know what they want, and 
are going after it systematically. 

Almost every university has had some 
taste of the power of this new element. 
Instances might be given where the 
alumni have risen in opposition to faculty 
or administrative policies, and have won 
their point. Sometimes the issue has 
arisen over a gift with certain conditions 
attached; sometimes it has been the main 
tenance of various "good old traditions"; 
while not infrequently student affairs, 
particularly athletic policies, form the 
basis for the argument. 

* Some of these facts were stated by the author in an 
address published in The Oberlin Alumni Magazine. July, 
1921. 



It is fortunate that these divisions in 
our academic families are infrequent, 
comparatively; though every university 
man who understands anything about the 
problems of his alma mater must recog 
nize that such struggles are possible at 
any time. They are, essentially, the log 
ical complement of the support our uni 
versities are accepting from their grad 
uates. With some sort of a financial inter 
est, no matter how small, in the affairs 
of his institution, an increasing per 
sonal interest on the part of the graduate 
is not strange; rather it must be accepted 
as inevitable. In fact, it is not only wel 
comed, for the most part, but it is even 
stimulated, and it is coming to be exerted 
in places where it is not a question merely 
of financial support . Thus, for some time 
we have had alumni representation 
sometimes exclusive representation on 
boards of trustees, alumni committees of 
investigation, and separate alumni bodies, 
as well as the organization of the whole 
alumni body into associations, with sub 
sidiary class organizations and local 
alumni clubs. In fact it is safe to say that 
there is no avenue open to alumni partic 
ipation in university affairs that is not 
followed somewhere; but it is equally true 
that nowhere, at present, shall we find 
graduate support carried to its fullest logi 
cal development. It is a force that, as yet, 
is only finding itself. What it will become 
and what it will mean to our universities 
in the future, time only can tell. All we 
can say is that the alumni have already 
become active partners in the affairs of 
the universities, and they promise to be 
more active in the future. 

Ill 

IT is not too much to say that this rela 
tionship of the graduate to his alma mater 
is an expression of the two sides of the 
American genius its idealism, sentiment, 
if you will, and its ability for organiza 
tion. Were our whole educational system 
maintained by the State, as is the case in 
France and Germany, perhaps we, too, 
might have less of this enthusiastic and 
sympathetic support and co-operation. 
True, many of our largest and strongest 
universities are State institutions, but 
they came into the field at a comparative- 



680 A NEW POWER IN UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS 

ly recent date, and the essential relation- publish journals, and, in general, set great 

ship between graduate and university store by their status as old "Etonians" 

had already been established in the older or old "Paulines." 

endowed universities. With the Scotch universities and with 

For the graduate of a continental uni- English municipal universities such as 
versity, the word alumnus has little mean- London, Manchester, and Liverpool, all 
ing. Practically no ties of sentiment bind of more recent organization, the case is 
him to his alma mater. It is the outstand- somewhat different. There the alumni 
ing teacher, or course, that attracts the have a practical share in the control of the 
student, who passes easily from one uni- university. In the Scotch universities, 
versity to another. In Germany, what- which may be taken as representative, the 
ever university sentiment the graduate graduate body, known as the "Xjeneral 
has is reserved for his "corps," the equiv- Council," in addition to certain advisory 
alent of our fraternities, or for the partly functions has the prerogative of electing 
academic, partly convivial, verein which four representatives upon the governing 
centres about the branch in which he is body of the university, the lord chancel- 
specializing. Even these slender ties are lor of the university, and a member of 
lacking for the French university man. Parliament. This last privilege results 
Save as a citizen, he has no voice in the in the careful maintenance of lists of 
management of his university, nor does it graduates. But here, again, the alumni 
ordinarily even seek to keep in touch with organization goes little farther. There is 
former students. none of the appeal for funds to which we 

In the English universities it is some- are accustomed, and such things as a class 

what different; particularly at Oxford reunion or a local alumni association are 

and Cambridge, where the different col- almost unknown. Few alumni journals 

leges, with their time-mellowed quad- are published, and as for the great gifts 

rangles and ripe traditions, form the basis which the American alumnus lavishes 

for ties in some respects even stronger upon his alma mater, it simply "isn t 

than we find in many American institu- done." 

tions. Yet with all his love for his alma Not unnaturally, therefore, the first 

mater, the English graduate finds few op- steps toward alumni organization in 

portunities for its practical expression; America were very modest. In fact, it is 

though the convocations of the different difficult to find any reference to alumni 

colleges, composed of the faculties, fellows, activities in any except the most recent of 

Masters of Arts, and A.B. men who have college histories. We know that the grad- 

retained their membership in the college, uates of some of the older universities 

can exert certain legislative powers in col- made their influence felt in various ways 

lege affairs. This, in effect, produces a even before the Revolution, but conscious 

limited body of loyal and interested grad- co-operation did not begin for many 

uates who prove their vital concern in years. Probably the first effort that has 

many a well-attended session where warm survived was the system organization at 

debates are held upon college policies. An Yale, where the class has always had a 

annual gathering is also held, which corre- greater relative importance. Practically 

spends in many ways to our alumni re- every Yale class has been organized with 

unions in American universities at com- a secretary as executive officer since 1792, 

mencement time. Certain of the Eng- and the published records, the first of 

lish colleges also publish some sort of a which appeared in 1821, now amount to 

journal, which appears annually or semi- over seven hundred volumes, not includ- 

annually. Systematic organization of ing small pamphlets and address lists. It 

classes and local alumni clubs, however, was not until as late as 1854, however, 

or the solicitation of funds, for the most that the Yale alumni began to organize 

part is unknown. Our scheme of organi- local associations. 

zation is more nearly paralleled in Eng- The purpose of this organization, in its 

land by the former students of the great early days, was probably more or less 

public schools, whose graduates, known social, simply an effort on the part of the 

as " old boys, " meet annually for dinner, members of the different classes to keep 



A NEW POWER IN UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS 681 

track of one another, though doubtless western Pennsylvania and Ohio were the 

there was also some effort on the part of first to develop, and in some of them at 

individuals to keep in touch with univer- least, alumni organization followed closely 

sity affairs. Similar organizations existed upon their establishment. Thus there 

in a few other early American colleges, but was an alumni organization as early as 

nowhere, apparently, did this system grow 1832 at Miami and in 1839 came associa- 

as rapidly or as consistently as at Yale, tions at Oberlin and Denison. The State 

Far more common was the usual form of universities naturally came later though 

organization we are familiar with to-day, Michigan organized an alumni association 

the " societies of alumni" or "alumni as- as early as 1860 only sixteen years after 

sociations, " which gradually began to ap- the first class was graduated. An Alum- 

pear during the first half of the nineteenth norum Catalogus, however, with the 

century. names given in the Latin form as far as 

It is interesting to trace the genesis of possible, had been published for some 

a sense of responsibility toward the insti- years. The value of the movement was 

tutions which gradually developed in quickly appreciated elsewhere, and in the 

these bodies. In only a few cases, appar- case of practically every institution 

ently, was it a desire on the part of the founded within the last fifty years the 

graduates to have a voice in directing the alumni organization has followed quickly 

policies of the college it was before the upon the graduation of the first class, 
day of universities. Ordinarily it was It is, therefore, fair to conclude that by 

simply an effort to revive old ties. One of the beginning of the last quarter of the 

the very earliest of these associations was nineteenth century the essential features 

founded at Williams College in 1821, of our present system of alumni organiza- 

"that the influence and patronage of tion were well established throughout the 

those it has educated may be united for country, though even then there was lit- 

its support, protection, and improve- tie to suggest the extraordinary momen- 

ment." turn this movement has acquired more 

That there was some conception of a recently, 
constructive relationship between the col- yy * 

lege and the graduates may be gathered 

from a statement as to the purpose of the OCCASIONAL graduates of outstanding 

proposed organization in the formal sum- personal, or financial, ability had a cer- 

mons for the meeting called "at the re- tain share undoubtedly in the very early 

quest of a number of gentlemen educated growth of some of our universities. Ow- 

at the institution who are desirous that ing to the fact that practically all of the 

the true state of the college be known to Eastern institutions were privately en- 

the alumni." dowed, and their alumni older and more 

When we turn to the South we find that influential, it was only natural that with 

the society of alumni organized at the them graduate opinion became really ef- 

University of Virginia in 1838 was less fective at a much earlier period than 

specific and possibly more convivial in its elsewhere. Their first constructive effort 

aims, for the committee was instructed in many cases was to insure to the grad- 

" to notify the alumni to form a perma- uates a share in the determination of uni- 

nent society to offer to graduates an in- versity policies. After a long struggle 

ducement to revisit the seat of their Harvard s alumni were successful, in 1865, 

youthful studies and to give new life to in securing the privilege of electing the 

disinterested friendships founded in stu- members of the board of overseers; at 

dent days." Princeton, however, the alumni were not 

We may take this as the beginning, represented on the board of trustees until 

Other organizations slowly followed. An 1900. At Oberlin, as far back as .1870, 

alumni association was organized at three alumni sat with the board of trus- 

Princeton in 1826; Harvard s came in tees, and in 1879 a provision became ef- 

1840; those at Amherst and Brown in fective for the election of one-fourth of 

1842. Columbia did not follow until the trustees by the alumni. These efforts 

1854. In the Middle West the colleges of were duplicated at Cornell, Dartmouth, 



682 A NEW POWER IN UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS 

and many other of the endowed institu- finally and invariably, the support of 

tions. athletics. 

With the State universities, the prob- The peculiar problems of every college 

lem of alumni participation in university and university vary necessarily with the 

policies is more difficult. Ordinarily in emphasis placed upon different curricula, 

these institutions the graduates may as well as with the size of the institution, 

exert only an advisory and indirect in- its geographical situation, its type of 

fluence, though on occasion it can Jbe students, and its plan of organization. It 

remarkably effective. As a matter of is obvious that a State college of agricul- 

fact, particularly among the older insti- tural and mechanic arts in the Middle 

tutions, a quasi-representation of alumni West finds itself in a very different situa- 

interests is secured through the fact that tion from an endowed college of the same 

a good proportion, sometimes a majority, size in the East, where a century or more 

of the trustees or regents are former stu- of traditions and a strong body of alumni 

dents. While the possibilities of support have given it a certain stability and in- 

by individual graduates were fairly well dividuality. Yet both are eager, nowa- 

recognized in some universities many days, to receive and encourage support 

years ago, the difference in status of those from their former students, 

graduates who are appointed by the uni- In most institutions, therefore, there has 

versity authorities and those who are developed a general and flexible scheme 

elected by the alumni to represent the of organization which has been widely 

body of graduates, as is now the practice adopted. Almost every college and uni- 

in many institutions, is not so well under- versity now boasts a general alumni asso- 

stood. It is the general alumni organiza- ciation, or, sometimes, an alumni coun- 

tions that best represent the new era. cil, to which every graduate is eligible. 

While in most places they have come into This organization furnishes through its 

effective existence only recently, and as many activities some outlet at least for 

yet command only qualified recognition the expression of the average graduate s 

in the general scheme of university affairs, desire to "do something" for his univer- 

they have existed long enough to demon- sity, though the responsibility for con- 

strate the power that lies within them. A structive action rests naturally upon the 

brief survey, therefore, of what they are officers, who are chosen to represent the 

accomplishing should be worth while. alumni point of view. In other words, 

The first thing to be noted is the wide these bodies ordinarily maintain them- 

variety of the interests in which graduate selves apart from the institution in order 

enthusiasm has found expression. Wher- to be free, on occasion, to assert them- 

ever there is a striking need, there the selves in whatever way may seem desir- 

alumni are apt to concentrate their ef- able. 

forts. In a composite picture of alumni In many colleges and universities 
activities, few academic preserves can be alumni advisory bodies have also been 
found where the graduates have not dared created to supplement the work of the 
to tread. Thus we have those aggressive association and to co-operate, as far as it 
campaigns for endowments, for buildings, is practicable, with the university ad- 
for salaries, which have been so spectac- ministration. In some places these have 
ular and successful; the maintenance of come to be a most important and power- 
alumni address lists, no small task in the ful vehicle for the expression of graduate 
larger and older universities; the pub- interest. The board of overseers at Har- 
lication of alumni journals, as semiofficial vard, one of the most powerful alumni 
organs; the election of trustees; exhaus-- bodies in any American institution, is an 
tive surveys of existing conditions in vari- outstanding and most successful example 
ous institutions; the interesting of pro- of this form of graduate participation in 
spective students; the correlation of the university affairs. 

facilities of the institution with the needs The method of selection of these officers 

of the community ; the securing of gifts or varies widely; in some schools they are 

funds for special purposes, a general task elected by means of a ballot sent by mail, 

that covers a host of enterprises; and, though more commonly they are elected 



A NEW POWER IN UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS 683 

at the annual meeting. In some institu- secretary, is focussed upon the class re- 

tions they are elected, or appointed, as union, held usually every five years at 

the representatives of the different schools the commencement season. So far as ad- 

or colleges which comprise the university, vancing years make it humanly possible, 

In practically all the larger universities, the restraints which time imposes are 
too, the development of these associations thrown aside at this season and the old- 
has brought into existence a new type of er graduate seeks, sometimes almost pa- 
university executive officer, the alumni thetically, to recall the atmosphere of 
secretary, as he is generally known, who a halcyon period long past, while the 
devotes his whole time to furthering the younger classes express their exuberant 
interrelated interests of the institution spirits in picturesque costumes, parades, 
and the graduates, as well as the main- and general hilarity. Underneath all the 
tenance of friendly co-operation and sym- gaiety, however, is a real appreciation of 
pathetic relations. a certain responsibility toward the insti- 

Though the possibilities for service tution that often results in constructive 

which confront the alumni organization efforts for its advancement, 
and its agent, the alumni secretary, are In case of local associations, the hori- 

almost innumerable and vary widely, zon is apt to be somewhat wider, includ- 

there are certain particular fields in which ing national and civic affairs as well as 

graduate effort almost everywhere has the broader university interests. Orig- 

concentrated its efforts. Probably the inally, these bodies foregathered annually 

most important single task is the publica- and semiannually, in more or less con- 

tion of an alumni magazine sometimes a vivial sessions with reminiscences and the 

quarterly, more often a monthly or a latest developments in athletics as the 

weekly which gives university news, topics of interest. But now there are 

comments on university affairs and, many alumni groups everywhere, holding 

most important, personal items regard- weekly or monthly luncheons, at which, 

ing individual alumni. Usually such a along with university affairs, questions of 

paper is published as an official journal of outstanding public interest are discussed 

the alumni organization and is edited by by specially invited speakers. Here we 

the alumni secretary. As such it becomes have a significant evidence of the realiza- 

a valuable semiofficial university organ, tion on the part of our college graduates 

which reaches a wide and discriminating that, as a select body of citizens, they have 

constituency, though in some of the older a responsibility to their communities as 

universities it remains in the hands of a well as to the university, 
group of alumni, who maintain it for the Another undertaking which usually 

good of the cause and seek no personal falls to the alumni organization, partic- 

profit from the enterprise. There are at ularly in its earlier years, is the mainte- 

present nearly one hundred of these nance of the addresses of the graduates, 

alumni publications, some with more than This is an important task that increases 

eight or nine thousand subscribers. Of in difficulty with the passing of time and 

these the Yale Alumni Weekly, established the growth of the institution; so much so, 

in 1891, was the first to appear, followed in fact, that the list arrives almost in- 

by the Harvard Graduates Magazine, a variably at a certain place where, owing 

quarterly, a year later. The next alumni to the expense, the institution itself finds 

journal to appear was the Michigan it desirable and necessary to assume this 

Alumnus, established in 1894 as a month- important work. Almost everywhere, 

ly, which became a weekly in 1921. however, this was originally undertaken 

Alumni organization by classes and by by the alumni, and is still maintained 

local groups forms another phase of ac- with graduate support in all but the larg- 

tivity the one based upon an emphasis est of our universities. 
of old associations and sentimental ties, 

the other, more practical in its outlook, So much for the past and present of 

stressing the relation of the university to graduate influence in our colleges and 

the world in general. The class organi- universities. What of the future? That 

zation, ordinarily centred in the class does not lie within the scope of this dis- 



684 A NEW POWER IN UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS 

cussion. The writer has attempted mere- imposes false standards in purely aca- 

ly to suggest that we have here a new demic affairs. New ideas are launched, 

element in our university world, an or- upon alumni initiative, sometimes to the 

ganized and aggressive element, that must great benefit of the institution, and some- 

henceforth be considered as an integral times to the serious impairment of its 

part of the general development of our effectiveness as a centre of culture and 

system of higher education. Without it the highest educational ideals. And when 

we should not have arrived at the place the effort sponsored by the alumni fails, 

where we find ourselves to-day, but in ac- it is not the alumni body, but the uni- 

cepting its support so generously extended versity, that suffers. That is a sobering 

we must recognize the conditions that go thought, that once understood should 

with it. limit the active participation of the alum- 

This implies in the future an even closer nus in university affairs. After all, uni- 

participation, on the part of the alumni, versity education is a highly specialized 

in college and university affairs. Our business, and the average graduate must 

graduates are not only acquiring a new insist that his organization is so ordered 

power, a power which they hardly realize that it shall insure the selection of men 

themselves, but they are assuming a great of the highest qualifications to represent 

responsibility. The problem of how they him. 

can best use this power is, as yet, hardly Likewise the university must take 

settled satisfactorily. There are those thought for the future. The student of 

who insist, and with reason, that this force to-day by a wave of the presidential 

may not always prove beneficent. The hand becomes the alumnus of to-morrow, 

views of the graduate may not march with Does the university consciously prepare 

the highest ideals of the academic f rater- him for his new relationship ? Very rare- 

nity. The assumption is easy on the part ly, we fear. And yet it should not be dif- 

of the average graduate, that any move- ficult to infuse into a certain portion, at 

ment is for the good of the university, if least, of the recipients of the annual grist 

the alumni body is behind it. of diplomas something of that broader, 

The charm of the ivy-covered quad- finer, "university" spirit which views 

rangles of the older English universities the institution as a living and sentient 

never fails to strike a responsive note in force within the souls of its students and 

the heart of the American visitor. They alumni. Drop but once this high stand 

are the visible embodiment of our ideal ard, make too many concessions to the 

of the academic life; yet they breathe a immediate and obvious athletics, pres- 

conservatism only recently touched by tige, " popular" subjects, and "practical" 

the modern spirit. This reverence for the courses and the birthright is gone. The 

traditional and time-honored thing has ideals which sustained the fathers will be 

not been, perhaps, the defect many critics lost forever to the children, when it be- 

of Oxford and Cambridge have believed comes their turn to sit as graduates in 

it to be, but undoubtedly the heavy hand the university councils, 
of conservative alumni long kept them in But that is for the future. For the most 

the old ways, from which nothing short part, as we view it to-day, the alumni 

of such a cataclysm as the World War support of our universities has been not 

was able to waken them to modern prog- only progressive but intelligent. It has 

ress. brought new currents into many a uni- 

In America, too, we sometimes see the versity backwater. In return we know 

same spirit; the buildings, studies, and that the campus, with its idealism, and 

traditions that were good enough for our devotion to truth, wherever it may be 

fathers often seem good enough for us. found, has not been without its whole- 

But not seldom we have the other spirit, some stimulus to those who, having 

progress, up-to-date ideas, business meth- passed its portals, have returned once 

ods, efficiency, call it what you may, that more for renewed inspiration. 



The Social Influence of the 
Automobile 

BY ALLEN D. ALBERT 



I 



N Oklahoma, at a 
country club outside 
the city of Ardmore, 
not long ago, a score of 
us were celebrating a 
wedding anniversary 
with a supper. Mov 
ing through long 
windows to the balcony, we came upon 
a scene of such quiet, warm beauty, there 
in the late spring, as made many of us 
draw in our breath. 

Organdie dresses here and there, in 
pink, or lavender, or cream, were bright 
with the soft color of flowers. The air 
was fragrant with sweetbrier. In the 
early evening, while we watched three 
cowboys whooping after a tractor on the 
country road, we had heard the singing 
of mocking-birds through the grove. 

Host and hostess called me to the rail 
ing to look into the deepening shadow of 
the rim-rock, miles away, at the horizon. 
Above it they pointed out the gleam of 
a double star, and as we looked the star 
moved, steadily, in and out among the 
shadows, down, down, to the plain be 
neath us, growing larger, and coming 
toward our feet. 

Other double stars appeared at the 
same notch, or at notches to the right or 
left, and converged upon us through three 
or four channels. Twenty minutes later 
automobiles were whirling one after an 
other into parking spaces beside the 
house. The supper had become a dance, 
the evening had darkened into night, and 
the slow-moving shooting stars of a pur 
ple landscape had developed into twen 
tieth-century chariots bearing friends. 

I do not know that ever before had the 
social significance of the automobile been 
so dramatically presented to me. It has 
come to us all. Of course. 

We look along a perspective of lights 
dazzling in their intensity and realize 
wearily, any hot evening, that the pro 



cession along the boulevard will not cease 
till bedtime. Or we jerk ahead and wait, 
jerk ahead again and wait again, in a 
choke of purring cars after a football 
game. Or we look up from a hardware 
counter and see a farmer who has driven 
five miles from the harvest-field to get a 
ball of twine. Or we hunt for a parking 
space outside a Chautauqua tent. A 
dozen times a year, in as many situations, 
the newness and far reach of the motor- 
driven vehicle catch up our thought as 
does the airplane which lands in the field 
near our house. 

"It is so wonderfully new," we say to 
ourselves time and again. Still we do not 
appreciate how new it really is ! 

I was in high school in the early 90*5. 
The automobile was then unknown. 

Less than twenty years ago, in Wash 
ington, D. C., I attended a dinner given to 
manufacturers licensed under the Selden 
patents. There had come to be, at that 
time, some seventy-five thousand cars in 
the United States, and we were all amazed 
at the growth of the industry. As evi 
dence of its progress, the president of 
the company manufacturing the highest- 
priced American car told me at that 
table with the smile of a man confessing 
to some exaggeration that he thought 
he might use that year some two tons of 
steel. 

Less than ten years ago, that is to say 
in 1915, there were in the land some three 
million three hundred thousand cars. 

By 1925 there will be fully fifteen mil 
lions. 

No one of us can measure such a de 
velopment in transportation. Perhaps 
you recall Macaulay s saying: "Of all in 
ventions, the alphabet and printing-press 
alone excepted, those that have shortened 
distance have done the most for human- 

ity." 

Are you still shocked by reading "Auto 
Bandits" in the head-lines? Have you 

685 



686 



THE SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF THE AUTOMOBILE 



passed at the side of a country road 
a car with no lights and two young 
figures shoulder against shoulder in a 
corner of the rear seat? Do you know 
that banks are still refusing to make loans 
for the buying of cars? Have you ob 
served the bootlegger in the automobile, 
the doctor in his little coupe, the rural 
carrier in his Ford, the children in the 
school bus? 

We have in 1921 about nine million 
motor-cars in the United States, hardly 
a third as many as our horses. Yet I 
think there can be no serious question 
that the motor-car has come to be more 
important to us socially than the horse. 

The most comprehensive change it has 
wrought for us has been the general 
widening of the circle of our life. City 
folk feel this in the evening and at the 
week-end. Farmer folk feel it from early 
morning till bedtime every day. 

Our mail comes to our R. F. D. box 
usually not later than eleven in the morn 
ing, and ours is the last delivery but one 
on our route. Some who work, in every 
town, now have year-round houses in the 
country. There is, in fact, a tangible and 
powerful movement directly opposite to 
that of the retired farmer. He came to 
town to rest; city folk are going to the 
country to rest, and in the era of the 
automobile they do not lose the diver 
sions that appealed so strongly to the re 
tired farmer. 

We may expect these new country 
homes to affect the quality of American 
farm life positively and fundamentally. 
It is the younger generation of business 
men who are building country houses 
outside our smaller cities, and wherever 
they build they are enlivening the coun 
tryside with visiting, and landscape-gar 
dening, and the giving of parties. 

They are the spark-plugs that start the 
rest of us to the band concerts every 
Thursday. Being started, we ourselves 
have fallen into the habit of sitting com 
fortably in our cars through the pro 
gramme which is a growing habit, once 
formed. You can find us, two rows deep, 
around the Chautauqua tent, often fairly 
cool while those under the canvas are 
melting the starch out of their clothes. 
Likewise you can find us outside the store 
being served at the mercy of the clerk. 



There are absorbing stories in the 
rusty little cars parked these days be 
fore the high school in the county-seat. 
This one brings two brothers eleven miles 
from a farm where neither parent had 
more than four months of schooling in 
any year or passed beyond the sixth 
grade. This one bears the daughter of a 
dairyman, who tells you with a steady 
look into your eyes that she has never 
learned to milk and never intends to 
learn. This one picks up the high-school 
students of three families from Winter- 
green Bottoms, a community hopelessly 
sullen and lawless unless its children 
save it. 

Farm men race to town to meetings of 
the farm bureau; farm women to meet 
ings of the domestic- science clubs; all of 
them to the circus or the movies or the 
winter concert season. In our youth such 
expeditions would have required half a 
day in travel. In our motoring middle 
life they require less than half an hour 
each way. 

We have the doctor within easy call. 
We can patronize the steam laundry. 
Our butter and poultry customers do 
their own delivering. In some of the 
older farming sections now, as in most of 
the new, some of us whose children have 
absorbed high-school standards find our 
selves joining the country club and play 
ing golf in hours when our fathers would 
have been chopping feed or mending 
fence. 

Whether in the midst of many houses 
or few, we have accepted as common 
places a dozen important changes worked 
in our every day by this new convey 
ance. 

We have seen our architecture develop 
the garage in lieu of the old carriage- 
house and livery-barn. We have heard 
our speech enlivened with automobile 
terms, as when our children describe a 
teacher of undistinguished personality as 
a "flat tire." We have noted the entire 
disappearance of the victoria before the 
"chummy car" or the "roadster," and 
some of us have sighed for an aristocracy 
that is never more to be. 

Strange-looking driveways called "fill 
ing stations," with glowing lamps at 
night, long railroad-trains of tank-cars, 
streets painted with white lines to mark 



THE SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF THE AUTOMOBILE 687 

zones of safety for pedestrians and park- the snow. The motorist is too busy with 

ing spaces for cars how almost without his driving and too high up in the air. 

a pause in our thinking have we adjusted Let us be careful not to distort the so- 

our lives to these factors new since yes- cial values involved in all this. Without 

terday ! the automobile or some similar new agent 

I wish I could believe that our new of transport, probably we could never 

ease of transportation had strengthened have had any advance in co-operation so 

the church by widening the radius of its worth while as the farm bureau, the wo- 

service. Some of our farmer families do man s club, and the parent-teacher as- 

in fact drive eight or ten miles to wor- sociation. The motor-carriage isolates us 

ship, but not many of them. And as an as it transports us but it gives us more 

offset to these few, any town clergyman of fellowship at the end of the journey, 

can cite the loss of leading families of city The point is that the cost of such a gain 

members who automobile away most of should be paid knowingly and kept as 

their Sunday mornings excepting Easter, low as possible. Our car-owners who 

Combined with golf, the automobile is take no part in community movements 
frequently denounced from the pulpit as are making the community poorer by 
one of the deadliest enemies of the church, paying the cost without any compensat- 
I have heard the two assailed as though ing gain. And I, for one, do not expect 
cloven hoof, forked tail, and horns had it ever to be established that the welfare 
been supplanted by golf-bag, pneumatic of any such community movement nee- 
tire, and wind-shield. In good motoring essarily involves the weakening of the 
weather I have attended Sunday-morning church. 

service from Waycross, Ga., to Manistee, Automobile outlawry and lawlessness 

Mich., and it would be hard to find any are now more serious, I believe, than they 

pews any emptier anywhere. are to be hereafter. It is absurd to ex- 

We of the motor era do not bow to each pect a great new social agency to come 

other in passing on the highway as once into use without abuse. Almost invari- 

we did. The car makes that impracti- ably abuse is the concomitant of use. 

cable. Sometimes we recognize the ap- The same machine that hurries the 

preaching machine and sometimes we surgeon to the bedside of the child with 

make out the person who is driving. Be- a broken foot will hurry the yeggman in 

fore there can be any exchange of recog- his getaway from a hold-up. The boy 

nition, however, we have flown past each who acts the pig in his home will not sud- 

other. denly become considerate of others when 

Once it was the custom to slow down given absolute control of a vehicle swifter 

and offer help to a car stalled by the road, and heavier than the others on the street. 

Then we read of hold-ups from automo- Traffic squads are already making his 

biles, and now the old, leisurely clap-clap control far from absolute in the more 

along the highway with a slow and kindly travelled thoroughfares. Within such 

nod alike to acquaintance and stranger limits it is to be expected that he and his 

has given way to a fear of stopping even highwayman associates will shortly be 

for such as need our aid. checked by some device that will stop all 

Something corresponding to this has vehicular movement within a fixed limit 

happened in the cities. Two of us were on the sounding of an alarm. The car 

lately guests in a great town, and had a that persists in shooting ahead will thus 

limousine at our command. We actually be brought into clear view, while 

ended our stay without once rubbing el- joy-rider or the thief stopped with the 

bows humanly with any of the people in others ordinarily, he would only await 

the streets, shut away from our fellows in capture. 

a glass box, lifted out of the very life we In the country the control must come 

had come to live, as though we had been by other methods. State constabulary is 

looking on at a movie. the means most often urged. What 

Workmen nod to the street-car con- " Mounted " do in Canada and 

ductor. Walkers have a word for the police in New York and Pennsylvania, i 

man who is cutting the grass or shovelling is argued, can be done on a larger scale 



688 



THE SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF THE AUTOMOBILE 



for the making safe of our country 
roads. 

Present systems, headed by sheriffs and 
manned by constables, are for practical 
uses of patrol, non-existent. The plain 
truth is that on this continent there are 
only small areas in which the rural high 
ways are not totally undefended against 
wrong-doers. 

When the new defense is provided, as 
surely it will be, perhaps it may modify 
one of the new problems of education 
produced by the automobile. In an older 
day it was feasible for the college authori 
ties to keep some sort of watch over their 
students. Now a boy at school in Con 
necticut can motor to New York City 
and back between his last lecture of one 
day and his first class of the next. 

What are campus regulations to stu 
dents who have the range of an extra- 
campus radius of one hundred miles? 
Assuredly the best answer will be the 
development of a motive in the life of 
the student that will keep him safe wher 
ever he is. But while we wait for that ap 
proach to undergraduate perfection, there 
will be a value no male parent will ques 
tion in the student s realization that the 
automobile thoroughfares around the 
campus are patrolled sensibly and suf 
ficiently. Longer motor journeys will 
hasten the day of such control. 

Bus lines are reporting to our village 
squares with little or no preliminary an 
nouncement. They make about the same 
time as accommodation trains, they travel 
more direct routes, they traverse a land 
scape unspoiled by cuts and fills and 
tracks, and they deliver us if not at our 
exact destinations into the very heart of 
town rather than at railway-stations away 
from the heart of town. 

Electric interurbans are holding their 
own against the new competition some 
what better than the steam roads; but 
not invariably, and not on many routes 



with success to warrant hope of any im 
minent extensions. 

General touring by motor-car has, of 
course, only begun. It must be expected 
to double and quadruple within a few 
seasons. Its increase will include a series 
of social changes of the greatest interest 
to those who love the picturesque. 

Most of our municipalities will have 
auto camps by to-morrow. The wayside 
inn is even now being restored to its 
prominence of stage-coach days. Those 
who have seen the blackboards in front 
of farmhouses may share my expectation 
of an important if not a radical short- 
circuiting of present methods in market 
ing farm produce. 

Best of all and most important of all, 
we shall steady down as a people more 
and more out of our rushing from place 
to place and come inevitably nearer, I 
think, to an appreciation of the beauty of 
the countryside. 

The really good roads for the present 
are only the more heavily travelled ar 
terial thoroughfares, largely paved, and 
so filled with cars that driving from Bos 
ton to New York, or Cleveland to Chi 
cago, is almost a citified experience. Even 
so, there are thrills of beauty long to re 
member in each of those journeys, thrills 
not to be found in my abundant acquain 
tance with the railroad routes between the 
same points. 

Roads are improving farther from those 
busy streets. Touring-cars are improv 
ing likewise. One need not move around 
like a farm-hand on a load of hay, almost 
swamped by bulgy equipment. Com 
pact outfits, touring vehicles as ingenious 
ly designed as yachts, hotels cleanly kept 
and courteously managed, all promise a 
freer movement of the people to every in 
teresting section of the country. In that 
freer movement the automobile will justify 
itself most of all, I believe, as an agent of 
wholesome sociability in our modern life. 



The Depths of the Universe 

BY GEORGE ELLERY HALE 

Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; 

Author of " The New Heavens," etc. 

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 



"Below lay stretched the boundless universe 

There, far as the remotest line 
That limits swift imagination s flight, 
Unending orbs mingled in mazy motion, 

Immutably fulfilling 

Eternal Nature s law. 

Above, below, around, 

The circling systems formed 

A wilderness of harmony 

Each with undeviating aim 
In eloquent silence through the depths of 

Pursued its wondrous way." 

SHELLEY, "The Daemon of the World." 



reveal the successive steps of his great 
discovery are among the chief documents 
that mark the turning-point from medi 
aeval to modern thought. 

Jupiter was shown by the telescope to 
be accompanied by three unknown stars, 
two to the east and one to the west. The 
mere detection of unfamiliar fixed stars 
no longer surprised Galileo, as his tele 
scopes had multiplied such objects a hun 
dredfold. But their arrangement in a 
ON the night of the yth of January, nearly straight line, parallel to the ecliptic, 
in the year 1610, Galileo first di- struck his attention. The next evening, 



pace 



rected his 
telescope toward 
Jupiter. In do 
ing so he literally 
took his life in his 
hands. Ten 
years earlier Gi 
ordano Bruno, 
disciple and pub- 
1 i c expositor of 
Copernicus, had 
been burned at 
the stake in- 
Rome. The 
agents of the In 
quisition, with 
unrelaxed vigi 
lance, still watch 
ed eagerly for 
new victims 
among those who 
ventured to ques 
tion their doc 
trines. Galileo 
had already 
taught the Co- 
pernican theory ; 
he was now about 
to demonstrate it 
beyond room for 
doubt. The 
pages from his 
note-book which 

VOL. LXXL 44 




Fig. i. Two of Galileo s telescopes, preserved in 

the Tribuna di Galileo at Florence. 

A broken object-glass, with which the four satellites of Jupiter 
were discovered, is mounted in the centre of the ivory frame. 



chancing to look 
at Jupiter again, 
he was astonish 
ed to find that 
the three stars, 
still in a straight 
line, were all to 
the west of the 
planet. Thisim- 
pressed him 
deeply, as the 
motion of Jupi 
ter, at that time 
retrograde in 
stead of direct, 
should have pro 
duced an ap 
parent displace 
ment of fixed 
objects in the op 
posite direction. 
The next night, 
much to his dis 
gust, the heavens 
were covered by 
clouds. On Janu 
ary 10 only two 
stars were seen, 
both to the east 
of the planet. 
The third, he sus 
pected, might be 
concealed by its 
689 




Fig. i. Page from Galileo s note-book, recording his first observations of the satellites of Jupiter. 



disk. Then the truth, of which some 
glimmerings had perhaps reached him be- 
fore, slowly began to dawn. Jupiter s own 
motion could not account for such dis- 
placements of his companions. These 
must be smaller planets circulating about 
him ! Thus, Jupiter would resemble the 
sun of Copernicus, set in the centre of a 
miniature solar system. Here was a new 
and splendid conception, but observation 
alone must decide. 

Thus for sixty-six nights, as the original 
manuscript pages still show, Galileo pur- 
sued his study of the system of Jupiter, 
On the 1 3th of January, he saw four com- 
panion stars, visible again the next night, 
The true significance of his observations 
then appeared : 

"It is now," he says in conclusion, " not 
simply a case of one body (the moon) 
revolving around another body (the 
earth), while the two together make a 
revolution around the sun, as the Coperni- 
690 



can doctrine teaches; but we have the 
case of four bodies or moons revolving 
round the planet Jupiter, as the moon 
does round the earth, while they all with 
Jupiter perform a grand revolution round 
the sun in a dozen years." 

The striking appearance of this minia- 
ture solar system, soon supported by Gali- 
leo s discovery of the changing phases of 
Venus, broke down the opponents of Co- 
pernicus and gradually led to the ac- 
ceptance of his theory. Thinking men 
were forced to admit that the sun, not the 
earth, lies at the centre of our system. 
But the church, stiffened in its oppo- 
sition, condemned and placed on the 
Index "this false Pythagorean doctrine, 
contrary to holy Scripture, of the mobility 
of the earth and the immobility of the 
sun, taught by Nicolas Copernicus"- 
and in 1633, under threat of torture, Ga- 
lileo, old and broken, was forced to retract 
his teachings. 



THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE 



691 



Fortunately for human progress, no 
law of man can overthrow the truths of 
nature, though the history of the Middle 
Ages shows that their acceptance can be 
retarded for centuries. The contribution 
of Galileo was not merely an intellectual 
feat, a delight to the cognoscenti: it was 
literally a revolution in human thought. 



read Aristotle s writings from end to end 
many times, and I can assure you I have 
nowhere found anything similar to what 
you describe. Go, my son, and tran 
quillize yourself; be assured that what 
you take for spots on the sun are the faults 
of your glasses or of your eyes." Writing 
to Prince Cesi in 1612, Galileo said: "I 




Fig. 3. Milton visiting the Blind Galileo. 
Painted by Tito-Lessi. 



MEDIAEVAL MINDS 

When Copernicus, years before Gali 
leo s discovery, presented his arguments 
against the geocentric system, they were 
received with universal scorn. Church 
and school men were wedded to the past, 
and Oxford had decreed that "Masters 
and Bachelors who did not follow Aris 
totle faithfully were liable to a fine of five 
shillings for every point of divergence, 
and for every fault committed against the 
logic of the Organon." When Scheiner, 
the rival of Galileo, informed the provin 
cial of his order of his observation of sun- 
spots, this worthy remarked: "I have 



suspect that this new discovery (of sun- 
spots) will be the signal for the funeral, 
or rather for the last judgment of the 
pseudo-philosophy the funereal signals 
having already been shown in the moon, 
the Medicean stars (Jupiter s satellites), 
Saturn, and Venus. And I expect now 
to see the peripatetics put forth some 
grand effort to maintain the immutabil 
ity of the heavens !" * 

True to his words, he was bitterly at 
tacked on all sides, and soon afterward 
denounced by the Holy Inquisition. 

* For the above and other pertinent illustrations of medi- 
eeval methods see Fahie s interesting " Galileo, His Life and 
and Work." 



692 



THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE 



It would be interesting and profitable 
to recall the extraordinary characteristics 
of the mediaeval mind, which tested 
everything new by a comparison of an 
cient texts, and refused to appeal to the 
simple and direct proof of observation or 
experiment. In rescuing the world from 
this deplorable state Galileo initiated the 



fact, he required the entire stellar universe 
to revolve around the earth a demand 
which even to the cardinals of the In 
quisition might have seemed preposterous 
if viewed in the light of a little knowledge 
and a little reason. But their minds were 
closed, and no conclusions of science could 
penetrate them. 




Fig. 4. Sir William Herschel s 1 8-inch telescope, with which he made his studies of the structure of the 
universe. Shown at the Cape of Good Hope, where Sir John Herschel extended his father s work to the 
southern heavens. He estimated that this telescope would show about five and one-half million stars in tht 
entire sky. 



development of modern science and stim 
ulated the discoveries of the explorers 
and investigators of the Renaissance. 
Once more, as in the early Greek period 
and again in the Alexandrian School, as 
tronomy led the way, and by its great 
discoveries encouraged research in all 
other branches of science. 

Copernicus was not the first to assert 
the heliocentric hypothesis. Aristarchus 
of Samos, about 250 B. C., maintained the 
central position of the sun and, like Gali 
leo, was therefore accused of impiety. 
Thus man has insisted on personal su 
premacy from the earliest times. To en 
force the central and controlling position 
of the earth, he did not hesitate to make 
the sun and planets subsidiary to it. In 



THE DISTANCE OF THE STARS 

Up to this time, indeed until the clos 
ing years of the eighteenth century, the 
problem of the stellar universe had never 
been attacked. However, as we have 
shown elsewhere,* the telescope had 
steadily grown in aperture and power, 
until Herschel, with his 1 8-inch reflector, 
could count in both hemispheres some 
five or six million stars. By his method 
of star gauging he endeavored to deter 
mine the structure of the sidereal system, 
and actually succeeded in reaching a fair 
conception of its flattened or watch- 
shaped form. But try as he might, he 
was utterly unable to measure the dis 
tance of even the nearest of the stars. 

* "The Xe\v Heavens," (."hades Scribner s Sons, 1922. 



THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE 



693 











n 



- 
- 



B 

- 
i 



c 



T 

u 



-. 

G 
U 



The one obvious method of measuring 
stellar distances, when tested with in 
adequate instruments, had invariably 
failed. Indeed, if the annual parallax 
of the stars could have been detected 
at the time of Ptolemy, the fiction 
of an immovable earth, with sun, 
planets, and stars revolving around 
it, might not have dominated human 
thought for more than two thousand 
years. 

Sit before a window, fix your atten 
tion on some speck on the glass, and 
mark its position against a building 
on the opposite side of the street. 
Then move your head to the right or 
left, parallel to the glass, and note the 
displacement of the speck on the op 
posite building. Step farther away 
from the window, and repeat the proc 
ess. The displacement of the speck 
becomes smaller. Thus at a sufficient 
distance from the window the speck 
would appear fixed, even when seen 
from two points a considerable dis 
tance apart. 

Substitute a star for the speck on 
the glass, and imagine it viewed 
against a background of very distant 
stars from two points 186,000,000 
miles apart the diameter of the 
earth s orbit. It is plain that the 
star must be very remote if it shows 
no shift when observed from the ends 
of such an enormous base-line. But 
up to the time of Bessel, even with 
the aid of the most powerful tele 
scopes and the best devices for mea 
surement, no shift of any star s posi 
tion could be thus detected. 

Herschel himself used his utmost 
efforts to apply this method. In his 
sweeps of the heavens he had cata 
logued many very close pairs of stars, 
in some of which one member ap 
peared much brighter than the other. 
Assuming the faintness of the lesser 
star to be caused by its much greater 
distance, he tried to detect the paral 
lax of the brighter one by careful mi- 
crometric measures, made six months 
apart, of its distance from its faint 
companion. No evidence of a semi 
annual shift was detected, but an 
important advance nevertheless re 
sulted. For Herschel found that in 




Fig. 6. Barnard s photograph of great star clouds in the constellation of the shield (Scutum). 
The cluster Messier 11 is just above the middle of the picture. 



many of these pairs one star was appar 
ently revolving about the other. Thus 
were discovered those extraordinary sys 
tems, in which two stars, comparable with 
the sun in diameter and sometimes sur 
passing it, revolve about their common 
centre of gravity. Millions of such stellar 
pairs exist, differing greatly from our solar 
system, in which the sun is the one lumi 
nous and all-dominating body, incompar 
ably greater than the many planets, which 
revolve about him like little satellites. 

HERSCHEL S EXPEDIENT 

Determined as he was to discover the 
structure of the universe, and unable, be 
cause of their remoteness, to measure the 
694 



distances of the stars directly, Herschel 
was forced to adopt a different expedient. 
Consider some brilliant star, such as Vega. 
Its brightness to the eye must depend upon 
two things: the total amount of light it 
radiates (its absolute brightness) and its 
distance from the earth. Imagine Vega to 
retreat into space, until it reaches a point 
ten times its present distance from us. In 
stead of appearing as one of the brightest 
stars of the heavens, it would then be 
barely visible to the naked eye. Suppose 
it to move still farther away, where it 
could be followed only with a telescope. 
At 900 times its present distance, accord 
ing to Herschel s estimate, it could still be 
seen with his most powerful instrument. 



THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE 



695 



Thus if all the stars were of the same 
absolute brightness, their relative dis 
tances could be determined by measuring 
their apparent brightness. We now know 
that stars differ enormously in size and in 
brightness, and Herschel himself did not 
assume them to be all alike. What he did 



the Milky Way over 900 times the aver 
age distance of a first-magnitude star, and 
less than one-fifth of this distance in the 
direction at right-angles. But he had no 
means of determining the average dis 
tance of a first-magnitude star. In fact, 
so great is the variation in absolute stellar 




l- is:. 7. Lunar craters Archimedes. Aristillus, and Autolycus. 

As the <cale indicates, the diameter of Archinu-.k-s is about fifty miles The sun is on the ri^ht, so that the 
crater walls and mountain peaks cast black shadows to the left. 



assume was that by dealing with very 
large numbers of stars, using averages for 
hundreds or thousands instead of single 
values, his results would come close to the 
truth. And in this he was not far wrong. 
His picture of the stellar universe, based 
upon soundings made in every direction, 
is not very different from that of the pres 
ent day, though he was, of course, unable 
to penetrate into the remote depths since 
rendered accessible by great modern tele 
scopes and the photographic plate. He 
concluded that our stellar system is like 
a flattened or watch-shaped disk, extend 
ing in the direction of the star clouds of 



brightness that certain very faint stars 
are actually much nearer than some of the 
brightest ones. 

This became evident in 1838 when Bes- 
sel finally succeeded, by the most refined 
instrumental means then available, in 
measuring the parallax of the star called 
61 Cyghi, which is barely visible to the 
naked eye. Its displacement, when ob 
served from opposite ends of the earth s 
orbit, is four-tenths of a second of arc- 
the diameter of a one-inch ball at a dis 
tance of eight miles. This means that 61 
Cygni is about 40,000,000,000 miles from 
the earth, and affords a first glimpse of the 



696 



THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE 



enormous scale of the stellar universe. 
For this is one of the nearest of the stars. 

SCALE OF THE UNIVERSE 

In the light of this result and of late 
measures of stellar parallaxes, let us see 
where we stand in our survey of the uni 
verse. We must first form some concep 
tion of scale if we are to appreciate in any 
degree the stupendous distances involved. 



tance from the earth to the sun, 93,000,- 
ooo miles. Neptune, at the outermost 
limit of the solar system, is 2,800,000,000 
miles from the sun. But the moment we 
pass to the stars no ordinary unit of 
measurement is large enough for satis 
factory use. . 

We therefore substitute the light-year, 
nearly six million million miles. Light 
travelling at the rate of 186,000 miles per 




Fig. 8. Great sun-spot group, February 8, 1917. 
The comparative size of Ae earth is shown by the disk in the corner. 



Even the earth seems a fairly large body, 
when we remember that its entire surface 
has not yet been explored, and reflect, for 
example, on our impression of the remote 
ness and peril of expeditions seeking the 
Pole. Yet its diameter is only 8,000 
miles. Place the earth beside the sun, 
which is more than 100 times greater in 
diameter, and it becomes a very insignif 
icant object, much smaller than the larger 
sun-spots or the enormous flames of glow 
ing gas that rise from the sun s surface. 
The mile is still a practicable unit of 
measurement, however, and we may even 
retain it in describing the great dis- 



second would pass around the earth in 
less than an eighth of a second, it reaches 
us from the moon, our nearest celestial 
neighbor, in 1.2 seconds, and in about 8 
minutes from the sun. Alpha Centauri, 
the nearest of the stars, is 4/4 light-years 
distant. Sirius, 26 times as bright as the 
sun, is 8.7 light-years away. Only four 
stars, in fact, are known to be less than 
10 light-years from us. Procyon s dis 
tance is ii light-years, while that of Al- 
tair is about 15 light-years. Ve,ga and 
Arcturus, each about 60 times as bright 
as the sun, are about 30 light-years away. 
The spectroscopic binary star Capella, 




Fig. 9. The Pleiades. 
The distance from the earth of this well-known cluster of stars, enmeshed in nebulosity, is about 325 light-years. 



each of whose components is about 100 
times as bright as the sun, is 54 light-years 
distant. Rigel, about 13,000 times as 
bright as the sun, is almost 500 light- 
years from the earth. The well-known 
cluster of the Hyades is at a distance of 
about 130 light-years, while the Pleiades, 
a cluster of from 300 to 500 stars, over 30 
light-years in diameter, is about 325 light- 
years away from us. The group of blue 
stars in Orion is nearly twice as remote 
(600 light-years). Thus we may begin to 
appreciate the meaning of Herschel s ex 
pression that the telescope penetrates into 
time as well as into space. When a new 
star suddenly blazes out in the Milky 
Way, and passes rapidly through its 



changes of light, we are watching events 
that transpired hundreds of years ago. 
In fact, we sometimes see a star long after 
it has ceased to shine. 

SPACE PENETRATING POWER 

But great as these distances are, the 
objects thus far mentioned must actually 
be looked upon as our near neighbors in 
space. Beyond them the stars stretch 
away in countless numbers and decreas 
ing apparent brightness into enormously 
greater depths. As our telescopes in 
crease in size we penetrate farther and 
farther into these remote depths, and thus 
bring to view hundreds of millions of stars 
beyond the range of previous instruments. 

697 



698 



THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE 




Fig. 10. Star field in Auriga. 

Only one star appears, though the ex|>osure was sufficient In >ho\v stars 
to the ninth magnitude. 




Fig. n. Star field in Auriga. 

The exposure wa> long enough to show stars to the twelfth magnitude, 
beyond the limit of Galileo s telescopes. 




Fig. 12. Star field in Auriga. 

Showing stars to the fifteenth magnitude, the limit of Herschel s 
l8-inch telescope. 



Look, for example, at the 
region in Auriga illustrated 
in Fig. 10. The brightest 
star shown is of magnitude 
3.3, and is thus visible to the 
naked eye. No other star 
appears, though the ex 
posure was long enough to 
include stars of the ninth 
magnitude. The next step 
(Fig. u) takes us to the 
twelfth magnitude, beyond 
the limit of Galileo s tele 
scopes. Fig. 1 2 includes all 
of the stars within the reach 
of Herschel s 1 8-inch reflect 
or, which attained the fif 
teenth magnitude. The 
next photograph (Fig. 13) 
includes much fainter stars, 
while Fig. 14 shows stars 
down to the eighteenth mag 
nitude. All of these pictures 
were taken by Scares with 
the 6o-inch reflector on 
Mount Wilson, with increas 
ing exposure times. A long 
exposure with the loo-inch 
telescope would show many 
more stars in the same re 
gion. Over the whole sky the 
6o-inch would probably re 
cord more than i ,000,000,000 
stars, while the zoo-inch 
should add fully 500,000,000 
more.* 

The method of trigono 
metric parallaxes, which 
measures a star s displace 
ment as seen from opposite 
ends of the earth s orbit, is 
limited in its application to 
the nearer stars. This is be 
cause the angular displace 
ment of stars more than a 
few hundred light-years dis 
tant is too minute for mea 
surement, even with all the 
exquisite refinement of the 

* The larger size of the images of the 
brighter stars on photographs made with 
increased exposures is due to a purely 
photographic effect, and has no relation 
ship to the true diameter of the star. 
The circle in Fig. 12 results from reflection 
of the light from the back of the plate. 
The straight lines, like rays, that project 
from the largest images are diffraction 
effects caused by the metal bars that 
support the small mirror at the upper 
end of the telescope tube. 



THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE 



699 



latest instrumental and photographic 
methods. In penetrating greater depths 
of space we must have recourse to still 
more powerful means, which fortunately 
have recently been discovered and applied. 

Consider the bright star Sirius, and 
call its distance unity. If 
it were moved to distance 
2, its apparent brightness, 
which decreases as the 
square of the distance, would 
be one-fourth. At dis 
tance 4, it would be one- 
sixteenth; at distance 8, one 
sixty-fourth, etc. If, then, 
we knew the absolute or in 
trinsic brightness of a star, 
i. e., the brightness it would 
have at unit distance, its 
easily measured apparent 
brightness would give us at 
once a measure of its actual 
distance. 

But how are we to deter 
mine its absolute bright 
ness? This apparently in 
soluble problem has recently yielded to a 
vigorous attack, which has greatly ex 
tended our means of sounding space. By 
the new method of Doctor Walter S. 
Adams it has become possible to deter 
mine the distance of a star of 
known apparent brightness 
from simple estimates of the 
relative intensities of certain 
lines in its spectrum. 

SPECTROSCOPIC MEASURES OF 
STELLAR DISTANCE 

Strontium chloride, when 
placed in the blue flame of a 
Bunsen gas-burner, colors it 
a brilliant crimson the ef 
fect of a strong line in the red 
part of its spectrum. This 
line, with several others of 
smaller intensity, can be seen 
with an ordinary one-prism 
spectroscope. These radia 
tions are characteristic of the 
strontium atom, which re 
cent investigations have shown to be com 
posed of thirty-eight electrons, presuma 
bly rotating about a positively charged 
central nucleus. 

We can change this spectrum very de 
cidedly, however, by placing some stron 



tium chloride in an electric spark, which 
ionizes the vapor. This means that the 
intense electric discharge tears away one 
of the electrons circling about the nucleus 
of the atom, leaving a positively charged 
system minus one negative electron. In- 




Fig. 13. Star field in Auriga. 
Showing stars to the seventeenth magnitude. 

tense heat is also competent to produce 
this disruption of the strontium atom and 
to give rise to certain lines in the spectrum 
that are weak or wholly absent at low 
temperatures. Two of these " enhanced " 




Fig. 14. Star field in Auriga. 
Showing stars to the eighteenth magnitude. 

lines, in the blue part of the spectrum, 
known to spectroscopists as \4077 and 
\42i5, when contrasted with a line of 
calcium (^42 $4), which is strongest at low 
temperatures, are able to give us an ex 
traordinary amount of information re- 




Fig. 15. The to-inch reflecting telescope of the Mount Wilson Observatory. 

In this arrangement of the instrument the light from the star under observation, after falling on the 6o-inch con 
cave mirror at the lower end of the tube, is reflected back to the smaller convex mirror near the upper end. This returns 
the narrowing cone of light to a plane mirror at the intersection of the declination and polar axes, which reflects it upward 
to the focal point at the side of the tube. Here it passes through the narrow slit of the spectrograph, then through a col- 
iinating lens and two prisms and finally through the camera lens to the photographic plate, where an image of the star s 
spectrum is recorded. The task of the observer is to watch the slit through a small auxiliary telescope throughout the ex 
posure, and to move the large telescope slightly from time to time by an electric motor, in case the driving-clock fails to 
maintain the star s image exactly on the slit. 



garding the absolute brightness, and 
hence the distance of the stars. These 
lines are mentioned merely as typical ex 
amples of the two great groups of en 
hanced and low-temperature lines, which 
are exhibited by many different elements 
in varying degrees of intensity in the 
various stages of stellar life. 

Stellar spectra are photographed on 
Mount Wilson with the aid of the oo-inch 
and loo-inch reflecting telescopes. A 
spectroscope arranged for photography is 
mounted at the focus of the telescope, and 
the image of any desired star is brought 
to the slit by moving the telescope with 
electric motors. When exactly on the 
slit, through which its light passes for 
analysis by one, two, or three prisms, the 
star is held in position by the driving- 
clock of the telescope. The observer con 
stantly watches the star on the slit so as 
to correct any wandering of the image 
700 



by means of a motor, which slightly ac 
celerates or retards the driving rate of 
the clock. The exposure varies from a 
few minutes for the brighter stars to sev 
eral hours for very faint ones. , In this 
way the spectra of thousands of stars, 
down to the limit of visibility of-Her- 
schel s telescope, are photographed one 
by one for study. 

While examining these plates Adams 
and his associates on Mount Wilson have 
given special attention to certain lines 
because of their changes of intensity in 
the hotter and cooler regions of the sun, 
and their corresponding behavior in 
laboratory experiments. The distance of 
s.ome of the stars in which such lines were 
observed had been determined by the 
method of trigonometric parallaxes, and 
consequently their absolute or intrinsic 
brightness was known. It soon appeared 
that in stars of great intrinsic brightness 



-2 



f.5 




-2 



-tl 



+2 *3 +4 

MAGNITUDE. 



+6 



Fig. MI. Curves used by Adams for determining the absolute magnitudes 
and the distances of the stars. 

The curves are made once for all by plotting the relative intensities of certain pairs of lines against the known ab 
solute magnitudes of the corresponding stars. The arrows indicate how the absolute magnitudes of Arcturus and 
the brighter component of the double star 70 Ophiuchi are given by the curves when the relative intensities of the lines 
in these pairs are learned from the spectra shown in Fig. 17. 



some lines are exceptionally strong while 
others are weak. In certain of these, for 
example, the "enhanced" or spark lines 
of strontium are very strong, while the 
calcium line X4254 is \veak. In intrinsi 
cally faint stars the reverse is true the 
calcium line is stronger than the stron 
tium lines. It thus became possible, in 
fact, to determine a definite numerical 
relationship between the intrinsic bright 
ness of a star and the relative strength of 
these lines. Turning, then, to a star of un 
known distance, a simple estimate of the 



relative intensity of the calcium line and 
one of the strontium lines then gives 
a measure of its absolute magnitude. 
Knowing its apparent brightness, its dis 
tance at once follows. 

The ease and quickness of application 
of this method render it very advanta 
geous in studies of the structure of the 
universe. Unlike the trigonometric meth 
od, its use is not restricted to the nearer 
stars. It may thus carry our sounding- 
line deep into space, where distances are 
reckoned in thousands of light-years. 



I I I "tt 



4215 



4250 



4454 4461 



Fig. 17. Spectra of 70 Ophiuchi and Arcturus, between comparison spectra of iron. 

Note the relative intensities in each star of the lines indicated by arrows. These give the absolute magnitude 

and hence the distance of the stars. 

701 



702 



THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE 




Fig. 18. Globular star cluster N. G. C. 7006. 
Shapley finds its distance to be about 220,000 light-years. 



STAR CLUSTERS 

Another method of mea 
suring distances has been used 
by Doctor Harlow Shapley in 
his extensive investigation at 
Mount Wilson of globular 
star clusters. The constella 
tion of Orion is one of the 
most beautiful of celestial ob 
jects, both to the naked eye 
and under closer scrutiny in 
the telescope. The brilliant 
stars that outline the figure 
of the giant hunter and mark 
his girdle are scattered over a 
vast expanse of sky, but all of 
them except Betelgeuse con 
stitute a definite physical 
group, doubtless of common 
origin and still moving to 
gether through space. This 
is an excellent example of an 
open star cluster, repeated in 
Ursa Major and again in the 
more condensed groups of the 

Prior to 1900 only sixty precise measures Hyades and the Pleiades, both of which 
of stellar distance had been made by the are also true physical systems, 
laborious methods, for the most part This clustering tendency is widely il- 
visual, applied up to that time. The work lustrated among the stars. The simplest 
of Schlesinger with the 40-inch Yerkes case of stellar grouping is that of the 
telescope initiated an American school of binaries, in which we observe two stars, 
parallax measurers, whose 
efficient use of photographic 
methods added new and more 
precise determinations at 
such a rapid rate that the 
total number of trigonomet 
ric parallaxes is now about 
1,400. In 1915 Adams and 
his associates began system 
atic application with the 60- 
inch telescope of his spec- 
troscopic method, which was 
subsequently extended to the 
loo-inch telescope and has al 
ready yielded over 2,000 de 
terminations of stellar dis 
tance. In a later article some 
of the important conclusions 
based on these new results 
will be described. They not 
only prove decisively the ex 
istence of dwarf and giant 
stars, but also throw a flood of 
light on the structure and evo- Fig . IQ . Globular star clustcr Messicr 79 

lutlOn Of the Stellar Universe. Shapley finds its distance to be about 85,000 light-years. 




THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE 



703 



frequently larger than the sun, revolving edge of its apparent brightness gives us 
about their common centre of gravity, its distance. 
Thousands of such double stars have been 

found, in some cases accompanied by a DISTANCE OF GLOBULAR CLUSTERS 
third member. Groups of this kind differ By this means, and also by other meth- 
materially from open clusters of the ods, Shapley determined the distances of 
Orion type, where the widely separated all globular clusters photographed with 
members do not revolve 
about a common centre, but 
move in nearly parallel lines 
through space. But the 
most striking of all stellar 
systems are the great glob 
ular clusters which have 
been used by Shapley for a 
study of the dimensions of 
the stellar universe. Only 
about eighty or ninety of 
these highly condensed clus 
ters are known, and the 
problem of determining their 
distances and dimensions is 
of fundamental impor 
tance. 

Several years ago, in an 
examination at the Harvard 
observatory of photographs 
of the small Magellanic 
Cloud, the late Miss Lea- 
vitt gave special attention to 
certain stars of the Cepheid 
class, which fluctuate in 
brightness in regular periods 
ranging from 1.25 to 127 
days. By comparing the 
average apparent brightness 
of each star with its period 
of variation, she detected a 
definite relationship between 
the . two. Thus, if in any 
star of this class only the 
period were known, its 
average brightness could be 

accurately predicted. As all of the stars the 6o-inch and loo-inch telescopes, 
in the Magellanic Cloud are at essen- With long exposures these instruments 
tially the same distance from the earth, show them to be composed of many thou- 
the differences in their apparent bright- sands of stars, grouped in globular form, 
ness correspond to differences in abso- The great cluster in Hercules, for ex- 
lute or intrinsic brightness. Thus this ample, contains fully 35,000 stars as 
simple method, if it holds strictly for bright as the sun, and some of these are 
all variables of the Cepheid class, should more than a thousand times brighter, 
provide a means of determining the abso- Among them are many Cepheid varia- 
lute brightness of such a star, however re- bles, and by observing their periods and 
mote, from the length of its period. As their apparent brightness, their absolute 
we have already seen in Adams s spec- brightness and hence their distance has 
troscopic method, as soon as we know been found. This reaches the immense 
the absolute brightness of a star a knowl- figure of 36,000 light-years. 




Fig. 20. ( In-ill globular star cluster in Hercules. 

Shapley finds the distance of this cluster to be 36.000 light-years. On this 
basis over .55,000 of its stars are as bright as the sun. while the three stars 
in the small circles are one hundred times as bright. The length of the 
short line at the centre is four ami one-third light-years, and the diameter 
of the large circle is ten million times the distance from the earth to the 
sun or 160 light-years. 



704 THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE 

If this measure is correct, and there is SIZE or THE GALACTIC SYSTEM 
much independent evidence to support it, 

we take a tremendous leap into space and Thus we may think of the galactic 
time when we reach out to this cluster. We system as a flattened disk or watch-shaped 
have seen that light travelling at the rate aggregation of stars, having a diameter of 
of 186,000 miles per second requires 1.2 perhaps 300,000 light-years, with the sun 
seconds to reach us from the moon, 8 min- at a very considerable distance from the 
utes to come from the sun, and 4 ]/ 3 years to centre. The thickness of the disk is about 
cross the space between us and the nearest one-eighth of the diameter, or 37,500 light- 
star. Our views of such objects are thus years. These great dimensions have been 
contemporaneous, or nearly so: we see denied by Curtis, who argues in favor of 
them as they are now or as they were with- a galactic system about one-tenth as large, 
in a few years. But the Hercules cluster is But more and more evidence is accumu- 
in another class. The light that left it lating in favor of the larger conception of 
36,000 years ago, travelling at the rate of Shapley, which has already found wide 
nearly six million million miles per year, acceptance among astronomers, 
has only just reached us. Thus, we cannot The question at issue, it should be 
say how the cluster appears to-day, or emphasized, is the size of the galactic 
whether it has existed at all since the dawn system of stars to which the sun belongs, 
of our civilization. There is every reason This includes all the stars within reach of 
to believe, however, that if we could see observation, together with the planetary 
the present cluster as astronomers will nebulae and the irregular galactic nebulae, 
see it 36,000 years hence it would appear both bright and dark. It does not neces- 
essentially as it does in our photographs of sarily include, however, the very remark- 
its remote past. For 36,000 years is as a able spiral nebulae, about a million of 
day in the cycles of the universe, where which can be photographed with the 
millions of years bring little change. largest telescopes. The question has not 

Look at the cluster as shown in Fig. yet been settled whether these are no 
20. All of the stars that appear in this farther from us than the more distant 
picture, as already remarked, are brighter stars or whether they should be regarded 
than the sun. The immense size of the as "island universes," isolated in the 
cluster is indicated by the short horizontal depths of space and comparable in size 
line drawn on the centre of the image, which with the galactic system. Curtis, who 
represents the distance from the earth to holds the latter view, estimates their dis 
ci Centauri 4^ light-years. The diam- tance to range from 500,000 to 10,000,000 
eter of the large circle is 10,000,000 times light-years, while Shapley, van Maanen, 
the distance from the earth to the sun, or and others believe them to be much nearer. 
1 60 light-years. The total diameter of Interesting arguments have been advanced 
the cluster, which extends far beyond this on both sides, but these are too numerous 
circle, is more than 350 light-years. to be included in the present article. 

This enormous star system, according The vast scale of the universe easily 

to Shapley, is the nearest of the globular explains phenomena that were once ob- 

clusters. One of these lies at a distance scure. Even the moderate distance of 

greater than 200,000 light-years, and be- 350 light-years causes a star like Antares, 

yond this may be others still more remote, more than 400 times the sun in diameter, 

They appear to be isolated systems, not to shrink to a tiny point too small to be 

closely associated with the stars, but magnified by any telescope into a true disk, 

nevertheless so distributed that they be- Thanks to Michelson s interferometer, 

long to the great stellar universe repre- used with the loo-inch telescope, the diam- 

sented by the Galaxy. The distance of eter of Antares, and that of a few other 

the Hercules cluster is about the same as stars have been measured by indirect 

that of the star clouds of the Milky Way re- means.* In this and other ways great mod- 

cently measured by Seares. These mea- ern instruments have rapidly advanced 

sures relate to stars down to the fifteenth our knowledge of the structure of the uni- 

magnitude, but many of the fainter stars verse and enabled us to sound its depths 

must be much more distant, perhaps as and to watch the evolution of the stars. 

remote as the farthest globular cluster. * See "The New Heavens," Charles Scribner s Sons, 1922. 



For the Benefit of the Belgians 

BY REBECCA N. PORTER 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY LESTER RALPH 




ISS MINERVA sat 
bolt upright in bed. 
She had heard a noise. 
It was the creepy kind 
of noise that is associ- 
ated with burglars. 
Every nerve and 
muscle tense, she lis 
tened again. The stealthy footsteps 
passed the porch and went along the path 
to the rear of the house. 

She threw aside the bedclothes, and 
slipping on stockings, slippers, and bath 
robe, stole over to the chiffonier. There 
was no use in rousing Finnette. She had 
been working hard in the war-garden all 
day and needed her sleep. Besides, the 
old Frenchwoman under stress of emer 
gency was apt to be more voluble than 
resourceful. Miss Minerva was not the 
timorous, swooning, scream-equipped 
spinster of a past generation. She lifted 
from the top drawer of the chiffonier 
something small and heavy which she 
stripped of its leather case. Then, clutch 
ing it in one hand, she glided down the 
back steps. 

It was two o clock and the air was 
heavy with the mysterious perfumes of 
night. The fragrance of orange-blos 
soms and jasmine enveloped " Goldacres " 
in an invisible mantle. She paused an 
instant on the lawn and listened again. 
Breakers beating against a distant bluff 
were the only sounds that broke the still 
ness. From the Santa Barbara light 
house far away came the intermittent 
gleam of the big revolving lamp. And 
then, ail at once, those stealthy footfalls 
again near the garage. She remembered 
all at once that George, who had a room 
out there up-stairs and was the chauffeur 
and only other caretaker on the place, 
was hard of hearing. Like a telegraph- 
operator on duty his attention was set 
only to the call of his own signal. The 
starting of an automobile engine would 
VOL. LXXL 45 



have roused him at once, but the unob 
trusive footsteps of a burglar were for 
other ears. 

Miss Minerva followed the sound past 
the garage and out to where a row of 
rabbit-hutches lined the stone wall that 
separated "Goldacres" from the neigh 
boring estate. Pedigreed Belgian hares 
were not to be regarded contemptuously 
in war-times when all patriotic citizens 
eschew red meats, and every hare sold 
nets a neat sum for the Red Cross. Next 
to the old family plate Miss Minerva 
knew that Cousin Ada Mills valued those 
rabbits as her most precious possession. 
Not while she, Minerva Garrison, was on 
duty should the territory of the Belgians 
be invaded. 

There was no moon. Through the 
blackness she could see nothing and her 
defensive equipment did not include a 
spot-light. When the footsteps halted 
near the rabbit-hutches she halted too, 
and her voice rang out clear and authori 
tative in the darkness: "Stop ! I ve got 
a gun and it s pointed at you !" 

There was a moment of silence and 
then the sound of some one trying des 
perately to scale the stone wall. A cu 
rious exhilaration seized Miss Minerva. 
She felt herself master of a tense, dra 
matic situation. It was not enough mere 
ly to ward off an attack; the marauder 
must be discouraged from ever making 
another entrance. Pointing the revolver 
at a spot which she judged to be about 
three yards from the escaping thief, and 
aiming at the ground, she fired. 

There was a yell, a snapping of dry 
twigs, and the thud of a body on the soft 
earth. Exhilaration and calm authority 
forsook Miss Minerva. Without daring 
to approach the ghastly spot where her 
victim lay, she dropped her weapon and 
fled up the inside steps of the garage. 

"George!" she cried in agonized tones 
as she beat with both hands upon his 

705 



706 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BELGIANS 



door, "George, get up I ve killed a 
man!" 

A moment later the door was wrenched 
open from the inside and the chauffeur 
stumbled dazedly down-stairs armed 
with a spot-light and clothes-brush. In 
his eyes was a sort of awed admiration. 
Miss Minerva on her first night of oc 
cupancy had given "Goldacres" the only 
thrill that it had known during his five 
years of residence. He was not blood 
thirsty by temperament but five years of 
house-parties and golf tournaments and 
motor trips down to Los Angeles had 
paralyzed that hope of adventure which 
is the inalienable right of every male 
under thirty. Could it be possible, he 
asked himself now, that this attractive 
but conventional maiden lady from out of 
the East had murdered somebody? No, 
a broken leg was the best he might expect. 

But even this spectacle was denied him. 
For beside the ivy-covered stone wall 
there lay revealed in the circle of light a 
spotted setter dog. He was quite dead. 
As Miss Minerva knelt with relieved 
pity beside him, she rejoiced that his 
agony had been brief. George s blase 
eyes surveyed the victim with a gleam 
of genuine interest. "Gee!" he ejacu 
lated, "some shot. He belongs on the 
next place. The Coulters brought him 
all the way from New York. He s just 
like one of the family. Pedigreed stock. 
Everybody in this valley knows that dog." 

A little cry escaped Miss Minerva. 
She had caught sight of the three lifeless 
and mutilated bodies of the largest-sized 
bunnies. "Look at that!" she com 
manded. "Oh, to think that anything 
intrusted to my care should be butchered 
that way ! I don t care if he is a pedi 
greed dog. He s evidently been hanging 
around here all night, and he d have had 
the whole hutch overturned next. He 
deserved to be killed. I m glad I did it ! " 

George didn t get all of this, but he 
judged by the tears in the assassin s eyes 
that she needed comforting. "Don t be 
too cut up about it/ he soothed. "Be- 
in a lady, he can t say much to you." 

"Who are these Coulters?" 

"Why, he s some kind of a scientist. 
Writes books on mathematics or some 
thing." 

"I don t care if he does. This will teach 



him a lesson about respecting other 
people s property. Bury him, George" 
(her tone indicated that she meant the 
mathematician), "but leave these poor 
little bunnies where they are. If he 
comes over making inquiries in the morn 
ing, I ll show them to him." 

It was only when she was back in her 
own room, away from the admiring eyes 
of George, that Miss Minerva s gallant 
independence collapsed and the taut 
nerves w r hich she had come to " Gold- 
acres" to relax, claimed their own. When 
at last she had dried her tears she lay 
sleepless, staring into the dark. The 
hours dragged toward dawn. From Santa 
Barbara came faintly the sound of the Old 
Mission bells calling the faithful to early 
mass. 

"Finnette," she announced the next 
morning while the old servant and com 
panion served her breakfast in the glass- 
enclosed porch off the dining-room, "I 
am not going into town much. I don t 
care to have it generally known that 
Cousin Ada has a relative out here on 
her place. Her friends might feel that 
they ought to call and I can t I simply 
can t see people yet." 

Finnette nodded with silent under 
standing. Once, in the days of her youth, 
when the brute whom she had called her 
husband mercifully died, she had suffered 
a nervous collapse, and so she knew that 
terror of chance encounters with strangers 
which only the nerve- racked can know. 
Now, with all the passion of her fiery old 
heart she longed to have Miss Minerva 
get what she termed "her chance." At 
thirty, she admitted grudgingly to her 
self, first youth is gone. It is gone even 
before that if one lives out the golden 
years in the sick-room first of a fretful 
mother and then as the sole companion 
of a complacently tyrannical father. But 
first youth is not, she had observed, an 
indispensable prerequisite for happy mar 
riage, and never during all those recluse 
years of Miss Minerva s youth had Fin- 
nette s sharp eyes ceased their search for 
eligible suitors. Several times had her 
vigilance been rewarded, and then, just 
as the cruiser was nearing shore, Miss 
Minerva had hung out a "no landing" 
sign, and it had sought a more hospitable 
port. "And now it is that she is so used 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BELGIANS 707 

to wavin em away," the old woman had "Good morning," Miss Minerva an- 

complained bitterly, "that she s lost the swered in the lowered tone appropriate 

knackI m afraid she s lost the knack." to bereavement. Her habitual reserve 

Just why the unhappily wed should be was intensified by cold indignation. She 

the most ardent advocates of matrimony began to dig in eloquent silence. "If he 

is a mystery which psychologists have has a grain of sense he ll see that I don t 

never solved. But any unmarried man want him around and will go away," she 

or woman who numbers such on the roll said to herself. 

of friendship can bear testimony to the Evidently he hadn t, for he stayed and 

truth of this. Finnette, surveying now began peering inquisitively along her side 

Miss Minerva s slender little figure in of the fence. 

crisp black-and-white mourning gown, " Are you looking for the fourth dimen- 

surmounted by irregular curves of dark sion, Mr. Math-Man?" Miss Minerva 

hair, ventured a suggestion. "It is inquired at last. 

pleasant at the beach. One does not "No," he answered still genially, "I m 

need to- looking for Euclid." There was a long 

"Oh, no, I don t care about going silence and the pile of earth at the side of 

there," her charge interrupted hurriedly, the grave grew steadily. "Why don t 

There is something about the water, a you eat them instead?" the intruder sug- 

restlessness, an incessant effort She gested at last. 

wandered off toward the steps. "No, I Miss Minerva made no reply. She had 

shall stay on Goldacres during the two stopped digging and was wiping her 

months that I am here. Why should any heated forehead. Without the slightest 

one ever want to leave such a place?" warning the Math-Man leaped over the 

"Down under the old sycamore is a fence and appropriated the shovel. "Let 

pleasant place then," Finnette remarked, me finish," he commanded. "I think it 

"I have never seen the nasturtiums grow- ought to be deeper." 

ing high up in the branches like down Miss Minerva relinquished the shovel 

there, and the little bench without protest. It was the least he 

"Yes, I mean to try it," Miss Minerva could do to offer to bury them, 

answered, picking up a floppy garden hat "Oh, dig my grave both wide and deep, 

with a wreath of dull-tinted chrysanthe- wide and deep," he sang buoyantly, and 

mums around the brim. laid the Belgians in a straight row down 

But on her way down to the big syca- the trench. "You raise them for the 

more she stopped at the garage, drawn market, don t you?" he asked, 

thither by the morbid instinct of the mur- "I ll try to raise the rest of them for the 

derer. George had gone into town on market," she replied with mild irony, 

some household errands and would not " Well, if you re doing that," he went 

be back until noon. The tragedy of the on pleasantly, "you ll have to do some 

night had had a curious psychological clever advertising." 

effect upon Miss Minerva. From being "My cousin, Mrs. Mills, keeps a card 

rather indifferent to the existence of the in the papers all the time," she told him 

Belgians, and coldly neutral concerning briefly. 

their ultimate end, she now found herself He waved aside the words with a touch 

partisan to a violent degree. George had of impatience. "Other people are raising 

piled the victims of the massacre near the Belgian hares to sell," he informed her. 

stone fence and Miss Minerva decided to "Did you see this ad?" He drove the 

obliterate the disaster from her memory shovel into the earth and drew a clipping 

by giving them decent burial. When she from his pocket. She read it silently, 

emerged from the tool-house with a sinis- FOR SALE ! Belgian hares from the fa- 

ter-looking shovel she found a man in a mous Tracy Warren poultry farm. Fat, 

hat as floppy as her own leaning over the juicy, delicious. Hoover eats em. Noth- 

wall watching her through the ivy-leaves, ing beats em. Phone 127. 

" Good morning, neighbor," he said Miss Minerva handed it back gravely, 

genially, and completely ignoring the sig- "It is a better ad than ours," she ad- 

nificance of the shovel. mitted. 



708 FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BELGIANS 

"Oh, much better," he commented, things!" she said to Finnette when the 

"When I finished reading this I yearned indefatigable old woman came out a few 

for the flesh of a Belgian." minutes later armed with a rake, a hoe, 

"Help yourself," she invited wickedly, and other armament of the soldiers of the 

" Those that you are burying are perfect- soil. But Finnette s eyes were fixed upon 

ly good. They were killed only last a tall figure in floppy hat who was irrigat- 

night." ing long lines of beans on the other side of 

He had finished the task now and was the fence. When Miss Minerva came in 

returning the shovel to the tool-house, to lunch, after writing a letter to Cousin 

"If he d take off those owlish glasses he Ada down under the big sycamore-tree, 

wouldn t be bad-looking," Miss Minerva she found the old woman in a genial, 

decided. "Thank you very much," she chatty frame of mind, 
said when he came back. "It is that next-door man who knows 

"Oh, don t mention it," the Math-Man about the vegetables," she began, as she 
responded, and added with cheerful tact- set a raw egg disguised in orange-juice 
lessness, "I ll be glad to do it for you any beside Miss Minerva s plate. "He shows 
time." He vaulted over the fence with me how to water a better way this morn- 
athletic grace. "If Euclid comes over, ing. He covers it all up afterward to keep 
send him home, will you?" he called back, it moist. He has the biggest lettuce!" 

Miss Minerva was investigating the Finnette s two hands indicated a lettuce 

hutches. "If he wants to find out any- incredibly large. "It is anew kind he is 

thing about that dog he ll have to ask trying and almost ready to pick." 
about him," she explained to a black rab- Miss Minerva tapped one daintily shod 

bit who occupied cage D all by himself, foot absently on the soft rug beneath her 

She wandered down the line of wire chair. "I suppose he makes a specialty 

hutches, all lettered and showing the of it," she mused, her mind evidently 

number of inhabitants in chalk figures on busy with something else. 
the outside. "Fourteen in C," she read. "Yes, Queen Alexandra is the name. 

" Every hare has been numbered. How Perhaps he may let us try a head when it 

systematic George is!" is ready next week." 

It was that same evening that George "I hope not," Miss Minerva said, sud- 

came up to the house after dinner to an- denly alert. "I don t want to be under 

nounce breathlessly to Miss Minerva that any obligation to him, Finnette." When 

he had been accepted for the service and she used that tone the old woman always 

would leave early in the morning. "I subsided, but there was the gleam of a 

have been tryin for a year to get in," he smile in her eyes as she went out to the 

explained, "but always my deafness has kitchen for the dessert. Miss Minerva 

stood in the way. But I got a notice this eyed her with sudden suspicion. She had 

afternoon. I m goin with a bunch of an uncomfortable feeling that Finnette 

mechanics for repair work. In the place might have hinted for an Alexandrian 

where they ve assigned us they say every- lettuce. It would certainly be awkward 

body gets deaf in a month anyway. I to receive a present from the owner of 

know you re not the scared kind," he Euclid. 

finished, "so you won t mind it havin But the next morning when she went 

me go." out to feed the Belgians the sight that 

He gave her careful instructions in the met her eyes routed all apprehension 

care of the Belgians, and the next morn- concerning a donation from next door, 

ing Miss Minerva filled the water-cans The fastening on hutch C was evidently 

in each cage and replenished the feeding- weak and had yielded to inside pressure, 

bins from the barley sack in the tool- The cage stood wide open. There was no 

house. As an additional treat she stole sign of a prowler this time. Miss Miner- 

from Finnette s vegetable war-garden va cast a wild glance under the row of 

lettuce and cabbage leaves. By the time hutches. Not a rabbit was in sight there, 

she finished this task the Belgians had But her searching glance fell upon a wide 

completely won her heart. hole which the departed Euclid had prob- 

" Such dear, patient, innocent little ably once dug beneath the stone dividing 




Drawn by Lester Ralph. 

"Why don t you cat them instead?" the intruder suggested at last. Page 707. 



709 



710 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BELGIANS 



wall. Half fearfully she let her eyes 
travel to the other side of the partition. 
Then suddenly a little gasp escaped her. 
Crouched at irregular intervals down the 
aisle of Queen Alexandra lettuce, fourteen 
Belgian hares nibbled gratefully at the 
crisp, curling leaves, wet with morning 
dew. 

Without waiting even to call Finnette, 
Miss Minerva drew herself over the fence 
aided by wires of ivy and bore down upon 
the army of occupation. The Belgians, 
surfeited by the spoils of war, made little 
effort to escape. Long captivity had de 
prived them of all power of defense. She 
had gathered a gentle, unprotesting rob 
ber into her arms and was reaching for 
another when she saw the Math-Man 
coming through the lemon-grove with a 
bucket over his arm. She scrambled to 
her feet, sinking ankle-deep in the soft 
moist earth. 

"I m awfully sorry, Mr. Coulter," she 
began. "I just discovered that they had 
escaped. I don t know how long they ve 
been here or 

He set down the bucket of lemons and 
swept a speculative eye over the devas 
tated lettuce-bed. "All night, I should 
say." He gave this estimate in a dispas 
sionate, unhurried voice, as though he 
were calculating the duration of a railroad 
journey. 

"I don t know what I can do about it, 
except pay for the damage, of course," 
she hurried on. 

He was bareheaded to-day, and he 
stood looking down at her gravely from 
behind the owlish glasses. Miss Minerva 
mentally subtracted five years from the 
forty which she had given him at their 
first meeting, and wished desperately 
that he would smile. 

"Let s catch them first before we dis 
cuss damages," he suggested, and nabbed 
a surprised little bunny by his long ears. 

It proved a longer task than either of 
them had expected. The Belgians had 
lost their fleetness, but they had an ag 
gravating talent for just eluding the grasp 
of their pursuers. Miss Minerva and the 
Math-Man bumped their heads together 
sharply several times during the pursuit 
and clawed wildly at each other over the 
heads of the Alexandrian lettuce. When 
the last of the fourteen had been safely 



secured in cage C, they sought the cool 
shelter of the sycamore-tree, festooned 
with gaudy nasturtium-blossoms, to re 
gain their breath. Miss Minerva took 
off the chrysanthemum-wreathed hat and 
fanned herself. The Math-Man noticed 
all at once that her eyes were gray, lus 
trous, blue-gray, not dark as he had first 
labelled them. It was the heavy black 
lashes, he decided, that had misled him. 

"Were you raising them for the mar 
ket?" Miss Minerva asked contritely. 

"What? Oh, the lettuce? Well, I ll 
try to get the rest of them to the market." 

She met it without flinching. "I m 
afraid I was rude yesterday. But I was 
a little upset. You see, this place doesn t 
belong to me, and I feel responsible for 
everything intrusted to my care. Your 
dog I ought to have told you about it 
yesterday It was really an accident, 
but I killed Euclid." 

"Yes, I know." 

"You knew about it all the time?" 

" No, not all the time ; but after I d met 
you I began to be suspicious. Then I got 
George to confirm it. I m glad you told 
me. I felt a delicacy about mentioning it. 
But I m under deep obligations to you 
I hope the lettuce tragedy will help to 
square my debt." 

He apparently enjoyed the mute ques 
tioning of the wide-open gray eyes, for 
he spoke in drawling soliloquy now. 
"That dog had a family tree that could 
have shaded the whole Belgian nation, 
and he was the bane of my life. He has 
kept sick neighbors awake and stolen the 
property of well neighbors. Since he 
came into it, my life has been one pro 
longed apology. I couldn t kill him my 
self, for he didn t belong to me, and I 
couldn t give him away, but I could have 
yelled with joy when I heard of his timely 
end." 

"I wish you had told me," Miss Mi 
nerva sighed. "I wouldn t have worried 
so much, but Her eyes lighted now 
with sudden fire. "I love animals, dogs 
especially, and I never killed anything in 
my life before, but I enjoyed firing that 
shot. It s the only thing I ever did that 
I didn t have to consult somebody else 
about first ! " 

"I see," he said slowly, and for an in 
stant Miss Minerva was frightened for 




It was really an accident, but I killed Euclid." Page 710. 



fear that he really did. "I m sorry 
you worried about it," he said gently. 
"You re out here for your health, aren t 
you?" 

"How did you know?" 

"My dear lady, it s, easy. I ve seen 
enough worn-out war workers to 

"It wasn t war work," she hastened to 
correct him. 

" So much the worse. That s the only 
service that awards medals or honorable 



mention. Listen. Resting is the hardest 
job in the world just now; but it s worth 
the effort. Don t worry about anything 
while you re tanking up on strength. 
Raise rabbits, and read, not war stuff, 
but something light and entertaining 
like 

"Like what?" 

" Well, try some of Rex Martin s short 
stories. He writes about burglars and 
highwaymen and piratical sort of chaps, 

711 



712 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BELGIANS 



but they re such clever devils and so 
decent at heart that somehow they get 
you. I don t know of anything better 
than The Adventures of the Blackbird 
to feed worn-out nerves." 

At this moment Finnette appeared 
bearing a silver pitcher and glasses. Her 
face was inscrutable but hospitality 
radiated from the fresh cup cakes and 
fruit punch. When Miss Minerva came 
up to the house a few minutes later Fin 
nette called to her sharply from the back 
screen porch. 

" Why is it that you do not invite him 
to lunch?" 

"How absurd you are, Finny. I don t 
know him well enough for that." She 
wandered out to where the old woman 
sat mixing salad dressing. 

"It was terrible about our rabbits 
getting into that wonderful lettuce, but 
he was very nice about it. He simply 
wouldn t let me pay him." 

"If he comes over to-morrow we will 
ask him to lunch." Finnette said simply. 

The Math-Man did come over the next 
day to show Finnette a new kind of 
cucumber, but he was not invited to 
lunch. For Miss Minerva lay in the blue- 
and-gold bedroom racked with pain, the 
aching spinal pain that only the nerve- 
weary know. The next day she was no 
better, and then Finnette, coming up 
with her milk-and-egg drink, announced 
that the Math-Man had offered to take 
charge of the Belgians. "Already he is 
doing it since yesterday," she reported. 

"He s very kind," the sufferer sighed. 
"I suppose I ll have to let him, but I hate 
to be under such 

"He sends you this note telling how 
they get along," Finnette went on im- 
perturbably. Miss Minerva opened the 
thin slip of paper. The message was con 
cise and brief. 

" Report from the Belgian front. 

"25 + 8.4 + i 2 = O K. 

"C - 14 = O." 

"It is the lettuce that kills one whole 
cage." Finnette explained the tragedy 
of the last equation with tranquil stoi 
cism. "He says green feed, if it is damp, 
will kill them every time." 

The next evening the report came con 



cealed in the pages of "The Adventures of 
the Blackbird." It was more encourag 
ing. 

" Break in the Belgian line. 

"B 2 = $1.00 E 9 = $9.20. 
"No casualties." 

" He sells them by the Red Cross sal 
vage department in town," Finnette ex 
ulted. "He says they are at the age to 
sell and should go. And in this way it is 
not necessary to advertise." 

"Thank goodness!" Miss Minerva 
sighed. "It s wonderful to have such 
a capable manager." 

"What I always tell you," the old 
woman reminded her, "is that talent of 
a kind you may have, but you know little 
of business." 

The next day, when the Belgian report 
came in on a note half hidden in a huge 
Alexandrian lettuce that looked like a 
colossal green rose, Miss Minerva wrote 
a message of appreciation which Finnette 
bore in triumph to the Math-Man. It 
expressed the hope that he would call the 
next day and allow her to thank him in 
person. 

During the weeks that followed, he re 
ported daily at the sycamore-tree, for, al 
though Miss Minerva announced herself 
perfectly recovered now and equal to any 
task, he pointed out that the position of 
food administrator for the Belgians was 
too important a post to be filled by a 
novice. And so the Belgians continued 
to thrive, and the Red Cross continued 
to be enriched, and Miss Minerva and 
the Math-Man continued to chat under 
the friendly shade of the big sycamore. 
During the long mornings Miss Minerva 
sometimes wrote at the rustic table. 
There were frequent letters to Cousin 
Ada, in which she assured her in glowing 
terms that she was completely recover 
ing her health, and that " Goldacres" was 
the Garden of Eden. She wrote other 
things too as the days passed, sketchy, 
fragmentary things, and one morning the 
lines of a poem began to write themselves 
across the table. 

" I dare to take what my eyes desire, 
And to keep what my heart holds dear." 

There was a long pause after this asser 
tion, and then other lines added them- 



FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BELGIANS 



713 



selves, and the morning was miraculously 
gone. 

It was the next day that the Math- 
Man handed in his resignation as food 
administrator to the Belgians. They 
were standing on the rustic bridge that 
spanned a dry creek bed bordered with 
myrtle, and he had just finished super 
intending the carting away of a dozen 
marketable rabbits. 

"I m sorry to give up the position," he 
explained, " but I must get back to work. 
I gave myself two months to rest and 
they are gone." 

"Work?" Miss Minerva echoed the 
word incredulously as though it were 
quite a new one. " Something, I suppose, 
along the line of engineering?" 

" Yes. Engineering the fortunes of the 
Centennial Magazine." 

"You are its editor." Miss Minerva 
made the statement in a musing voice, 
looking down a vista of trees that ended 
in a patch of green-blue ocean. 

"I thought," he said, "that you 
thought I was somebody else." 

"I did at first, but your name was in 
that book you lent me, you know." 

He smiled. "I wouldn t know an 
algebraic equation from the shorthand 
notes of a Czecho-Slav. My brother s 
the math. whiz. When he went into the 
service he suggested that I come out here 
and be caretaker for his place till I got a 
line on my nerves. But how did you 
know who I was?" 

"I ought to know, if anybody does. 
I ve had a great many letters from you." 

"Letters?" 

"Letters. But not so many of those as 
printed slips. Yours are the only ones 
I ve ever kept. You write such delicious 
things on the margins. I suppose," she 
went on after a moment of silence, " that 
you came out here to get away from 
writers?" 

He nodded dumbly. 

"And I came out to get away from 
editors." 

"You must write under a pen name." 
A kind of terror was gripping the editor of 
the Centennial Magazine. 

" I had to. You see, my parents were 
the old-fashioned, conservative kind. 
They had very strict ideas about what a 
daughter ought to do. I didn t dare tell 



them about my work. And yet," her 
voice had sunk to a tragic little whisper, 
"I should have died during these last 
hard years, if I hadn t had the Black 
bird." 

He was staring down at her, this de 
mure, feminine little creature in the 
dainty black-and-white gown, as though 
he were seeing her for the first time. 

"The Blackbird!" he murmured in 
credulously. His voice was awed. "You 
little woman you, do you mean that you 
you write about -?" 

"About robbers ! " she cried passionate 
ly, "and highwaymen and piratical sort 
of men !" She faced him with a tremu 
lous defiance. Thirty years of self-sup 
pression and outraged youth and stifled 
dreams were in her voice as she hurried 
on. "Highwaymen and robbers and 
pirates go after what they want and take 
it, in spite of everything. They are not 
hampered by the fear of consequences, 
by fear of anything. It s glorious!" 

The editor of the Centennial Magazine 
was not aware that his next words were 
spoken aloud. "I dare to take what my 
eyes desire, and to keep what my heart 
holds dear." 

"But I don t," Miss Minerva said bit 
terly. "I never have." A wave of hot 
color swept her pale face. "How could 
you read what somebody else wrote?" 

He smiled shamelessly. "Reading 
what other people write is my business. 
I found that down under the sycamore- 
tree yesterday, and it gave me courage." 

He reached out and took her two hands 
in a strong, masterful grasp. "As a care 
taker, I m a miserable failure," he con 
fessed. "I haven t taken care at all." 

Through a mist in which the oak-trees 
along the creek seemed to dance gro 
tesquely, Miss Minerva gazed at the 
patch of green-blue ocean that has lured 
artists from all over the world. But what 
she saw was a long, bleak trail of dead 
years slowly dissolving into the fog. 

Above them on the terrace a fiery-eyed 
old woman scurried out of sight around 
a corner of the big house. "Fourteen 
Belgians and two rows of Alexandrian 
lettuce gone," she murmured wickedly. 
"Well, it was worth trying, and Mon 
Dieul everything in life costs some 
thing." 



Angela 



BY EDWARD C. VENABLE 

Author of "Pierre Vinton," "Six-Feet-Four," etc. 



A 



NGELA is really very 
much like her great- 
grandmother. She 
doesn t know it and 
she would be furiously 
angry if I were to tell 
her; but nevertheless 
she is. 

It is a most comforting resemblance. 
Sometimes I am inclined to think it the 
most comforting aspect of Angela. There 
is a portrait of her great-grandmother 
over the fireplace in the library, a lady in 
the tightest-fitting black "waist" I have 
ever seen, with her hair smoothly parted 
and drawn down over her ears and her 
hands prettily folded in her lap. I look at 
that picture and feel sure that no one 
who is, as Angela is, the spiritual replica 
of such a person can ever be what Angela 
assures me she intends to become. But I 
cast such glances furtively, for fear An 
gela should catch me at it and read my 
thoughts. To be told she resembles her 
great-grandmother would, I imagine, be 
the bitterest reproach she could receive 
unless perhaps to be told the same thing 
of her great-great-grandmother, because 
Angela s ambition in life is to be new r . 

In many ways she is, but these are 
superficial ways and it is the fundamen 
tals of Angela that I am concerned with, 
inasmuch as the laws of consanguinity 
forbid my marrying her, just as the laws 
of heredity compel me to be her guardian. 
This is, indeed, one of her grievances 
that I am her guardian, I mean; she hasn t 
the slightest desire to marry me. She is 
not quite so new as that. 

"Why," she asks me, "why should an 
intelligent human being of mature years 
(she is twenty-two) and without criminal 
instincts have a keeper?" 

You should never answer Angela s 
questions. The only safe method is to 
ask her another. So I ask: 

"Why don t you marry, then?" 
"I shall never marry," she assures me. 
714 



"Don t, Angela," I implore, "be so dis 
agreeable." 

As a matter of fact, we agree on this 
question of the guardianship. Angela 
does not dislike it any more heartily than 
I. We both regard it as an imposition. 
To ask, as was asked of me a bachelor 
of sober habits, with a tendency to dys 
pepsia to regard an individual like An 
gela as his "own daughter" is more than 
an imposition it is an absurdity. I 
could no more regard her as my own 
daughter than I could look upon her as 
my own airplane. 

And yet how characteristic of her poor, 
dear father that he should attempt to 
establish such a relationship by pen and 
ink. Poor fellow, he tried to establish a 
new universe by means of pen and ink, 
and now the only existing evidence of this 
reformer s life is Angela, and she is exactly 
like her great-grandmother. Verily, for 
such it must have been written: "There 
is nothing new under the sun." 

Apart from this fundamental absurdity 
in our relationship, however, Angela and 
I get on together not uncomfortably. In 
a way, I think, we rather like each other. 
I do not hesitate to give the credit for this 
happy state of affairs to my own acuteness 
in spying out that absurdity. If I had not, 
and if I tried to regard Angela as my own 
daughter, disapproving of her as I do, 
there would inescapably be friction be 
tween us. There would, to be quite frank, 
be rows, tremendous rows. I should prob 
ably lock her up to keep her from going 
to the sort of places she frequents, I 
should forbid my house to some ninety- 
odd per cent of her acquaintance, I 
should add about twelve inches to the 
length of her skirts, I should make an 
eternal ass of myself and a spiteful little 
sneak of Angela. As it is I do none of 
such things. By merely repudiating that 
snare of scriptural paternity I dwell in 
peace with Angela and even with her 
friends. 



ANGELA 715 

I add that final clause with dubiety, to the portrait of the great-grandmother, 

Angela s friends are difficult. In my from whence at such moments comes my 

opinion and her phraseology, they are a only help. She was a beautiful woman 

scrubby lot. They are not, I fancy, like in the fashion of her day. Her face is 

their great-grandfathers. For practical beautiful even now on the canvas, dis- 

purposes most of them, I am confident, figured as it is by all the absurdities of 

never had any. I do not refer particularly that day s eccentricities. Just so, I re- 

to the men. I scarcely know them. They fleet, Angela too is a pretty girl despite the 

never call at the house, and when they efforts of her dressmakers. I am credibly 

dine there smoke in the drawing-room informed that the lady on the canvas, 

with Angela. The women I know better, when she moved under the open sky, wore 

Very much better. They call and dine, on her head a sort of inverted bird s nest, 

and especially they lunch. I have a sus- and if the portrait were of a slightly dif- 

picion they do not approve of my lunch- ferent shape it would necessarily show a 

ing in my own house, and so when I do "bustle," or it may be a "hoop." I must 

they try to ignore my bad habit as com- by daily experience acquit Angela of a 

pletely as possible. This is very polite of "bustle" and, only vague rumors to the 

them and it also gives me the opportunity contrary, of a "hoop" also. Can I in 

of knowing them intimately because, I common honesty convict her of anything 

being conventionally not present, they worse? Nay, even as bad? I review 

talk among themselves. It is really very meticulously the wardrobe of Angela as 

hard on the butler, though. I know it and must answer truthfully I 

I ventured to point this out once to cannot. No, on the whole the lady on 

Angela, but not very clearly, I am afraid, the canvas in her demure black and her 

"You see, Angela," I said, "there is precise coiffure has no right to look so 

Thomas." virtuously down, after all. What if I did 

"What has Thomas got to do with the other day find a little brown curl on 

it ?" asked Angela. the hall table s drawer ! Were there not 

"Well," I said, "Thomas is a gentle- in the other lady s day things known as 

man I mean, of course, a man." "waterfalls"? How do I know what 

Angela stared blankly. I went a step there is even now at the back of her 

further. smooth brown head? She doesn t show 

"He is even," I suggested, "a bachelor, me in the portrait, and I doubt whether 

And do you think that the personal pros- she was quite frank with the artist either, 

pects of Miss Balch in the science of eu- This same lady was imprudent enough 

genics to leave a diary. It is a weakness which I 

"That," said Angela, "is the very class assess as equivalent to Angela s reckless- 
we want to reach." ness with the kodak. Angela has kodak- 
Doubtless. But they will never reach albums which will some day be the joy 
Thomas, nevertheless. He will leave first, of her irreverent descendants. A similar 
It is impossible to explain to Angela such fate has already met her great-grand- 
an apotheosis of modesty as a bachelor mother s diary. It opens with a record of 
who happens also to be a butler. This the progress of an antimacassar. I lay 
really exasperates me. To lose Thomas the volume down an instant to visualize 
for the theories of Miss Balch is too much. Angela and an olive-drab sweater. The 
And they are only theories, too. That unguent of Mr. Macassar balances against 
woman hasn t any prospects. I told the chill mud of Flanders ! The sleek 
Angela as much. head of a Nat Willis against the broad 

"Mathilde Balch," said Angela, "be- shoulders of a Victor Chapman ! I think 

longs in the front ranks." Angela has the better of her great-grand- 

" Mathilde Balch," I replied, "belongs mother in that opening chapter, 

in the Litany, somewhere between the I close the book there for the time. I 

fury of the Northmen and the perils of feel that it has done me good, and I may 

childbirth." return to the discussion of Miss Balch 

It is after a luncheon such as this that, with greater equanimity, 

safely secluded in the library, I look up If I were Angela s father, or even if I 



716 



ANGELA 



were so silly as to take her real father s 
advice and regard myself as that, I would 
not take the trouble to seek after equa 
nimity in my relations with her. I should 
never apply at all this antidote of her 
great-grandmother s diary. I should 
stamp and swear and say disagreeable 
things about friends like Miss Balch, but 
not being silly in this one instance I strive 
earnestly to retain balance. 

So poised I perceive that the charac 
teristic feature of this little group of 
thinkers Angela s group is unanimity. 
I have never seen so many people so com 
pletely in accord so frequently. And they 
not only agree among themselves but they 
refer ominously to "opinion," a vast 
gloomy background somewhere which is 
inexorably enveloping humanity and of 
which that particular luncheon-party is 
only a tiny detached portion. Miss Balch 
is the fuglewoman of the group. I have 
never heard any one of them disagree 
with Miss Balch in any instance. I can t 
altogether blame them for this; I would 
not care to disagree with Miss Balch my 
self. But nevertheless unanimity is a 
suspicious quality. There is something 
Teutonic about it. When I listen to these 
young ladies agreeing to the dot of an "i" 
on subjects as various as international 
politics and the nutriment of the human 
young, I sometimes awfully suspect the 
existence in this district of Manhattan 
of a central-office opinion-distributing or 
some such cultural establishment. A sort 
of intellectual Sears-Roebuck. How else 
could they each know so exactly what to 
think? It is curious that young ladies 
who are so very particular about the in 
dividuality of their frocks should be con 
tent to acquire their mental garments 
wholesale. 

Yet, after all, did not their great-grand 
mothers acquire theirs in a precisely sim 
ilar manner? Angela s did, I know. The 
garments, to be sure, were of a very dif 
ferent pattern both kinds of garments, 
those for the body and those for the mind 
but that is a matter of very small con 
sequence. Angela s great-grandmother 
was one of the most incurably wholesale 
thinkers whose thoughts I have ever been 
able to get at. 

"I feel every day," she writes under 
date of July 9, 1837, which was exactly 



seventeen years and nine days after the 
date of her birth, "I feel every day how 
little the Life of the World and of Pleasure 
can take the place of Firm, Religious 
Faith." Angela is similarly certain of the 
inadequacy of fun. All young ladies of 
pleasing personalities have such certitudes 
else there wouldn t be any fun. Angela, 
to be sure, is not quite so emphatic as her 
ancestors who called all who were not 
convinced of the inadequacy of fun "un 
godly." Angela merely calls them "para 
sites." This is due to the fact that Angela 
patronizes Ellen Key, while the older lady 
shopped at the establishment of Hemans 
& Tupper, whose wares were more highly 
colored, I think. 

It is comforting to me to observe too 
that Angela only shares her great-grand 
mother s disapproval of her spiritual pas 
tors and masters, for Angela s disapproval 
of me, though in the main harmless, at 
times makes me nervous. She says I am 
antisocial. Miss Balch balefully refers to 
capitalism in the same connection. But 
what s that, what s capitalism compared 
to " infidelity " ? And French infidelity at 
that ! That was the charge her poor, dear 
great-great-grandfather lived and died 
under. The diary painfully records how 
it was necessary during holy worship to 
assume a position in the pew between the 
diarist s parent and the aisle. Otherwise 
apparently the old infidel would be out 
and away to a race-track probably. It 
was even necessary, I infer, to pray, as it 
were, with one eye open and fixed upon 
the backslider, because she says her 
watchfulness was disturbing her devo 
tions. I wonder if the old gentleman was 
capable of hurdling his kneeling offspring 
and escaping that way ? Otherwise, why 
was not the blockade of the pew suffi 
cient? Evidently he was a resourceful 
son of Belial, full of the traditional wiles 
of the children of darkness. 

The relations between Angela and me 
are much less strained. We argue our 
differences of the sort and, on the whole, 
argue with amiability. The reason, I 
suppose, of this superior amiability is that 
our relationship is not complicated as 
were those others by such external super 
ficialities as paternity. By strictly disre 
garding her father s dying wishes I have 
simplified our problem, made it of human 



ANGELA 717 

solution not only capable but even easy, table-top. And oh, vatic urn ! It had 

Angela here is not my own daughter, not belonged to Angela s great-grandmother, 
my foster-daughter. She is not my any- It was a most impressive piece of metal, 

thing. She is simply the Woman in the It must have been almost overpowering to 

House. Angela when she found it there that morn- 

Before she came, an impudent little ing for the first time. I imagine Thomas 
creature of sixteen, this position was oc- felt something of the sort. I remember he 
cupied by a Mrs. Pusey. Mrs. Pusey stood very close to her elbow when she 
used to look in at me at meal-times first stretched out her hands to it. I felt 
through a crack in the pantry-door, abashed, though not at all understanding 
When I saw her doing it I would put up why. Thomas s manner made me so. He 
the newspaper. Later I believe she en- bore that first cup of coffee the length of 
tered in and carefully counted the frag- the table with a solemnity which he other- 
ments that remained, thereby saving me wise reserved exclusively for plum-pud- 
tremendous percentages in monthly bills, ding. He placed it before me as though 
A most capable soul ! I trust she prospers it contained an elixir of immortality, 
somewhere. Then he withdrew to the pantry. The 

Angela is different, quite different. I hypocrite ! I caught him watching 
am confident too that when she came she through a crack in the door, just as Mrs. 
intended, if she gave the matter any Pusey used to do. It was that gave me 
thought at all, to be even more different, an insirh I into the true meaning of the oc- 
She had no desire to occupy the position casion. Then I knew that unconsciously 
she at present holds. The dignity was I had been thrust into a ceremony. An- 
thrust upon her, partly by me, I suppose, gela s eyes around the urn were fixed- 
much more by Thomas. It was done as blue, wide, and full of fear. I was almost 
that silent, mysterious man performs all overcome. My hand trembled. I scarce- 
his works, noiselessly, almost impercepti- ly dared lift the cup. I tasted it barely 
bly, but irresistibly. The whole process and put it down. It rang against the 
must have taken place under my eyes and saucer. I looked fearfully at Angela, 
yet I had never so much as an inkling "Is it," asked Angela, "is it all 
until the fact was accomplished. Thomas right ? " 

is not so much a man as a noiseless, "It is," I answered; "it is delicious." 
irresistible force pervading certain lati- Then the clock struck half past eight 

tudes of my household. on the chimney-piece, and Thomas came 

On that very first morning when Angela in with the eggs. 

came to breakfast the true significance Oh, Angela, Angela, it is not your fault 
of it all is clear to me now for the first or your virtue that you are so very like 
time she was late. This was bad. I your great-grandmother ! I fear after all 
felt apologetic toward Thomas. To my it is only an ineluctable necessity, 
surprise, he did not seem offended. I From that day until this one I have 
know now he was absorbed in weightier never read the newspaper at the break- 
matters. I did not realize that such fast-table. I am, it may be, slow on the 
business was afoot. I had even fancied uptake, but once sufficiently instructed I 
in a vague way that Angela s plate would have a proper respect for occasions. Sure- 
be laid around the corner from mine, and ly, if Angela can lay aside the perfecting of 
I had kindly intentions of placing upon the human race long enough to perfect 
it choice morsels of unusually crisp bacon that early-morning cup, I can lay aside 
and of otherwise being parentally conde- the chronicle of those same creatures mis- 
scending. It was not that I was regarding takes long enough to thank her for her 
her as my daughter but as somebody s solicitude. That I firmly believe _the 
daughter. Thomas made no such blun- solicitude is in no sense of her volition, 
der. His vision was farther-sighted. An- that it is a necessity bound upon her, in 
gela s plate was not around the corner at no way lessens my responsibility in the 
all. It was at the other end of the table, matter. I lift that cup not to Angela, 
and between me and it was a plated-silver not even to her great-grandmother, but 
coffee-urn that stood two feet high on the to a presence that both, in their genera- 



718 ANGELA 

tions, have not unworthily, I am sure, right, only I thought he was dead. It was 
though unconsciously incarnated, the stupid of me, but when the boy first spoke 
presence of the Woman in the House. of the man and added the hope I would 
What a restless spirit she is ! No soon meet him again I was startled and 
sooner has she safely ensconced herself in showed it. 
this title and dignity than she begins to "Where is he?" I asked, 
meditate a yet more adventurous at- "In Arizona," said Spencer, 
tempt. She intends to become a woman I was relieved. I am never quite sure 
in somebody else s house. Of course, be- what one of Angela s friends is going to 
ing possessed of five normal senses, I have say. Fortunately she came in then and 
been aware of such meditation for some I covered up my blunder, 
time. I was not, however, prepared for I don t altogether like Arthur Herbert 
its sudden crystallization, as it were, into and I imagine I never shall, and yet I 
action. feel sorry for him. Angela has deceived 
Angela, unlike me, has no sense of him. We never discuss Angela, but of 
occasions. She came into the library necessity her existence is referred to by 
dressed for the street, even to her gloves, one or the other of us from time to time, 
and after asking me if she could do any- and even by these very occasional flashes 
thing for me up- town she added: I perceive that Angela has imposed upon 
"I think I am going to marry." him the current misapprehension of her 
"What !" I asked. originality. The calm confidences with 
" Herby," Angela answered. which he uses the preface "Angela 
She meant, I discovered, Arthur Her- thinks," as if he were thereby opening up 
bert Spencer. some vision of a new heaven and earth, 
I don t altogether like Arthur Herbert, would alone give her away. And I further 
which may possibly account for Angela s perceive that he is ever so slightly afraid 
infatuation. At that time I didn t re- of this newness. It at once enchants and 
member him. Later, however, he came affrights him. And as the days pass and 
to dinner, and I discovered I didn t alto- the final day approaches his enchantment 
gether like him. To begin with, I don t and his fright grow together, 
like his names, any of them Arthur or We come up here to the library every 
Herbert or Arthur-Herbert or Herby. evening for a half -hour after dinner, while 
Spencer is permissible but the others are Angela is busy elsewhere, and sit opposite 
altogether too smooth. Then I don t like each other by the fireplace. Between us 
his clothes. They are always too short hangs the portrait of Angela s great- 
his trousers, his coats, his waistcoats, his grandmother. At first I thought that An- 
collars everything he wears. He sug- gela insisted upon these conferences and 
gests having been outfitted at some earlier he dutifully obeyed, but I was wrong. He 
period of his development. He retaliates seeks them. During them he often looks 
by not liking my whiskey and tobacco, at me silently for whole minutes together, 
For my person he evidences a profound and he looks I am sure of it imploring- 
respect and some affection. ly. "You," he beseeches, "you have 
That first evening after dinner Angela lived with her for many years. Tell me. 
left us alone together. That was how I In the name of our common father Adam, 
discovered I didn t altogether like him. speak." I grin in silence behind the cigar- 
I suppose she had some groundless femi- smoke. What, I betray the hard-bought 
nine theory that I had something to say knowledge of my years, the secret of my 
to him. Of course I didn t. I never had generation to this impudent knocker at 
less to say to a man in my life. The only the door? All day long youth kicks at my 
common interest we had in the world was heels, treads on my toes, pushes, hustles, 
Angela, and I couldn t very well talk to a insults me in a hundred ways, but for one 
comparative stranger about the woman short half-hour at evening age has its 
he was going to marry especially when I revenge. I weigh it out to the very grain, 
knew the woman as I know Angela. He And the very precariousness of my power 
told me I knew his father. After a good adds to its sweetness. There, not three 
deal of explanation I found out he was feet above his head, hangs the answer to 



ANGELA 



719 



his riddle, if he had only sense to read it. 
But I shall never point it out to him. 

Meanwhile, I know Angela is hanging 
about outside somewhere. She imagines 
we are deep in self-revelation, he allowing 
me to glimpse his spiritual treasures mo 
mentarily, I revealing myself to his rare 
discernment in that role of not-as-cross- 
as-I-seem which Angela has cast me for of 
late. Poor child if she only knew it I 
am on such occasions malice incarnate. 

Arthur Herbert is going away shortly, 
as soon as they are married, and for once 
in clothes that are fully large enough for 
him khaki. It is cut in all sizes these 
days. Before he goes he is going to ask 
me to take care of Angela for him; not 
openly he is different from that but 
dumbly, incoherently, with words that 
mean nothing and would be quite super 
fluous if they did, with that stricken 
young face of his to speak for him. And 
I shall promise him in some similarly in 
adequate fashion, I suppose. What a 
farce ! What will be taking care of Angela 
then will be quite beyond my power to 
disturb. And I shall watch it at work 
when she sits there across the fire under 
the eyes of the picture on the wall. As a 
matter of fact, she speaks as if she were 
going with him, but that, of course, nei 
ther of us will ever permit. It is quite out 
of the question. 

She looked in from the hall to wish me 
good-night just now on her way to bed. 
Arthur Herbert has just left. She was 
radiant. I have never seen her look more 
completely Angela. I wished her in my 
ponderous fashion pleasant dreams. 



"I never dream," she answered, with a 
smi}e. 

Ah, she will soon. 

(By kind permission of the censor) 

"July 22, 1917. 
"DEAR UNCLE SIMON: 

"Look up from those darned old books 
of yours for a minute and listen to me. 

"Herby came a cropper last Thursday 
at Avord. He was trying a Vrille for 
the first time and of course he muffed 
it. He always does. He muffed me the 
first time, the first three times in fact, 
though you were so book-blinded you 
thought I had pink-eye, or some ante 
diluvian disease. Anyway he is laid up 
now. He is going to get well. Doctor 
G - says it s certain. But he thinks I 
am not. 

"That s the trouble. If he thinks I 
won t hard enough, he won t, and then I 
won t, or at least won t want to. I know 
I am not very clear, but you wouldn t 
blame me if you could see me writing on 
this board the nurse holds up with so 
many all around me who can t, who 
simply can t, get well. 

"Now, the point is Herby wants I 
want too you to take little Angela if 
anything should go wrong. I know you 
think you have done enough for Angela. 
You have, but I want her to pour coffee 
out of that old coffee-urn; she has such 
pretty hands, Uncle Simon, even now. I 
wonder if you ever noticed mine when I 

Devtlly, 








Gardens of the Alcazar, Seville. 



Some Spanish Gardens 

BY ERNEST PEIXOTTO 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR 



HOW comparatively little we know, 
in America, of the charm of the 
Spanish garden I Yet the ex 
uberant quintas of Valencia, the gay, tiled 
courts and fountains of Seville, the hang 
ing gardens of the Alhambra, the roman 
tic and melancholy groves of Aranjuez, 
and the majestic vistas of La Granja 
might well serve as models for the set 
tings of our country homes in Florida or 
in California or in the growing Southwest, 
so Hispanic both in color and in character. 
The gardens of Spain, with a few no 
table exceptions, were not laid out on the 
grand scale of those of the Italian villas 
720 



near Rome, nor of the more magnificent 
of the French chateaux, but they have a 
romantic flavor of their own and a charm 
that is quite unlike that of any other Eu 
ropean gardens a charm that, in no 
small measure, can be directly traced to 
the influence of the Moorish occupation. 
This Moorish influence is particularly 
apparent in the gardens of southern Spain 
(and they, after all, are the most charac 
teristic), where the vegetation is semi- 
tropic in character, and where palms and 
myrtles and thickets of citron and orange 
trees give a truly African quality to the 
landscape. Perhaps as characteristic as 



SOME SPANISH GARDENS 



721 



any of these southern gardens are the Giralda Tower alone remain. Upon the 

Jardmes del Alcazar in Seville. reconquest of Seville by the Christians the 

the original Alcazar, a huge fortress Alcazar was almost entirely destroyed 

that formed the mam military bulwark of and was rebuilt by the Spanish sovereigns 










Pavilion of Charles V, Alcazar Gardens, Seville. 



the city, little or nothing remains. It had 
been built in the twelfth century by the 
Sultan Abu Yakub Yusuf, the same en 
lightened monarch who had caused the 
great mosque to be erected, of which the 
Court of Oranges and the world-famed 
VOL. LXXL 46 



of the fourteenth century and their suc 
cessors. Their architects, however, were 
either Morescoes or Spaniards inspired 
by the Mudejar architecture that they 
saw about them, this influence still being 
seen plainly in the diapered wall-panels, 



722 SOME SPANISH GARDENS 

the cusped arches, and the ajimez win- ported by baroque buttresses and sur- 

dows of the Patio de las Doncellas that mounted by broken pediments capped 

was built as late as the reign of Charles V. with obelisks and vases. Along their 

The Alcazar Gardens, as we see them northern side the gardens are bordered by 

to-day, were also laid out under this same the varied structures of the Alcazar itself, 

Emperor, and they exhibit the same ten- while along their eastern end they are shut 

dency to borrow ideas from the Moors, so in by highly colored walls, finished with 

that, in them, we see Mudejar fountains stalactic rustica and adorned with statued 

fraternizing with Chirriguerresque arch- niches, with grottos, and with arcades 

ways and tiled Moorish seats built along whose white arches gleam dazzlingly 

walls that might have been designed by against the lapis-colored sky. 

Berruguete. Palm-trees of great height and luxuri- 

These gardens are usually entered ance, varied with an occasional cedar of 
through the long, dark, corridor-like Lebanon or some other dark evergreen, 
Apeadero, from which you emerge with project the only bits of shadow upon its 
blinking eyes into a dazzling white court- glittering pathways, so that the beholder, 
yard with a wealth of flowers and potted on a sunny day, is struck with an over- 
plants ranged along its balustrades, powering sense of brilliancy and splendor, 
From this court you descend a few steps, of color and perfume and rich southern 
revetted like the seats that adjoin them, exuberance. 

with beautiful azulejos, or tiles. Hence This same sense of tropic brilliancy is 

a cave-like entrance admits you to the characteristic of the patios for which Se- 

vaulted Banos, where, according to tra- ville has long been famous. They, too, 

dition, Maria de Padilla used to bathe are a heritage from the Moors, with their 

while her admirers gallantly drank the tiles and their fountains, "their arcades 

water she had used for her ablutions. and bright-colored tondos, or awnings, to 

Opposite these baths an archway leads protect them from the sun. 
to the outer gardens, which are a perfect Every Spanish city has its favorite 
riot of light and color. They are laid out Alameda or Paseo. Seville is no excep- 
in a series of rectangular compartments tion to this rule, and the Paseo de las De- 
enclosed by clipped hedges and planted licias that leads to the Parque Maria- 
with patterns in box, and further embel- Luisa is a typical example of the shaded 
lished with a profusion of flowering shrubs promenades, planted with sycamores or 
and plants: laurels, azaleas, jessamine, lindens, under whose cool vaults the peo- 
and roses. At the intersections of the pie love to saunter at ease and take the 
paths the corners have been cut off so as air on the long summer evenings, 
to form octagons, in which are placed But the most beautiful of these Ala- 
fountains set on octagonal bases made of medas-that I know. is the one that leads 
tiles, mostly blue and white, but with oc- from Granada up through the Valle de la 
casional dashes of a rich yellow. In a far Assabica to the gates of the Alhambra. 
corner of the garden stands a little colon- It is planted with elms brought from Eng- 
naded pavilion or pleasure-house, erected land by the Duke of Wellington in 1812 
by Charles V, also in the Moorish style trees that now, centenarians, rear their 
a gem of an edifice, whose walls as well mighty boles aloft like the pillars of some 
as the seats that surround it are all faced vast cathedral, while their branches, 
up with brilliant tiles. Behind it is a meeting high aloft, intertwine to form a 
mezquita or little mosque, whose image verdant roof, impenetrable even at mid- 
is reflected in a deep blue pool of water; day, that excludes the rays of the summer 
so that, in this end of the garden at least, sun and breaks the winds, leaving the 
one might fancy oneself in Tunis or in floor of the valley cool, still, and shadowy. 
Fez, or in some villa in the outskirts of Three fountains decorate its leafy aisles. 
Tangier. They murmur constantly with the sound 

But the walls that surround these gar- of running water that gushes from count- 
dens are truly Spanish, topped as they less springs in the hillside as well as 
are with fantastic copings and enlivened from the Acequia del Rey that brings 
with gateways of capricious design, sup- down the melting snows of the Sierras 



SOME SPANISH GARDENS 



723 



from above the Generalife. To add to designers have been able to impart a sin- 

the charm of this mystic grove the air is gular beauty and show how much can be 

filled with the songs of nightingales that, done with a very small space. The best 

attracted by the cool shadows and the known of these is the Garden of Linderaja, 




The Garden of Linderaja, Alhambra. 



calm atmosphere, nest by hundreds in its 
dense foliage. 

These beautiful groves lead us, at last, 
to the Moorish Palace of the Alhambra, 
which contains three small gardens that 
are usually neglected by the tourist in his 
interest in the palace itself. Two of them 
are really only courtyards laid out with 
garden features, but even to these the 



lying in the very shadow of the Peinador 
de la Reina. From its centre rises the 
exquisite alabaster fountain whose praises 
have been sung by Washington Irving in 
his "Alhambra;" About it the sym 
metrical beds are confined by thick hedges 
of box and shaded by orange trees and 
cypresses, while from above, between the 
high, protecting walls, falls a powdery, 



724 



SOME SPANISH GARDENS 



sifted light like that from a studio sky 
light, that lends to this little garden a 
very peculiar charm. 

The second of these Alhambra gardens, 
known as the Jardin del Cuarto de Ma- 
chuca, lies at the western end of the pal 
ace. It also is laid out in geometric pat 
terns, with clipped hedges and rose 
arbors, while through breaks in its mas 
sive walls you catch glimpses of the Al- 
baicin opposite, with its church towers 
silhouetted against the sky and its red- 
tiled roofs descending the hill, pell-mell, 
in picturesque confusion, to the valley, 
worn by the Darro, far down beneath you. 

But it is the third garden, the Jardin de 
los Adarves, or Garden of the Ramparts, 
that is the most characteristic and the 
most beautiful of the three. As its name 
implies, it lies imbedded within the very 
walls of the old Moorish stronghold in 
the shadow of the Alcazaba, or keep of 
the fortress. But even within these re 
stricted confines, it manages to contain a 
world of pretty features: fountains en 
closed in box hedges, pathways made of 
little rounded rocks, roses of Castile clam 
bering in profusion over trellises of iron, 
whose arches frame fascinating views of 
the city, and the Vega lying far below, 
with the mountains of Elvira and the 
Albaicin rising opposite. 

It is due to the choice of such spots 
upon the heights that the Granada gar 
dens owe a large portion of their loveli 
ness; for in them, shut off from the 
world and embowered in flowers, you feel 
an intimate solitude, a quiet sense of re 
tirement as if you were secluded in a 
well-furnished room, yet when you look 
out of your window, so to speak, through 
an opening in the wall, cunningly devised 
so as to command a certain prospect, you 
have the feeling that all the world lies 
spread out at your feet for you to gaze 
upon and wonder at, while to your ear 
there mounts the creak of a distant cart 
wheel, the bark of a dog, or the cries of 
children in the Albaicin to stimulate your 
imagination. 

And it is at night that the magic of 
these gardens is most potent. This Gar 
den of the Ramparts will always remain 
connected in my mind with certain en 
chanted nights in May, when, at his in 
vitation, we met the Governor of the Al 



hambra and another friend of ours to 
make a visit to the towers by moonlight. 
We crossed the Plaza de los Aljibes to the 
door of the Alcazaba, which the conser- 
vador opened with a ponderous key. As 
we entered the Garden of the Ramparts 
we found its rose arbors and thickets of 
myrtle and hornbeam tipped with silver, 
while in them the nightingales sang ex 
ultantly. Almost on tiptoe, so as not 
to break the spell, we crossed it and 
clambered up the steep steps of the Torre 
de la Vela, the highest of the Alhambra 
towers, until we reached its roof-terrace, 
where we found that chairs had been set 
out for our reception, and cushions to lean 
upon had been disposed along the para 
pets. 

The roses in the gardens down below 
and the flowers placed in pots along the 
castle walls seemed to exhale a stronger 
perfume than by day. Far beneath us 
lay the city gleaming with its countless 
lights, the streets about the Puerta Real 
shedding forth a mellow glow. Opposite 
rose the Albaicin with scattered lights 
shining upon its pale white walls a fairy 
city bathed in moonlight enchantment, 
while from its caves and houses the faint 
click of castanets and the strumming of 
guitars reached our ears and told us that 
the gypsies were dancing. 

Above our heads rose the Espadana, a 
turret that contains a great bell that tolls 
every fifteen minutes throughout the 
night and regulates the opening and shut 
ting of the sluices, dating from the days of 
the Moors, that irrigate the farms of the 
Vega. A young girl rang this bell, a girl 
whom we had passed upon the steps a 
maiden, our host had told us, still in her 
honeymoon. No one else lived in the 
tower or anywhere near it, and over its 
silent terrace there lay a magic spell. 

The Alhambra hung like an enchanted 
palace against its hills, its silver towers 
restored by the pale moon s rays to all 
their pristine beauty, 

" I ortcresse, aux creneaux festonnes et croulans 
Ou Ton cntend la nuit de magiques syllabes." 

The nightingales trilled their richest 
carols; the lights on the Albaicin went 
out, one by one; and the air grew more 
ethereal, quieter, and cooler, until one 
seemed to forget the body and live in a 



. .. 



> 



jg - ; "~^"|V B } 

I 



:- * ,jj\^mm- 
y**rl 



.- - 




ardens of the Genuralifo, Granada. 



beatific state, hung beiween earth and 
sky in the spell of some strange enchant 
ment. 

There are a number of other gardens in 
and around Granada that deserve the at 
tention of the traveller. There are, for 
example, those of the Carmen de Arratia 
and the Villa de los Martires, situated 
on top of the Monte Mauror. The lat 
ter consists of three gardens placed one 



above the other. The highest, lying 
wedged between the house and the hill 
side, is embellished with a grotto and a 
lake in which is set a rocky wooded island. 
The middle gardens are enclosed by walls 
of roses and planted with palm-trees 
ranged round a circular basin, while the 
old-fashioned lower garden is surrounded 
with dark, dense hedges, clipped close, 
against which a profusion of brilliant 

725 



726 SOME SPANISH GARDENS 

flowers detach themselves like fireworks . down the balustrades, in channels made 

against a midnight sky. of inverted tiles, "course little streams of 

Perched high above the Alhambra, water that gurgle pleasantly and impart 
clinging to a spur of the Cerro del Sol, a delightful sense of coolness to the steep 
hangs the Djennat-al- Arif (Garden of ascent. Perched on the topmost terrace 
Arif), corrupted into the word Generalife, rises a mirador, or belvedere, that corn- 
by which name this summer home of the mands a far-reaching panorama of the Al- 
Moorish sultans is known. hambra with its many towers, of the city 

To me the Generalife is a palace of en- of Granada and its surrounding hills and 

chantment, the most beautiful of the gar- mountains. 

dens of southern Spain. Restricted in These Generalife Gardens, hung high 

area, overcrowded with features, some- upon their hillside, cool, fanned by the 

what confused in plan, it nevertheless Sierra breezes, still convey to us a perfect 

possesses a potent fascination that makes picture of Moorish life a life filled with 

it a delight to the lover of gardens. a love for small things, but highly finished 

From the entrance one steps at once and exquisitely wrought ; a life filled with 
into the main court, the beautiful Patio intellectual quietude and a love for calm 
de la Acequia, traversed in its entire retreats where one might meditate, re- 
length by the Alhambra aqueduct that moved from the world, yet looking out 
throws aloft a multitude of sprays and over it on wide prospects and great ex- 
jets to nourish the myrtle hedges and panses of varied landscape, 
orange-trees of the court. This aqueduct, All these qualities I felt as I sketched 
built by the Moors, brings the water from in these delightful gardens. In one court 
the eternal snows of the Sierras to cool there played beside me an alabaster foun- 
and freshen the Generalife Gardens ; then tain standing in a basin filled with gold- 
to play in fountains and in runlets fish; in another, walls of Bankshire roses 
through the courts of the Alhambra and hemmed me in, their beauty reflected in 
sparkle in its gardens, and at last to course the turquoise waters of a quiet pool ; 
merrily down the hillslopes through the white butterflies flitted from flower to 
beautiful groves that I have described flower, and the sound of running water 
bordering the Alameda of the Assabica. was constantly in my ear, lulling the 
And even then its mission is not fully senses by its quiet murmuring. Aside 
completed, for it still flows on to fill the from this no other sound broke the utter 
cisterns of the city and water the rich silence save, once in a while, the sound of 
farms of the Vega. the gardener s foot crunching the gravel 

At the far end of the Patio de la Acequia walk, or the voice of a rare visitor, or, as 

rises the palace itself, now, alas, much on Sunday, when the bells of the city 

fallen to decay and spoiled by tasteless would wake to life and the chorus of their 

restorations. The gardens, however, voice s would rise to my ears, at first 

have preserved their Moorish aspect to a faint, then swelling deep and sonorous to 

remarkable degree. They lie both to the a mighty diapason, then dying down 

east and west of the palace, that to the again, fainter and fainter, till the jangle 

west being but a broad terrace, planted of a tardy bell would sound the final 

with venerable yew-trees, that adjoins note. . . . 

what used to be the main entrance to the There are many Spanish gardens in the 

villa. south that I might mention, but they all 

The principal gardens lie above the bear at least a family likeness to those 

main court to the eastward. They are already described. 

laid out in terraces one above another, As one goes north in Spain, however, 

becoming smaller and smaller as they the aspect of the country changes, and 

ascend the hill. Each terrace is enlivened with it the character of the gardens. The 

with busts or grottos, with arbors or landscape becomes bleak and arid, 

clipped hedges or fountains. They are North of Cordova the Moor left little 

connected with each other by flights of trace of his passage, and the gardens of the 

steps divided into sections by platforms, northern provinces were laid out under 

on each of which a fountain plays, while the Hapsburgs or the Bourbon kings. 



SOME SPANISH GARDENS 



727 



The two most important of these northern A series of bends in the Tagus makes 

gardens are Aranjuez and La Granja. this verdure possible. In one of these 

Aranjuez lies south of Madrid in the bends lies an island, cut off from its sur- 

rocky valley of the Tagus. After travers- roundings by a little stream, La Ria, that 




The Fountain of Apollo, Aranjuez. 



ing the sun-baked plateaux of Castile, 
dry and denuded of all vegetation save 
where some little watercourse gives sus 
tenance to a few stunted trees and shrubs, 
it is indeed a surprising transition to 
alight from the local train and penetrate 
the deep bosky groves and densely 
wooded parks of Aranjuez. 



is controlled by a presa, or weir. This 
island has been occupied for centuries: 
first, by a convent of the Order of Santi 
ago, then by a favorite summer abode of 
Isabella the Catholic, and lastly by the 
present palace of the Hapsburg kings, 
whose impress is plainly written on the 
romantic Garden of the Island, sombre as 



728 



SOME SPANISH GARDENS 



the thoughts of the pietistic Philip II, 
who built the Escurial; mysterious and 
gallant as the pleasures of Philip IV. 

The trees that shade its leafy aisles are 
for the most part those of the northern 
climes poplars, lindens, oaks, and elms 
brought over from England by Philip s 
wife, Queen Mary, but, in this southern 
climate, grown to prodigious size, with 
their roots tapping the waters of the 
Tagus. The broad Avenue of the Cath 
olic Kings, bordered by a quadruple row 
of giant plane-trees, skirts the river itself 
and leads into the depths of this mysteri 
ous Jardin de la Isla, where fountain after 
fountain, dedicated to Venus, to Neptune, 
to Jupiter, and other gods and goddesses, 
and decorated with their statues, fling 
their jets of water into the air, or trickle 
streamlets from basin to basin adorned 
with sculptured ornament. The tinkling 
of these fountains, the innumerable dim 
vistas, the half-light one might almost 
say the obscurity of these dark groves, 
even at midday the songs of the night 
ingales that nest by hundreds in their 
leafy arches, induce, as a Spanish author 
puts it, an " agradable melancolia," or 
agreeable melancholy, that has inspired 
many a Spanish poet, like Calderon or 
Garcilasso, to sing its praises, and that 
induced Schiller to choose it as the scene 
of his "Don Carlos." 

The other gardens of Aranjuez are less 
romantic. The Jardin de las Estatuas 
dates also from the time of Philip IV, but 
the other gardens were laid out at a much 
later period under the Bourbons, and are 
in accord with the taste of the great pal 
ace itself that vaguely recalls Versailles 
or Marly. Immediately about the palace 
are formal gardens and parterres laid out 
with patterns in broderic and decorated 
with numerous fountains and statues. 
Two of the best of these fountains, the 
Fuente de las Conchas and the Fuente de 
los Tritones (a painting of which by Velas 
quez adorns the Prado), were taken away 
from Aranjuez about fifty years ago and 
set up in the Royal Palace Gardens in 
Madrid, where they are now to be seen. 

The fountains that have taken their 
places are bad, and for better taste one 
must look elsewhere and walk over to the 
Jardin del Principe that lies hemmed in 
between the Tagus and the Calle de la 



Reina, a superb avenue of mighty trees 
that remains quite as Velasquez painted 
it when it sat to him for its portrait cen 
turies ago. 

The Prince s Garden contains the Casa 
del Labrador, that bears the same rela 
tion to the palace that the Petit Trianon 
does to Versailles. This so-called "La 
borer s Cottage" is cold and formal in 
design and character, its rooms being dec 
orated with elaborate paintings and mar 
ble mosaics, hung with silk brocades and 
crystal chandeliers and furnished with 
malachite tables and gilded chairs, the 
gifts of emperors and kings. 

But its gardens are less formal, though 
they, too, have their vistas and avenues 
and fountains. In their general aspect, 
.however, they resemble an English gar 
den, with their winding pathways and 
watercourses, in which stand pavilions of 
fantastic shapes, a certain portion of their 
" area being also reserved for the cultiva 
tion of the excellent fruits and vegetables 
strawberries, peaches, asparagus, and 
the like that grace the royal tables as 
early as the month of January 

The Jardin del Principe has a perimeter 
of nearly four miles, and much of it bor 
ders the swift-running Tagus, whose eddy 
ing waters are confined by stone embank 
ments decorated with pots of flowers. 

If the gardens of Aranjuez already 
have a northern character compared to 
those of southern Spain, the vast gardens 
of La Granja, surely the most extensive 
and elaborate in the Iberian Peninsula, 
have even more of this septentrional char 
acter, for they are situated north of 
Madrid in a fold of the Guadarrama 
Mountains nearly four thousand feet 
above the sea. They were laid out under 
Philip V, who built this palace in the 
mountains that is still the official summer 
residence of the Spanish King. Philip, 
first of the Spanish Bourbons, was nat 
urally thinking of Versailles when he 
built it, and to lay out the gardens he 
summoned a Frenchman, Boutelet, who 
sought to impose upon these mountain 
solitudes in the Guadarramas, where the 
granitic hills are covered with dark for 
ests of coniferae, all the artificialities and 
regularities of the Le Notre Garden, and 
subject nature in her wildest mood to the 
rule of the T-square, and confine her with 



SOME SPANISH GARDENS 



729 



symmetrical lawns and hedges reflected 
in circular or rectilinear pools and basins. 
The result, if not congruous, is highly 
impressive, for in no other gardens that 
I know can one have such imposing vistas 
of towering mountain forms at the end of 



Elizabeth Farnese who married Philip V, 
and held such sway over her weak hus 
band, and who was responsible for so 
many of the costly features of these La 
Granja Gardens. 
At first sight many of these features will 






mm 



" , .sj^iv^ " * - T*isi \ . "=; 




The Carrera (L- I aballos, La Ciranja. 



noble avenues, nor the sight of such 
masses of water disporting themselves in 
stupendous fountains. Here at La 
Granja, instead of the laborious pumping- 
systems that are usually necessary to sup 
ply fountains with water, a great lake, 
El Mar, situated high above the gardens, 
yet fed by numerous mountain springs 
and streamlets, provides an inexhaustible 
water-supply, and the pressure is so great 
that some of the jets rise to a height of 
more than a hundred feet, and are plainly 
visible from Segovia, seven miles away. 

La Granja made us think of another 
garden far away in Parma, with its 
pleached alleys and parterres in the old 
French manner, laid out also by the same 



undoubtedly be disappointing. One who 
knows Versailles or Vaux-le-Vicomte will 
be inclined to criticise the ornate and 
overdone Baths of Diana or the Fountain 
of the Frogs, so obviously copied from the 
Basin of Latona, and to remain somewhat 
cold before the Parterre de la Fama or the 
New Cascade, with their frigid and formal 
atmosphere. But even in these foun 
tains the vast water-supply affords a pos 
sibility for superb effects that, as far as I 
know, are unsurpassed anywhere, and I 
defy any one to remain unmoved when 
first he beholds the fairy-like perspectives 
of the Old Cascade or Carrera de Cabal- 
los, for one is charmed beyond words at 
the sight of these basins grander than 



730 



SOME SPANISH GARDENS 



any at Versailles mounting one above 
another, filled with careering horses at 
tended by Nereids and Tritons and spout 
ing water from their nostrils and from 
vases and sea-shells. Avenues of oaks 
and elms, bordered by hedges of horn- 



tudes, are its sole inhabitants. For the 
greater part of the year, the royal palace 
sleeps silent in the sunshine, and the gar 
dens seem lulled to slumber as if en 
chanted by a magician s wand. 

One day one of the very first I spent 



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: ~~~- >-=~ vf;: sc^r -ij- 

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** 




The Royal Palace and terrace, La Granja. 



beam, rise with the terraced fountains, 
mounting higher and higher toward the 
dark-blue mountains that girdle this ter 
restrial paradise. 

For it is a paradise, this Garden of La 
Granja a garden as it should be, fed by 
countless springs, whose crystal waters 
rush down its rose-colored terraces and 
through its murmuring channels in a con 
stant flow. 

But no one sits to watch their eddies. 
White nymphs, petrified in graceful atti- 



there I was sketching in a quiet avenue, 
when, of a sudden, the smiling heavens 
darkened, the mountains grew black and 
inky and, again as if by magic, the trees 
shuddered, and the smooth faces of the 
fountains quivered into innumerable rip 
ples. Then a great blast of wind came 
down from the Guadarramas; the trees 
bowed their heads and bent before its 
breath; the rain poured down in torrents 
into the boiling basins, and the mountains 
resounded, echoed and reechoed with peal 



DIVING THE BRIDGE 



731 



after peal of thunder. Then, as if the 
sorcerer s anger had been appeased, all 
was over as quickly as it had begun. The 
shadows lifted, the heavens grew serene 
again, the ram ceased, and the sun burst 



., 
But the air remained chilled as I walked 

up to fcl Mar and looked out over the re- 
taming walls into the surrounding pine 
woods. Little patches of snow still lay 
in the hollows under the trees, and it 
seemed indeed strange, with this Alpine 
picture before me and the chilly wind 
fanning my cheek, to fancy myself in 
Spam in the month of June. 

But it is this very Alpine quality of the 
atmosphere that renders La Granja so 
agreeable a retreat from the burning sun- 
shine of Madrid, and for this reason it re- 



mains a favorite resort of the Spanish 
King and court. Alfonso arrived a few 
days after we had come to see his royal 
domain, and with him came his brilliant 
cavalry, who took up their quarters in 
the big cuartel, or barracks, just behind 
our hotel. There was music in the plaza 
every evening, and each day the pink 
bloom from the chestnut-trees, late in this 
altitude, was carefully swept up in great 
piles and carted away. Several times we 
passed the little Infantas in the gardens 
and one day saw the King himself come 
out of the palace on foot, dressed very 
democratically in a straw hat and outing 
clothes, and .cross the square to the 
stables to give some sugar to his favor- 
ifes. How different from the gloomy 
Spanish pomp of other days ! 



Diving the Bridge 

BY GRANT HYDE CODE 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE WRIGHT 




PECS was a queer 
duck. So the muckers 
of Cambridge said, 
and their judgment of 
character is likely to 
be as acute as it is 
quick. In this case 
the description was 
apt in more ways than one. Specs was 
a "puhfessuh." In this fact alone there 
was nothing peculiar considering the pres- 
ence of Harvard College. To speak as a 
mucker, Cambridge is lousy with profes- 
sors. Some of them are a bit queer, 
though it is lese-majesty to say so. Be 
that as it may, to this latter group Specs 
belonged. 

His queerness consisted in his familiar- 
ity with the muckers of Camb-idge, the 
boys and girls who swarm about the 
streets and with whom the acquaintance 
of most self-respecting professors extends 
scarcely so far as to the affable pitching 
of a penny in response to theory: "Scram- 
ble, mister?" Of course, it is not the 
mister who scrambles. The children do 



that, piling up a miniature football scrim- 
mage, from which one of them emerges 
with a penny and a liberal touch of that 
same muck which gives him a title to his 
generic designation. 

Specs never pitched pennies and no 
mucker ever said, "Scramble, mister?" 
to him. He came among them quietly 
with an air of being one of the fellows. 
He spoke to many of them by name. He 
gave some of the little ones "lessons in 
flying," by catching them by the seat of 
the pants and the scruff of the collar and 
whirling them through the air while he 
spun round until he was dizzy. The 
afternoon he invented that game was a 
warm one for him and a happy one for 
the muckers. It was reported that he had 
not disdained to accept an invitation to 
play hide-and-seek near the Lars Ander- 
son Bridge. 

As for the duck part of it, he was to be 
found at some time during almost every 
hot summer day at one of the bathing 
places along the Charles River. Some- 
times he swam from the park near the 



732 



DIVING THE BRIDGE 



bridge, sometimes on the other side of the 
bridge near the Weld Boat House, some 
times from the Weld float, sometimes 
across the river near the old boat-house, 
sometimes far away at the bend in the 
river near the spot marked as the Vine- 
land abiding place of Leif Ericson, called 
The Lucky, who probably never came 
nearer the spot than Labrador. En 
closed by a low iron railing, the plot 
where he is supposed to have built his 
cabin is hallowed ground. There is a 
superstition among the muckers that any 
one inside this railing is invisible to the 
outside world. So there they undress and 
put on their bathing trunks, quite sure 
that they are unobserved no matter how 
many people may be standing near by. 
Specs venerated this tradition and availed 
himself of it when he swam at the bend. 
Little things like this marked him as 
queer, but they also made him accept 
able to the muckers, whose company he 
seemed to enjoy. He was a queer duck, 
as web-footed as they make them. 

Not being a mucker, you would doubt 
less have been surprised to see a gray- 
haired man with the stamp of scholarship 
upon him stop on the Lars Anderson 
Bridge to speak to a little girl who was 
mostly sunburn, wet pink bloomers 
rolled high, and wet white chemise. She 
was seated astride the coping watching 
a group of sleek wet boys at the middle 
of the bridge. You would not have ex 
pected this fine old gentleman, bare 
headed and clad in white flannels, black 
linen coat, and tennis shoes, to claim ac 
quaintance with the little girl and with 
her smaller, red-haired brother, comfort 
ably dressed in overalls and his own 
skin. Yet there he was, smiling as po 
litely as if one of the first dames of Brat 
tle Street were before him and saying: 
" Hello, Ethel. How s the water to-day ? 
Hello, Dennis. Haven t vou been in 
yet?" 

"Hello, Specs," said Ethel. None of 
the muckers knew his real name and 
neither they nor the professor cared. 
"The water s great. Feels like a hot 
mud bath. Look at my legs. I just had 
a bath last night, and now they re as 
brown as the river. You ll need a bath 
too after you ve had a swim. The water s 
dirtier than ever." 



"What are you up here for? You are 
not thinking of diving the bridge?" 

No mucker ever thought of saying, 
"diving from the bridge." You dive the 
gate and you dive the bridge, provided 
you have enough nerve. The coping of 
the bridge is at least thirty-five feet above 
the water. The gate by the old boat- 
house on the other side is a short fifteen. 

" Not me," said Ethel. " I m watching 
Jimmie. He s my fellow, you know." 

Yes, I know." Specs usually did. 

"The men are giving him a quarter for 
a regular dive, and fifty cents for a swan 
or a sailor. The other kids only jump. 
They get ten cents for that." 

" They ll get something else if the officer 
catches them." 

"Aw, gee ! He won t do anything but 
holler to them, and they ll get down and 
begin again after he goes. The cop s all 
right. There was a lot of kids diving bare- 
naked right where he tied his boat, and 
he didn t say a word. He drove his boat 
past and made waves for us too. He s 
all right." 

"Where s Jimmie?" 

"He s under the bridge now. He just 
did a swan. It makes me scared to see 
him, but I like it. I d be afraid to dive 
off anything. I never dived in my life. 
But I can swim pretty good. I tried the 
stroke you showed me, but I ain t got 
onto it yet. I can t go fast at all." 

"I ll give you another lesson if you 
stay till I swim across the river; I m go 
ing in from the other side." 

" I ll be here all right, as long as Jimmie 
keeps on diving the bridge." 

Walking on, Specs met Jimmie, a little 
boy of ten or eleven, clad from head to 
foot in a coat of burnished tan, and girded 
about the loins with a wet wisp of some 
thing blue that had once been a cheap 
pair of trunks. 

"Hi, Specs!" called Jimmie, with a 
lovable grin. Very much alive was Jim 
mie, too alive to be conscious of the brief 
transition from life to death he seemed to 
dare so gaily. 

"Hi, Specs ! " cried half a dozen others. 
"Gimme a cigarette," demanded one. 

"They are very bad for you," said 
Specs, snapping open a silver case and of 
fering it to the brown hand outstretched. 

" You ought not to smoke them at your 




Drawn by George Wright. 

"Hi, Specs!" cried half a dozen others. "Gimme a cigarette," demanded one. Page 732. 



733 



734 DIVING THE BRIDGE 

age," said the owner of the brown hand, to see, dropped his arms to his sides with 

very gravely, taking a cigarette and wait- a swift movement that was like a brief 

ing for the professor to strike a match. concentration of life and energy, then 

There was a howl of good-natured straightened out into flight. He seemed 

laughter and Specs grinned. to balance on the air even as he fell swift- 

" Watch yourself, Jimmie," he cau- ly. His was the clean downward swerve 

tioned. "Be careful there s no one below of a flying creature, as perfectly poised, 

when you dive, and don t take a belly- as graceful, and as easy. When he dis- 

flopper." appeared in the water there was no 

" Fat chances ! " Jimmie was contemp- splash, only a little spurt of foam. He 

tuous. He was the best diver of his age rose to the surface gliding easily forward, 

in Cambridge, and he knew it. tossed his head, and struck into the 

Specs watched the light-brown figure smooth sweep of his swimming stroke, 

climb to the coping, run along it to the Specs turned away, 

centre of the bridge, and pause, graceful He walked slowly and thoughtfully, 

as a bronze figurine. looking at the ground. He even failed to 

"Who s paying?" he called, looking notice Tom Hurley, the river police of- 

about him. ficer, who was ringing in at the police-box. 

"I pay," a young man replied flipping "Hi, Specs!" Hurley called with a 

a coin at him. The shot was sudden, but good deal of surprise in his voice, but 

Jimmie caught it, poised with one foot Specs walked by without noticing. He 

dangling over a thirty-five foot drop. was deep among the thoughts that queer 

"Paddy s my banker," he said, passing ducks have sometimes. He was thinking 

the coin to a youngster seated on the of death in the water and the mystery of 

coping. "What ll it be?" drownings. There did not seem to be 

"Just a straight dive, but make it a much danger of such an event here where 

pretty one." the river was lined on both banks with 

"Give him change," directed Jimmie, good swimmers. Yet in almost every ac- 
turning toward the river. count of a drowning he remembered read- 
He glanced down at the water to make ing of spectators who were able to give 
sure that two boys who had just jumped the fullest details of the whole affair, who 
were out of the way. Then he performed had apparently watched fascinated, but 
the little ceremony no mucker neglects who had never stirred to help the drown- 
before diving. He signed himself with ing person. 

the cross. Now, when one of the common " I suppose I should be like all the rest," 

rabble of muckers crosses himself hastily, he said aloud, fancying no doubt that he 

and with the same gesture seizes his nose was thinking to himself. " I should stand 

between his thumb and finger and hurls here watching, and never move till the 

himself feet first into the water with a last struggle was over and then I would 

mighty splash, the combination of the run to telephone the police." 

sublime and the ridiculous is too much for " Snap out of your dope." A boy was 

the person who beholds this ceremony for slapping him with a wet bathing-suit, 

the first time. But with Jimmie the ges- " Where do you think you are ? Sever 

ture had some of the grace and confidence Hall ? " 

of every movement he made. Specs was Specs found himself among the gang 

not prepared to suppose that Jimmie was and began to undress, 

more sincerely religious than any of his Specs could swim well and dive well, 

fellows, but when Jimmie made the sign He dived the gate regularly and had been 

of the cross it never failed to stir a little known to dive the bridge. He made no 

prayer in the heart of Specs and a thought practice of diving the bridge, though, be- 

of the real significance of the act. Not cause it attracted too much attention, 

all who enter the waters come forth again. When he went in swimming near the old 

Jimmie raised his arms. He seemed to boat-house, he usually dived a bit just to 

reach upward toward the blue heaven be sure he was in practice, swam about a 

against which he was outlined cleanly, little, frequently changing his stroke, and 

He stood poised a moment for every one then completed his exercise with a short- 




v - 

> 

Drawn by George Wright, 



Who s paying?" he called, looking about him. Page 734. 



735 



736 



DIVING THE BRIDGE 



race for speed or a longer swim up or 
down the river. Sometimes on these long 
swims he visited the youngsters who were 
bathing at other places. Then he climbed 
out on the bank and sunned himself for 
a while, talking if any one showed a dis 
position to talk to him, smoking with any 
one who asked him for a cigarette, or 
thinking his own queer thoughts, alone 
in the noisy crowd. 

This afternoon he emerged from the 
disorderly heap of his clothing, wearing, 
as usual, his short scarlet trunks. They 
were queer too. Every one else wore 
blue, and among the muckers, he who is 
different from the rest, especially in dress 
or speech, is taboo. But this tradition 
was invalid in the case of Specs. Every 
thing about him was queer, and he was 
accepted with this understanding. 

He did not plunge into the river as 
quickly as usual. Instead he paused on 
the stone river wall among the divers, 
and watched the bridge where the diving 
and jumping were still going on. He was 
deep in that same queer thought of the 
mystery that brings about death in the 
water when help appears to be close at 
hand. 

Later it seemed unbelievable to him 
that he should have stood there staring, 
horrified, and inactive after his whole 
train of thought had prepared him for 
the thing that happened. There he was, 
a spectator, just like those incredible 
spectators about whom he had read. He 
was an expert swimmer. He was poised 
in the very act of diving into the water at 
a distance from the bridge that he could 
make in three breaths. Yet he stood 
there. Round about him other good 
swimmers stood, looking on, motionless 
with terror. Across the river on the float 
of the Weld Boat Club were other swim 
mers, not terrified children nor queer 
professors, but active young men and 
women from the summer school. Yet 
they all stood watching and making no 
move. 

It seemed to Specs afterward that he 
perceived the whole accident out of some 
depth of thought that was abnormally 
transparent, for he saw with clarity un 
usual in a man who is condemned to wear 
spectacles at all times except when he 
swims. Yet that depth of thought 



seemed to weigh heavily upon him like 
the paralyzing heaviness of an anaes 
thetic. 

He saw a brown figure erect on the cop 
ing, a figure that could only be Jimmie. 
He saw the form shorten and knew that 
Jimmie had lowered his arms preparatory 
to springing into the air. He saw the boy 
launch himself into the arc of his flight. 
Then, with a flash of fear that came like 
sudden physical illness and weakness, he 
was aware of a rowing shell, a, single, 
stabbing through the water under the 
dark central arch of the bridge. A second 
of time could not have intervened be 
tween the perception of the danger and 
the crash. Yet in that second Specs felt 
the air heavy, moist, and hot about 
him, the air sickened with a taint drifting 
down the river and having its counterpart 
in the brown pollution that left its stain 
on swimmers. 

Jimmie, as he dropped, saw the shell be 
neath him and tried to deflect his course 
in mid-air by a sudden wrench of his 
whole body. To the spectators he seemed 
to strike the shell a glancing blow, over 
turning it and disappearing into the 
water. The oarsman floundered up, 
clutched the shell and hung on, dazed no 
doubt, unable to understand what had 
happened. Ten feet away on the opposite 
side of the shell something inert rose slug 
gishly to the surface, and disappeared. 
The oarsman worked round to the stern 
of the shell and began to push it ahead of 
him toward the float, swimming with his 
feet and one arm. The silent watchers 
still looked on motionless. A murmur of 
fear arose from them. The professor s 
voice came strangely to those near him in 
the silence. Out of that queer depth in 
which he was powerless he phrased a line 
of some forgotten poem: 

" And on some unexpected wind comes death."* 

He spoke softly and no one moved. 

Then from the farther shore along the 
coping there was a flash of running feet. 
Over the central arch of the bridge a 
figure too pitifully light and small for the 
tragedy beneath stopped and turned to 
the river, was launched into the air, 
curved, fell, entered the water, rose, swam 

* I am indebted to my friend Alan Pope for permission to 
quote the line from his poem, not "forgotten," as the text 
hus it, but unpublished. 



LIFE AND THE LIBRARIAN 



737 



to that terribly inert form that floated, 
grasped it, and began to make slow head 
way toward shore. 

In battle, when a taut line of skirmish 
ers is checked by superior force, one coura 
geous leader springing out of the ranks 
finds himself followed by every one and 
the strong point falls. The first move to 
action is always the tremendous move. 
It is the overthrow of inertia. After that 
is accomplished, to act is not hard. The 
rescuer was scarcely in mid-air when the 
professor dived. When he rose to the sur 



face the river was full of strong swimmers 
converging to a single point near the cen 
tral arch of the bridge. 

Jimmie was brought to shore and 
placed in the hands of a doctor. Thanks 
to the effort of that wrench to one side, 
he had touched the shell with but one 
shoulder, and that broken shoulder was 
his only injury. His rescuer was mostly 
sunburn, wet pink bloomers, and wet 
white chemise. 

Ethel, the child who was afraid to dive 
at all, had dived the bridge. 



Life and the Librarian 

BY ELIZABETH T. KIRKWOOD 



I 



AM an assistant in 
the periodical depart 
ment of a big city li 
brary and hardly a 
day passes without 
some one saying: 
"This is such nice, 
clean work, isn t it? 
You get to read all the magazines, don t 
you ? " The public thinks all I have to do 
is sit behind my desk and read the nice 
new magazines. Certainly a most lady 
like occupation ! There have been times 
when this department was no place for a 
lady. We cannot escape seeing life in the 
raw. 

Before the war, when our city was full 
of unemployed, our room was more thick 
ly populated than it is now, and some 
very unpleasant things happened. I have 
seen drunkards fail so swiftly that I feared 
that they would die before my eyes. One 
had a terrible coughing spell and hemor 
rhage of the lungs, but he had strength 
enough to get out of the room. I never 
saw him again. He had been coming to 
the library for years and I had classified 
him as an English remittance man. Three 
times men have had epileptic fits in our 
room. When a man feels this spell com 
ing on he begins to moan and make the 
most weird sounds imaginable. I tele 
phone for help, then go out into the room, 
and see what the readers have done for 
VOL. LXXL 47 



the afflicted man. He is a most horrible 
sight. The thing that has made the most 
unpleasant impression upon me, when 
looking after a case of this kind, is not so 
much the man having the fit, as the atti 
tude of the readers in the room; the list 
less, kind of sodden attention and utter 
lack of feeling that they displayed. There 
would be the man stretched out on the 
floor, foaming at the mouth, moaning and 
kicking, and people almost near enough to 
touch him would just glance at him and 
go on reading. They do not seem human . 
It seems impossible to disturb their 
apathy. These same people will read or 
look into space while the bands are play 
ing and parades go by. When it was an 
event to see an airship and a convoy went 
over our city, these people stayed in their 
chairs and hadn t interest enough to go to 
a window. What has life done to them to 
leave them in such a condition? Two 
more events, not quite so nerve-racking, 
were reviving a woman who had fainted 
and stepping between two men who were 
on the verge of a fight. Both wanted to 
use. the dictionary at the same time and 
one tried to pull it out of the hand of the 
other. They began talking at the top of 
their voices. I sallied out from my pro 
tecting desk and in a IOW T , but intense tone, 
told one of the men to leave the room at 
once, or I would have him arrested. Our 
numerous other ladylike tasks are to quell 



738 LIFE AND THE LIBRARIAN 

the loud of voice and the too socially in- poverty-stricken and the outcast, the halt 

clined; request patrons to take their feet and the blind; a haven of rest for the 

off the tables and their hats off their loafer and the derelict; and the favorite 

heads; not spit on the floor and not haunt of the religious crank. We look into 

make a lunch-room of the library. I have the faces of life s failures from morning 

laid aside my dignity and fairly raced af- until night. They come in when the doors 

ter a woman who had cut a magazine, but are open and do not leave until the lights 

she was too swift for me. Just at pres- are out. The same ones come to the libra- 

ent, the disturbing element in our room is ry, not day after day, but year after year, 

a man who either should have a keeper or The question that has bothered me for 

be in an asylum. He is apparently harm- years is, "Who takes care of these peo- 

less, but I always manage to keep a safe pie?" Our room is alway^ full of men. 

distance from him. It is so crowded with them that, time and 

I believe the periodical department again, women have come to my desk and 

catches the worst class of library habi- asked haltingly if only men were allowed 

tues, with the exception of the newspaper- in this room. A large per cent of these 

room. There you find the w r orst type of men are fairly well dressed and well fed. 

down-and-outers. Seeing this class of peo- Apparently, they do no kind of work, 

pie day after day has a more or less de- They are with us so constantly that I 

pressing effect. This was brought to my wonder when they go out to eat. During 

mind rather forcibly by a conversation I the war it used to irritate me exceedingly 

had with my dentist. On account of sick- to see these able-bodied men doing noth- 

ness I had broken an appointment with ing, when there was so great need of work- 

him three times, and when he had me ers. I longed for the state to pass a com- 

safely wedged into his dental chair, he be- pulsory working law. It seems a crime 

gan his investigation of the cause. He that so many men are permitted to idle 

said: "What is the matter with library their lives away. 

work that it gets so many of you peo- I used to live in Emporia, Kansas, a 
pie?" And he mentioned some of my town of ten thousand inhabitants, and 
friends who had broken down in health ever so often my sister and I journeyed to 
and had to give up library work. Just on Kansas City to take in the theatres. Our 
the spur of the moment I could not give small-town sophistication was somewhat 
him a very definite answer, for being sur- bored at what we considered exaggera- 
rounded by more or less torturous-looking tions on the stage. We knew that no 
instruments and a regular jam of fingers farmer, tramp, or a score of other eccen- 
in my mouth, I could not think very trie characters could possibly look like 
clearly on the subject of occupational dis- these stage productions. But I can truth- 
eases. Since then I have been thinking fully say that not any exaggeration that I 
what there is about library work that have ever seen on the stage can compare 
would affect a person unfavorably. One s with the human freaks and scare-crows 
surroundings have a great deal to do with that have passed before my eyes since I 
cheerfulness of spirit. A big library is have worked in this department. Why 
sombre and oppressive. The air is stale they stray in here will always be a puzzle 
and heavy. Books give out a rather pe- to me. The night brings out more pe 
culiar odor a dusty antique smell that culiar ones than the day. For that rea- 
makes me think of the past instead of the son night work is more depressing than 
present or future. We have a patent sys- day work. The room is very quiet and I 
tern of ventilation that is supposed to have more time to observe our patrons, 
purify the air. But we risk the wrath of This is the time to see life s failures and to 
the engineer and let in some of God s good study their tired, hopeless faces. Some 
out-of-doors, whenever we get a chance, read, some just make a pretense of read- 
The class of people we see constantly does ing, and others just look straight ahead, 
not cheer us up, for the poor we have with It seems to me that the walls of this room 
us always. At times it seems to me that a must be soaked with bitter thoughts; and 
library is not a place of learning, not a when it is so still they seem to descend on 
place to increase the intelligence of the me like a pall, and I have to get up and 
community, but rather a place for the do something to shake off the disagree- 



LIFE AND THE LIBRARIAN 739 

able feeling of unreality. There is so face and I could see the tricky fortune- 
much to learn concerning the subject of teller. If I were a reporter I could find all 
psychic influences. If a violin is soaked kinds of material for sob stuff. We have 
with the vibrations of the music played the comic and tragic in abundance, 
upon it, might not the walls of a room be Some human peculiarities are beyond 
affected by years and years of bitter my comprehension. I do not understand 
thoughts? why people rush past my desk, gaze va- 

This type of people try to find help and cantly around the room, wait until I sit 

comfort from certain kinds of magazines, down, then come to the desk and make 

They ask for magazines on new thought, me get up again. Perhaps I do not look 

theosophy, spiritualism, and kindred sub- so formidable wiien I sit. But it is cer- 

jects. It seems to me they are trying to tainly hard on my knees. My life is as 

get out of this world by an effort of the full of ups and downs as the elevator 

mind. They do not seem to be all here, man s. Sometimes patrons rush in, seem 

Sometimes they do find comfort in these to get panicky, then go out in the hall, 

magazines, for a woman, who takes out call up some kind of reserve courage, then 

the most unintelligible one of the lot, told come timidly up to the desk and ask 

me with tears in her eyes that it had done for what they want. But others are far 

her so much good and she did hope that I from timid. It seems to me people have 

would read it. To my practical mind, given me their views on every subject 

this magazine was just a jumble of mys- under the sun. One even pursued me 

terious, rather unfamiliar words, with no back of my desk and read a lengthy poem 

definite meaning. Expressed in simple to me. I am a regular depository for pet 

language, it meant nothing. A lawyer theories for reforming the world. I have 

happened to glance through this maga- agreed with innumerable earnest en- 

zine while waiting for me to check out his thusiasts. I feel a twinge of conscience 

selection. He laughed and said: "Great for being so hypocritical, but agreeing 

stuff that, but I would like to know what with them is the easiest way to head them 

it means." He really touched their point off. Not only is our patience taxed to the 

of appeal to these people. It is their limit with this class of people, but we 

vagueness, their indefiniteness. They must show considerable ingenuity in_li- 

contain nothing exact or matter of fact, brary work, because so often people give 

Hence they offer an avenue of escape most confused titles to articles and queer 

from the real. names for authors. It seems to me a per- 

The great trials of a librarian are the son who is good at conundrums is es- 
number of people who take up her time pecially fitted for library work. By con- 
telling their life histories. We seem to stant practice we become great at guessing, 
have the atmosphere of the long-lost, So far I have given only the gloomy 
sympathetic friend, and we become the side of our profession. The pleasant 
depository of a great variety of tales of things far outweigh the gloomy ones. 
woe. Even a college professor, with whom The derelicts and life s failures are very 
I did not have a speaking acquaintance, much in the minority. We meet some 
made use of my sympathetic ear. very pleasant people, and some very dis- 

We have a splendid chance to study tinguished ones, who treat us with con- 
human nature. When people come to the sideration and appreciation, but these do 
desk I can tell, fairly accurately, the type not stay with us long. They get what 
of magazine they will call for. I classify they want and are out of the library as 




A ^Ufvj.v.1. t~j -- v cj. y j^j.^-.v ... -...,~ A 

these five types. But at times I get the choose it again from among the many 

wrong cue. One day a woman came to kinds of work suitable for women, 

the desk and I classed her at once as to know what people are doing and what 

Christian Herald, but her sanctimonious is going on in the world. So, in a way, my 

face altered when she turned an oily business is my pleasure. must keep up 

smile on me and asked for the Astrological with current events. Besides librarians 

Bulletin. That smile changed her whole make very good friends and congenial 



740 



LIFE AND THE LIBRARIAN 



associates. There is an esprit de corps 
that is not so strong in other professions, 
for we are not a large class and we depend 
a great deal on each other. It is our busi 
ness to be unbiassed, and for that reason 
I do not think we take sides so strongly as 
other classes of educated people. 

We acquire the habit of seeing both 
sides, and are more lenient with people 
whose ideas and beliefs differ from ours. 
Our training helps us to avoid the temp 
tation of being dogmatic and thus we do 
not rub people the wrong way. 

If we have such a thing as a slogan, it is, 
"Be tactful." In library school tact is 
preached to us morning and night. "Be 
tactful" is the first and last advice given 
to us and it is preached to us constantly 
throughout our library course. Be tact 
ful has taken a place in our subconscious 
minds. I try to give people what they 
want and not what I think they should 
have. This rule is very hard for me to 
keep, for so few people really know what 
they want and what is best for them. An 
other rule is never to say off-handed we 
have not anything on that subject, for in a 
large library there is a great mass of un 
related material that sometimes comes in 
handy. It is as hard for a librarian to 
say, "We haven t it," as it is for a drug 
gist. If we have not the kind of intel 
lectual tonic the person requires, we try 
to hunt up a substitute. We cannot bear 
to turn people away empty-handed. 

To my mind the most marked char 
acteristic of a librarian is gentleness. The 
more I see of people of my profession the 
more I think of them as gentle. Although 
I consider them intellectual, capable, and 
a variety of other appropriate adjectives, 
yet always lurking in the back of my 
brain is the modifying word, gentle. I 
have come to look for this trait in nearly 
every librarian I meet. There is some 
thing in our temperament which makes 
us turn from the disagreeableness, the 
harshness, the more or less ruthlessness 
that must be met in business. 

We think of the missionary as gentle. 
A good librarian must be imbued with the 
missionary spirit. We are the intellectual 
missionaries striving with all our might 
against the inertia of ignorance. Through 
the power of the printed page we open up 
new and better worlds to many perplexed 
brains. Carrying the missionary idea a 



little further, in the matter of remunera 
tion also we resemble the humble servant 
of Christianity. But on the question of 
salaries our missionary spirit weakens and 
we become very human. 

At one time, in many a household, when 
discussions on the salary question had 
reached the acute stage, my brother said 
to me: "You librarians are a bunch of 
gentle Annies ! Why don t you raise a 
row about your salaries the way the 
teachers are doing?" This outburst of 
plain language was due to a bitter remark 
of mine because a page from our depart 
ment, just a mere boy, had gotten a posi 
tion at the city hall which paid a third 
more than I was receiving. The teachers 
of our city put up a strong fight. They 
made themselves felt, heard, and heeded. 
Our pedagogical sisters have become so 
militant that it would be a surprise to us 
if they ever stopped agitating for higher 
salaries. 

I heard a conversation on a street-car 
a few days ago which applied to librari 
ans. It was between two women who 
were talking about the fight the teachers 
were making for another raise. One said : 
"It seems to me teachers are always get 
ting raises. My sister is a teacher and 
she fusses about her salary and her work 
all the time. I told her if she stood on 
her feet all day, the way we do, she would 
have something to fuss about. They fuss 
worse than any other class of people. 
Look at the librarians. They are the 
poorest paid profession and you never 
hear them kicking about their salaries. 
Did you ever see anything in the papers 
about librarians being poorly paid? I 
was a librarian for eight years and I 
worked harder than any school-teacher, 
and I was mighty poorly paid, too, but I 
didn t fuss about it. Librarians are hard 
working and poorly paid, but they don t 
fuss." She went on at greater length 
with her back-handed compliment. I 
shook my head mournfully. "Gentle 
Annies," thought I. 

Christopher Morley says of us that we 
have delightful, demure, and public- 
spirited virtues. I like that \vord demure. 
It carries out my impression of gentle 
ness. But I believe we would esteem our 
selves more if a stronger tinge of the pug 
nacious spirit were instilled into our gen 
tle temperament. 



The Candor of Augusta Claire 

BY CAMILLA KENYON 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY EVERETT SHINN 




HEN Mr. Kipling an 
nounced with finality 
that "East is East, 
and West is West, and 
never the twain shall 
meet," he should have 
allowed for an oc 
casional exception, 
such as the case of Oliver Roscelyn Thrale 
and Augusta Claire. Yet their encounter 
was so out of the natural order of things 
that it took no less than the Great War 
to bring it about. Oliver had had pneu 
monia in France, and his health demanded 
a mild climate. So instead of going on at 
Princeton in the authentic Thrale fashion 
he came out to California, where some 
what to his surprise he found civilization, 
even the institution of afternoon tea, 
fairly well established on the shore of the 
Pacific. 

But except geographically this brought 
him very little nearer to Augusta Claire. 
Oliver s letters to certain transplanted 
connections of his mother s who as a 
Roscelyn had the equipment of colonial 
ancestors and distinguished poverty which 
the Thrale formula required took him at 
once into a circle as carefully shut off by a 
sort of Chinese wall from the vulgar, jos 
tling world outside as that in which he 
had been reared. Needless to say, the 
frequenters of it were sublimely ignorant 
of the existence of Augusta Claire until 
she appeared among them in her own ex 
traordinary fashion. 

Oliver had dropped in for afternoon tea 
at Mrs. Adair s. He had formed the 
habit of doing this rather often, for which 
he is not to be blamed, for it was as de 
lightful a house as any in the beautiful 
university town, and Mrs. Adair as de 
lightful a person. She was, agreeably, a 
widow, still so young that the adjunct 
of an elder and invalidish sister seemed 
a concession to decorum. Her beauty 
wasn t undeniable no devotee of the 



obvious but would have denied it but if 
you perceived it, it pleased you as did the 
beauty of a gray day or the taste of olives; 
you relished it, so to speak, lingeringly 
upon your tongue. Oliver perceived it, 
at least to the point of assuring himself 
that beside it mere prettiness would be 
cheap especially short, plump pretti 
ness; how she d extinguish a woman of 
that sort with her height, her flowing 
lines ! Oliver could, without dismay, pic 
ture Bernice Adair in the most esoteric 
drawing-rooms of his native Philadelphia. 

In the company, then, of Mrs. Adair 
and of the invalid Miss Bart, becomingly 
arranged upon a sofa, Oliver was imbibing 
tea when Augusta Claire arrived. She 
did it by sending her car over the edge of 
the steep hillside street into the Adair 
garden, which was on the down slope of 
the hill. Nothing could be more surpris 
ing than the sight of Augusta Claire flying 
through the air on her way to the door, 
unless it were the spectacle of her aplomb 
when the horrified witnesses rushed out 
to view the remains. She was just pick 
ing herself up from the mat. 

"I told that boob at the garage the 
brake wasn t working," she remarked. 
"I expect I ve about ruined your calce- 
larias hope you aren t too peeved." 

Here she grew rather white, but stood 
smiling at them gamely if weakly. 
Clearly there was but one thing to do, 
and Oliver, after an uncertain moment, 
did it. He put an arm about her sub 
stantial little body and conveyed her into 
the house. She didn t faint couldn t, 
she informed them, not if she were to hold 
her breath and inhale through her ears 
but consented to be put in a low chair 
and refreshed with tea. It was some 
time before the color returned to her 
cheeks, but not once did her cheerfulness 
fail her. She was cheerfully apologetic 
about strewing Andrew over the flower 
beds so Andrew, it appeared, was her 



742 THE CANDOR OF AUGUSTA CLAIRE 

car, and a very good car, too and cheer- go back to the ranch. I told her it made 
fully certain that not if you were to bet no difference in my young life getting 
her a hat could she perform the same feat arrested was the classiest thing one did 
again. As for her own flight from car- these days. But she balked at letting 
seat to front door, well, she remarked, them have my picture for the paper, and 
there was nothing for it but a parachute they put in somebody that wasn t me at 
attachment if she were going to do stunts all looked like a toothpaste advertise- 
like that. But at least, she reminded ment. Well, I hope the reporters don t 
them, there was room for thankfulness get to buzzing round this time. If they 
that she hadn t come in by the window, do, please tell them I m dead and gone to 

"And bounced," she added, frankly the morgue if they put in the tooth- 
smiling at Oliver, as the person most paste person as my corpse I shan t care, 
likely to be intrigued by this perform- And and thanks very much for being so 
ance, "bounced and knocked things off nice about it, and not peeved about the 
the mantel. When I was small I was so calcelarias or anything. I ll get them to 
fat that that s what I actually did, they haul Andrew away as soon as I can." 
say bounced when I fell down, you She handed her cup to Oliver, with the 
know." gratuitous addition of a smile complicat- 

Mrs. Adair and Miss Bart, for whom ed by dimples and a sudden gleam from 
bouncing at any time in their lives had behind the long lashes. But she grew 
been out of the question, looked at her rather white when she stood up, and sub- 
curiously if remotely. She was short, sided again into her chair, her brown eyes 
dark, and plump, with a plumpness which suddenly wide and childlike and a little 
had no suggestion of the over-ripe about frightened. I won t say she looked at 
it, but seemed rather a survival from a Oliver, but it was Oliver, at any rate, who 
cuddlesome babyhood. She had a round caught this look, a look curiously appeal- 
face and extremely valuable assets in the ing, coming after all her gay bravado, 
way of big, long-lashed brown eyes and With polite precipitation, her hostesses 
deep, come-and-go dimples. Health and suggested their car oh, it wouldn t be the 
vigor radiated from her; her tanned skin least trouble ! Quite naturally, when the 
had a golden warmth, and the freckle or car appeared, Oliver accompanied her to 
two on her short, straight nose was pi- it and into it. Miss Bart watched the 
quant as a beauty-patch. In her neigh- pair disappear into the intimacy of the 
borhood Mrs. Adair looked, if increas- limousine with a smile of amused appro- 
ingly distinguished, also a little angular, bation. 

"I expect it would have been a lot "The good boy!" she applauded, 

brighter of me to have broken a bone or "He ll squire that little bit of Western 

two," Augusta Claire went on, letting crudeness home as devoutly as if she were 

Oliver get her a second cup of tea. "Be- a duchess and never let her guess the 

cause then mother would have been too bore it is!" 

busy being thankful I wasn t killed out- Mrs. Adair, having undergone the dis- 
right to fuss about Andrew. Oh, she illusionments of matrimony, didn t look 
won t grouch about the damage what ll so amused. She understood, better than 
peeve her is that the ruin isn t complete ! the virgin Miss Bart, that streak of un- 
You see, since I was pinched that time regeneracy in the male which succumbs 
she persists in believing me a speed-fiend, to eyelashes and dimples, in defiance of 
though the cop himself backed down and creed and code. Nevertheless she, too, 
told the judge he guessed he d got the had faith in Oliver; surely he was too en- 
wrong dope when the judge talked of tirely a Thrale Mrs. Adair, having vis- 
keeping me in the jug a day or two, you ited in Philadelphia, knew all that this 
know. But there s no convincing mother implied not to get the correct vision of 
she says I ve corrupted the police force Augusta Claire. You couldn t imagine a 
somehow, and that s how I manage to person more the antithesis of the Thrale 
keep out of jail. Poor mother! She tradition. And Oliver s attitude, when 
couldn t understand how I survived being he returned very promptly strength- 
arrested and wanted to give right up and ened this faith. He had delivered Au- 




Clearly there was but one thing to do, and Oliver, after an uncertain moment, did it. Page 741. 



gusta Claire dutifully to an agitated and glimpse into the double life Oliver was 

incoherent mother, and appeared to have leading could you call it less than that 

no more to say on the subject. when the two halves of it matched so 

Hence, some weeks later, the severity badly? She was taking her bulldog for 

of the shock to Mrs. Adair of her first an airing, and who should ride by, on 

743 



744 



THE CANDOR OF AUGUSTA CLAIRE 



their way up into the hills behind the 
town, but Oliver and Augusta Claire. 
She recognized him at once; Oliver was 
very much in the Thrale tradition when 
it came to looks. He was tall, with^ a 
dart-like slenderness and straightness, an 
almost annoyingly regular profile, and 
thick golden hair. Mrs. Adair s hand 
some gray-green eyes could have distin 
guished Oliver at some distance. If her 
heart beat a little quicker when she saw 
him, it stopped altogether for a disagree 
able moment when she made out his 
companion. It couldn t be ! And yet it 
turned out, on nearer view, that it indis 
putably was. That little figure, sitting 
so firmly yet loosely in the saddle in 
the fashion of a Western cowman, was 
the little Thompkins, as Mrs. Adair had 
facetiously called her once or twice, 
Thompkins being the regrettable anti 
climax to Augusta Claire. 

The little Thompkins and Oliver rode 
by without noticing Mrs. Adair, who on 
a sudden unaccountable impulse had 
turned a corner quickly to escape. She 
didn t want to be overwhelmed by Au 
gusta Claire s exuberant friendliness 
and she didn t want Oliver to look as she 
foresaw he would look, a little guilty, a 
little defiant, a little resentful at being 
detected. For it was detection, wasn t it, 
considering that Oliver had never given 
them a hint of any continued acquaint 
ance with the Thompkinses ? He had said 
nothing of it even when she gave him that 
humorous account of Mrs. Thompkins 
and her daughter coming to call, to apolo 
gize all over again for the misbehavior of 
Andrew and the destruction of the calce- 
larias. 

When Mrs. Adair made report of this 
phenomena Miss Bart raised her eye 
brows. 

"But it s ridiculous, Bernice ! " she said 
with conviction. She spoke as if, thus 
labelled, the thing were done for. 

"Ridiculous or not, Myra, it s true," 
returned Mrs. Adair with a certain sharp 
ness. "To us, of course, her crudity is 
the salient thing; to him well, if he had 
been going to mind it he would have 
minded from the first, wouldn t he? But 
he didn t; they never do, really, when 
there s youth, long eyelashes, that sort of 
lusciousness ! " 



"And you mean that Oliver with the 
generations behind him -!" 

"Yes, I do!" She looked stormily at 
her sister. "Oliver s a man, don t you 
understand? A million generations of 
Thrales couldn t evolve anything else 
without dying out in the process. Can t 
you realize that for dimples like Augusta 
Claire s a man will forget his ancestors?" 

"And also, it would seem, his descen 
dants," Miss Bart darkly remarked. 

"By no means it is probably because 
of his descendants that nature is on the 
side of Augusta Claire!" said Bernice 
recklessly. 

It was in no premeditated treachery to 
the Thrale tradition that Oliver had gone, 
the day after the accident, to inquire for 
Miss Thompkins. Such a proceeding, he 
had assured himself, was no more than 
decency required. Mrs. Thompkins, who 
had received her daughter the day before 
in an agitation which ignored Oliver, 
greeted him now with effusive cordiality, 
with a gratitude, indeed, which thrust 
Oliver, against his own protestations, into 
the role of rescuer. When he insisted 
that he had done nothing, Mrs. Thomp 
kins merely shook her head, a smile of 
mild obstinacy creasing her fair, faded 
face. 

"Oh, but my little girl has told me!" 
she reiterated. 

What, precisely, her little girl had told 
her didn t appear, but evidently in the 
narrative, one can only hope in the con 
viction, of Augusta Claire, Oliver had 
played an heroic and essential part. To 
a warier, more suspicious nature, there 
might have been a faint shade of the omi 
nous in this fact. To Oliver it conveyed 
an impression merely of amiable ab 
surdity on the part of Mrs. Thompkins, 
and when Augusta Claire appeared in 
visual evidence of her own undamaged 
state there was no trepidation in the alac 
rity in which he rose to greet her. 

Oliver stayed longer than he had meant 
to stay, but then they insisted so on re 
garding him as, mysteriously, the rescuer 
of Augusta Claire. "But it was so kind 
of you ! " Mrs. Thompkins kept repeating. 
"Picking her up and helping her into the 
house like that ! " And Augusta Claire 
had looked at him devoutly. Absurdly, 
Oliver found it agreeable, though aware 




" **% 



^i: 



Her hostesses suggested their car oh, it wouldn t be the least trouble ! Page 742. 



how ethereal was the foundation on which 
his reputation as a hero had been built. 
When Mrs. Thompkins asked Oliver to 
dinner, Oliver, opening his lips on a polite 
refusal, suddenly found himself accepting 
with thanks instead. Was it because of 
the soft, eager eyes that met his at that 
moment ? Was it just that Mrs. Thomp 
kins herself was so pathetically simple 
and friendly in her invitation? She 
might have been asking a country neigh 
bor to run in. At any rate Oliver s no 



became yes, and Augusta Claire s dim 
ples, which for the moment of his obvious 
hesitation had disappeared, came into 
play again. She smiled with a warmth 
which seemed somehow to get into Oli 
ver s blood, making it tingle a little. 

Clearly, before the hour when Oliver 
fulfils this rash engagement is the time 
for the arresting hand of an ancestor to 
reach out from the grave to check the 
doomed young man in his course. But 
none did, and on the appointed evening 

745 



746 THE CANDOR OF AUGUSTA CLAIRE 

not excuses but Oliver arrived at the would love the place, too, if you were to 

Thompkins door. see it. It s so big! I don t mean just 

Augusta Claire received him with cor- in acres but everything is so big the 

dial smiles. After a shy glance or two at mountains, the timber, the wonderful 

his dinner coat she remarked candidly: outlooks across the valley to more moun- 

" You don t know how thrilling it is to tains, and more and more. Oh, some- 
have someone coming to dinner in eve- times I feel choked here among the 
ning clothes ! Up at the ranch I used to houses ! " 

read about people doing it, and think how She put out her hands in a vigorous 

heavenly it must be, and I even begged gesture all her gestures were vigorous, 

dad to send down to the city for a dress And Oliver sat trying to digest the sur-" 

suit, and wear it just now and then, say prising fact that an Augusta Claire who 

when I was extra good and deserved it. had been born in a cabin and who openly 

But dear old dad he would have done exulted in his evening clothes was still 

anything else in the world for me, I guess somehow, mysteriously, not vulgar. Not 

-just naturally drew the line at that, vulgar, because now Oliver had it ! 

He said the party that got him into a she accepted her disadvantageous antece- 

dress suit would rope and tie him first, dents with such simplicity, with even a 

And of course darling dad would have kind of pride. Could it be possible that 

burst out the seams of one in no time, I those breeds which, instead of staying 

expect, he was so big and husky they d at home to accumulate traditions, had 

have just popped ! sought in every generation a new abode 

"But since mother and I have been and a fresh adventure, had in fact their 
down here we have been practising dress- own tradition that they even preferred 
ing up not in full war-paint, you know, it to another ? When Mrs. Thompkins, 
but just kind of half and half." Augusta wearing her company air, came in, he saw 
Claire was in half and half now, a frilly her suddenly in a new perspective. Fancy 
pink thing that showed off her eyes and burying those babies, she and her husband 
dimples rather bewilderingly. "Mother all alone there at the cabin, burying them 
said she felt pretty foolish at first, remem- and then going on somehow with her life. 
bering the time when she had had to hus- Oliver had an illuminating moment when 
tie from the table whenever something he perceived that very obscure, ordinary 
boiled over on the stove. That was a people, quite impossible people, according 
good while ago, of course Lin Chin was to Thrale standards, might have back- 
cook at the ranch from the time I was a grounds rich as this. She was inarticu- 
little thing. But dad and mother began late, this plump, faded woman; she 
with just a cabin and a few head of stock, couldn t look or speak her tragedy, the 
The other children all died scarlet fever sublimity of her final resignation, her re- 
and no doctor, for the ranch was awfully covered peace; she didn t suggest, as she 
remote in those days; now it s only stood there in her beaded lavender geor- 
twenty miles from the railroad. And gette, with artificial pearls on her fat neck, 
dad and mother buried them themselves, the anguish, the stark horror, the unas- 
Then I came along, and dad said I turned suageable hurt of the memories she must 
their luck the cattle stopped dying, the carry with her always. She merely 
rustlers were driven out, and things came smiled her kind, rather fatuous smile and 
our way at last. Well, it doesn t seem remarked: 

fair that I should have it all, does it? "Well, I guess Olga s ready now and 

All that dad and mother worked so hard we may as well go in to dinner." And 

for, I mean, and that the other poor little she was frankly amazed, and looked in a 

things that were born in the cabin should disturbed way at Augusta Claire, when 

have died, and I should come in for the Oliver neglected that young lady to offer 

ranch and everything. But I do love the his arm to her mother, 
ranch ! You ll She stopped short, Whether Oliver s culpability from a 

the dusky rose of her cheeks deepening. Thrale standpoint was henceforth of an 

Perhaps it occurred even to Augusta active or merely passive order might be 

Claire that she was going rather fast. difficult to determine. A very firm little 

But she finished gamely. "I mean you chin and beguiling eyes are an effective 



THE CANDOR OF AUGUSTA CLAIRE 



747 



combination, and Augusta Claire pos 
sessed it. Andrew, after his adventure 
in the Adair garden, had come out of the 
repair shop as good as new, and Oliver 
was a frequent passenger while Augusta 
Claire at the wheel sent the car whizzing 
along the hill roads. And he sat in the 
Thompkins living-room, where every de 
tail cried aloud of a department-store dec 
orator turned loose, while Augusta Claire 
entertained him with popular airs on the 
graph ophone. He didn t even take alarm 
when Mrs. Thompkins withdrew, as she 
invariably did, for the obvious and undis 
guised purpose of leaving Augusta Claire 
alone with her young man. No, he con 
tinued to occupy the chair three feet from 
the davenport, where, in one corner, Au 
gusta Claire sat looking rather small and 
isolated, with a significantly empty desert 
of velours beside her. But so far he 
hadn t offered to fill it. 

This brings us to the day when Mrs. 
Adair,- perambulating with her bulldog, 
received her shock. After her interview 
with her sister she went to her room, 
flung her hat on the bed, and began pac 
ing up and down with that long, easy 
stride which Oliver had aforetime noted 
with approbation. Nature, in other 
words the primitive man in Oliver, might 
be on the side of Augusta Claire, but even 
at that the battle was not yet lost. There 
were forces, potent and subtle forces, 
which could be marshalled in array 
against her. Bernice, of course, took 
high ground in the matter. She said to 
herself that Oliver must be rescued, that 
he mustn t be allowed to spoil his life like 
this. Yet she paused in her stride before 
the mirror and looked into it for a long 
time reflectively. She was three or four 
years older than Oliver, seven or eight 
years older than Augusta Claire. But her 
grace and distinction, her enigmatic gray- 
green eyes, her heavy dull-black hair, had 
nothing to fear from the passing of youth. 
And of other weapons, of which Augusta 
Claire didn t even suspect the existence, 
she had a whole arsenal. 

Augusta Claire and her mother were 
immensely pleased with the informal and 
friendly fashion in which Mrs. Adair 
dropped in on them. They told Oliver 
about it, and were innocently unaware of 
the somewhat mixed nature of his emo 
tions. But can one, even so innocuously 



as Oliver, lead a double life without suffer 
ing embarrassment when the veil of se 
crecy is rent? He went next evening to 
see Mrs. Adair and her sister, in the get-it- 
over spirit with which one visits the den 
tist. He might as well discover at once 
the degree of his black-sheepishness in 
their eyes, so typically the eyes of his own 
particular world. But Bernice received 
him charmingly; Myra wasn t so well and 
didn t appear. He didn t miss her, so 
pleasantly intimate was his tete-a-tete 
with Mrs. Adair. She spoke in a casual 
fashion of her call at the Thompkinses, 
assuming so simply that he would know of 
it that Oliver had a bewildered moment 
when he almost believed that she had 
been in his confidence all the while. He 
was quite sure, on reflection, that she had 
not; but it seemed equally certain that in 
some way she had known all along of this 
erratic deviation from his normal orbit, 
without realizing that she was not sup 
posed to know. He did remember, yes, 
indisputably he remembered, that she had 
exercised her mordant wit rather unspar 
ingly on the mother and daughter after 
they had called to apologize for the-indis- 
cretion of Andrew, but then on whom 
didn t she, when the freak took her, exer 
cise it? Now she spoke of them in the 
kindest way, but without over-stressing 
the kindness. What more apparent than 
that here was the very friend for an Au 
gusta Claire so unquestionably in need of 
forming? And what could be more deli 
cately implied than the friend s willingness 
to undertake the mission ? The touchiest 
admirer of Augusta Claire couldn t have 
taken alarm. 

Naturally, then, that first friendly over 
ture of Mrs. Adair to the Thompkinses 
proved only the beginning. Augusta 
Claire went half a dozen times to the 
Adair house, and drank tea, and listened 
to talk she in no wise understood, and 
was mysteriously oppressed in spite of 
understanding that she was very much 
privileged. Of course what gave the priv 
ilege its shining value was that these 
were friends of Oliver s, their ways his 
ways, their allusive speech his speech. 
And Augusta Claire had that in her soul 
which made her, yes, even Augusta 
Claire, tremulously, divinely humble. 
Mrs. Adair came half a dozen times to the 
Thompkinses, and dined once when Oliver 



748 



THE CANDOR OF AUGUSTA CLAIRE 



was there, and was utterly gracious and 
charming, while Augusta Claire and her 
mother struggled against a queer awk 
wardness which seemed increasingly to 
envelop them, and Olga, catching the eye 
of the lady guest, was stricken suddenly 
so maladroit that she spilled soup down 
Oliver s neck. Mrs. Adair steered them 
past this disaster skilfully you felt that 
without her, utter wreck could not have 
been averted and brought them with an 
effect of rescue through to coffee. She 
departed finally, carrying Oliver away 
with her in the limousine, leaving her host 
esses at once thrilled with the distinction 
her presence had conferred, and depressed 
by a vague, baffling sense of humiliation 
and defeat. 

It was on this evening that Augusta 
Claire, going rather silently to her room 
when the guests had departed, sat very 
still for a good while after she had taken 
down her hair. Augusta Claire was 
thinking profoundly, and the effort 
brought a small wrinkle to her smooth 
forehead and a compression to her soft 
lips. Was she thinking of two enigmatic 
gray-green eyes, plumbing them to find 
the meaning that lay behind them ? Was 
she considering their mysterious power of 
making you see, as they saw, flaccid, flus 
tered, inadequate Mrs. Thompkins as 
merely that, with all the kindness, faith 
fulness, heroism of her extinguished by 
their irony? Was she viewing Augusta 
Claire by the same light as Oliver per 
haps against his will had viewed her? 
Was she dimly, incredulously, but surely 
perceiving the significance of that friend 
ship which she had so guilelessly and 
gratefully welcomed? Augusta Claire 
made no confidences to the little pink- 
and-white room which was the scene of 
her meditations, unless one might so 
translate a remark apparently addressed 
to the electric light as she extinguished it. 

"And to think how you fell for it ! " she 
cryptically murmured. 

At the same time Bernice and Oliver 
were sitting before the fire in the library 
of the Adair house, over a confidential 
cigarette. Bernice had made it confiden 
tial, somehow, from the moment when 
with a relieved sigh she had taken her 
case from her desk. 

"Of course one couldn t before a 
woman who probably belongs to a 



league against it!" she said with a smile 
which took his own sense of the humor- 
ousness of it for granted, and sank into 
the chair which, obedient to her gesture, 
he had_drawn before the fire. Oliver hes 
itated, then sat down. Having accepted 
her invitation to come in, there was really 
nothing else to do. And it was certainly 
a charming room, satisfying, reposeful, 
exactly the right place for fireside confi 
dences with a w r oman who had Bernice s 
gift that way. Indubitably two months 
before Oliver would not have been insen 
sible to the agreeableness of it. Whether 
he was now was what Bernice couldn t, 
from the straight, impassive profile, quite 
determine. 

Under such circumstances the rule is, 
play the suit you wish were trumps; it s 
ten to one your lead is returned. Ber 
nice, therefore, with the intimate smile 
which included Oliver as so inevitablv of 

m~ 

her own point of view, reverted to the 
evening just past. "So good, so genu 
ine, the very salt of the earth !" was her 
tribute to Mrs. and Miss Thompkins. 
And you felt at once that these excellent 
qualities cut them off hopelessly from 
others much more interesting. "It fills 
you with belief in our country, doesn t 
it, when you see how sterling they are, 
people of that class Bernice paused 
to light another cigarette. "Of course 
abroad they would be, in fact, peasants, 
with all the peasant sordidness, igno 
rance, servility," she concluded. 

"I believe the Thompkins ranch con 
tains some fifteen thousand acres," re 
marked Oliver, with seeming irrelevancy. 

"Ah, that s just it consider the chance 
they have had, in this country, to rise ! 
In Europe they d be still in a hovel, you 
know, with Augusta Claire herding the 
cows barefoot instead of going to col- 
lege." 

"Oh " said Oliver ambiguously then 
he, too, paused for a light. "Strikes me 
they are more in the class of the landed 
proprietor, aren t they?" he added, 
throwing the match into the fire. 

"Ah, but that implies well, back 
grounds, ancestry, traditions!" She 
seemed to remind him subtly of his and 
her own possessions of that order. "The 
house of Thompkins may have them in a 
hundred years, but now !" Her light 
laugh evoked the mother and daughter in 



THE CANDOR OF AUGUSTA CLAIRE 



749 



unanswerable witness that they had them 
not. 

Oliver said nothing, and Bernice, with 
another glance at his profile, allowed a 
long moment of silence to prelude her 
next remark. It was in a different key. 

"I was so glad for you to hear, Oliver 
your cousin Mary s letter came to-day 
that you have been offered that fasci- 



throbbed between them, distinctly as the 
spoken words, Take mine ! Into the si 
lence her soul projected it, on a wave of 
emotion which left her trembling, as 
though there had gone with it something 
of her life. 

How clearly her message reached him 
she couldn t tell, didn t, indeed, dare look 
at him in that moment to discover. He 




"You ll add distinction even to the Thrale name. 



nating place in the diplomatic service. 
Of course if later you wish to practise law 
well, there is always Mary s husband s 
office ready for you. But I have a feel 
ing, a hope, that it will never come to 
that. Once in the diplomatic life ah, 
that s the future for you, Oliver ! Your 
gifts will ripen quickly it s a perfect 
forcing-house for talent, that European 
atmosphere you ll find yourself as & 
writer yes, I know it s in you ! You ll 
add distinction even to the Thrale name." 

"In the diplomatic life a man needs 
money, and I m poor," said Oliver bluntly. 

Bernice said nothing, and yet there 



continued to stare at the fire, his elbow on 
the padded chair-arm, the cigarette be 
tween his fingers. His emotions didn t 
come easily to the surface, Bernice knew. 
And, besides, could he, on so subtle a hint, 
do other than remain quiescent? If it 
bore fruit it must be later, when they 
could both ignore their consciousness that 
the impulse had come from her. 

Oliver tossed his cigarette into the fire 
and stood up. 

" Good-night. It s been awfully pleas 
ant thanks for letting me come in." 

He was gone, leaving her to feel satis- 
fiedly that the hour just ended had been 



750 THE CANDOR OF AUGUSTA CLAIRE 

the closest and most intimate of all their sides, Augusta Claire s prettiness might 

acquaintance. count for something now, but wait until 

Within the week occurred the dinner the talk got moving ! Bernice had seen 

which Bernice was giving for the Plor- her silent, bewildered, extinguished, with 

nishes, and to which both Oliver and a mere half-dozen women at tea, subdued, 

Augusta Claire were asked. The affair, by that comprehension of her own inade- 

indeed, might have been called the cul- quacies which Bernice had subtly man- 

minating point in Mrs. Adair s campaign aged to instil, to a little stammering 

against the little Thompkins. Myra Bart, country girl, humbly watching her men- 

not entirely initiated, had gasped a little tor for a cue. One would now have to 

over the invitation to Augusta Claire. wait, merely, to witness the final, satisfy- 

"But, my dear, to meet the Plornishes ing eclipse of Augusta Claire, 

and Bryce Duprey - !" It was in one of those lulls which will 

"No, Myra," said Bernice tranquilly, happen at the best-regulated dinner- 

" to meet Oliver." tables that the voice of Bryce Duprey 

"Bernice, you re subtle!" conceded boomed forth. His apologists said he was 

Miss Bart admiringly. a little deaf; those who had suffered too 

To meet Oliver, then, in all the merci- grievously at his hands maintained that 
less light of contrast, Augusta Claire was he merely bellowed out his rudenesses for 
asked to the dinner where the other the sake of increasing their effect, 
guests were so emphatically of the elect. "Mrs. Adair, that young person over 
The Plornishes were New Yorkers winter- there what s that, Miss Thompson? 
ing in California, he a sculptor whom tal- well, whatever her name is, she s been 
ent would have carried far if he hadn t watching me out of the corner of her eye 
married a wife so rich as to make effort for ever so long. What s the matter- 
ridiculous. . Bryce Duprey was going did she expect to see me with a queue?" 
through on his way back to the Orient, The whole battery of eyes turned to 
where he was usually to be found if you Augusta Claire. Oliver s face flushed 
looked for him in the right place often a darkly. You might have heard the 
very difficult place to look. For some whole company holding their breath, 
reason, perhaps his eccentricities, he was Bernice s mind flashed ahead, foreseeing 
credited w r ith having more brains than he any of the things that might have hap- 
ever used, and they spoke of him in clubs pened, but not the thing that did. For 
all round the world as a fellow who might the voice of Augusta Claire, with a ripple 
have been distinguished in any of a dozen of laughter in it, came clearly back, 
ways if he hadn t been so damned clever "Queue? That would make you a 
in eleven others. He was undependable back number even for China, wouldn t it? 
of tongue and temper, but, of course, to No, I just wanted to see what you were 
be insulted by him was a thing you told like, after I had so much trouble looking 
of afterward with pride. Naturally, to you up in the dictionary." 
meet this trio Mrs. Adair had picked her "Looking me up in the diction- 
guests carefully down to the bottom of ary?" The celebrity stared, and his eye- 
the list, that is, where occurred the un- brows drew together, but not all the way, 
distinguished name of Augusta Claire because Augusta Claire, showing her dim- 
Thompkins. pies, was too delectable a sight to be 

There was no disputing it even Mrs. frowned at. 

Adair admitted it as she glanced over the "Had to, you know, because Mrs. 

circle around the mahogany Augusta Adair called you such a long word. She 

Claire looked pretty. The big, long- told me you were very wonderful, but 

lashed eyes, the roses, the dimples, all a little well, frightening that, in fact, 

seemed more in evidence than ever, more you were caviare to the general. And I 

apt to prove refreshing to the jaded mas- said, Good land ! is that an aide or an 

culine eye. But, then, Oliver s wasn t a orderly? Anyway, it s a new one in the 

jaded eye; it was an eye still young military line to me, and I thought I had 

enough to be allured by a contrasting ma- the thing all doped out during the war. 

turity, sophistication, finish. And Ber- And Mrs. Adair said, Oh, it s just a 

nice herself was superb to-night. Be- phrase, dear!" Augusta Claire repro- 



THE CANDOR OF AUGUSTA CLAIRE 751 

duced with exactitude Bernice s pained his future Oliver looked down at his plate, 

but determinedly sweet air. "But I "Now I shall have to work for my living 

couldn t see how you could be just a awfully hard !" Augusta Claire turned a 

phrase, so I went home and looked you plaintive gaze on Mr. Plornish. 

up in the dictionary." "Really? At what?" he inquired in- 

"And you found I was ?" The terestedly. 

man before whom dusky potentates had "Running the ranch, of course. Yes, 

trembled waited. that s what I m going to college for not 

" Distinctly an acquired taste." Utter to learn to write free verse in early middle 

demureness was in the droop of Augusta English, or essays on Socialism under 

Claire s lashes. Then laughter, whole- the First Babylonian Dynasty. Snap 

hearted, masculine, much too loud for courses like those are all right for the 

Bernice Adair s dinner-table, broke forth, leisure classes, but I ve got my job all cut 

and Bryce Duprey laughed loudest, out. Beef on the hoof is the topic that 

Some of the women laughed, Mrs. Plor- keeps me burning the midnight oil clec- 

nish stared disapprovingly, and Bernice, trie juice, I mean. And, believe me, in 

though she smiled tolerantly, managed a Cow College you work!" 

slight, very slight shake of her head at "And so you personally are going to 

Augusta Claire. But Augusta Claire, so run a ranch, Miss ah Thompkins?" 

biddable but a week ago, ignored the ges- Mr. Plornish s eye-glass was skeptical as 

ture. Quite openly and shamelessly she he trained it on his diminutive neighbor, 

brought the whole effect of eyes and dim- "I sure am /" nodded Augusta Claire, 

pies to bear on the celebrity. "I m getting ready to as fast as I can, for 

"And should you suppose it possible the place will stand more looking after 

to acquire it?" he demanded, looking at than it s getting now, I m afraid. There s 

her with frank delight. a pretty good foreman in charge good 

" Isn t it possible to acquire almost any- when he s sober, that is. But he s sober 
thing with practise?" she murmured, a lot oftener because he knows some- 
dimpling wickedly. thing s due to drop on him if things aren t 

Bernice, recovering from her astonish- going right when I come up in vacations, 

ment, hastily resumed command of the Twice a year, anyway, old Jake Peters 

situation. No time now to reflect upon knows he has to ride over every acre of 

this extraordinary development, only to the place with me, and if there s anything 

nip it in the bud. wrong I just stand him up and wade into 

" I want to tell you may I, Oliver ? him. He says he d a lot rather have 
we re all such friends here ! about the had dad land on him with his fist than 
prospect of Mr. Thrale s going abroad get a dressing-down from me." Augusta 
soon and in such a particularly delight- Claire dimpled deliciously in the same 
ful way!" Further details brought a moment that she tried to frown. You 
congratulatory chorus. Oliver received could see her from the eminence of her 
it ambiguously; nobody could have five feet dressing down old Jake Peters, 
guessed what he thought of the delightful "That is a very interesting career you 
prospect. If you - had been watching have marked out for yourself," said Mr. 
Augusta Claire you might have seen the Plornish, "but I don t see what allowance 
sudden flushing of her cheeks, but she was you have made in it for the yes, one can 
quite herself again when in response to a only say the inevitable husband ! Sup- 
remark of Mr. Plornish s, who sat beside pose his career should take him in quite 
her, her clear voice reached the listening another direction a long way, in fact?" 
roomful listening because Bryce Duprey As if on a sudden thought Mr. Plornish 
had at once rudely interrupted a remark glanced at Oliver. 

of Mrs. Adair s to give his attention to Augusta Claire s gaze may, for the frac- 

Augusta Claire, and the others had fol- tion of a second, have taken the same 

lowed suit. course. As to Oliver, the portrait of 

"Yes, it must be lovely to get a job like Mrs. Adair s great-aunt on the opposite 

that where you don t have to work for wall appeared to claim his full attention, 

your living just draw down your salary "Well," said Augusta Claire, with a 

and go about to teas." At this picture of certain deliberation, " I don t know that 



752 



THE CANDOR OF AUGUSTA CLAIRE 



he s inevitable because sometimes two 
that that like each other awfully let cir 
cumstances and and people interfere. 
Of course nothing needs to interfere, be 
cause if he the man, you know had 
something really big to do in the world, 
the ranch would come out a poor second 
Jake and mother would have to worry 
along by themselves. But his job would 
have to be the kind that counts for some 
thing not a pink-tea snap. Because the 
ranch does count for something you re 
doing your share of the world s work 
when you help feed it, aren t you? And 
I want to do my share to feel every day 
of my life that I ve earned my keep." 

Mr. Plornish, who certainly did not 
earn his keep, found nothing to reply, 
which gave Bernice the opportunity to 
cut in smoothly. 

"The husband, then you know we 
can t help considering him inevitable, 
dear ! unless he can prove his own ca 
reer of superior importance, will have to 
go and live on the ranch and let you earn 
his keep, too ? Ah, my dear, I m afraid I 
can t congratulate you on the future 
what shall I say ? Mr. Thompkins ! " 

Augusta Claire looked up quickly, and 
across the table the eyes of the two 
women met. For a measurable instant 
they held each other. 

"No, he won t be Mr. Thompkins," 
said Augusta Claire clearly. "And he ll 
earn his own keep, you know. Because 
first he ll learn to run the ranch, and then 
he ll run it. To begin with, while I was 
finishing college, he would go on the place 
as a puncher until he was ready for Jake s 
job I mean to retire Jake on a pension 
as soon as I can. And from that he d 
graduate to manager and the man that 
manages Elk Rock Range and me will 
a lot more than earn his keep, I can tell 
you!" 

" I believe you ! " boomed the man from 
the Orient. "But it will be a job worth 
holding dow r n !" 

Augusta Claire s triumphant evening 
drew to a close at last. In the drawing- 
room she had sat between Mr. Plornish 
and Bryce Duprey, to whom with free 
dom and fluency she narrated histories of 
Elk Rock Range, while other rather lan 
guishing conversations were drowned out 
by their delighted laughter. Glowing and 
sparkling like a dusky jewel, with the aura 



of victory still about her, she came to say 
good-night. She took Bernice s slender, 
unresponsive fingers into her strong little 
brown hand. 

"Thanks so much for the best time! 
People are so nice when you take them as 
just human, aren t they your caviare 
person, for instance? Of course I forgot 
all the lovely manners I was trying so 
hard to learn from you they just don t 
fit me, I expect. I might as well give up 
pretending I m a perfect lady, I suppose, 
and be just candid." 

"Ah, you re certainly that, dear!" re 
turned Mrs. Adair in a slightly raised 
voice Oliver was standing by, waiting to 
accompany Augusta Claire home in An 
drew. "To take us all into your confi 
dence so delightfully about the status of 
the future Mr. Thompkins! The first 
thing we shall ask, when we hear you re en 
gaged, is w r hat terms you ve hired him on." 

"I m sure he won t mind telling you, 
dear Mrs. Adair ! " murmured Augusta 
Claire with unmistakable significance, 
and again the eyes of the two women held 
each other, while abruptly their hands 
unclasped. 

Augusta Claire and Oliver rode home in 
Andrew silently. They put the car in the 
garage and then paused to say good-night 
at the house door. 

"I hope you ll like that that d-diplo- 
matic post, Oliver," said Augusta Claire 
in a shaking voice. 

" Shouldn t," said Oliver briefly. " But 
let me tell you, Augusta Claire, if I chose 
to take it my wife would go with me, do 
you hear?" * 

"I I expect she would, Oliver," 
gasped Augusta Claire. 

"And I think a man had better hold 
down even a pink-tea snap on his own 
account than than live off his wife s 
property, don t you?" 

"B but you wouldn t, Oliver! It 
would be a real job, Oliver ! Oh, Oliver, 
I knew it was that, and I came out right 
there before them all right when she was 
trying to make you see that I wouldn t do 
at all for a diplomatic post I explained 
just how we d manage, Oliver !" 

"Augusta Claire, what wages do you 
pay a puncher? " demanded Oliver, as for 
the second time and on a door-mat, too 
his arm went round her substantial lit 
tle figure. 



Continuity 

BY CHRISTOPHER MORLEY 

ILLUSTRATION BY W. J. ENRIGHT 




HERE was always a 
stir and movement 
among the leaves, in 
that strip of woodland 
beyond the empty 
house. The dim blank 
windows, with dusty 
scarfs of cobweb in 
the sash corners, looked into alcoves of 
green perspective where, at the bottom of 
the vista, clear twinkles of sky sifted 
through. No matter how still the day, 
how heavy the air, there seemed a gentle 
trouble in the boughs. Among the tangle 
of blackberry briers and dying chestnut 
trunks matted with robes of poison-ivy, 
were some dogwood- trees. In a light 
spring air their blossoms of four white 
twisted petals tossed and spun like tiny 
propellers. The tall oaks lifted rough 
gray rafters under the lattice of tremulous 
green. There was always an eddy and 
chiming under the eaves of that airy roof. 
What word is soft enough to say it? A 
. whisper, a murmur, an audible hush, a 
sigh. 

Paths that men have made persist sur 
prisingly. Behind the old faded blistered 
barn a still visible way among the thickets 
led to a deserted dump-heap among the 
trees. Here, quietly rotting in a flicker of 
sun and shadow, lay the cast-off rubbish 
of former tenants broken china, rusted 
cans, a skeleton umbrella, an old slipper, 
warped and stiff. Poison-ivy had grown 
up again along that path. The black 
berries softened, and then withered, un 
picked. 

The two men who walked up the hill 
did not see all this. Their first glimpse 
of the house, seen by chance from the 
road, pleased them. The faint sadness of 
any dwelling, lonely and stripped, was at 
that moment only an agreeable air of 
strangeness. In the transparent blaze of 
light and warmth, under a golden pour 
of late afternoon sunshine, the place 
VOL. LXXL 48 



was ideal for their bivouac. They had 
tramped far, were tired and hungry. The 
rich green of mint and cress on the hill- 
slope led them to the spring: when the 
paste of dead leaves and twigs and seed 
clots had been scummed off, the water 
was cold and sweet. There was dry hay 
in the loft of the barn. Here they spread 
their blankets. By an old log, scarred 
with axe-cuts, they lit a small cautious 
fire, made tea, and fried bacon. In the 
valley they could see opal shadows gath 
ering, rising, a lake of dusk, a blue tide 
making up a green estuary. Daylight 
retreated on the great tawny hillsides, 
slipping quietly among scattered gray 
boulders . 

" Now let Time stand still a while," said 
Dunham, lighting his pipe and stretching 
out at ease. "I didn t know how tired I 
was until I got out here, away from all the 
meaningless pressure of the office. I m 
too tired even to think. I couldn t think 
if I wanted to." 

"There s a good many in the same 
case," said Grimes, with a faint grin. 
"But not for the same reason." 

They gazed about them with a sort of 
vacant satisfaction. 

"My mind feels like that old house 
there," said Dunham. "A dusty shell, 
vacant, lifeless, and yet somehow aware 
that it once was alive, Just a foggy 
memory that I was, forty-eight hours 
ago, a hustling business man tied down 
by telephone wires." 

" Yes, you re tired, said Grimes. " Ev 
eryone s tired. The world itself is tired. 
I m glad it is. If it gets tired enough, 
desperate enough, it ll come to its senses. 
Think of a place like this, close to the 
main road, in this heavenly country, and 
lying empty. I suppose the people who 
lived here moved to the city. I can imag 
ine them, huddled in some mean crowded 
street, going to the movies every even- 
ing." 

753 



754 CONTINUITY 

There was a throbbing down the road, pants. A home keeps so many subtle 
and round the curve that embraced the vestiges. The creak of the stair, the stain 
hillside flashed a big touring-car, lifting a on the w r all-paper, the hooks in the cup- 
swirl of powdery dust. They watched it board, the soot of the fireplace, all these 
disappear, with the small pitiful smile of are mysterious and alluring whispers out 
two ghosts, just stepped off earth and re- of that unknown household. You can 
viewing the quaint futilities from which feel the vanished reality, obscurely exist- 
they were now released. ent and yet dumb, intangible. There 

"These arcadian spots aren t always must be some way, you would think, of 
what one imagines," Dunham said. "It wiping the dust from that old mirror and 
doesn t do to live too close to nature, seeing the lingering reflection. 
I ve always noticed, it s the loveliest "They were good housekeepers," said 
places that lie vacant. That s just it- Grimes. "I never saw a place more 
they re too lovely. People get frightened, scrupulously clean. No scraps of paper 
There are days, like to-day, when the or curtain-rings or flabby tooth-brushes 
very harmony of air and sunlight terrifies lying about. The woman had an up- 
me. Days so excellent they trouble the state conscience, evidently." 
heart. They make you suspect that life "Too clean," said Dunham. "I don t 
is only a queer dream, one of those night- like it. It s too too naked. I don t 
mares in which your limbs are paralyzed think they loved the place. If they had, 
in the face of sure disaster. Perhaps we they d have left something for it to re- 
will wake up in the Fourth Dimension, member them by." 
who knows?" "I m going up-stairs before it gets too 

" Yes, it s all a disordered mix-up. But dark to see. It s interesting. I w r onder 

life is rather like a detective story. No why they closed all the shutters just on 

matter how badly written, oTr how clumsy this side of the house and not on the 

the plot, somehow you generally want to others?" 

read it to the end." Dunham was examining a large cup- 

"You admit, then, it s a kind of fie- board under the stairway. He heard his 

tion. Exactly. But if life is fiction, then friend s footsteps go upward over his 

what represents biography?" head. The heavy walking shoes moved 

Grimes laughed. "My dear boy, we re slowly from room to room, he could hear 

getting uncomfortably subtle for two them strike sharply on the echoing floor, 

tired loafers. Let s wash the frying-pan At the back of a cupboard like this, he 

and take a stroll." was thinking, would be the likeliest place 

The rusty old pump, under the grape for things to be forgotten. He groped 
arbor near the back stoop, was found to carefully into the dark corner, with a 
yield water after some priming. And curious feeling that he \vould find some- 
then Dunham, poking about, noticed that thing. Above him was a sudden soft 
the outside cellar door was unfastened. pattering. Mice, he thought. Then he 

"Hullo," he cried. "Here s a way in ! heard Grimes calling. 

Let s explore. I never can resist an empty "Here s some evidence!" he was say- 
house." ing. 

Through a dark earth-smelling base- Dunham turned perhaps with an irra- 
ment they felt their way gingerly, tional feeling of relief from the stuffy 
Grimes lit a match and they found the blackness of the closet. He went up 
stairs. The door at the head of the flight stairs, and found Grimes standing in a 
was hooked on the inside, but not tightly: fair-sized room on the sunset side of the 
there was enough gap to insert a penknife house. 

blade and lift the fixture. They were in "There were children. See the Mother 

the pantry. Goose wall-paper, all scrawled over with 

Nothing is more fascinating to a pencil marks." 

thoughtful mood than rambling through "Pretty tall children," Dunham said, 

a deserted house, imagining it peopled He pointed to some of the scribbles, which 

with one s own domestic gods, and also were just at the height of his shoulder, 

conjecturing the life of the former occu- "They do it standing in their cribs." 



CONTINUITY 



755 



Grimes smiled. " I know that from home 
experience." 

Dunham opened a closet door in one 
corner. 

" Funny," he said. "They left all their 
toys." 

On the floor of the cupboard, neatly 
arranged, lay an assortment of childish 
treasures: a clockwork locomotive and 
battered tracks, building blocks, a tin 
shovel and pail, some small tools. 

"Children had grown up when they 
moved away," Grimes suggested. 

In the darkening room they seemed to 
see the little tin rails set out in a circle on 
the splintery floor, the toy engine clatter 
ing round until, like all such contrivances, 
it reeled over and lay with a loud buzzing, 
like a kicking beetle turned on its back. 
From some far-away imagined childhood 
the picture presented itself. The room 
seemed very lonely. 

"Let s go outdoors," Dunham said. 

They walked quietly up and down the 
rough driveway that lay between the 
house and the woods. Among the trees 
was an occasional blink of fireflies. The 
evening air was cool, and Grimes rebuilt 
a small blaze, but Dunham still paced 
around the house. The place moved him 
with a grave appeal. As the last green 
light drew westward, darkness crept in 
from under the trees, where it had lain 
couching. The wood itself drew closer 
and whispered more certainly. It loomed 
immensely high, like a wall of blackness, 
darker than the dark. The house seemed 
smaller and had lost that look of es 
tablished confidence that houses have. 
Happy houses welcome the night, built 
to conquer it, their gallant windows hold 
swords of brave yellow lamplight to pierce 
our first enemy. But here, Dunham 
thought, this lonely steading quailed be 
neath the shadow. Darkness invaded it 
and triumphed over it; it lay passive, but 
still afraid. 

At last he joined his companion, who 
was lying comfortably propped against a 
log. 

This is just the sort of place I d like 
to live in," said Grimes. 

Above them the ruddy shine of their 
bonfire was caught upon the boughs; it 
hung like a bright mist among the softly 
shaking leaves. Each way they looked 



was warm glow, but the dark was always 
just behind them. 

"Curious how much closer the woods 
come at night," said Dunham. " Sunlight 
keeps them at a distance, but now they 
press nearer. They seem to lean right 
over the house. If I lived here I d clear 
out some of the trees. I like a bit of open 
space around me, to give the stars room 
to move about in." 

"I don t like trees at night," he con 
tinued presently. "I m not surprised 
those people shuttered their windows on 
this side. There s something strange 
about that towering blackness. ^ou 
might think it goes all the way up." 

"All the way up?" said Grimes, lazily 
tapping out his pipe. "It probably 
does." 

"I guess not. It s only earth s little 
shaft of shadow, waving through the 
empty brilliance of space. There must 
be sunlight away up, or we shouldn t see 
the stars. They haven t any light of their 
own have they?" 

" My astronomy s rather vague. Come 
on, let s turn in; I m tired. I ll pour a 
pan of water on those embers." 

The barn loft was airy, with a faint dry 
sweetness a little ticklish to the nose. 
They swung open a big upper door that 
looked upon the yard, and arranged their 
blankets on the hay. Dunham was think 
ing of the people who had lived here once. 
A broken pitchfork stood against the 
wall: its wooden handle was dark and 
slippery from the moisture of many palms. 
As he settled himself comfortably he had 
a sense with the sudden clear vision of 
the mind of the Past, of all humanity s 
past : the endless broken striving of men, 
their fugitive evasions of disaster, their 
hazardous momentary happinesses. And 
when you realize (he was thinking) how 
everything vanishes, surroundings once 
dearly familiar pass out of one s life, with 
what an emotion you remember things 
you once loved and will never see again ! 
This plain house, deserted under the dark 
profile of the trees, had once been filled 
with life. To some one, every sill and 
corner had had meaning. Now, in the 
tremulous summer evening, it had an air 
of defeat, of flight, the air of tragedy worn 
by abandoned things. This is a sadness 
felt by all, a personal and selfish sadness, 



756 



CONTINUITY 



the universal pang of the race troubled 
by Time s way with men. To his mind 
came words half-remembered 

"All things uncomely and broken, all things icorn 

out and old, 
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of 

a lumbering cart, 
The heavy steps of the ploughman . . . the 

ploughman. ..." 

How did it go ? 

"By the way," said Grimes, "what 
was that you said about the hay 
rustled as he turned over. 

"Said about what?" 

Grimes paused. 

"Never mind," he said. "I was going 
to ask you something. I ve forgotten 
what it was." 

They fell asleep. 

Dunham woke as one does in middle 
night not drowsily, but sharply, def 
initely, with a mere opening of the eyes. 
As he lay he could see out through the 
open door: everything was lovely with a 
pallor of moonlight. In that wan, deli 
cate shining the trees were a milky gray : 
every leaf distinct and separate, limned 
upon seeping chinks of shadow. The 
crickets and other night sounds had fallen 
still. A comfortable calm possessed him. 
The feeling of sadness and oppression had 
passed. In this clear tranquillity he was 
necessarily placid. The old hypnotism of 
the moon, as she passes her silver mirror 
gravely before humanity s face, makes all 
passions and perplexities seem vain. He 
rose, quietly, for Grimes lay solidly asleep, 
and descended the ladder to the barn floor. 

He walked out softly, for there was 
sure enchantment in the night. Moon 
light never fails of her spell upon the 
imaginative; but this was a brightness 
so hushed, so secret, so crystalline, he 
seemed drowned at the bottom of an 
ocean of light. He trod, as he had 
dreamed in childhood of doing, on a clean 
sandy sea bed where light struck radiant 
ly down through leagues of clear water, 
gilding corals and shipwrecks and green 
caverns with a tremble of pale colors. 
Again the tall proscenium of woodland 
seemed to have receded under the flow 
and purity of that thin gleam. A straight 
white barrier lay between the house and 
the trees. 



He walked almost on tiptoe. This was 
.a different world from that shadow of 
loneliness and trouble that had lain across 
the hillside a few hours before. Some 
times from sleep men rise like Lazarus 
from the dead; their eyes see newly. 
Fears and fevers were dissolved in this 
pearly lustre. Not with horror but with 
tenderness he saw the splintered lives of 
men, whose weakness alone makes them 
lovable; and even this poor shell of a 
house, once dear to men, shared in that 
generous emotion. 

A faint reiterated rhythmical sound 
reached him as he strolled quietly beside 
the house. He wondered, at first, whether 
it was bird or insect. It seemed partly a 
whistle, partly a squeak; and as he halted 
to listen, it queerly conveyed a sense of 
something revolving. It was always on 
the other side of the house. A bat, per 
haps, he thought idly. But then he de 
tected in the sound a small rattling or 
jolting. 

He stood under the grape arbor, with 
just a subtle prickling of nerves. The 
soft creaking seemed to pass now along 
the stony roadway under the trees. 
There was a suggestion of metal in the 
sound. It ceased and then was renewed, 
irregular, but with a rhythm of its own. 

Men are easily frightened at night, but 
Dunham was not frightened. In some 
curious way he felt that this was part of 
the destiny of the evening. He felt only 
an unexplained sense of pity. He had 
known this was going to happen. Ever 
since he had first divined the quiet misery 
of this house under the horror of the trees, 
he had known 

But it was quite different from his ex 
pectation. Round the corner of the 
house, into a pool of moonlight, rode a 
child on a velocipede. He was about four 
years old and wore a sailor suit. There 
was a faint squeaking from the unoiled 
cranks of his toy. A crumpled sailor cap 
was carelessly tilted on his head; his face 
was bright with gaiety. With a kind of 
reckless dash and glee he twirled the tri 
cycle round and rode briskly, with a 
merry up-and-down of bare knees, down 
the bumpy drive. 

What on earth is that child doing here 
at this time of night? thought Dun 
ham, his tension suddenly relaxed. Some 




Drawn by W. J. Enright. 

He stood under the grape arbor, with just a subtle prickling of nerves.-Page 



757 



758 



CONTINUITY 



neighbor s youngster, strayed away from 
home ? He followed slowly, not to fright 
en him. But the child, absorbed in his 
escapade, had not noticed any watcher. 
He had halted the velocipede, and was 
sitting thoughtfully, bent over the han 
dle-bars. 

"Hullo!" Dunham called, gently. 
"What are you up to, sonny? You 
ought to be in bed." 

The figure turned on the saddle. 
Through the overhanging trees the 
blanched light fell hazily upon the small 
face: Dunham could see it change, first 
to shyness, then to alarm. He pedalled 
swiftly, bumping over the stones, down the 
hill to the highway, and disappeared in the 
mottled shadow at the turn in the road. 

For no reason he could analyze, Dun 
ham looked up at the house. At an upper 
window, white in the glitter on the pane, 
was a woman s face, colorless, staring, 
horrified; with a sudden dreadful move 
ment her hands flew to the sill, as if to 
throw up the sash. Her mouth opened 
in a soundless cry. 

Dunham ran to the bottom of the hill, 
and looked along the road. There was 
no one there. 

As he walked up the driveway again, he 
looked, against his will, at the window 
where he had seen that anguished face. 
It was closely shuttered. 

The next morning Grimes went among 
the trees to collect sticks for the break 
fast fire. 

"Look here!" he called. "Here s an 
old dump heap. More evidence ! " 

Dunham followed the old track among 
the bushes. There, quietly rotting in a 
flicker of sun and shadow, lay the cast- 
off rubbish of a vanished household 
broken china, rusted cans, a skeleton um 
brella. Among the litter, broken and 
badly twisted, lay an old velocipede. 

After breakfast, while Grimes was 
packing up their kit, Dunham slipped 
into the house. In the morning light, 
that broke in golden webs across the 
dusty rooms, the place was only faintly 
sad. In the cupboard under the stairs, 



far at the back, he found a child s sailor 
cap. 

As they were setting off down the road, 
a farmer passed in a hay-wagon. 

"How long s it been empty?" he said. 
"Oh, five, six years, I guess. The folks 
moved away after their little boy got 
killed by a car. They was all wrapped 
up in that kid, too. He was riding his 
tricycle, right here in the road. That bit 
of woods, you see, it shuts off the view of 
the curve." 

The wagon was creaking on when Dun 
ham turned and ran after it. 

"Say," he called, "when will it be full 
moon, d you know?" 

The man meditated. 

"Why, the full o the moon was about 
two weeks back. Another fortnight, I 
guess. Nights are pretty black just now, 
I reckon." He went on down the road. 

As Dunham joined his companion, 
Grimes said: "Oh, I remember what I 
was going to ask you. You said some 
thing yesterday about the Fourth Dimen 
sion. That interests me. Just what did 
you mean?" 

" Lord knows," said Dunham. " Some 
times I ve thought that the Fourth Di 
mension^ is what the moving-picture peo 
ple would call Continuity. When you 
paste all the little shots of film together, 
it goes on and on and never stops. Every 
thing that ever happened is happening 
still." 

"In other words, the Fourth Dimen 
sion is Memory?" 

Dunham looked off down the valley, 
where great areas of shadow were mov 
ing, subtending the silver floes of wind- 
drifting cloud. 

"Put it this way," he said. "It s the 
shadow that life casts on eternity." 

"Or maybe the other way round. The 
shadow eternity casts upon life?" 

They walked on round the hillside, 
skirting the patch of woodland that hid 
the house from the road. An eddy and 
trembling rustle of leaves was chiming 
under that airy roof. What word is soft 
enough to say it ? A whisper, a murmur, 
an audible hush, a sigh. 



T 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



IT seems absurd to be troubled about 
goodness in a world that is being de 
cried more than ever for its evil. To 
me one of the most significant statements 
in that delightful history of Mr. H. G. 
Wells is a quotation from the writings of 
Mo Ti, a follower of Confucius in 
of h G?o a dn g e e ss S the fourth century before Christ : 
"All this has arisen from want 
of love. . . . Men in general loving one an 
other; the strong would not make prey of 
the weak; the many would not plunder the 
few; the rich would not make prey of the 
poor; the noble would not be insolent to the 
mean; and the deceitful would not impose 
upon the simple." 

All this time many people have thought 
they were being good; yet the world to-day 
resembles very perfectly that of the Chinese 
philosopher 2,300 years ago. One feels 
oneself touching tritenegj* on all sides or 
descending into the pomposities of didacti 
cism the minute one discusses goodness, 
even its dangers; yet we all suffer from the 
good people we know, and it seems a pity 
not to analyze our troubles sometimes lest 
we fall into folly of the same kind. 

It is not that the dangers of goodness are 
numerous ; the trouble is they are insidious. 
To try to be good would seem innocent 
enough, but the first thing we know we are 
avoiding the whirlwind only to butt into 
the firmest of Scyllas. The only rule about 
it that seems to me of real value is that one 
can afford to be only so good as his disposi 
tion will bear sweetly; so many people are 
a little better than the traffic will bear. 
Thus they spoil themselves and become 
Marthas or martyrs or saints. Of the 
three I suppose the saints are worst, be 
cause they are intolerant, while the Marthas 
and the martyrs are merely bad company. 
The capacity for goodness varies, of course; 
in a few fortunate souls it is great. One of 
the most delightful men I have ever known 
is, I like to think, the most beautifully good. 
He is more than eighty, but even the en 
durance of old age that most trying of all 
diseases has made no blemish upon the 
utter sweetness of his nature. He is so 
genial, so mellow, so unselfish, so young in 



mind and heart that he is a source of joy in 
any company. But most of us must exercise 
care in this matter of goodness. The su 
preme wisdom is that of the Greeks Mea 
sure to know when to stop. The Greeks 
were not too good; it took the Barbarians 
to be that. 

As a rule we escape being saints. The 
Stoics are, I think, in greatest danger. 
Stoicism is a splendid virtue if only one can 
carry it off; but frequently the Stoic is one 
that thinks about it afterward. Very few 
people can endure to the end; one endures at 
the time with set teeth, and then, when it is 
over, dwells upon it. After all it is pleasant- 
er to make at the time all the fuss one cares 
to, and then forget it. All honor to those 
that do endure to the end. For most of us 
there is a strain about our attempts at 
Stoicism that is not as perfect as the quiet 
endurance that does not set its teeth at all, 
and yet bears. The absence of strain is so 
truly the essence of art. 

The greatest danger to most of us is that 
of becoming martyrs. When one discovers 
that one is sorry for oneself, then it is ob 
viously time to go out and commit a dark, 
terrible, pleasant, wicked deed. When one s 
family seem unappreciative and hurt us 
more than usual, then it is time to leave 
them. We can be of no use to them; better 
forget them altogether, no matter how su 
premely important to them one may be 
convinced he is. When one becomes op 
pressed with a sense of how unselfish one 
has been to his friend, and how brutally un 
appreciative the friend is, drop him and 
forget him; if he really cares about you he 
will do the rest unless, perchance, you can 
heap coals of fire and enjoy doing it. I 
have thought about the matter of coals, 
and I am certain the trouble is that most 
people are submerged under a sense of their 
own nobility when they are heaping coals, 
and thus they lose most of the pleasure and 
all the point. This is that they are delib 
erately putting the other person in the 
wrong and keeping him there, which is the 
most effective defense in the world and the 
most selfish. Incidentally it should be pre 
cious balm to the soul. 

759 



760 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



As for the Marthas, they are, in a way, a 
variety of both saint and martyr, the differ 
ence being that they themselves suffer so. 
They are forbidding on the face of it, and 
do not invite company. They are neither 
co-operative nor sociable; for the latter 
they are too busy, and for the former too 
competent. Therefore they are solitary in 
spirit and more or less sufferers in con 
sequence. The joy of life escapes them, 
they are so intent upon the accomplished 
task. There are so many Marthas in 
America. Is there any other country in the 
world where prevails that inexplicable va 
riety of virtue that expresses itself in being 
"so busy one does not know what to do "? 
Even the college professor is ashamed not 
to have it so. 

The great shock-absorber for goodness is, 
obviously, a sense of humor, and, failing of 
that, good health. A great sweetness that 
no goodness can sour needs one or the other. 
The sense of humor is safer, but good health 
will do the trick. That is, however, retro 
active. Good health very often depends 
upon one s not being too good. Too great 
goodness has wrecked quite as many con 
stitutions as being too bad has. Incidental 
ly this is another of the dangers of goodness. 

Perhaps all that it amounts to is that it 
is well not to minimize happiness. The 
saints have usually tried to find it the wrong 
way, and the Marthas and the martyrs 
not at all. The best comrade is the one 
who is looking out for the joy of life, and 
does not mind telling you when he finds it. 
Emerson, with all his solemnity, knew this 
and smiled his "Why so hot, little man?" 
R. L. S. knew it, with his "It is my busi 
ness not to make my neighbor good, but to 
make him happy if I can." And, as Mar 
guerite Wilkinson says in her "People by 
the Wayside," Masefield knows it, with his 

"The days that make us happy make us wise." 

you married?" That seems to 
be the criterion by which a woman 
over twenty-five stands or falls. 
Whenever my mother chances upon an old 
acquaintance she is met with the question: 
"Oh, and your daughter. I suppose she 
is married?" The reply being in 
S p ins e te e r g S the negative, the inquirer changes 

the subject. 

Every time I run across a married class 
mate her first query is: "You re married, 




too, aren t you?" And when I answer 
"No," I feel like the little girl who was told 
to bring a written exercise to school and 
didn t. 

I am even beginning to wonder if St. 
Peter at the gate of heaven will not look at 
me kindly but firmly, like that teacher, 
shake his head and, saying gravely, "Ah 
but where is your husband?" turn me 
away. 

But whatever St. Peter s standards may 
prove to be, it is evident that this world 
favors the time-honored conception of spin 
sters as a separate species, not only a little 
lower than the angels, but a little lower than 
men and married women, too. We are less 
than men because we are women; and less 
than married women because we have no 
men. To a young married woman the sin 
gleness of a feminine friend is a skeleton-in- 
the-closet, to be glided over as hurriedly as 
possible, or in some way gilded. Now, I 
regret my husbandless estate as much as 
any one else could for me. But, popular 
expectation to the contrary, I will not hang 
my head. 

At a social gathering in our town, where 
a number of unattached girls in the middle 
twenties were present, a married woman 
observed: "How strange that none of you 
have ever married ! " But is it, after all, so 
strange ? 

I suppose each one of us grew up with the 
idea that some time, all in due sea son, a 
knight would come riding. But he never 
did. 

In high school that future seemed too far 
away to worry about. Studying, "practis 
ing," and outdoor games occupied most of 
our time. There were boys, of our age and 
younger, to about half the number of the 
girls. On rare occasions after school we 
played hare-and-hounds or duck-on-the- 
rock together. Later, in augmented num 
bers, we went ceremoniously to dancing- 
school. The boys wore white cotton gloves, 
and brought water-pistols and fountain-pens 
that popped. But in the end we all learned 
the waltz and two-step on the square. 
Then, abruptly, higher education took us in 
hand. 

The first girl I met at college was "cor 
responding with six men." I shall never 
forget the thrill with which I listened. For 
the first time romance seemed near and real, 
and I began to wonder if, around some un- 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



761 



expected corner of the curriculum, mine own 
fair stranger might come riding. But cur- 
riculums are not built that way. More 
over, in contradiction to the girls stories I 
had read in younger days, not one of the 
seven or eight girls I knew best at college 
had a brother ! 

Sometimes, in brief vacations at home, 
the old group of playmates got together for 
a party or two; then, before really getting 
reacquainted, separated again. Four years 
spent in building ideals passed quickly. In 
the next spring came the war. The boys 
left college, or the careers in which they 
were just beginning to get started, and 
went. When they came back, between two 
and three years later, to take up life where 
they had left it, we who stayed at home had 
scattered to positions of our own, and there 
we have remained. 

Most of us teach in boarding-schools dur 
ing the winter, and in summer go as coun 
sellors to girls camps, or live quietly at 
home in the town which the boys, in their 
turn, have left. And from one month s end 
to another we never see a man. Oh, see 
them yes! At summer camp there is a 
riding-master; at home, the grocer and the 
iceman. In winter, on distant platforms, 
we glimpse stage heroes; at school there is 
the janitor; and at parties other people s 
husbands. No, we have never married. 
But is that fact, after all, so strange ? Is it, 
after all, so much to our discredit? 

Almost without our realizing it, the time 
for true knights to come riding has slipped 
by, and we find ourselves on life s battle 
field alone. The next question is what to 
do about it. 

Mr. Roger W. Babson, the statistician, in 
a recent article,* states that "old maids are 
unfit for school ma ams." Nor does he 
think they ought to go into business. What, 
then, is left for the unmarried woman over 
twenty-five to do but to slip unobtrusively 
out of life ? 

But I do not entirely agree. Perhaps if 
women were allowed to go to war that 
might be managed. Failing that, I do not 
see how it could honorably be arranged. 
For is not any other form of suicide an ad 
mission of cowardice? After all, life is an 
obligation, and must be met. 

It is true that we have missed the one 
thing that, to a woman, makes life really 

* Boston Sunday Herald, October 16, 1921. 



worth while. Yet, in spite of Mr. Babson, 
we must go on living, More than that, we 
must live to some purpose. 
That means, first of all, work. 
Whether we teach or whether we go into 
business, there is a deal of self-disciplining 
ahead of us. The young wife faces the ne 
cessity of adapting herself to the personality 
of one man and the requirements of a home. 
A spinster faces the necessity of adapting 
herself to a variety of people and places and 
to conditions that are unnatural. 

We who teach or go into offices must, if 
possible, keep all the tact and patience that 
belong to us as women. They will be 
needed. But in mental alertness and physi 
cal stamina we must endeavor to be men. 
We must learn to work with other people; 
to know when to put forth our own ideas 
and when to give them up. We must be 
efficient and self-reliant; keen and quick, 
yet steady; untiring and unafraid. 

At the same time we must be happy. 
The quick waves of emotion and tenderness 
that are part of a married woman s strength 
are to us only liabilities. These, and the 
dreams and longings that are most natural 
to us, are unbusinesslike. We must set 
them aside, and resolutely, determinedly, 
find pleasure in small things. Hardest of 
all, each one of us must learn to be her own 
source of comfort, inspiration, and inner 
strength. (Alas ! so much easier to be those 
things for some one else !) We must meet 
hardships without complaint, disillusion 
ment without bitterness, and sorrow with 
out weakening. 

A girl on the eve of marriage looks forward 
into a blinding radiance. The way ahead is 
as hidden as that before her lonelier sister. 
But whatever the possible hardships, she 
sets forth sustained by that abiding faith 
and hopefulness that only love can give. 
The girl on the eve of spinsterhood looks 
forward into emptiness, and falters; then, 
because she must, looks into emptiness again. 
The lessons ahead of us are hard ones; 
and they must be learned alone. It is per 
haps inevitable that we should fall short, or, 
in struggling to master them, acquire char 
acteristics which mark us as a class distinct. 
But, whatever our idiosyncrasies, in the last 
analysis we, too, are human beings; we, too, 
are "carrying on." Whatever faults and 
failings may be charged to us as a class, grant 
us one thing, also, and that is courage. 



762 



THE POINT OF VIEW 



THE achievement of greatness is likely 
to prove a sufficiently unhappy ex 
perience, but to be cast, for what 
one may have done, in "indestructible" 
metal or cut in "imperishable" stone, and 
to be forced to sit or stand im- 
movable in the market-place like 
any Hindoo fakir, is undeserved 
by, as it is undesirable to, any thinking 
mortal. 

If one could but consult with his sculptor 
as to the nature of his garb, for the clothes 
are as immortal as the pose ! But fashions 
change and the amplitude of one s coat or 
the cut of his trousers cannot be altered. 
There is no escaping the unhushed voice of 
criticism, and the risible finger is pointed 
without pity. There is no changing of rai 
ment for adjustment to the season, nor to 
take a bath and oftentimes one needs to 
go into the tub, clothing and all. One must 
be out in all weathers, in snow and rain, in 
heat and cold, and serve as bird roost be 
sides. 

Still, all this might be endured if, after 
one s unveiling, he might be remembered 
and recognized with the respect anticipated 
from the oratory, music, and flowers of that 
day. Of course, on that momentous occa 
sion one must expect to divide honors, but 
not profits, with the sculptor, though when 
immortalized in three dimensions one can 
well afford to be generous. But the strains 
of the band have scarce floated away, the 
flowers have hardly faded, ere one is passed 
and repassed by the hurrying throng with 
barely so much as a glance of curiosity. 
Within a generation only the occasional an 
tiquarian, or haply some thoughtful school 
boy, stoops to decipher the legend written 
on the pedestal. 

On the other hand, hoboes sit unwittingly 
in the shadow of the philanthropist, and 
anarchic demagogues lift their strident 
voices in the shadow of founders of repub 
lics. For those whose real selves were not 
appreciated in life, possibly a lofty and ex 
cusable sort of indifference marks the atti 
tude of these images, but when one has been 
hailed by the mob and feted by the elect, the 
neglect of his likeness must eat at a heart of 
stone. 

Like animate life, statues must suffer 
from competition, but without power to 
struggle for existence. If there were fewer, 
each would be treated with more deference. 



If one must stand forever in park or market 
place, the small community w^ill prove the 
more effective home. Every one in a vil 
lage knows and looks up to (at least when 
exhibiting the sights to visitors) the likeness 
of its one hero, while statues in the metrop 
olis jostle one another, and men rush by the 
images of a dozen more notable persons 
without so much as a glance. How grateful 
indeed must be the indwelling shade of one 
of these when the papers, orange peel, and 
remains of cigarettes are cleaned from his 
base by the impartial attendant ! 

Sentiment aside, from the point of view of 
public economy and of "education," it is 
most regrettable that there should be so 
little return, in public attention, for cash 
expended in setting great men on a public 
pedestal. The way to obviate this was long 
since pointed out, though only recently 
made possible. Every one knows Memnon 
his statue for did it not become vocal at 
dawn and, of course, by way of preface to 
what else it may have uttered, remark: "I 
am Memnon. I lived in such and such a 
time. I performed such and such fe^ts, so 
worthy that you should not forget them nor 
him who did them"? 

The mechanism of that early phonograph 
is lost, but there can be no question that the 
modern instrument will serve the desired 
end. The speaking image " of a great man 
need no longer be a bit of hyperbole. Then, 
as the indifferent loll in the square or loiter 
idly in the park, their attention would be 
riveted by "I am George Washington, the 
Father of Your Country !" and there might 
follow, with good effect, a selection from the 
Farewell Address; or "This is Fulton, Rob 
ert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat. 
There are others who claim this honor, but 
the honor belongs to me!" Or "This is a 
statue (a mighty poor one) of George Pea- 
body, philanthropist and builder of mu 
seums. The nearest of these is at ." 

So much for possibilities. 

Nowadays, a record of the real voice (or 
a real record of the voice) might be secured 
and laid away "for insertion, should a 
statue ever be erected" to one s memory. 
A suitable saying, methods of winding the 
machine and starting it at the appropriate 
moment, and other minor details, could 
easily be "worked out." Suffice it to say 
that interest in public statues, and on the 
funds invested therein, would be assured. 




THE FIELD OF ART 




Museums and the Factory 

MAKING THE GALLERIES WORK FOR THE ART TRADES 

BY RICHARD F. BACH 

Associate in Industrial Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 
ILLUSTRATIONS BY COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM 



FOR reasons not far to seek we have 
drifted into a queer mode of thought 
regarding all the arts: fine arts and 
industrial arts are set off in separate cate 
gories. Fine arts are exalted and rare and 
no one. can afford them; industrial arts are 
common week-day things and no one can 
get along without 
them. For an arrange 
ment of color on a 
canvas, to be called 
"Snow and the Lone 
some Pine, Pequan- 
nock, N. J.," only an 
"artist" will do; for a 
drapery fabric, of which 
fifty thousand yards 
will be made for dis 
tribution in the four 
winds of trade, a "de 
signer " is good enough. 
Some one may buy that 
snow scene and a few 
of his friends may see 
it; but several thou 
sand wives and mothers 
will have to buy the 
fabric, and it will be 
come for their children 
part of the background 
of growing youth and 
slowly shaping ideals. 
Yet one of these is fine 
art, too often admired 
in ignorance, the open 
sesame to the exclusive 
precincts of that half- 
knowledge men call 
culture. And the other 
is just goods you can 
get it in every shop, it 




A Greek mirror aided the designer of this 

wall bracket of antique bronze 

with alabaster bowl. 

Designed by Walter W. Kantack. 



is as ordinary as your daily bread, and it is 
not necessary to have an intelligent opinion 
regarding its design. 

But both are children of art, both truly 
are industrial art in descent, though the 
painting has not always run true to strain. 
The equally noble arts of daily life, the deco 
rative arts, have carried 
on from century to 
century responding to 
a myriad changes of 
fortune, and now serve 
to exemplify stupen 
dous mechanical as well 
as artistic achieve 
ments. 

The truth is that 
these arts, and we have 
taken but two out of 
hundreds to carry our 
point, are of the same 
stock. Their relation 
ship is as close as that 
of blood brothers. De 
sign is the backbone of 
each, the same aesthetic 
principles hold sway 
whether the composi 
tion is in millinery or 
metals, in pigments or 
in pewter, in silver or in 
silk. 

The cause of the diffi 
culty lies in man s 
queer ways above all, 
his proneness to favor 
some leading thought 
that offers the greatest 
interest at any time. 
So during the nine 
teenth century various 
763 



i 



764 



THE FIELD OF ART 




A modern American Wilton rug woven in Worces 
ter, Mass., from designs by Frank Haas. The 
source was a so-called Polish rug in the Museum 
dating from about 1600. 



causes gave men s minds a mechanical turn. 
This was applied to manufactures of all 
kinds, art included. Had paintings been an 
absolute necessity of life, no doubt some 
whimsical genius might have found mechan 
ical means to turn out "originals " as fast as 
we now turn out phonograph records. But 
chairs and rugs and dress-goods were necessi 
ties of life and, the mechanical interest being 
uppermost, these succumbed to the era of 
rapid production. The machine was young, 
it had its limitations, as it always will have, 
and so there was nothing to do but to create 
such designs as the machine could handle. 
Result chaos, and the arts of the home all 
but disappeared in the quicksand of "com 
mercialization." Now there is a business of 
art, there must be; but it is different from 
the business of making carpet-tacks, how 
ever similar the primary steps of production 
may seem. These men of mechanical turn 
of mind failed to see that point. They 
bought so much lumber and this made so 
many tables or, as it is done to-day, they 
may have made so many table-legs, not even 
whole tables ! Now it takes more than lum 
ber and labor to make a table-leg. Alge 
braically, there is a factor missing to make 
our equation balance. Lumber and labor 



must be multiplied by design. This is the 
appealing quality which satisfies the mind 
as the wood does physical needs. But, while 
the leg Avill live as long as the wood will 
wear, the design is deathless. 

So these experimenters with complicated 
tools were too quick to snap their fingers in 
the face of fate. The machine became the 
master, and ever since then we have had fine 
arts vs. industrial arts, and they have agreed 
as the nations now agree on disarmament: 
each agrees to letting the others disarm. 

Was there ever a time when such a dis 
tinction held favor? Think of Greece and 
Rome, and Amiens and Florence. Archi 
tects, sculptors, carvers of choir-stalls, 
mosaicists, mural painters, goldsmiths they 
were artists all. But to-day ? Show me a 
painter who can and will design a textile, 
and I will show you an emancipated artist. 

What, in fine, is industrial art? Your 
watch-chain or necklace, your cloak or 
cravat, your lamp or humidor, your wall 
panelling, your stove, all are objects of in 
dustrial art, quite in the same degree as 
altars and metal gates, "suites" of furni 
ture and "sets" of dishes. It includes alike 
the china service plate at ten thousand dol 
lars a dozen and the wall-paper at seven 




Velvets, cretonnes, brocades, and other fabric 

types have counted heavily upon Museum 

material as sources of design. 



THE FIELD OF ART 



765 



cents a roll, the tapestry at twenty-five 
dollars a square foot and the gingham at 
twenty-five cents a square yard. Nor does 
it exclude the work of the craftsman design 
ing and producing a single item at a time 
and doing the whole work himself. 

Decorative arts and industrial arts are 
one and the same. Some incline to limit 



merically what it amounts to. The num 
ber of pencils that may be got out of a giant 
cedar-tree may be amazing, but such won 
derful statistics are useful only to the pencil 
manufacturer. It is design that counts 
not how many bolts of printed cotton from 
one cutting of the rollers, but the original 
design from which the rollers were cut. 




These are covers for a booklet about clothes for men and designed by Walter Dorwin Teague. 



the term to designs turned out in quantity. 
But then, let some one first define art, and 
I shall know where to begin to define indus 
trial art. f Our case is like that of medical 
practice in inner China. The patient con 
sults a doctor who knows nothing about 
diseases; the doctor prescribes medicines 
about which he knows nothing; the pre 
scription is made up by an apothecary who 
knows nothing of drugs. The patient takes 
the dose and gets well. But should you put 
that patient in a hospital and give him 
studied doses of tested compounds he will 
either escape or die. 

Now the industrial arts are a giant terri 
tory, but it will not do to figure out nu- 



Twenty thousand Martha Washington sew 
ing-tables are a mighty army for good or 
evil. Was the first model good? Perhaps 
twenty thousand of anything, but dollars, 
is too many; but within limits let the orig 
inal design be good and I care not how many 
duplicates you send out into the world. 
Each is then a messenger of good design, a 
silent teacher. 

These are some side-lights on our present 
position: the machine and its attendant 
benefits and evils is the leading considera 
tion; it is the beginning and end of the 
whole problem. Use it right and it will 
bring you wealth and perhaps the conscious 
ness of duty well done. Fail to command it 



766 



THE FIELD OF ART 




The design of this furniture by Alice S. Erskine, was based upon doors 

of the Clehel Situn (Palace of the Forty Columns) erected at 

Ispahan at the end of the sixteenth century by Shah Abbas. 



and you plot against public taste. This is 
a serious responsibility, especially when 
every nicker of taste must be assiduously 
fanned ! The greater is this responsibility, 
in view of our lack of educational facilities 
for training not only specialists in design but 



it . It is constructive work and 
only museums can do it. 

Let us see how this works out 
in the one institution in which 
it has been given a thorough 
test. (I quote from an ac 
count in a current monthly.) 
In certain galleries at the 
Metropolitan Museum, recent 
ly, one might have found the 
chiefs of our leading textile 
houses in amicable but ani 
mated discussion of their work. 
The occasion was a special 
evening at the Annual Exhibi 
tion of American Industrial 
Art, and the presence of these 
men most significant. They 
were long-headed business 
men; they could discern the logical steps of 
progress in their industry while those steps 
were yet leagues away, and they saw in this 
exhibition an indication of their best thought 
in the difficult matter of design. 

Here was a realization of hopes that 



also the appreciation of Jack and Jill in the promised little before the war, but gained 



schools and their descendants. 

Until this vast educational machinery of 
the future begins to function, we must con 
tinue to get our appreciation second-hand 
from lecturers and from art criticism in the 
Sunday papers, and our manufacturers must 
continue to buy designs in Europe. 

Our few schools of design cannot stem 
this heavy tide, and Europe can but hope 
that it will swamp us. Think what America 
could do to European commerce (and per 
haps even the home industries of countries 
there) had we designs that could compete 
with theirs. Think of the millions our citi 
zens could keep here that are now paid in 
profits to other lands. 

Yet we can help a little our art mu 
seums can help the industries. Efforts can 
be made to render collections accessible for 
close study by producers and designers, 
necessary red tape can be made less trouble 
some. The museum s attitude of helpful 
ness can be made less that of condescension 
and more that of co-operation. Objects 
can be interpreted, and a staff officer main 
tained to go into the factories and work 
shops to learn at first-hand the difficulties 
and successes, the problems, the processes, 
and the hopes of machine production. This 
is educational work, and museums must do 



much impetus from our splendid isolation 
in matters of design during the conflict. 
Here was the work of over one hundred 
firms and designers, in all some six hundred 
and thirty objects brought in evidence to 
prove that design is the leading commodity 
offered for sale in scores of business fields, 
and that to command its price it must be 
studied in the light of the best originals 




An American china service plate with decoration 

in deep blue and gold, designed by 

Frank Graham Holmes. 



THE FIELD OF ART 



767 



available. For these objects were one and 
all of museum inspiration; that is to say, 
each owed some part of its design value to 
study of the collections in the Metropolitan 
Museum. There were silks and cottons, 
silver and iron, lacquer and lamps, cabinets 
and commercial containers, fringes and car 
cards, scrims, batiks, rugs, ribbons, blankets, 
bedspreads; in fact, a most varied collec 
tion of modern commercial material, each 



how difficult to set up again when a welter 
of hybrid forms and garish colors has smoth 
ered them in the pursuit of "volume" and 
"turnover." But the number of these wide 
awake producers is steadily increasing; in 
always greater numbers designers are learn 
ing the very first concept of all design, 
namely, that this pervasive quality cannot 
be evolved out of an inner consciousness, 
that it means work and study followed by 




Lustre ware so well designed and executed as to beguile an unsuspecting collector, yet made by a worker whose 

purpose was to discover the secrets of Persian lustre decoration on pottery of the thirteenth 

century. The designer was Rafael Guastavino. 



with an across-the-counlcr selling value, and 
each maintaining that value because in its 
production museum originals played a part. 

Copies? Yes, a few; the trade will al 
ways demand some. And then, again, 
repetition is the mother of study, as the 
Latin text-book says. 

But the real truth of progress lies in de 
signs which are the result of what may be 
termed the inspirational use of the collec 
tions when a lamp manufacturer gets ideas 
from Cellini bronzes or Greek mirrors this 
means progress. When a neckwear manu 
facturer studies Chinese vases or French 
armor, or a tile designer studies Persian 
miniatures, we may safely say the clear light 
of a new day is dawning in American design. 
These designers have found the open road 
to freedom, they have come to an under 
standing of first principles. It is surprising 
to discover how few these first principles 
are, how easily they are lost sight of and 



more study and work before the foundation 
of knowledge is laid and the structure of 
wisdom erected on it. The foundation is not 
a collection of plates grouped in a selected 
number of pattern-books; the foundation is 
not a course in a school that does its best 
and then achieves but indifferently. The 
foundation is education and books; best of 
all, study of originals of other times, orig 
inals that have stood the test of years of 
use, and have passed the scrutiny of experts 
and connoisseurs not only of to-day but of 
centuries before us. For these designers 
and manufacturers the museum maintains 
a separate department, in charge of a "liai 
son officer," who acts as interpreter and 
sometimes, alas, as mediator between the 
collections and the active world of produc 
tion. The results of this work are annually 
gathered together in a selective exhibition, 
all entries being in some way the direct re 
sult of museum study. 



768 



THE FIELD OF ART 



No better proof of our pudding could be 
found than that brought by every piece in 
this exhibition of current work. Each item 
is taken out of stock and is returned to the 
salesroom to continue the career for which 
it was destined. Each 
belongs to the here 
and now, and repre 
sents the outlay of a 
present-day Ameri 
can s salary expended 
in purchasing home 
furnishings, clothing, 
etc. Above all, each 
piece is a demonstra 
tion of the practical 
use of art collections 
for the improvement 
of current design, and 
represents a kind of 
study which leads to 
fresh conceptions in 
design, conceptions in 
which the identity 
of the original is gen 
erally lost. The cruci 
ble of the mind has 
melted down a num 
ber of motives and 
colors and other artis 
tic requirements, and 
the mode of their 
blending has been de 
termined by the aTili- 
ty and progressive 
thinking of the design 
er. Thus, a new thing 
has been evolved, a 
modern design pro 
duced. And the new 
thing is better because 
it is based upon study of the old. Progress 
is possible in no other way. To aim at truth 
by ignoring the world s interpretation of it 
not only now but in the past is folly nay, 
more, lunacy. To " create " designs that do 
not respond to any chords of human feeling 
as shown in the artistic records of civiliza 
tions that produced our own is impossi 
ble, and those who try it add malice to 
folly. 

The burden does not fall upon the de 
signer alone; his soul is not his own. The 
manufacturer himself must grasp the value 
of study of originals, must realize the posi- 




Flock wall-papers, designed by Frank E. Leitch. 
The sources used were old velvets with pile cut 
in patterns, Byzantine and other types of orna 
ment being followed. 



tion of .the museum as an addition to his 
own facilities of production. And more 
the dealer or distributor must in turn ap 
preciate this value and by his own diligent 
study of originals bring his information to 

such a point that he 
can sell his goods in 
terms of suitability of 
design, quality of de 
sign, form or color ex 
pression, as related to 
a customer ^ needs. 

Manufacturer, deal 
er, designer all are 
of the same company, 
all can help or hinder 
the improvement of 
American home en 
vironment, all can use 
or ignore the best 
facilities that have 
ever been made avail 
able. 

If design sells the 
article, the design 
must be good. To be 
sure, this requires a 
degree of judgment 
which designers, mak 
ers, buyers, and sell 
ers in nine cases out 
of ten do not possess; 
and among the pur 
chasing public even 
the tenth has yet to 
achieve that pinnacle 
of appreciation. But 
these are stirring days. 
Producers and deal 
ers, designers arid pub 
lic all are beginning 
to feel the leaven of a new growth. Somehow 
progress comes though at any given mo 
ment there may be breakers ahead, we dis 
cern now and then through the confusion of 
miscellaneous designs some light that points 
the course. At any rate the findings at the 
Metropolitan Museum seem to give that 
promise. It is the most salutary evidence 
of our faith in ourselves, of the conviction 
of an always increasing number of pro 
ducers, that the best design is good enough 
for America and that the best resources 
must receive constant use to achieve that 
end. 



A calendar of current art exhibitions will be found on page 7, 



Ml 

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