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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19696-8.txt b/19696-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..175eb9d --- /dev/null +++ b/19696-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4719 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Joyful Heart, by Robert Haven Schauffler + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Joyful Heart + +Author: Robert Haven Schauffler + +Release Date: November 2, 2006 [EBook #19696] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOYFUL HEART *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE JOYFUL HEART + + + + BY + + ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER + + AUTHOR OF THE MUSICAL AMATEUR, SCUM O' THE EARTH + AND OTHER POEMS, ROMANTIC AMERICA, ETC. + + + + "People who are nobly happy constitute the power, the beauty + and the foundation of the state." + + JEAN FINOT: _The Science of Happiness._ + + + + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + 1914 + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1914 BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER + + * * * * * + + + + +TO + +MY WIFE + + * * * * * + + + + +FOREWORD + + +This is a guide-book to joy. It is for the use of the sad, the bored, +the tired, anxious, disheartened and disappointed. It is for the use +of all those whose cup of vitality is not brimming over. + +The world has not yet seen enough of joy. It bears the reputation of +an elusive sprite with finger always at lip bidding farewell. In +certain dark periods, especially in times of international warfare, it +threatens to vanish altogether from the earth. It is then the first +duty of all peaceful folk to find and hold fast to joy, keeping it in +trust for their embattled brothers. + +Even if this were not their duty as citizens of the world, it would be +their duty as patriots. For Jean Finot is right in declaring that +"people who are nobly happy constitute the power, the beauty and the +foundation of the state." + +This book is a manual of enthusiasm--the power which drives the +world--and of those kinds of exuberance (physical, mental and +spiritual) which can make every moment of every life worth living. It +aims to show how to get the most joy not only from traveling hopefully +toward one's goal, but also from the goal itself on arrival there. It +urges sound business methods in conducting that supreme business, the +investment of one's vitality. + +It would show how one may find happiness all alone with his better +self, his 'Auto-Comrade'--an accomplishment well-nigh lost in this +crowded age. It would show how the gospel of exuberance, by offering +the joys of hitherto unsuspected power to the artist and his audience, +bids fair to lift the arts again to the lofty level of the Periclean +age. It would show the so-called "common" man or woman how to develop +that creative sympathy which may make him a 'master by proxy,' and +thus let him know the conscious happiness of playing an essential part +in the creation of works of genius. In short, the book tries to show +how the cup of joy may not only be kept full for one's personal use, +but may also be made hospitably to brim over for others. + +To the _Atlantic Monthly_ thanks are due for permission to reprint +chapters I, III and IV; to the _North American Review_, for chapter +VIII; and to the _Century_, for chapters V, VI, IX and X. + +R. H. S. + +GEEENBUSH, MASS. + +August, 1914. + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. A DEFENSE OF JOY + +II. THE BRIMMING CUP + +III. ENTHUSIASM + +IV. A CHAPTER OF ENTHUSIASMS + +V. THE AUTO-COMRADE + +VI. VIM AND VISION + +VII. PRINTED JOY + +VIII. THE JOYFUL HEART FOR POETS + +IX. THE JOYOUS MISSION OF MECHANICAL MUSIC + +X. MASTERS BY PROXY + + * * * * * + + + + +THE JOYFUL HEART + +I + +A DEFENSE OF JOY + + +Joy is such stuff as the hinges of Heaven's doors are made of. So our +fathers believed. So we supposed in childhood. Since then it has +become the literary fashion to oppose this idea. The writers would +have us think of joy not as a supernal hinge, but as a pottle of hay, +hung by a crafty creator before humanity's asinine nose. The donkey is +thus constantly incited to unrewarded efforts. And when he arrives at +the journey's end he is either defrauded of the hay outright, or he +dislikes it, or it disagrees with him. + +Robert Louis Stevenson warns us that "to travel hopefully is a better +thing than to arrive," beautifully portraying the emptiness and +illusory character of achievement. And, of those who have attained, +Mr. E. F. Benson exclaims, "God help them!" These sayings are typical +of a widespread literary fashion. Now to slander Mistress Joy to-day +is a serious matter. For we are coming to realize that she is a far +more important person than we had supposed; that she is, in fact, one +of the chief managers of life. Instead of doing a modest little +business in an obscure suburb, she has offices that embrace the whole +first floor of humanity's city hall. + +Of course I do not doubt that our writer-friends note down the truth +as they see it. But they see it imperfectly. They merely have a corner +of one eye on a corner of the truth. Therefore they tell untruths that +are the falser for being so charmingly and neatly expressed. What they +say about joy being the bribe that achievement offers us to get itself +realized may be true in a sense. But they are wrong in speaking of the +bribe as if it were an apple rotten at the core, or a bag of +counterfeit coin, or a wisp of artificial hay. It is none of these +things. It is sweet and genuine and well worth the necessary effort, +once we are in a position to appreciate it at anything like its true +worth. We must learn not to trust the beautiful writers too +implicitly. For there is no more treacherous guide than the consummate +artist on the wrong track. + +Those who decry the joy of achievement are like tyros at skating who +venture alone upon thin ice, fall down, fall in, and insist on the way +home that winter sports have been grossly overestimated. This outcry +about men being unable to enjoy what they have attained is a +half-truth which cannot skate two consecutive strokes in the right +direction without the support of its better half. And its better half +is the fact that one may enjoy achievement hugely, provided only he +will get himself into proper condition. + +Of course I am not for one moment denying that achievement is harder +to enjoy than the hope of achievement. Undoubtedly the former lacks +the glamour of the indistinct, "that sweet bloom of all that is far +away." But our celebrated writer-friends overlook the fact that +glamour and "sweet bloom" are so much pepsin to help weak stomachs +digest strong joy. If you would have the best possible time of it in +the world, develop your joy-digesting apparatus to the point where it +can, without a qualm, dispose of that tough morsel, the present, +obvious and attained. There will always be enough of the unachieved at +table to furnish balanced rations. + +"God help the attainers!"--forsooth! Why, the ideas which I have +quoted, if they were carried to logical lengths, would make heaven a +farcical kill-joy, a weary, stale, flat, unprofitable morgue of +disappointed hopes, with Ennui for janitor. I admit that the old +heaven of the Semitic poets was constructed somewhat along these +lines. But that was no real heaven. The real heaven is a quiet, +harpless, beautiful place where every one is a heaven-born creator +and is engaged--not caring in the least for food or sleep--in turning +out, one after another, the greatest of masterpieces, and enjoying +them to the quick, both while they are being done and when they are +quite achieved. + +I would not, however, fall into the opposite error and disparage the +joy of traveling hopefully. It is doubtless easy to amuse one's self +in a wayside air-castle of an hundred suites, equipped with +self-starting servants, a Congressional Library, a National Gallery of +pictures, a Vatican-ful of sculpture, with Hoppe for billiard-marker, +Paderewski to keep things going in the music-room, Wright as grand +hereditary master of the hangar, and Miss Annette Kellerman in charge +of the swimming-pool. I am not denying that such a castle is easier to +enjoy before the air has been squeezed out of it by the horny clutch +of reality, which moves it to the journey's end and sets it down with +a jar in its fifty-foot lot, complete with seven rooms and bath, and +only half an hour from the depot. But this is not for one moment +admitting the contention of the lords of literature that the +air-castle has a monopoly of joy, while the seven rooms and bath have +a monopoly of disillusionized boredom and anguish of mind. If your +before-mentioned apparatus is only in working order, you can have no +end of joy out of the cottage. And any morning before breakfast you +can build another, and vastly superior, air-castle on the vacant land +behind the woodshed. + +"What is all this," I heard the reader ask, "about a joy-digesting +apparatus?" + +It consists of four parts. Physical exuberance is the first. To a +considerable extent joy depends on an overplus of health. The joy of +artistic creation, for instance, lies not so intensely and +intoxicatingly in what you may some time accomplish as in what has +actually just started into life under your pencil or clayey thumb, +your bow or brush. For what you are about to receive, the Lord, as a +rule, makes you duly thankful. But with the thankfulness is always +mingled the shadowy apprehension that your powers may fail you when +next you wish to use them. Thus the joy of anticipatory creation is +akin to pain. It holds no such pure bliss as actual creation. When you +are in full swing, what you have just finished (unless you are +exhausted) seems to you nearly always the best piece of work that you +have ever done. For your critical, inhibitory apparatus is temporarily +paralyzed by the intoxication of the moment. What makes so many +artists fail at these times to enjoy a maximum of pleasure and a +minimum of its opposite, is that they do not train their bodies "like +a strong man to run a race," and make and keep them aboundingly vital. +The actual toil takes so much of their meager vitality that they have +too little left with which to enjoy the resulting achievement. If they +become ever so slightly intoxicated over the work, they have a +dreadful morning after, whose pain they read back into the joy +preceding. And then they groan out that all is vanity, and slander joy +by calling it a pottle of hay. + +It takes so much vitality to enjoy achievement because achievement is +something finished. And you cannot enjoy what is finished in art, for +instance, without re-creating it for yourself. But, though re-creation +demands almost as much vital overplus as creation, the layman should +realize that he has, as a rule, far more of this overplus than the +pallid, nervous sort of artist. And he should accordingly discount the +other's lamentations over the vanity of human achievement. + +The reason why Hazlitt took no pleasure in writing, and in having +written, his delicious essays is that he did not know how to take +proper care of his body. To be extremely antithetical, I, on the other +hand, take so much pleasure in writing and in having written these +essays of mine (which are no hundredth part as beautiful, witty, wise, +or brilliant as Hazlitt's), that the leaden showers of drudgery, +discouragement, and disillusionment which accompany and follow almost +every one of them, and the need of Spartan training for their sake, +hardly displace a drop from the bucket of joy that the work brings. +Training has meant so much vital overplus to me that I long ago +spurted and caught up with my pottle of joy. And, finding that it made +a cud of unimagined flavor and durability, I substituted for the +pottle a placard to this effect: + +REMEMBER THE RACE! + +This placard, hung always before me, is a reminder that a decent +respect for the laws of good sportsmanship requires one to keep in as +hard condition as possible for the hundred-yard dash called Life. Such +a regimen pays thousands of per cent. in yearly dividends. It allows +one to live in an almost continual state of exaltation rather like +that which the sprinter enjoys when, after months of flawless +preparation, he hurls himself through space like some winged creature +too much in love with the earth to leave it; while every drop of his +tingling blood makes him conscious of endless reserves of vitality. + +Tingling blood is a reagent which is apt to transmute all things into +joy--even sorrow itself. I wonder if any one seriously doubts that it +was just this which was giving Browning's young David such a glorious +time of it when he broke into that jubilant war-whoop about "our +manhood's prime vigor" and "the wild joys of living." + +The physical variety of exuberance, once won, makes easy the winning +of the mental variety. This, when it is almost isolated from the other +kinds, is what you enjoy when you soar easily along over the world of +abstract thought, or drink delight of battle with your intellectual +peers, or follow with full understanding the phonographic version of +some mighty, four-part fugue. To attain this means work. But if your +body is shouting for joy over the mere act of living, mental +calisthenics no longer appear so impossibly irksome. And anyway, the +discipline of your physical training has induced your will to put up +with a good deal of irksomeness. This is partly because its eye is +fixed on something beyond the far-off, divine event of achieving +concentration on one subject for five minutes without allowing the +mind to wander from it more than twenty-five times. That something is +a keenness of perception which makes any given fragment of nature or +human nature or art, however seemingly barren and commonplace, +endlessly alive with possibilities of joyful discovery--with +possibilities, even, of a developing imagination. For the +Auto-Comrade, your better self, is a magician. He can get something +out of nothing. + +At this stage of your development you will probably discover in +yourself enough mental adroitness and power of concentration to enable +you to weed discordant thoughts out of the mind. As you wander through +your mental pleasure-grounds, whenever you come upon an ugly intruder +of a thought which might bloom into some poisonous emotion such as +fear, envy, hate, remorse, anger, and the like, there is only one +right way to treat it. Pull it up like a weed; drop it on the rubbish +heap as if it were a stinging nettle; and let some harmonious thought +grow in its place. There is no more reckless consumer of all kinds of +exuberance than the discordant thought, and weeding it out saves such +an amazing quantity of _eau de vie_ wherewith to water the garden of +joy, that every man may thus be his own Burbank and accomplish marvels +of mental horticulture. + +When you have won physical and mental exuberance, you will have +pleased your Auto-Comrade to such an extent that he will most likely +startle and delight you with a birthday present as the reward of +virtue. Some fine morning you will climb out of the right side of your +bed and come whistling down to breakfast and find by your plate a neat +packet of spiritual exuberance with his best wishes. Such a gift is +what the true artist enjoys when inspiration comes too fast and full +for a dozen pens or brushes to record. Jeanne d'Arc knew it when the +mysterious voices spoke to her; and St. John on Patmos; and every true +lover at certain moments; and each one of us who has ever flung wide +the gates of prayer and felt the infinite come flooding in as the +clean vigor of the tide swirls up through a sour, stagnant marsh; or +who at some supreme instant has felt enfolding him, like the +everlasting arms, a sure conviction of immortality. + +Now for purposes of convenience we may speak of these three kinds of +exuberance as we would speak of different individuals. But in reality +they hardly ever exist alone. The physical variety is almost sure to +induce the mental and spiritual varieties and to project itself into +them. The mental kind looks before and after and warms body and soul +with its radiant smile. And even when we are in the throes of a purely +spiritual love or religious ecstasy, we have a feeling--though +perhaps it is illusory--that the flesh and the intellect are more +potent than we knew. + +These, then, constitute the first three parts of the joy-digesting +apparatus. I think there is no need of dwelling on their efficacy in +helping one to enjoy achievement. Let us pass, therefore, to the +fourth and last part, which is self-restraint. + +Perhaps the worst charge usually made against achievement is its +sameness, its dry monotony. On the way to it (the writers say) you are +constantly falling in with something new. But, once there, you must +abandon the variegated delights of yesterday and settle down, to-day +and forever, to the same old thing. In this connection I recall an +epigram of Professor Woodrow Wilson's. He was lecturing to us young +Princetonians about Gladstone's ability to make any subject of +absorbing interest, even a four hours' speech on the budget. "Young +gentlemen," cried the professor, "it is not the subject that is dry. +It is _you_ that are dry!" Similarly, it is not achievement that is +dry; it is the achievers, who fondly suppose that now, having +achieved, they have no further use for the exuberance of body, mind, +and spirit, or the self-restraint which helped them toward their goal. + +Particularly the self-restraint. One chief reason why the thing +attained palls so often and so quickly is that men seek to enjoy it +immoderately. Why, if Ponce de Leon had found the fountain of youth +and drunk of it as bibulously as we are apt to guzzle the cup of +achievement, he would not only have arrested the forward march of +time, but would have over-reached himself and slipped backward through +the years of his age to become a chronic infant in arms. Even +traveling hopefully would pall if one kept at it twenty-four hours a +day. Just feast on the rich food of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony +morning, noon, and night for a few months, and see how you feel. There +is no other way. Achievement must be moderately indulged in, not made +the pretext for a debauch. If one has achieved a new cottage, for +example, let him take numerous week-end vacations from it. And let not +an author sit down and read through his own book the moment it comes +from the binder. A few more months will suffice to blur the memory of +those irrevocable, nauseating foundry proofs. If he forbears--instead +of being sickened by the stuff, no gentle reader, I venture to +predict, will be more keenly and delicately intrigued by the volume's +vigors and subtleties. + +If you have recently made a fortune, be sure, in the course of your +Continental wanderings, to take many a third-class carriage full of +witty peasants, and stop at many an "unpretending" inn "Of the White +Hind," with bowered rose-garden and bowling-green running down to the +trout-filled river, and mine ample hostess herself to make and bring +you the dish for which she is famous over half the countryside. Thus +you will increase by at least one Baedekerian star-power the luster +of the next Grand Hotel Royal de l'Univers which may receive you. And +be sure to alternate pedestrianism with motoring, and the "peanut" +gallery with the stage-box. Omit not to punctuate with stag vacations +long periods of domestic felicity. When Solomon declared that all was +vanity and vexation of spirit I suspect that he had been more than +unusually intemperate in frequenting the hymeneal altar. + +Why is it that the young painters, musicians, and playwrights who win +fame and fortune as heroes in the novels of Mr. E. F. Benson enjoy +achievement so hugely? Simply because they are exuberant in mind, +body, and spirit, and, if not averse to brandy and soda, are in other +ways, at least, paragons of moderation. And yet, in his "Book of +Months," Mr. Benson requests God to help those who have attained! + +With this fourfold equipment of the three exuberances and moderation, +I defy Solomon himself in all his glory not to enjoy the situation +immensely and settle down in high good humor and content with the +paltry few scores of wives already achieved. I defy him not to enjoy +even his fame. + +We have heard much from the gloomily illustrious about the fraudulent +promise of fame. At a distance, they admit, it seems like a banquet +board spread with a most toothsome feast. But step up to the table. +All you find there is dust and ashes, vanity and vexation of spirit +and a desiccated joint that defies the stoutest carver. If a man holds +this view, however, you may be rather sure that he belongs to the +_bourgeois_ great. For it is just as _bourgeois_ to win fame and then +not know what on earth to do with it, as it is to win fortune and then +not know what on earth to do with it. The more cultivated a famous man +is, the more he must enjoy the situation; for along with his dry scrag +of fame, the more he must have of the sauce which alone makes it +palatable. The recipe for this sauce runs as follows: to one +amphoraful best physical exuberance add spice of keen perception, +cream of imagination, and fruits of the spirit. Serve with grain of +salt. + +That famous person is sauceless who can, without a tingle of joy, +overhear the couple in the next steamer-chairs mentioning his name +casually to each other as an accepted and honored household word. He +has no sauce for his scrag if he, unmoved, can see the face of some +beautiful child in the holiday crowd suddenly illuminated by the +pleasure of recognizing him, from his pictures, as the author of her +favorite story. He is _bourgeois_ if it gives him no joy when the +weight of his name swings the beam toward the good cause; or when the +mail brings luminous gratitude and comprehension from the perfect +stranger in Topeka or Tokyo. No; fame to the truly cultivated should +be fully as enjoyable as traveling hopefully toward fame. + +In certain other cases, indeed, attainment is even more delicious than +the hope thereof. Think of the long, cool drink at the New Mexican +pueblo after a day in the incandescent desert, with your tongue +gradually enlarging itself from thirst. How is it with you, O golfer, +when, even up at the eighteenth, you top into the hazard, make a +desperate demonstration with the niblick, and wipe the sand out of +your eyes barely in time to see your ball creep across the distant +green and drop into the hole? Has not the new president's aged father +a slightly better time at the inauguration of his dear boy than he had +at any time during the fifty years of hoping for and predicting that +consummation? Does not the successful altruist enjoy more keenly the +certainty of having made the world a better place to live in, than he +had enjoyed the hope of achieving that desirable end? Can there be any +comparison between the joys of the tempest-driven soul aspiring, now +hopefully, now despairingly, to port, and the joys of the same soul +which has at last found a perfect haven in the heart of God? + +And still the writers go on talking of joy as if it were a pottle of +hay--a flimsy fraud--and of the satisfaction of attainment as if it +were unattainable. Why do they not realize, at least, that their every +thrill of response to a beautiful melody, their every laugh of +delighted comprehension of Hazlitt or Crothers, is in itself +attainment? The creative appreciator of art is always at his goal. And +the much-maligned present is the only time at our disposal in which to +enjoy the much-advertised future. + +Too bad that our literary friends should have gone to extremes on this +point! If Robert Louis Stevenson had noted that "to travel hopefully is +an easier thing than to arrive," he would undoubtedly have hit the +truth. If Mr. Benson had said, "If you attain, God help you bountifully +to exuberance," etc., that would have been unexceptionable. It would +even have been a more useful--though slightly supererogatory--service, +to point out for the million-and-first time that achievement is not all +that it seems to be from a considerable distance. In other words, that +the laws of perspective will not budge. These writers would thus quite +sufficiently have played dentist to Disappointment and extracted his +venomous fangs for us in advance. What the gentlemen really should have +done was to perform the dentistry first, reminding us once again that a +part of attainment is illusory and consists of such stuff as +dreams--good and bad--are made of. Then, on the other hand, they should +have demonstrated attainment's good points, finally leading up to its +supreme advantage. This advantage is--its strategic position. + +Arriving beats hoping to arrive, in this: that while the hoper is so +keenly hopeful that he has little attention to spare for anything +besides the future, the arriver may take a broader, more leisurely +survey of things. The hoper's eyes are glued to the distant peak. The +attainer of that peak may recover his breath and enjoy a complete +panorama of his present achievement and may amuse himself moreover by +re-climbing the mountain in retrospect. He has also yonder farther and +loftier peak in his eye, which he may now look forward to attacking +the week after next; for this little preliminary jaunt is giving him +his mountain legs. Hence, while the hoper enjoys only the future, the +achiever, if his joy-digesting apparatus be working properly, rejoices +with exceeding great joy in past, present, and future alike. He has an +advantage of three to one over the merely hopeful traveler. And when +they meet this is the song he sings:-- + + Mistress Joy is at your side + Waiting to become a bride. + + Soft! Restrain your jubilation. + That ripe mouth may not be kissed + Ere you stand examination. + Mistress Joy's a eugenist. + + Is your crony Moderation? + Do your senses say you sooth? + Are your veins the kind that tingle? + Is your soul awake in truth? + + If these traits in you commingle + Joy no more shall leave you single. + + + + +II + +THE BRIMMING CUP + + +Exuberance is the income yielded by a wise investment of one's +vitality. On this income, so long as it flows in regularly, the +moderate man may live in the Land of the Joyful Heart, incased in +triple steel against any arrows of outrageous fortune that happen to +stray in across the frontier. Immigrants to this land who have no such +income are denied admission. They may steam into the country's +principal port, past the great statue of the goddess Joy who holds +aloft a brimming cup in the act of pledging the world. But they are +put ashore upon a small island for inspection. And so soon as the +inferior character of their investments becomes known, or their +recklessness in eating into their principal, they are deported. + +The contrast between those within the well-guarded gates and those +without is an affecting one. The latter often squander vast fortunes +in futile attempts to gain a foothold in the country. And they have a +miserable time of it. Many of the natives, on the other hand, are so +poor that they have constantly to fight down the temptation to touch +their principal. But every time they resist, the old miracle happens +for them once more: the sheer act of living turns out to be "paradise +enow." + +Now no mere fullness of life will qualify a man for admission to the +Land of the Joyful Heart. One must have overflowingness of life. In +his book "The Science of Happiness" Jean Finot declares, that the +"disenchantment and the sadness which degenerate into a sort of +pessimistic melancholy are frequently due to the diminution of the +vital energy. And as pain and sorrow mark the diminution, the joy of +living and the upspringing of happiness signify the increase of +energy.... By using special instruments, such as the plethysmograph +of Hallion, the pneumograph of Marey, the sphygmometer of Cheron, and +so many others which have come in fashion during these latter years, +we have succeeded in proving experimentally that joy, sadness, and +pain depend upon our energy." To keep exuberant one must possess more +than just enough vitality to fill the cup of the present. There must +be enough to make it brim over. Real exuberance, however, is not the +extravagant, jarring sort of thing that some thoughtless persons +suppose it to be. The word is not accented on the first syllable. +Indeed, it might just as well be "_in_uberance." It does not long to +make an impression or, in vulgar phrase, to "get a rise"; but tends to +be self-contained. It is not boisterousness. It is generous and +infectious, while boisterousness is inclined to be selfish and +repellent. Most of us would rather spend a week among a crowd of +mummies than in a gang of boisterous young blades. For boisterousness +is only a degenerate exuberance, drunk and on the rampage. The royal +old musician and poet was not filled with this, but with the real +thing, when he sang: + + "_He leadeth me beside the still waters. + He restoreth my soul ... + My cup runneth over._" + +The merely boisterous man, on the other hand, is a fatuous spendthrift +of his fortune. He reminds us how close we are of kin to the +frolicsome chimpanzee. His attitude was expressed on election night by +a young man of Manhattan who shouted hoarsely to his fellow: + + "On with the dance; let joy be unrefined!" + +Neither should mere vivacity be mistaken for exuberance. It is no more +surely indicative of the latter than is the laugh of a parrot. One of +the chief advantages of the Teutonic over the Latin type of man is +that the Latin is tempted to waste his precious vital overplus through +a continuous display of vivacity, while the less demonstrative Teuton +more easily stores his up for use where it will count. This gives him +an advantage in such pursuits as athletics and empire-building. + +The more exuberance of all varieties one has stored up in body and +mind and spirit, the more of it one can bring to bear at the right +moment upon the things that count for most in the world--the things +that owe to it their lasting worth and their very existence. A little +of this precious commodity, more or less, is what often makes the +difference between the ordinary and the supreme achievement. It is the +liquid explosive that shatters the final, and most stubborn, barrier +between man and the Infinite. It is what Walt Whitman called "that +last spark, that sharp flash of power, that something or other more +which gives life to all great literature." + +The happy man is the one who possesses these three kinds of overplus, +and whose will is powerful enough to keep them all healthy and to keep +him from indulging in their delights intemperately. + +It is a ridiculous fallacy to assume, as many do, that such fullness +of life is an attribute of youth alone and slips out of the back door +when middle age knocks at the front. It is no more bound to go as the +wrinkles and gray hairs arrive than your income is bound to take wings +two or three score years after the original investment of the +principal. To ascribe it to youth as an exclusive attribute is as +fatuous as it would be to ascribe a respectable income only to the +recent investor. + +A red-letter day it will be for us when we realize that exuberance +represents for every one the income from his fund of vitality; that +when one's exuberance is all gone, his income is temporarily +exhausted; and that he cannot go on living at the same rate without +touching the principal. The hard-headed, harder-worked American +business man is admittedly clever and prudent about money matters. But +when he comes to deal with immensely more important matters such as +life, health, and joy, he often needs a guardian. He has not yet +grasped the obvious truth that a man's fund of vitality ought to be +administered upon at least as sound a business basis as his fund of +dollars. The principal should not be broken into for living expenses +during a term of at least ninety-nine years. (Metchnikoff says that +this term is one hundred and twenty or so if you drink enough of the +Bulgarian bacillus.) And one should not be content with anything short +of a substantial rate of interest. + +In one respect this life-business is a simpler thing to manage than +the dollar-business. For, in the former, if the interest comes in +regularly and unimpaired, you may know that the principal is safe, +while in the dollar-business they may be paying your interest out of +your principal, and you none the wiser until the crash. But here the +difference ceases. For if little or no vital interest comes in, your +generous scale of living is pinched. You may defer the catastrophe a +little by borrowing short-time loans at a ruinous rate from usurious +stimulants, giving many pounds of flesh as security. But soon Shylock +forecloses and you are forced to move with your sufferings to the +slums and ten-cent lodging-houses of Life. Moreover, you must face a +brutal dispossession from even the poor flat or dormitory cot you +there occupy--out amid the snows and blasts-- + + "Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form" + +there to pay slack life's "arrears of pain, darkness, and cold." + +The reason why every day is a joy to the normal child is that he fell +heir at birth to a fortune of vitality and has not yet had time to +squander all his substance in riotous or thoughtless living, or to +overdraw his account in the Bank of Heaven on Earth. Every one of his +days is a joy--that is, except in so far as his elders have impressed +their tired standards of behavior too masterfully upon him. "Happy as +a child"--the commonness of the phrase is in itself a commentary. In +order to remain as happy as this for a century or so, all that a child +has to do is to invest his vitality on sound business principles, and +never overdraw or borrow. I shall not here go into the myriad details +of just how to invest and administer one's vitality. For there is no +dearth of wise books and physicians and "Masters of the Inn," +competent to mark out sound business programs of work, exercise, +recreation, and regimen for body, mind, and spirit; while all that you +must contribute to the enterprise is the requisite comprehension, +time, money, and will-power. You see, I am not a professor of vital +commerce and investment; I am a stump-speaker, trying to induce the +voters to elect a sound business administration. + +I believe that the blessings of climate give us of North America less +excuse than most other people for failing to put such an +administration into office. It is noteworthy that many of the +Europeans who have recently written their impressions of the United +States imagine that Colonel Roosevelt's brimming cup of vitality is +shared by nearly the whole nation. If it only were! But the fact that +these observers think so would seem to confirm our belief that our own +cup brims over more plentifully than that of Europe. This is probably +due to the exhilarating climate which makes America--physically, at +least, though not yet economically and socially--the promised land. + +Of course I realize the absurdity of urging the great majority of +human beings to keep within their vital incomes. To ask the +overworked, under-fed, under-rested, under-played, shoddily dressed, +overcrowded masses of humanity why they are not exuberant, is to ask +again, with Marie Antoinette, why the people who are starving for +bread do not eat cake. The fact is that to keep within one's income +to-day, either financially or vitally, is an aristocratic luxury that +is absolutely denied to the many. Most men--the rich as well as the +poor--stumble through life three parts dead. The ruling class, if it +had the will and the skill, might awaken itself to fullness of life. +But only a comparatively few of the others could, because the world is +conducted on a principle which makes it even less possible for them to +store up a little hoard of vitality in their bodies against a rainy +day than to store up an overplus of dollars in the savings bank. + +I think that this state of things is very different from the one which +the fathers contemplated in founding our nation. When they undertook +to secure for us all "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," +they did not mean a bare clinging to existence, liberty to starve, and +the pursuit of a nimble happiness by the lame, the halt, and the +blind. They meant fullness of life, liberty in the broadest sense, +both outer and inner, and that almost certain success in the +attainment of happiness which these two guarantee a man. In a word, +the fathers meant to offer us all a good long draft of the brimming +cup with the full sum of benefits implied by that privilege. For the +vitalized man possesses real life and liberty, and finds happiness +usually at his disposal without putting himself to the trouble of +pursuit. + +I can imagine the good fathers' chagrin if they are aware to-day of +how things have gone on in their republic. Perhaps they realize that +the possibility of exuberance has now become a special privilege. And +if they are still as wise as they once were, they will be doubly +exasperated by this state of affairs because they will see that it is +needless. It has been proved over and over again that modern machinery +has removed all real necessity for poverty and overwork. There is +enough to go 'round. Under a more democratic system we might have +enough of the necessities and reasonable comforts of life to supply +each of the hundred million Americans, if every man did no more than a +wholesome amount of productive labor in a day and had the rest of his +time for constructive leisure and real living. + +On the same terms there is likewise enough exuberance to go 'round. +The only obstacle to placing it within the reach of all exists in +men's minds. Men are still too inert and blindly conservative to stand +up together and decree that industry shall be no longer conducted for +the inordinate profit of the few, but for the use of the many. Until +that day comes, the possibility of exuberance will remain a special +privilege. + +In the mean while it is too bad that the favored classes do not make +more use of this privilege. It is absurd that such large numbers of +them are still as far from exuberance as the unprivileged. They keep +reducing their overplus of vitality to an _under-minus_ of it by too +much work and too foolish play, by plain thinking and high living and +the dissipation of maintaining a pace too swift for their as yet +unadjusted organisms. They keep their house of life always a little +chilly by opening the windows before the furnace has had a chance to +take the chill out of the rooms. + +If we would bring joy to the masses why not first vitalize the +classes? If the latter can be led to develop a fondness for that +brimming cup which is theirs for the asking, a long step will be taken +toward the possibility of overflowing life for all. The classes will +come to realize that, even from a selfish point of view, democracy is +desirable; that because man is a social animal, the best-being of the +one is inseparable from the best-being of the many; that no one can be +perfectly exuberant until all are exuberant. Jean Finot is right: +"True happiness is so much the greater and deeper in the proportion +that it embraces and unites in a fraternal chain more men, more +countries, more worlds." + +But the classes may also be moved by instincts less selfish. For the +brimming cup has this at least in common with the cup that inebriates: +its possessor is usually filled with a generous--if sometimes +maudlin--anxiety to have others enjoy his own form of beverage. The +present writer is a case in point. His reason for making this book lay +in a convivial desire to share with as many as possible the contents +of a newly acquired brimming cup. Before getting hold of this cup, the +writer would have looked with an indifferent and perhaps hostile eye +upon the proposition to make such a blessing generally available. But +now he cannot for the life of him see how any one whose body, mind, +and spirit are alive and reasonably healthy can help wishing the same +jolly good fortune for all mankind. + +Horace Traubel records that the aged Walt Whitman was once talking +philosophy with some of his friends when an intensely bored youngster +slid down from his high chair and remarked to nobody in particular: +"There's too much old folk here for me!" + +"For me, too," cried the poet with one of his hearty laughs. "We are +all of us a good deal older than we need to be, than we think we are. +Let's all get young again." + +Even so! Here's to eternal youth for every one. And here's to the hour +when we may catch the eye of humanity and pledge all brother men in +the brimming cup. + + + + +III + +ENTHUSIASM + + +Enthusiasm is exuberance-with-a-motive. It is the power that makes the +world go 'round. The old Greeks who christened it knew that it was the +god-energy in the human machine. Without its driving force nothing +worth doing has ever been done. It is man's dearest possession. Love, +friendship, religion, altruism, devotion to hobby or career--all +these, and most of the other good things in life, are forms of +enthusiasm. A medicine for the most diverse ills, it alleviates both +the pains of poverty and the boredom of riches. Apart from it man's +heart is seldom joyful. Therefore it should be husbanded with zeal and +spent with wisdom. + +To waste it is folly; to misuse it, disaster. For it is safe to +utilize this god-energy only in its own proper sphere. Enthusiasm +moves the human vessel. To let it move the rudder, too, is criminal +negligence. Brahms once made a remark somewhat to this effect: The +reason why there is so much bad music in the world is that composers +are in too much of a hurry. When an inspiration comes to them, what do +they do? Instead of taking it out for a long, cool walk, they sit down +at once to work it up, but let it work _them_ up instead into an +absolutely uncritical enthusiasm in which every splutter of the +goose-quill looks to them like part of a swan-song. + +Love is blind, they say. This is an exaggeration. But it is based on +the fact that enthusiasm, whether it appears as love, or in any other +form, always has trouble with its eyes. In its own place it is +incomparably efficient; only keep it away from the pilot-house! + +Since this god-energy is the most precious and important thing that we +have, why should our word for its possessor have sunk almost to the +level of a contemptuous epithet? Nine times in ten we apply it to the +man who allows his enthusiasm to steer his vessel. It would be full as +logical to employ the word "writer" for one who misuses his literary +gift in writing dishonest advertisements. When we speak of an +"enthusiast" to-day, we usually mean a person who has all the +ill-judging impulsiveness of a child without its compensating charm, +and is therefore not to be taken seriously. "He's only an enthusiast!" +This has been said about Columbus and Christ and every other great man +who ever lived. + +But besides its poor sense of distance and direction, men have another +complaint against enthusiasm. They think it insincere on account of +its capacity for frequent and violent fluctuation in temperature. In +his "Creative Evolution," Bergson shows how "our most ardent +enthusiasm, as soon as it is externalized into action, is so naturally +congealed into the cold calculation of interest or vanity, the one so +easily takes the shape of the other, that we might confuse them +together, doubt our own sincerity, deny goodness and love, if we did +not know that the dead retain for a time the features of the living." + +The philosopher then goes on to show how, when we fall into this +confusion, we are unjust to enthusiasm, which is the materialization +of the invisible breath of life itself. It is "the spirit." The action +it induces is "the letter." These constitute two different and often +antagonistic movements. The letter kills the spirit. But when this +occurs we are apt to mistake the slayer for the slain and impute to +the ardent spirit all the cold vices of its murderer. Hence, the taint +of insincerity that seems to hang about enthusiasm is, after all, +nothing but illusion. To be just we should discount this illusion in +advance as the wise man discounts discouragement. And the epithet for +the man whose lungs are large with the breath of life should cease to +be a term of reproach. + +Enthusiasm is the prevailing characteristic of the child and of the +adult who does memorable things. The two are near of kin and bear a +family resemblance. Youth trails clouds of glory. Glory often trails +clouds of youth. Usually the eternal man is the eternal boy; and the +more of a boy he is, the more of a man. The most conventional-seeming +great men possess as a rule a secret vein of eternal-boyishness. Our +idea of Brahms, for example, is of a person hopelessly mature and +respectable. But we open Kalbeck's new biography and discover him +climbing a tree to conduct his chorus while swaying upon a branch; or, +in his fat forties, playing at frog-catching like a five-year-old. + +The prominent American is no less youthful. Not long ago one of our +good gray men of letters was among his children, awaiting dinner and +his wife. Her footsteps sounded on the stairs. "Quick, children!" he +exclaimed. "Here's mother. Let's hide under the table and when she +comes in we'll rush out on all-fours and pretend we're bears." The +maneuver was executed with spirit. At the preconcerted signal, out +they all waddled and galumphed with horrid grunts--only to find +something unfamiliar about mother's skirt, and, glancing up, to +discover that it hung upon a strange and terrified guest. + +The biographers have paid too little attention to the god-energy of +their heroes. I think that it should be one of the crowning +achievements of biography to communicate to the reader certain actual +vibrations of the enthusiasm that filled the scientist or philosopher +for truth; the patriot for his country; the artist for beauty and +self-expression; the altruist for humanity; the discoverer for +knowledge; the lover or friend for a kindred soul; the prophet, +martyr, or saint for his god. + +Every lover, according to Emerson, is a poet. Not only is this true, +but every one of us, when in the sway of any enthusiasm, has in him +something creative. Therefore a record of the most ordinary person's +enthusiasms should prove as well worth reading as the ordinary record +we have of the extraordinary person's life if written with the usual +neglect of this important subject. Now I should like to try the +experiment of sketching in outline a new kind of biography. It would +consist entirely of the record of an ordinary person's enthusiasms. +But, as I know no other life-story so well as my own, perhaps the +reader will pardon me for abiding in the first person singular. He may +grant pardon the more readily if he realizes the universality of this +offense among writers. For it is a fact that almost all novels, +stories, poems, and essays are only more or less cleverly disguised +autobiography. So here follow some of my enthusiasms in a new +chapter. + + + + +IV + +A CHAPTER OF ENTHUSIASMS + + +I + +In looking back over my own life, a series of enthusiasms would appear +to stand out as a sort of spinal system, about which are grouped as +tributaries all the dry bones and other minor phenomena of existence. +Or, rather, enthusiasm is the deep, clear, sparkling stream which +carries along and solves and neutralizes, if not sweetens, in its +impetuous flow life's rubbish and superfluities of all kinds, such as +school, the Puritan Sabbath, boot and hair-brushing, polite and +unpolemic converse with bores, prigs, pedants, and shorter +catechists--and so on all the way down between the shores of age to +the higher mathematics, bank failures, and the occasional editor whose +word is not as good as his bond. + +My first enthusiasm was for good things to eat. It was stimulated by +that priceless asset, a virginal palate. But here at once the medium +of expression fails. For what may words presume to do with the flavor +of that first dish of oatmeal; with the first pear, grape, watermelon; +with the Bohemian roll called _Hooska_, besprinkled with poppy and +mandragora; or the wondrous dishes which our Viennese cook called +_Aepfelstrudel_ and _Scheiterhaufen_? The best way for me to express +my reaction to each of these delicacies would be to play it on the +'cello. The next best would be to declare that they tasted somewhat +better than Eve thought the apple was going to taste. But how absurdly +inadequate this sounds! I suppose the truth is that such enthusiasms +have become too utterly congealed in our _blasé_ minds when at last +these minds have grown mature enough to grasp the principles of +penmanship. So that whatever has been recorded about the sensations of +extreme youth is probably all false. Why, even + + "Heaven lies about us in our infancy,"-- + +as Wordsworth revealed in his "Ode on Immortality." And though +Tennyson pointed out that we try to revenge ourselves by lying about +heaven in our maturity, this does not serve to correct a single one of +crabbed age's misapprehensions about youth. + +Games next inflamed my fancy. More than dominoes or Halma, lead +soldiers appealed to me, and tops, marbles, and battledore and +shuttlecock. Through tag, fire-engine, pom-pom-pull-away, +hide-and-seek, baseball, and boxing, I came to tennis, which I knew +instinctively was to be my athletic _grand passion_. Perhaps I was +first attracted by the game's constant humor which was forever making +the ball imitate or caricature humanity, or beguiling the players to +act like solemn automata. For children are usually quicker than +grown-ups to see these droll resemblances. I came by degrees to like +the game's variety, its tense excitement, its beauty of posture and +curve. And before long I vaguely felt what I later learned +consciously: that tennis is a sure revealer of character. Three sets +with a man suffice to give one a working knowledge of his moral +equipment; six, of his chief mental traits; and a dozen, of that most +important, and usually veiled part of him, his subconscious +personality. Young people of opposite sexes are sometimes counseled to +take a long railway journey together before deciding on a matrimonial +merger. But I would respectfully advise them rather to play "singles" +with each other before venturing upon a continuous game of doubles. + +The collecting mania appeared some time before tennis. I first +collected ferns under a crag in a deep glen. Mere amassing soon gave +way to discrimination, which led to picking out a favorite fern. This +was chosen, I now realize, with a woeful lack of fine feeling. I +called it "The Alligator" from its fancied resemblance to my brother's +alligator-skin traveling-bag. But admiration of this fern brought a +dawning consciousness that certain natural objects were preferable to +others. This led, in years, to an enthusiasm for collecting +impressions of the beauty, strength, sympathy, and significance of +nature. The Alligator fern, as I still call it, has become a symbolic +thing to me; and the sight of it now stands for my supreme or +best-loved impression, not alone in the world of ferns, but also in +each department of nature. Among forests it symbolizes the immemorial +incense cedars and redwoods of the Yosemite; among shores, those of +Capri and Monterey; among mountains, the glowing one called Isis as +seen at dawn from the depths of the Grand Cañon. + + +II + +Next, I collected postage-stamps. I know that it is customary to-day +for writers to sneer at this pursuit. But surely they have forgotten +its variety and subtlety; its demand on the imagination; how it makes +history and geography live, and initiates one painlessly into the +mysteries of the currency of all nations. Then what a tonic it is for +the memory! Only think of the implications of the annual +price-catalogue! Soon after the issue of this work, every collector +worthy the name has almost unconsciously filed away in his mind the +current market values of thousands of stamps. And he can tell you +offhand, not only their worth in the normal perforated and canceled +condition, but also how their values vary if they are uncanceled, +unperforated, embossed, rouletted, surcharged with all manner of +initials, printed by mistake with the king standing on his head, or +water-marked anything from a horn of plenty to the seven lean kine of +Egypt. This feat of memory is, moreover, no hardship at all, for the +enthusiasm of the normal stamp-collector is so potent that its +proprietor has only to stand by and let it do all the work. + +We often hear that the wealthy do not enjoy their possessions. This +depends entirely upon the wealthy. That some of them enjoy their +treasures giddily, madly, my own experience proves. For, as youthful +stamp-collectors went in those days, I was a philatelic magnate. By +inheritance, by the ceaseless and passionate trading of duplicates, by +rummaging in every available attic, by correspondence with a wide +circle of foreign missionaries, and by delivering up my whole +allowance, to the dealers, I had amassed a collection of several +thousand varieties. Among these were such gems as all of the +triangular Cape of Good Hopes, almost all of the early Persians, and +our own spectacular issue of 1869 unused, including the one on which +the silk-stockinged fathers are signing the Declaration of +Independence. Such possessions as these I well-nigh worshiped. + +Even to-day, after having collected no stamps for a generation, the +chance sight of an "approval sheet," with its paper-hinged reminders +of every land, gives me a curious sensation. There visit my spine +echoes of the thrills that used to course it on similar occasions in +boyhood. These were the days when my stamps had formed for me mental +pictures--more or less accurate--of each country from Angola to +Zululand, its history, climate, scenery, inhabitants, and rulers. To +possess its rarest stamp was mysteriously connected in my mind with +being given the freedom of the land itself, and introduced with warm +recommendations to its _genius loci_. + +Even old circulars issued by dealers, now long gone to stampless +climes, have power still to raise the ghost of the vanished glamour. I +prefer those of foreign dealers because their English has the quaint, +other-world atmosphere of what they dealt in. The other day I found in +an old scrapbook a circular from Vienna, which annihilated a score of +years with its very first words: + +CLEARING + +OF A LARGE PART OF MY RETAIL DEPOSITORY + + Being lately so much engaged into my wholesale business ... I + have made up my mind to sell out a large post of my + retail-stamps at under-prices. They are rests of larger + collections containing for the most, only older marks and + not thrash possibly put together purposedly as they used to + be composed by the other dealers and containing therefore + mostly but worthless and useless nouveautés of Central + America. + +Before continuing this persuasive flow, the dealer inserts a number of +testimonials like the following. He calls them: + +ACKNOWLEDGMENTS + + Sent package having surpassed my expectations I beg to remit + by to-days post-office-ordres Mk. 100. Kindly please send me + by return of post offered album wanted for retail sale. + +G. B.--HANNOVER. + +The dealer now comes to his peroration: + + I beg to call the kind of attention of every buyer to the + fact of my selling all these packages and albums with my own + loss merely for clearings sake of my retail business and in + order to get rid of them as much and as soon as possible. + With 25-60 % abatement I give stamps and whole things to + societies against four weeks calculation. + + All collectors are bound to oblige themselves by writing + contemporaneously with sending in the depository amount to + make calculation within a week as latest term. + +It is enough! As I read, the old magic enfolds me, and I am seized +with longing to turn myself into a society of collectors and to +implore the altruistic dealer "kindly please" to send me, at a +prodigious "abatement," "stamps and whole things against four weeks +calculation." + + +III + +The youngest children of large families are apt to be lonely folk, +somewhat retired and individualistic in their enthusiasms. I was such +a child, blessed by circumstances with few playfellows and rather +inclined to sedentary joys. Even when I reached the barbaric stage of +evolution where youth is gripped by enthusiasm for the main pursuits +of his primitive ancestors, I was fain to enjoy these in the more +sophisticated forms natural to a lonely young city-dweller. + +When stamps had passed their zenith I was filled with a lust for +slaughter. Fish were at first the desired victims. Day after day I sat +watching a hopelessly buoyant cork refuse to bob into the depths of +the muddy and torpid Cuyahoga. I was like some fond parent, hoping +against hope to see his child out-live the flippant period and dive +beneath the surface of things, into touch with the great living +realities. And when the cork finally marked a historic epoch by +vanishing, and a small, inert, and intensely bored sucker was pulled +in hand over hand, I felt thrills of gratified longing and conquest +old and strong as the race. + +But presently I myself was drawn, like the cork, beneath the +superficial surface of the angler's art. For in the public library I +chanced on a shelf of books, that told about fishing of a nobler, +jollier, more seductive sort. At once I was consumed with a passion +for five-ounce split-bamboo fly-rods, ethereal leaders, double-tapered +casting-lines of braided silk, and artificial flies more fair than +birds of paradise. Armed in spirit, with all these, I waded the +streams of England with kindly old Isaak Walton, and ranged the +Restigouche with the predecessors of Henry van Dyke. These dreams +brought with them a certain amount of satisfaction--about as much +satisfaction as if they had come as guests to a surprise party, each +equipped with a small sandwich and a large appetite. The visions were +pleasant, of course, but they cried out, and made me cry out, for +action. There were no trout, to be sure, within a hundred miles, and +there was no way of getting to any trouty realm of delight. But I did +what I could to be prepared for the blessed hour when we should meet. +I secured five new subscriptions or so to "The Boys' Chronicle" (let +us call it), and received in return a fly-rod so flimsy that it would +have resolved itself into its elements at sight of a half-pound +trout. It was destined, though, never to meet with this embarrassment. + +My casting-line bore a family resemblance to grocery string. My leader +was a piece of gut from my brother's 'cello; my flybook, an old +wallet. As for flies, they seemed beyond my means; and it was +perplexing to know what to do, until I found a book which said that it +was better by far to tie your own flies. With joyful relief I acted on +this counsel. Plucking the feather-duster, I tied two White Millers +with shoe-thread upon cod-hooks. One of these I stained and streaked +with my heart's blood into the semblance of a Parmacheene Belle. The +canary furnished materials for a Yellow May; a dooryard English +sparrow, for a Brown Hackle. My masterpiece, the beautiful, +parti-colored fly known as Jock Scott, owed its being to my sister's +Easter bonnet. + +I covered the points of the hooks with pieces of cork, and fished on +the front lawn from morning to night, leaning with difficulty against +the thrust of an imaginary torrent. And I never ceased striving to +make the three flies straighten out properly as the books directed, +and fall like thistledown upon the strategic spot where the empty +tomato can was anchored, and then jiggle appetizingly down over the +four-pounder, where he sulked in the deep hole just beyond the +hydrant. + +The hunting fever was wakened by the need for the Brown Hackle already +mentioned. But as the choice of weapons and of victims culminated in +the air-gun and the sparrow, respectively, my earliest hunting was +confined even more closely than my fishing to the library and the +dense and teeming forests of the imagination. + +But while somewhat handicapped here by the scarcity of ferocious game, +I was more fortunate in another enthusiasm which attacked me at almost +the same time. For however unpropitious the hunting is on any given +part of the earth's surface, there is everywhere and always an +abundance of good hidden-treasure-seeking to be had. The garden, the +attic, the tennis lawn all suffered. And my initiative was +strengthened by the discovery of an incomparable book all about a dead +man's chest, and not only digging for gold in a secret island, but +finding it, too, by jingo! and fighting off the mutineers. + +These aspirations naturally led to games of Pirate, or Outlaw, which +were handicapped, however, by the scarcity of playmates, and their +curious hesitation to serve as victims. As pirates and outlaws are +well known to be the most superstitious of creatures, inclining to the +primitive in their religious views, we were naturally led into a sort +of dread enthusiasm for--or enthusiastic dread of--the whole pantheon +of spooks, sprites, and bugaboos to which savages and children, great +and small, bow the knee. My dreams at that time ran something like +this: + + +PARADISE REVISED + + Playing hymn-tunes day and night + On a harp _may_ be all right + For the grown-ups; but for me, + I do wish that heaven could be + Sort o' like a circus, run + So a kid could have some fun! + + There I'd not play harps, but horns + When I chased the unicorns-- + Magic tubes with pistons greasy, + Slides that pushed and pulled out easy, + Cylinders of snaky brass + Where the fingers like to fuss, + Polished like a looking-glass, + Ending in a blunderbuss. + + I would ride a horse of steel + Wound up with a ratchet-wheel. + Every beast I'd put to rout + Like the man I read about. + I would singe the leopard's hair, + Stalk the vampire and the adder, + Drive the werewolf from his lair, + Make the mad gorilla madder. + Needle-guns my work should do. + But, if beasts got closer to, + I would pierce them to the marrow + With a barbed and poisoned arrow, + Or I'd whack 'em on the skull + Till my scimiter was dull. + + If these weapons didn't work, + With a kris or bowie-knife, + Poniard, assegai, or dirk, + I would make them beg for life;-- + Spare them, though, if they'd be good + And guard me from what haunts the wood-- + From those creepy, shuddery sights + That come round a fellow nights-- + Imps that squeak and trolls that prowl, + Ghouls, the slimy devil-fowl, + Headless goblins with lassoes, + Scarlet witches worse than those, + Flying dragon-fish that bellow + So as most to scare a fellow.... + + There, as nearly as I could, + I would live like Robin Hood, + Taking down the mean and haughty, + Getting plunder from the naughty + To reward all honest men + Who should seek my outlaw's den. + + When I'd wearied of these pleasures + I'd go hunt for hidden treasures-- + In no ordinary way, + Pirates' luggers I'd waylay; + Board them from my sinking dory, + Wade through decks of gore and glory, + Drive the fiends, with blazing matchlock, + Down below, and snap the hatch-lock. + + Next, I'd scud beneath the sky-land, + Sight the hills of Treasure Island, + Prowl and peer and prod and prise, + Till there burst upon my eyes + Just the proper pirate's freight: + Gold doubloons and pieces of eight! + + Then--the very best of all-- + Suddenly a stranger tall + Would appear, and I'd forget + That we hadn't ever met. + And with cap upthrown I'd greet him + (Turning from the plunder, yellow) + And I'd hurry fast to meet him, + For he'd be the very fellow + Who, I think, invented fun-- + Robert Louis Stevenson. + +The enthusiasms of this barbaric period never died. They grew up, +instead, and proved serviceable friends. Fishing and hunting are now +the high-lights of vacation time. The crude call of the weird and the +inexplicable has modulated into a siren note from the forgotten +psychic continents which we Western peoples have only just discovered +and begun to explore. As for the buried treasure craze--why, my +life-work practically amounts to a daily search for hidden valuables +in the cellars and attics, the chimney-pieces and desert islands of +the mind, and secret attempts to coin them into currency. + +And so I might go on to tell of my enthusiasms for no end of other +things like reading, modeling, folk-lore, cathedrals, writing, +pictures, and the theater. Then there is the long story of that +enthusiasm called Love, of Friendship its twin, and their elder +brother, Religion, and their younger sister, Altruism. And travel and +adventure and so on. But no! It is, I believe, a misdemeanor to obtain +attention under false pretenses. If I have caught the reader's eye by +promising to illustrate in outline a new method of writing +autobiography, I must not abuse his confidence by putting that method +into practice. So, with a regret almost equal to that of Lewis +Carroll's famous Bellman-- + + I skip twenty years-- + +and close with my latest enthusiasm. + + +IV + +Confirmed wanderers that we were, my wife and I had rented a house for +the winter in a Massachusetts coast village and had fallen somewhat +under the spell of the place. Nevertheless, we had decided to move on +soon--to try, in fact, another trip through Italy. Our friendly +neighbors urged us to buy land up the "back lane" instead, and build +and settle down. We knew nothing of this region, however, and scarcely +heard them. + +But they were so insistent that one day we ventured up the back lane +at dusk and began to explore the woods. It grew dark and we thought of +turning back. Then it began to grow light again. A full moon was +climbing up through the maples, inviting further explorations. We +pushed through a dense undergrowth and presently were in a grove of +great white pines. There was a faint sound of running water, and +suddenly we came upon an astonishing brook--wide, swift, and musical. +We had not suspected the existence of such a brook within a dozen +leagues. It was over-arched by tall oaks and elms, beeches, tupelos, +and maples. The moonbeams were dancing in the ripples and on the +floating castles of foam. + +"What a place for a study!" + +"Yes; a log cabin with a big stone fireplace." + +The remarks came idly, but our eyes met and held. Moved by one impulse +we turned from the stream and remarked what bosh people will sometimes +talk, and discussed the coming Italian trip as we moved cautiously +among the briers. But when we came once more to the veteran pines, +they seemed more glamorous than ever in the moonlight, especially one +that stood near a large holly, apart from the rest--a three-prong +lyrical fellow--and his opposite, a burly, thickset archer, bending +his long-bow into a most exquisite curve. The fragrant pine needles +whispered. The brook lent its faint music. + +"Quick! We had better get away!" + +A forgotten lumber road led us safe from briers up a hill. Out of a +dense oak grove we suddenly emerged upon the more open crest. Our feet +sank deep in moss. + +"Look," I said. + +Over the heads of the high forest trees below shimmered a mile of +moonlit marshes, and beyond them a gleam--perhaps from some vessel far +at sea, perhaps even from a Provincetown lighthouse. + +"Yes, but look!" + +At a touch I faced around and beheld, crowning the hill, a stately +company of red cedars, comely and dense and mysterious as the +cypresses of Tivoli, and gloriously drenched in moonlight. + +"But what a place for a house!" + +"Let's give up Italy," was the answer, "and make this wood our home." + +By instinct and training we were two inveterate wanderers. Never had +we possessed so much as a shingle or a spoonful of earth. But the +nest-building enthusiasm had us at last. Our hands met in compact. As +we strolled reluctantly homeward to a ten-o'clock dinner we talked of +road-making, swamps, pneumatic water-systems, the nimbleness of +dollars, and mountains of other difficulties. And we agreed that the +only kind of faith which can easily remove mountains is the faith of +the enthusiast. + + + + +V + +THE AUTO-COMRADE + + +Human nature abhors a vacuum, especially a vacuum inside itself. Offer +the ordinary man a week's vacation all alone, and he will look as +though you were offering him a cell in Sing Sing. + +"There are," as Ruth Cameron truly observes, "a great many people to +whom there is no prospect more terrifying than that of a few hours +with only their own selves for company. To escape that terrible +catastrophe, they will make friends with the most fearful bore or read +the most stupid story.... If such people are marooned a few hours, not +only without human companionship, but even without a book or magazine +with which to screen their own stupidity from themselves, they are +fairly frantic." + +If any one hates to be alone with himself, the chances are that he +has not much of any self to be alone with. He is in as desolate a +condition as a certain Mr. Pease of Oberlin, who, having lost his wife +and children, set up his own tombstone and chiseled upon it this +epitaph: + + "Here lies the pod. + The Pease are shelled and gone to God." + +Now, pod-like people such as he are always solitary wherever other +people are not; and there is, of course, nothing much more distressing +than solitariness. These people, however, fall through sheer ignorance +into a confusion of thought. They suppose that solitude and +solitariness are the same thing. To the artist in life--to the wise +keeper of the joyful heart--there is just one difference between these +two: it is the difference between heaven and its antipodes. For, to +the artist in life, solitude is solitariness plus the Auto-Comrade. + +As it is the Auto-Comrade who makes all the difference, I shall try to +describe his appearance. His eyes are the most arresting part of him. +They never peer stupidly through great, thick spectacles of others' +making. They are scarcely ever closed in sleep, and sometimes make +their happiest discoveries during the small hours. These hours are +truly small because the Auto-Comrade often turns his eyes into the +lenses of a moving-picture machine--such an entertaining one that it +compresses the hours to seconds. It is through constant, alert use +that his eyes have become sharp. They can pierce through the rinds of +the toughest personalities, and even penetrate on occasion into the +future. They can also take in whole panoramas of the past in one +sweeping look. For they are of that "inner" variety through which +Wordsworth, winter after winter, used to survey his daffodil-fields. +"The bliss of solitude," he called them. + +The Auto-Comrade has an adjustable brow. It can be raised high enough +to hold and reverberate and add rich overtones to, the grandest +chords of thought ever struck by a Plato, a Buddha, or a Kant. The +next instant it may easily be lowered to the point where the ordinary +cartoon of commerce or the tiny cachinnation of a machine-made +Chesterton paradox will not ring entirely hollow. As for his voice, it +can at times be more musical than Melba's or Caruso's. Without being +raised above a whisper, it can girdle the globe. It can barely breathe +some delicious new melody; yet the thing will float forth not only +undiminished, but gathering beauty, significance, and incisiveness in +every land it passes through. + +The Auto-Comrade is an erect, wiry young figure of an athlete. As he +trades at the Seven-League Boot and Shoe Concern, it never bothers him +to accompany you on the longest tramps. His feet simply cannot be +tired out. As for his hands, they are always alert to give you a lift +up the rough places on the mountain-side. He has remarkable presence +of body. In any emergency he is usually the best man on the spot. He +is at once seer, creator, accomplisher, and present help in time of +trouble. But his everyday occupation is that of entertainer. He is the +joy-bringer--the Prometheus of pleasure. In his vicinity there is no +such thing as ennui or lonesomeness. Emerson wrote: + + "When I would spend a lonely day + Sun and moon are in my way." + +But for pals of the Auto-Comrade, not only sun, moon, etc., are in the +way, but all of his own unlimited resources. For every time and season +he has a fittingly varied repertory of entertainment. + +Now and again he startles you by the legerdemain feat of snatching +brand-new ideas out of the blue, like rabbits out of a hat. While you +stand at the port-hole of your cabin and watch the rollers rushing +back to the beloved home-land you are quitting, he marshals your +friends and acquaintances into a long line for a word of greeting or a +rapid-fire chat, just as though you were some idol of the people, and +were steaming in past the Statue of Liberty on your way home from +lionizing and being lionized abroad, and the Auto-Comrade were the +factotum at your elbow who asks, "What name, please?" + +After the friends and acquaintances, he even brings up your _bêtes +noires_ and dearest enemies for inspection and comment. Strangely +enough, viewed in this way, these persons no longer seem so +contemptible or pernicious or devilish as they once did. At this point +your factotum rubs your eye-glasses bright with the handkerchief he +always carries about for slate-cleaning purposes, and lo! you even +begin to discover good points about the chaps, hitherto unsuspected. + +Then there are always your million-and-one favorite melodies which +nobody but that all-around musical amateur, the Auto-Comrade, can so +exquisitely whistle, hum, strum, fiddle, blat, or roar. There is also +a universe full of new ones for him to improvise. And he is the +jolliest sort of fellow musician, because, when you play or sing a +duet with him, you can combine with the exciting give-and-take and +reciprocal stimulation of the duet, the god-like autocracy of the +solo, its opportunity for wide, uninterrupted, uncoerced +self-expression. Sometimes, however, in the first flush of escape with +him to the wilds, you are fain to clap your hand over his mouth in +order the better to taste the essentially folk-less savor of solitude. +For music is a curiously social art, and Browning was more than half +right when he said, "Who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at +once." + +Perhaps you can find your entertainer a small lump of clay or +modeling-wax to thumb into bad caricatures of those you love and good +ones of those you hate, until increasing facility impels him to try +and model not a Tanagra figurine, for that would be unlike his +original fancy, but a Hoboken figurine, say, or a sketch for some +Elgin (Illinois) marbles. + +If you care anything for poetry and can find him a stub of pencil and +an unoccupied cuff, he will be most completely in his element; for if +there is any one occupation more closely identified with him than +another, it is that of poet. And though all Auto-Comrades are not +poets, all poets are Auto-Comrades. Every poem which has ever thrilled +this world or another has been written by the Auto-Comrade of some +so-called poet. This is one reason why the so-called poets think so +much of their great companions. "Allons! after the great companions!" +cried old Walt to his fellow poets. If he had not overtaken, and held +fast to, his, we should never have heard the "Leaves of Grass" +whispering "one or two indicative words for the future." The bards +have always obeyed this call. And they have known how to value their +Auto-Comrades, too. See, for example, what Keats thought of his: + + Though the most beautiful Creature were waiting for me at + the end of a Journey or a Walk; though the Carpet were of + Silk, the Curtains of the morning Clouds; the chairs and + Sofa stuffed with Cygnet's down; the food Manna, the Wine + beyond Claret, the Window opening on Winander mere, I should + not feel--or rather my Happiness would not be so fine, as my + Solitude is sublime. Then instead of what I have described, + there is a sublimity to welcome me home--The roaring of the + wind is my wife and the Stars through the window pane are my + Children.... I feel more and more every day, as my + imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world + alone but in a thousand worlds--No sooner am I alone than + shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve + my Spirit the office which is equivalent to a King's + body-guard.... I live more out of England than in it. The + Mountains of Tartary are a favorite lounge, if I happen to + miss the Alleghany ridge, or have no whim for Savoy. + +This last sentence not only reveals the fact that the Auto-Comrade, +equipped as he is with a wishing-mat, is the very best cicerone in the +world, but also that he is the ideal tramping companion. Suppose you +are mountain-climbing. As you start up into "nature's observatory," he +kneels in the dust and fastens wings upon your feet. He conveniently +adjusts a microscope to your hat-brim, and hangs about your neck an +excellent telescope. He has enough sense, too, to keep his mouth +closed. For, like Hazlitt, he "can see no wit in walking and talking." +The joy of existence, you find, rarely tastes more cool and sweet and +sparkling than when you and your Auto-Comrade make a picnic thus, +swinging in a basket between you a real, live thought for lunch. On +such a day you come to believe that Keats, on another occasion, must +have had his own Auto-Comrade in mind when he remarked to his friend +Solitude that + + "... it sure must be + Almost the highest bliss of human-kind, + When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee." + +The Auto-Comrade can sit down with you in thick weather on a barren +lighthouse rock and give you a breathless day by hanging upon the +walls of fog the mellow screeds of old philosophies, and causing to +march and countermarch over against them the scarlet and purple +pageants of history. Hour by hour, too, he will linger with you in +the metropolis, that breeder of the densest solitudes--in market or +terminal, subway, court-room, library, or lobby--and hour by hour +unlock you those chained books of the soul to which the human +countenance offers the master key. + +Something of a sportsman, too, is the Auto-Comrade. He it is who makes +the fabulously low score at golf--the kind of score, by the way, that is +almost invariably born to blush unseen. And he will uncomplainingly, +even zestfully, fish from dawn to dusk in a solitude so complete that +there is not even a fin to break it. But if there are fish, he finds +them. He knows how to make the flies float indefinitely forward through +yonder narrow opening, and drop, as light as thistledown, in the center +of the temptingly inaccessible pool. He knows without looking, exactly +how thick and how prehensile are the bushes and branches that lie in +wait for the back cast, and he can calculate to a grain how much urging +the reactionary three-pounder and the blest tie that binds him to the +four-ounce rod will stand. + +He is one of the handiest possible persons to have along in the woods. +When you take him on a canoe trip with others, and the party comes to +"white water," he turns out to be a dead shot at rapid-shooting. He is +sure to know what to do at the supreme moment when you jam your +setting-pole immutably between two rocks and, with the alternative of +taking a bath, are forced to let go and grab your paddle; and are then +hung up on a slightly submerged rock at the head of the chief rapid +just in time to see the rest of the party disappear majestically +around the lower bend. At such a time, simply look to the +Auto-Comrade. He will carry you through. Also there is no one like him +at the moment when, having felled your moose, leaned your rifle +against a tree, and bent down the better to examine him, the creature +suddenly comes to life. + +In tennis, when you wake up to find that your racket has just smashed +a lob on the bounce from near the back-net, scoring a clean ace +between your paralyzed opponents, you ought to know that the racket +was guided by that superior sportsman; and if you are truly modest, +you will admit that your miraculous stop wherewith the team whisked +the baseball championship out of the fire in the fourteenth inning was +due to his unaided efforts. + +There are other games about which he is not so keen: solitaire, for +instance. For solitaire is a social game that soon loses its zest if +there be not some devoted friend or relative sitting by and simulating +that pleasureable absorption in the performance which you yourself +only wish that you could feel. + +This great companion can keep you from being lonely even in a crowd. +But there is a certain kind of crowd that he cannot abide. Beware how +you try to keep him in a crowd of unadulterated human porcupines! You +know how the philosopher Schopenhauer once likened average humanity +to a herd of porcupines on a cold day, who crowd stupidly together for +warmth, prick one another with their quills, are mutually repelled, +forget the incident, grow cold again, and repeat the whole thing _ad +infinitum_. + +In other words, the human porcupine is the person considered at the +beginning of this one-sided discussion who, to escape the terrible +catastrophe of confronting his own inner vacuum, will make friends +with the most hideous bore. This creature, however, is much more rare +than the misanthropic Schopenhauer imagined. It takes a long time to +find one among such folk as lumbermen, gypsies, shirt-waist +operatives, fishermen, masons, trappers, sailors, tramps, and +teamsters. If the sour philosopher had only had the pleasure of +knowing those teamsters who sent him into paroxysms of rage by +cracking their whips in the alley, I am sure that he would never have +spoken as harshly of their minds as he did. The fact is that +porcupines are not extremely common among the very "common" people. +It may be that there is something stupefying about the airs which the +upper classes, the best people, breathe and put on, but the social +climber is apt to find the human porcupine in increasing herds as he +scales the heights. This curious fact would seem incidentally to show +that our misanthropic philosopher must have moved exclusively in the +best circles. + +Now, if there is one thing above all others that the Auto-Comrade +cannot away with, it is the flaccid, indolent, stodgy brain of the +porcupine. If people have let their minds slump down into +porcupinishness, or have never taken the trouble to rescue them from +that ignominious condition--well, the Auto-Comrade is no snob; when +all's said, he is a rather democratic sort of chap. But he has to draw +the line somewhere, you know, and he really must beg to be excused +from rubbing shoulders with such intellectual rabble, for instance, as +blocks upper Fifth Avenue on Sunday noons. He prefers instead the +rabble which, on all other noons of the week, blocks the lower end of +that variegated thoroughfare. + +Such exclusiveness lays the Auto-Comrade open, of course, to the +charge of inhospitality. But "is not he hospitable," asks Thoreau, +"who entertains good thoughts?" Personally, I think he is. And I +believe that this sort of hospitality does more to make the world +worth living in than much conventional hugging to your bosom of +porcupines whose language you do not speak, yet with whom it is +embarrassing to keep silence. + +If the Auto-Comrade mislikes the porcupine, however, the feeling is +returned with exorbitant interest. The alleged failings of +auto-comradeship have always drawn grins, jokes, fleers, and nudges, +from the auto-comradeless. It is time the latter should know that the +joke is really on him; for he is the most forlorn of mankind. The +other is never at a loss. He is invulnerable, being one whom "destiny +may not surprise nor death dismay." But the porcupine is liable at any +moment to be deserted by associates who are bored by his sharp, hollow +quills. He finds himself the victim of a paradox which decrees that +the hermit shall "find his crowds in solitude" and never be alone; but +that the flocker shall every now and then be cast into inner darkness, +where shall be "weeping and gnashing of teeth." + +The laugh is on the porcupine; but the laugh turns almost into a tear +when one stops to realize the nature of his plight. Why, the poor +wretch is actually obliged to be near someone else in order to enjoy a +sense of vitality! In other words, he needs somebody else to do his +living for him. He is a vicarious citizen of the world, holding his +franchise only by courtesy of Tom, Dick, and Harry. All the same, it +is rather hard to pity him very profoundly while he continues to feel +quite as contemptuously superior as he usually does. For, the contempt +of the average porcupine for pals of the Auto-Comrade is akin to the +contempt which the knights of chivalry felt for those paltry beings +who were called clerks because they possessed the queer, unfashionable +accomplishment of being able to read and write. + +I remember that the loudest laugh achieved by a certain class-day +orator at college came when he related how the literary guy and the +tennis-player were walking one day in the woods, and the literary guy +suddenly exclaimed: "Ah, leave me, Louis! I would be alone." Even +apart from the stilted language in which the orator clothed the +thought of the literary guy, there is, to the porcupine, something +irresistibly comic in such a situation. It is to him as though the +literary guy had stepped up to the nearest policeman and begged for +the room at Sing Sing already referred to. + +Indeed, the modern porcupine is as suspicious of pals of the +Auto-Comrade as the porcupines of the past were of sorcerers and +witches--folk, by the way, who probably consorted with spirits no more +malign than Auto-Comrades. "What," asked the porcupines of one +another, "can they be doing, all alone there in those solitary huts? +What honest man would live like that? Ah, they must be up to no good. +They must be hand in glove with the Evil One. Well, then, away with +them to the stake and the river!" + +As a matter of fact, it probably was not the Evil One that these poor +folk were consorting with, but the Good One. For what is a man's +Auto-Comrade, anyway, but his own soul, or the same thing by what +other name soever he likes to call it, with which he divides the +practical, conscious part of his brain, turn and turn about, share and +share alike? And what is a man's own soul but a small stream of the +infinite, eternal water of life? And what is heaven but a vast harbor +where myriad streams of soul flow down, returning at last to their +Source in the bliss of perfect reunion? I believe that many a Salem +witch was dragged to her death from sanctuary; for church is not +exclusively connected with stained glass and collection-baskets. +Church is also wherever you and your Auto-Comrade can elude the +starched throng and fall together, if only for a moment, on your +knees. + +The Auto-Comrade has much to gain by contrast with one's +flesh-and-blood associates, especially if this contrast is suddenly +brought home to one after a too long separation from him. I shall +never forget the thrill that was mine early one morning after two +months of close, uninterrupted communion with one of my best and +dearest friends. At the very instant when the turn of the road cut off +that friend's departing hand-wave, I was aware of a welcoming, almost +boisterous shout from the hills of dream, and turning quickly, beheld +my long-lost Auto-Comrade rushing eagerly down the slopes toward me. + +Few joys may compare with the joy of such a sudden unexpected reunion. +It is like "the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land." No, +this simile is too disloyal to my friend. Well, then, it is like a +beaker full of the warm South when you are leaving a good beer country +and are trying to reconcile yourself to ditch-water for the next few +weeks. At any rate, similes or not, there were we two together again +at last. What a week of weeks we spent, pacing back and forth on the +veranda of our log cabin, where we overlooked the pleasant sinuosities +of the Sebois and gazed out together over golden beech and ghostly +birch and blood-red maple banners to the far violet mountains of the +Aroostook! And how we did take stock of the immediate past, chuckling +to find that it had not been a quarter so bad as I had stupidly +supposed. What gilded forest trails were those which we blazed into +the glamorous land of to-morrow! And every other moment these +recreative labors would be interrupted while I pressed between the +pages of a notebook some butterfly or sunset leaf or quadruply +fortunate clover which my Auto-Comrade found and turned over to me. +(Between two of those pages, by the way, I afterwards found the +argument of this chapter.) + +Then, when the effervescence of our meeting had lost a little of its +first, fine, carbonated sting, what Elysian hours we did spend over +the correspondence of those other two friends, Goethe and Schiller! +Passage after passage we would turn back to re-read and muse over. +These we would discuss without any of the rancor or dogmatic +insistence or one-eyed stubbornness that usually accompany the clash +of mental steel on mental steel from a different mill. And without +making any one else lose the thread or grow short-breathed or accuse +us passionately of reading ahead, we would, on the slightest +provocation, out-Fletcher Fletcher chewing the cud of sweet and bitter +fancy. And we would underline and bracket and side-line and overline +the ragged little paper volume, and scribble up and down its margins, +and dream over its footnotes, to our hearts' content. + +Such experiences, though, are all too rare with me. Why? Because my +Auto-Comrade is a rather particular person and will not associate with +me unless I toe his mark. + +"Come," I propose to him, "let us go a journey." + +"Hold hard," says he, and looks me over appraisingly. "You know the +rule of the Auto-Comrades' Union. We are supposed to associate with +none but fairly able persons. Are you a fairly able person?" + +If it turns out that I am not, he goes on a rampage, and begins to +talk like an athletic trainer. The first thing he demands is that his +would-be associate shall keep on hand a jolly good store of surplus +vitality. You are expected to supply exuberance to him somewhat as you +supply gasolene to your motor. Now, of course, there are in the world +not a few invalids and other persons of low physical vitality whose +Auto-Comrades happen to have sufficient gasolene to keep them both +running, if only on short rations. Most of these cases, however, are +pathological. They have hot-boxes at both ends of the machine, and +their progress is destined all too soon to cease and determine +disastrously. The rest of these cases are the rare exceptions which +prove the rule. For unexuberant yet unpathological pals of the +Auto-Comrade are as rare as harmonious households in which the efforts +of a devoted and blissful wife support an able-bodied husband. + +The rule is that you have got to earn exuberance for two. "Learn to +eat balanced rations right," thunders the Auto-Comrade, laying down +the law; "exercise, perspire, breathe, bathe, sleep out of doors, and +sleep enough; rule your liver with a rod of iron, don't take drugs or +nervines, cure sickness beforehand, keep love in your heart, do an +adult's work in the world, have at least as much fun as you ought to +have." + +"That," he goes on, "is the way to develop enough physical overplus so +that you will be enabled to overcome your present sad addiction to +mob-intoxication. And, provided your mind is not in as bad condition +as your body, this physical overplus will transmute some of itself +into mental exuberance. This will enable you to have more fun with +your mind than an enthusiastic kitten has with its tail. It will +enable you to look before and after, and purr over what is, as well as +to discern, with pleasurable longing, what is not, and set forth +confidently to capture it." + +But if, by any chance, you have allowed your mind to get into the sort +of condition which the old-fashioned German scholar used to allow his +body to get into, it develops that the Auto-Comrade hates a flabby +brain almost as much as he hates a flabby body. He soon makes it clear +that he will not have much to do with any one who has not yet mastered +the vigorous and highly complex art of not worrying. Also, he demands +of his companion the knack of calm, consecutive thought. This is one +reason why so many more Auto-Comrades are to be found in +crow's-nests, gypsy-vans, and shirt-waist factories than on upper +Fifth Avenue. For, watching the stars and the sea from a swaying +masthead, taking light-heartedly to the open road, or even operating a +rather unwholesome sewing-machine all day in silence, is better for +consecutiveness of mind than a never-ending round of offices, clubs, +committees, servants, dinners, teas, and receptions, to each of which +one is a little late. + +In diffusing knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, this knack of +concentration, Arnold Bennett's little books on mental efficiency have +done wonders for the art of auto-comradeship. Their popular +persuasiveness has coaxed thousands on thousands of us to go in for a +few minutes' worth of mental calisthenics every day. They have +actually cajoled us into the painful feat of glancing over a page of a +book and then putting it down and trying to retrace the argument in +memory. Or they have coaxed us to fix on some subject--any +subject--for reflection, and then scourge our straying minds back to +it at every few steps of the walk to the morning train. And we have +found that the mental muscles have responded at once to this +treatment. They have hardened under the exercise until being left +alone has begun to change from confinement in the same cell with that +worst of enemies who has the right to forge one's own name--into a +joyful pleasure jaunt with a totally different person who, if not +one's best friend, is at least to be counted on as a trusty, +entertaining, resourceful, unselfish associate--at times, perhaps, a +little exacting--yet certainly a far more brilliant and generally +satisfactory person than his companion. + +No matter what the ignorant or the envious may say, there is nothing +really unsocial in a moderate indulgence in the art of auto-comradeship. +A few weeks of it bring you back with a fresher, keener appreciation of +your other friends and of humanity in general than you had before +setting forth. In the continuous performance of the psalm of life such +contrasts as this of solos and choruses have a reciprocal advantage. + +But auto-comradeship must not be overdone, as it was overdone by the +mediæval monks. Its delights are too delicious, its particular vintage +of the wine of experience too rich, for long-continued consumption. +Consecutive thought, though it is one of man's greatest pleasures, is +at the same time perhaps the most arduous labor that he can perform. +And after a long period of it, both the Auto-Comrade and his companion +become exhausted and, perforce, less comradely. + +Besides the incidental exhaustion, there is another reason why this +beatific association must have its time-limit; for, unfortunately, +one's Auto-Comrade is always of the same sex as one's self, and in +youth, at least, if the presence of the complementary part of creation +is long denied, there comes a time when this denial surges higher and +higher in subconsciousness, then breaks into consciousness, and keeps +on surging until it deluges all the tranquillities, zests, surprises, +and excitements of auto-comradeship, and makes them of no effect. + +This is, probably, a wise provision for the salvation of the human +digestion. For otherwise, many a man, having tasted of the fruit of +the tree of the knowledge of auto-comradeship, might thereupon be +tempted to retire to his hermit's den hard by and endeavor to sustain +himself for life on this food alone. + +Most of us, however, long before such extremes have been reached, are +sure to rush back to our kind for the simple reason that we are +enjoying auto-comradeship so much that we want someone else to enjoy +it with. + + + + +VI + +VIM AND VISION + + +Efficiency is to-day the Hallelujah Chorus of industry. I know a +manufacturer who recently read a book on business management. +Stop-watch in hand he then made an exhaustive study of his office +force and their every action. After considering the tabulated results +he arose, smashed all but one of the many office mirrors, bought +modern typewriters, and otherwise eliminated works of supererogation. +The sequel is that a dozen stenographers to-day perform the work of +the former thirty-two. + +This sort of thing is spreading through the business world and beyond +it in every direction. Even the artists are studying the bearing of +industrial efficiency on the arts of sculpture, music, literature, +architecture, and painting. But beyond the card catalogue and the +filing cabinet the artists find that this new gospel has little to +offer them. Their sympathies go out, instead, to a different kind of +efficiency. The kind that bids fair to shatter their old lives to bits +and re-mold them nearer to the heart's desire is not industrial but +human. For inspiration it goes back of the age of Brandeis to the age +of Pericles. + +The enthusiasm for human efficiency is beginning to rival that for +industrial efficiency. Preventive medicine, public playgrounds, the +new health education, school hygiene, city planning, eugenics, housing +reform, the child-welfare and country-life movements, the cult of +exercise and sport--these all are helping to lower the death-rate and +enrich the life-rate the world over. Health has fought with smoke and +germs and is now in the air. It would be strange if the receptive +nature of the artist should escape the benignant infection. + +There is an excellent reason why human efficiency should appeal less +to the industrial than to the artistic worlds. Industry has a new +supply of human machines always available. Their initial cost is +nothing. So it pays to overwork them, scrap them promptly, and install +fresh ones. Thus it comes that the costly spinning machines in the +Southern mills are exquisitely cared for, while the cheap little boys +and girls who tie the broken threads are made to last an average four +or five years. In art it is different. The artist knows that he is, +like Swinburne's Hertha, at once the machine and the machinist. It is +dawning upon him that one chief reason why the old Greeks scaled +Parnassus so efficiently is that all the master-climbers got, and +kept, their human machines in good order for the climb. They trained +for the event as an Olympic athlete trains to-day for the Marathon. +One other reason why there was so much record-breaking in ancient +Greece is that the non-artists trained also, and thus, through their +heightened sympathy and appreciation of the master-climbers, became +masters by proxy. But that is another chapter. + +Why has art never again reached the Periclean plane? Chiefly because +the artist broke training when Greece declined, and has never since +then brought his body up to the former level of efficiency. + +Now, as the physiological psychologists assure us, the artist needs a +generous overplus of physical vitality. The art-impulse is a +brimming-over of the cups of mental and spiritual exuberance. And the +best way to insure this mental and spiritual overplus is to gain the +physical. The artist's first duty is to make his body as vim-full as +possible. He will soon find that he is greater than he knows. He will +discover that he has, until then, been walking the earth more than +half a corpse. With joy he will come to see that living in a glow of +health bears the same relation to merely not being sick that a plunge +in the cold salt surf bears to using a tepid wash-rag in a hall +bedroom. + +"All through the life of a feeble-bodied man, his path is lined with +memory's grave-stones which mark the spots where noble enterprises +perished for lack of physical vigor to embody them in deeds." Thus +wrote the educator, Horace Mann. And his words apply with special +force to the worker in the arts. One should bear in mind that the +latter is in a peculiar dilemma. His nerve-racking, confining, +exhausting work always tends to enfeeble and derange his body. But the +claims of the work are so exacting that it is no use for him to spare +intensity. Unless he is doing his utmost he had better be doing +nothing at all. And to do his utmost he must keep his body in that +supremely fit condition which the work itself is always tending to +destroy. The one lasting solution is for him to reduce his working +time to a safe maximum and increase his recreation and sleeping-time +to a safe minimum, and to train "without haste, without rest." + +"The first requisite to great intellectuality in a man is to be a +good animal," says Maxim the inventor. Hamerton, in his best-known +book, offers convincing proof that overflowing health is one of the +first essentials of genius; and shows how triumphant a part it played +in the careers of such mighty men of intellectual valor as Leonardo da +Vinci, Kant, Wordsworth, and Sir Walter Scott. + +Is the reader still unconvinced that physical exuberance is necessary +to the artist? Then let him read biography and note the paralyzing +effect upon the biographees of sickness and half sickness and three +quarter wellness. He will see that, as a rule, the masters have done +their most telling and lasting work with the tides of physical vim at +flood. For the genius is no Joshua. He cannot make the sun of the mind +and the moon of the spirit stand still while the tides of health are +ebbing seaward. Indeed biography should not be necessary to convince +the fair-minded reader. Autobiography should answer. Just let him +glance back over his own experience and say whether he has not +thought his deepest thoughts and performed his most brilliant deeds +under the intoxication of a stimulant no less heady than that of +exuberant health. + +There is, of course, the vexed question of the sickly genius. My +personal belief is firm that, as a rule, he has won his triumphs +_despite_ bad health, and not--as some like to imagine--because of bad +health. To this rule there are a few often cited exceptions. Now, no +one can deny that there is a pathological brilliance of good cheer in +the works of Stevenson and other tubercular artists. The white plague +is a powerful mental stimulant. It is a double-distilled extract of +baseless optimism. But this optimism, like that resulting from other +stimulants, is dearly bought. Its shrift is too short. And let nobody +forget that for each variety of pathological optimism and brilliance +and beauty there are ninety and nine corresponding sorts of +pathological pessimism and dullness and ugliness induced by disorders +of the liver, heart, stomach, brain, skin, and so on without end. + +The thing for artists to do is to find out what physical conditions +make for the best art in the long run, and then secure these +conditions in as short a run as possible. If tuberculosis makes for +it, then by all means let those of us who are sincerely devoted to art +be inoculated without delay. If the family doctor refuses to oblige, +all we have to do is to avoid fresh air, kiss indiscriminately, +practice a systematic neglect of colds, and frequent the subway during +rush hours. If alcohol makes for the best art, let us forthwith be +admitted to the bar--the stern judgment bar where each solitary +drinker is arraigned. For it is universally admitted that in art, +quality is more important than quantity. "If that powerful corrosive, +alcohol, only makes us do a little first-class work, what matter if it +corrode us to death immediately afterwards? We shall have had our +day." Thus many a gallant soul argues. But is there not another ideal +which is as far above mere quality as quality is above mere quantity? +I think there is. It is quantity of quality. And quantity of quality +is exactly the thing that cannot brook the corrosiveness of powerful +stimulants. + +I am not satisfied, however, that stimulants make entirely for the +fine quality of even the short shrift. To my ear, tubercular optimism, +when thumped on the chest, sounds a bit hollow. It does not ring quite +as true as healthy optimism because one feels in the long run its +automatic, pathological character. Thus tubercular, alcoholized, and +drugged art may often be recognized by its somewhat artificial, +unhuman, abnormal quality. I believe that if the geniuses who have +done their work under the influence of these stimulants had, instead, +trained sound bodies as for an Olympic victory, the arts would to-day +be the richer in quantity of quality. On this point George Meredith +wrote a trenchant word in a letter to W. G. Collins: + + I think that the notion of drinking any kind of alcohol as a + stimulant for intellectual work can have entered the minds + of those only who snatch at the former that they may + conceive a fictitious execution of the latter. Stimulants + may refresh, and may even temporarily comfort, the body + after labor of brain; they do not help it--not even in the + lighter kinds of labor. They unseat the judgment, pervert + vision. Productions, cast off by the aid of the use of them, + are but flashy, trashy stuff--or exhibitions of the + prodigious in wildness or grotesque conceit, of the kind + which Hoffman's tales give, for example; he was one of the + few at all eminent, who wrote after drinking. + +To reinforce the opinion of the great Englishman I cannot forbear +giving that of an equally great American: + + Never [wrote Emerson] can any advantage be taken of nature + by a trick. The spirit of the world, the great calm presence + of the Creator, comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or + of wine. The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple + soul in a clean and chaste body.... The poet's habit of + living should be set on so low a key that the common + influences should delight him. His cheerfulness should be + the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his + inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water. + +In other words, the artist should keep himself in a condition so fit +as to need no other stimulant than his own exuberance. But this should +always flow as freely as beer at a college reunion. And there should +always be plenty in reserve. It were well to consider whether there is +not some connection between decadent art and decadent bodies. A friend +of mine recently attended a meeting of decadent painters and reported +that he could not find a chin or a forehead in the room. + +One reason why so many of the world's great since Greece have +neglected to store up an overplus of vitality is that exercise is +well-nigh indispensable thereto; and exercise has not seemed to them +sufficiently dignified. We are indebted to the dark ages for this dull +superstition. It was then that the monasteries built gloomy granite +greenhouses for the flower of the world's intellect, that it might +deteriorate in the darkness and perish without reproducing its kind. +The monastic system held the body a vile thing, and believed that to +develop and train it was beneath the dignity of the spiritually elect. +So flagellation was substituted for perspiration, much as, in the +Orient, scent is substituted for soap--and with no more satisfactory +result. This false notion of dignity has since then, by keeping men +out of flannels, gymnasium suits, running-tights, and overalls, +performed prodigies in the work of blighting the flowers of the mind +and stunting the fruit trees of the spirit. + +To-day, however, we are escaping from the old superstition. We begin +to see that there is no complete dignity for man without a dignified +physique; and that there is no physical dignity to compare with that +of the hard-trained athlete. True, he who trains can hardly keep up +the old-time pose of the grand old man or the grand young man. He must +perforce be more human and natural. But this sort of grandeur is now +going out of fashion. And its absence must show to advantage in his +work. + +As a rule the true artist is a most devoted and self-sacrificing +person. Ever since the piping times of Pericles he has usually been +willing to sacrifice to the demands of his art most of the things he +enjoys excepting poor health. Wife, children, friends, credit--all may +go by the board. But his poor health he addresses with solemn, +scriptural loyalty: "Whither thou goest I will go: and where thou +lodgest I will lodge. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I +be buried." Not that he enjoys the misery incidental to poor health. +But he most thoroughly enjoys a number of its causes. Sitting up too +late at night is what he enjoys; smoking too much, drinking too much, +yielding to the exhausting sway of the divine efflatus for longer +hours at a time than he has any business to, bolting unbalanced meals, +and so on. + +But the artist is finding out that poor health is the very first +enjoyment which he ought to sacrifice; that the sacrifice is by no +means as heroic as it appears; and that, once it is accomplished, the +odds are that all the other things he thought he must offer up may be +added unto him through his own increased efficiency. + +No doubt, all this business of regimen, of constant alertness and +petty self-sacrifice, is bound to grow irksome before it settles down +in life and becomes habitual. But what does a little irksomeness +count--or even a great deal of irksomeness--as against the long, deep +thrill of doing better than you thought you ever knew how--of going +from strength to strength and creating that which will elevate and +delight mankind long after the pangs of installing regimen are +forgotten and you have once and for all broken training and laid you +down to sleep over? + +The reason why great men and women are so often cynical about their +own success is this: they have been so immoderate in their enjoyment +of poor health that when the hour of victory comes, they lack the +exuberance and self-restraint essential to the savoring of +achievement or of any other pleasure. I believe that the successful +invalid is more apt to be cynical about his success than the healthy +failure about his failure. The latter is usually an optimist. But this +is a hard belief to substantiate. For the perfectly healthy failure +does not grow on every bush. + +If only the physical conscientiousness of the Greeks had never been +allowed to die out, the world to-day would be manifoldly a richer, +fairer, and more inspiring place. As it is, we shall never be able to +reckon up our losses in genius: in Shakespeares whose births were +frustrated by the preventable illness or death of their possible +parents; in Schuberts who sickened or died from preventable causes +before they had delivered a note of their message; in Giorgiones whom +a suicidally ignorant conduct of physical life condemned to have their +work cheapened and curtailed. What overwhelming losses has art not +sustained by having the ranks of its artists and their most creative +audiences decimated by the dullness of mediocre health! It is hard to +endure the thought of what the geniuses of the modern world might have +been able to accomplish if only they had lived and trained like +athletes and been treated with a small part of the practical +consideration and live sympathy which humanity bestows on a favorite +ball-player or prize-fighter. + +To-day there is still a vast amount of superstition arrayed against +the truth that fullness of life and not grievous necessity is the +mother of artistic invention. Necessity is, of course, only the +stepmother of invention. But men like to convince themselves that +sickness and morbidity are good for the arts, just as they delightedly +embrace the conviction, and hold it with a death-grip, that a life of +harassing poverty and anxious preoccupation is indispensable to the +true poet. The circumstance that this belief runs clean counter to the +showing of history does not embarrass them. Convinced against their +will, most people are of the same opinion still. And they +enthusiastically assault and batter any one who points out the truth, +as I shall endeavor to do in chapter eight. + +Even if the ideal of physical efficiency had been revived as little as +a century ago, how much our world would be the gainer! If Richard +Wagner had only known how and what to eat and how to avoid catching +cold every other month, we would not have so many dull, dreary places +to overlook in "The Ring," and would, instead, have three or four more +immortal tone-dramas than his colds and indigestions gave him time to +write. One hates to think what Poe might have done in literature if he +had taken a cure and become a chip of the old oaken bucket. +Tuberculosis, they now say, is preventable. If only they had said so +before the death of Keats!... + +It makes one lose patience to think how Schiller shut himself up in a +stuffy closet of a room all day with his exhausting work; and how the +sole recreation he allowed himself during the week was a solemn game +of _l'hombre_ with the philosopher Schelling. And then he wondered +why he could not get on with his writing and why he was forever +catching cold (_einen starken Schnupfen_); and why his head was so +thick half the time that he couldn't do a thing with it. In his +correspondence with Goethe it is exasperating to observe that these +great poets kept so little reserve vim in stock that a slight change +of temperature or humidity, or even a dark day, was enough to overdraw +their health account and bankrupt their work. How glorious it would +have been if they had only stored up enough exuberance to have made +them health magnates, impervious to the slings and arrows of +outrageous February, and able to snap their fingers and flourish +inspired quills in the face of a vile March! In that case their +published works might not, perhaps, have gained much in bulk, but the +masterpieces would now surely represent a far larger proportion of +their _Sämmtliche Werke_ than they do. And the second part of "Faust" +would not, I think, contain that lament about the flesh so seldom +having wings to match those of the spirit. + + "Ach! zu des Geistes Flügeln wird so leicht + Kein korperlicher Flügel sich gesellen." + +Some of the most opulent and powerful spirits ever seen on earth have +scarcely done more than indicate what kind of birthrights they +bartered away for a mess of pottage. Coleridge, for example, ceased to +write poetry after thirty because, by dissipating his overplus of +life, he had too grievously wronged what he described as + + "This body that does me grievous wrong." + +After all, there are comparatively few masters, since the glory that +was Greece, who have not half buried their talents in the earthy +darkness of mediocre health. When we survey the army of modern genius, +how little of the sustained ring and resilience and triumphant +immortal youth of real exuberance do we find there! Instead of a band +of sound, alert, well-equipped soldiers of the mind and spirit, +behold a sorry-looking lot of stragglers painfully limping along with +lack-luster eyes, or eyes bright with the luster of fever. And the +people whom they serve are not entirely free from blame. They have +neglected to fill the soldiers' knapsacks, or put shirts on their +backs. As for footgear, it is the usual campaign army shoe, made of +blotting paper--the shoe that left red marks behind it at Valley Forge +and Gettysburg and San Juan Hill. I believe that a better time is +coming and that the real renaissance of creative art is about to dawn. +For we and our army of artists are now beginning to see that if the +artist is completely to fulfill his function he must be able to +run--not alone with patience, but also with the brilliance born of +abounding vitality--the race that is set before him. This dawning +belief is the greatest hope of modern art. + +It does one good to see how artists, here, there, and everywhere, are +beginning to grow enthusiastic over the new-old gospel of bodily +efficiency, and physically to "revive the just designs of Greece." The +encouraging thing is that the true artist who once finds what an +impulse is given his work by rigorous training, is never content to +slump back to his former vegetative, death-in-life existence. His +daily prayer has been said in a single line by a recent American poet: + + "Life, grant that we may live until we die." + +In every way the artist finds himself the gainer by cutting down his +hours of work to the point where he never loses his reserve of energy. +He now is beginning to take absolute--not merely relative--vacations, +and more of them. For he remembers that no man's work--not even +Rembrandt's or Beethoven's or Shakespeare's--is ever _too_ good; and +that every hour of needed rest or recreation makes the ensuing work +better. It is being borne in on the artist that a health-book like +Fisher's "Making Life Worth While" is of as much professional value to +him as many a treatise on the practice of his craft. Insight into the +physiological basis of his life-work can save the artist, it seems, +from those periods of black despair which he once used to employ in +running his head against a concrete wall, and raging impotently +because he could not butt through. Now, instead of laying his futility +to a mysteriously malignant fate, or to the persecution of secret +enemies, he is likely to throw over stimulants and late hours and take +to the open road, the closed squash-court, and the sleeping-porch. And +presently armies cannot withhold him from joyful, triumphant labor. + +The artist is finding that exuberance, this Open Sesame to the things +that count, may not be won without the friendly collaboration of the +pores; and that two birds of paradise may be killed with one stone +(which is precious above rubies) by giving the mind fun while one +gives the pores occupation. Sport is this precious stone. There is, of +course, something to be said for sportless exercise. It is fairly +good for the artist to perform solemn antics in a gymnasium class, to +gesture impassionedly with dumb-bells, and tread the mill of the +circular running-track. But it is far better for him to go in with +equal energy for exercise which, while developing the body, re-creates +the mind and spirit. That kind of exercise is best, in my opinion, +which offers plenty of variety and humor and the excitement of +competition. I mean games like tennis, baseball, handball, golf, +lacrosse, and polo, and sports like swift-water canoeing and +fly-fishing, boxing, and fencing. These take the mind of the artist +quite away from its preoccupations and then restore it to them, unless +he has taken too much of a good thing, with a fresh viewpoint and a +zest for work. + +Sport is one of the chief makers of exuberance because of its purging, +exhilarating, and constructive effects on body, mind, and spirit. So +many contemporary artists are being converted to sport that the +artistic type seems to be changing under our eyes. It was only +yesterday that the worker in literature, sculpture, painting, or +music was a sickly, morbid, anæmic, peculiar specimen, distrusted at +sight by the average man, and a shining mark for all the cast-off wit +of the world. Gilbert never tired of describing him in "Patience." He +was a "foot-in-the-grave young man," or a "_Je-ne-sais-quoi_ young +man." He was + + "A most intense young man, + A soulful-eyed young man. + An ultra-poetical, superæsthetical, Out-of-the-way young man." + +To-day, what a change! Where is this young man? Most of his ilk have +accompanied the snows of yester-year. And a goodly proportion of those +who make merry in their room are sure-eyed, well set-up, ruddy, +muscular chaps, about whom the average man may jeer and quote +slanderous doggerel only at his peril. But somehow or other the +average man likes this new type better and does not want to jeer at +him, but goes and buys his work instead. + +Faint though distinct, one begins to hear the new note of exuberance +spreading through the arts. On canvas it registers the fact that the +painters are migrating in hordes to live most of the year in the open +country. It vibrates in the sparkling tone of the new type of musical +performer like Willeke, the 'cellist. Like a starter's pistol it +sounds out of the writings of hard-trained men of the hour like John +Masefield and Alfred Noyes. One has only to compare the overflowing +life and sanity of workers like these with the condition of the +ordinary "Out-of-the-way young man" to see what a gulf yawns between +exuberance and exhaustion, between absolute sanity and a state +somewhere on the sunny side of mild insanity. And I believe that as +yet we catch only a faint glimpse of the glories of the physical +renaissance. Wait until this new religion of exuberance is a few +generations older and eugenics has said her say! + +Curiously enough, the decadent artists who pride themselves on their +extreme modernity are the ones who now seem to cling with the most +reactionary grip to the old-fashioned, invertebrate type of physique. +The rest are in a fair way to undergo such a change as came to Queed, +the sedentary hero of Mr. Harrison's novel, when he took up boxing. As +sport and the artists come closer together, they should have a good +effect on one another. The artists will doubtless make sport more +formful, rhythmical, and beautiful. Sport, on the other hand, ought +before long to influence the arts by making sportsmen of the artists. + +Now good sportsmanship is composed of fairness, team-work, the grace +of a good loser, the grace of a good winner, modesty, and gameness. +The first two of these amount to an equitable passion for a fair field +and no favor, and a willingness to subordinate star-play, or personal +gain, to team-play, or communal gain. Together they imply a feeling +for true democracy. To be converted to the religion of sportsmanship +means to become more socially minded. I think it is more than a +coincidence that at the moment when the artists are turning to sport, +their work is taking on the brotherly tone of democracy. The call of +brotherhood is to-day one of the chief preoccupations of poetry, the +drama, ideal sculpture, and mural decoration. For this rapid change I +should not wonder if the democracy of sportsmanship were in part +responsible. + +The third element of sportsmanship is the grace of a good loser. +Artists to-day are better losers than were the "foot-in-the-grave +young men." Among them one now finds less and less childish petulance, +outspoken jealousy of others' success, and apology for their own +failure. Some of this has been shamed out of them by discovering that +the good sportsman never apologizes or explains away his defeat. And +they are importing these manly tactics into the game of art. It has +not taken them long to see how ridiculous an athlete makes himself who +hides behind the excuse of sickness or lack of training. They are +impressed by the way in which the non-apologetic spirit is invading +the less athletic games, even down to such a sedentary affair as +chess. This remarkable rule, for example, was proposed in the recent +chess match between Lasker and Capablanca: + + Illness shall not interfere with the playing of any game, on + the ground that it is the business of the players so to + train themselves that their bodies shall be in perfect + condition; and it is their duty, which by this rule is + enforced, to study their health and live accordingly. + +The fourth factor of sportsmanship is the grace of a good winner. It +would seem as though the artist were learning not only to keep from +gloating over his vanquished rival, but also to be generous and +minimize his own victory. In Gilbert's day the failure did all the +apologizing. To-day less apologizing is done by the failure and more +by the success. The master in art is learning modesty, and from whom +but the master in sport? There are in the arts to-day fewer +megalomaniacs and persons afflicted with delusions of grandeur than +there were among the "_Je-ne-sais-quoi_ young men." Sport has made +them more normal spiritually, while making them more normal +physically. It has kept them younger. Old age has been attacked and +driven back all along the line. One reason why we no longer have so +many grand old men is that we no longer have so many old men. Instead +we have numbers of octogenarian sportsmen like the late Dr. S. Weir +Mitchell, who have not yet been caught by the arch-reactionary +fossil-collector, Senility. This is a fair omen for the future of +progress. "If only the leaders of the world's thought and emotion," +writes Bourne in "Youth," "can, by caring for the physical basis, keep +themselves young, why, the world will go far to catching up with +itself and becoming contemporaneous." + +Gameness is the final factor of good sportsmanship. In the matter of +gameness, I grant that sport has little to teach the successful +artist. For it takes courage, dogged persistence, resiliency--in +short, the never-say-die spirit to succeed in any of the arts. It +takes the Browning spirit of those who + + "fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake." + +It takes the typical Anglo-Saxon gameness of Johnny Armstrong of the +old ballad: + + "Said John, 'Fight on, my merry men all. + I am a little hurt, but I am not slain; + I will lay me down for to bleed a while, + And then I'll rise and fight with you again.'" + +Yes, but what of the weaker brothers and sisters in art who have not +yet succeeded--perhaps for want of these very qualities? I believe +that a newly developed spirit of sportsmanship, acting upon a newly +developed body, will presently bring to many a disheartened struggler +just that increment of resilient gameness which will mean success +instead of failure. + +Thus, while our artists show a tendency to hark back to the Greek +physical ideal, they are not harking backward but forward when they +yield to the mental and spiritual influences of sportsmanship. For +this spirit was unknown to the ancient world. Until yesterday art and +sportsmanship never met. But now that they are mating I am confident +that there will come of this union sons and daughters who shall +joyfully obey the summons that is still ringing down to us over the +heads of the anæmic contemporaries of the exuberant old sportsman, +Walt Whitman: + + "Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! + Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for, + But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than + before known, + Arouse! for you must justify me." + + + + +VII + +PRINTED JOY + + _The old joy which makes us more debtors to poetry than + anything else in life._ + +RALPH WALDO EMERSON. + + +America is trying to emerge from the awkward age. Its body is +full-grown. Its spirit is still crude with a juvenile crudity. What +does this spirit need? Next to contact with true religion, it most +needs contact with true poetry. It needs to absorb the grace, the +wisdom, the idealistic beauty of the art, and thrill in rhyme with +poetry's profound, spiritual insights. + +The promising thing is that America is beginning to do exactly this +to-day. The entire history of our enjoyment of poetry might be summed +up in that curious symbol which appears over the letter _n_ in the +word "cañon." A rise, a fall, a rise. Here is the whole story of the +American poetry-lover. His enthusiasm first reached a high point +about the middle of the nineteenth century. A generation later it fell +into a swift decline. But three or four years ago it began to revive +so rapidly that a poetry-lover's renaissance is now a reality. This +renaissance has not yet been explained, although the majority of +readers and writers feel able to tell why poetry declined. Let us +glance at a few of the more popular explanations. + +Many say that poetry declined in America because we turned ourselves +into a nation of entirely prosaic materialists. But if this is true, +how do they explain our present national solicitude for song-birds and +waterfalls, for groves of ancient trees, national parks, and +city-planning? How do they explain the fact that our annual +expenditure on the art of music is six times that of Germany, the +Fatherland of Tone? And how do they account for the flourishing +condition of some of our other arts? If we are hopelessly +materialistic, why should American painters and sculptors have such a +high world-standing? And why should their strongest, most original, +most significant work be precisely in the sphere of poetic, suggestive +landscape, and ideal sculpture? The answer is self-evident. It is no +utterly prosaic age, and people that founded our superb orchestras, +that produced and supported Winslow Homer, Tryon, and Woodbury, +French, Barnard, and Saint Gaudens. A more poetic hand than Wall +Street's built St. Thomas's and the cathedral, terminals and towers of +New York, Trinity Church in Boston, the Minnesota State Capitol, Bar +Harbor's Building of Arts, West Point, and Princeton University. It is +plain that our poetic decline was not wholly due to materialism. + +Other philosophers are sure that whatever was the matter with poetry +was the fault of the poets themselves. Popular interest slackened, +they say, because the art first degenerated. Now an obvious answer to +this is that no matter how dead the living poets of any age become, +men may always turn, if they will, to those dead poets of old who live +forever on their shelves. But let us grant for the sake of argument +that any decline of contemporary poets is bound to effect +poetry-lovers in some mysteriously disastrous way. And let us recall +the situation back there in the seventies when the ebb of poetic +appreciation first set in. At that time Whittier, Holmes, Emerson, and +Whitman had only just topped the crest of the hill of accomplishment, +and the last-named was as yet no more generally known than was the +rare genius of the young Lanier. Longfellow, who remains even to-day +the most popular of our poets, was still in full swing. Lowell was in +his prime. Thus it appears that public appreciation, and not creative +power, was the first to trip and topple down the slopes of the +Parnassian hill. Not until then did the poet come "tumbling after." + +Moreover, in the light of modern æsthetic psychology, this seems the +more natural order of events. It takes two to make a work of art: one +to produce, one to appreciate. The creative appreciator is a +correlative of all artistic expression. It is almost impossible for +the artist to accomplish anything amid the destructive atmosphere +exhaled by the ignorant, the stupid, the indifferent, the callous, or +the actively hostile. It follows that the demand for poetry is created +no more by the supply than the supply is created by the demand. Thus +the general indifference to this one department of American art was +_not_ primarily caused by the degenerating supply. + +The decline and fall of our poetic empire have yet other Gibbons who +say that our civilization suddenly changed from the country to the +urban type, and that our love of poetry began to disappear +simultaneously with the general exodus from the countryside and the +mushroom growth of the large cities. So far I agree; but not with +their reason. For they say that poetry declined because cities are +such dreadfully unpoetic things; because they have become synonymous +only with riveting-machines and the kind of building that the Germans +call the "heaven-scratcher," with elevated railways, "sand hogs," +whirring factories, and alleys reeking with the so-called "dregs" of +Europe. They claim that the new and hopelessly vulgar creed of the +modern city is epitomized by such things as a certain signboard in New +York, which offers a typically neo-urban solution of the old problem, +"What is art?" + --------------- + | PARAGON PANTS | + | ARE ART | + --------------- + +the board declares. And this, they say, is about as poetic as a large +city ever becomes. + +Now let us glance for a moment at the poems in prose and verse of Mr. +James Oppenheim, a young man for whom a metropolis is almost +completely epitomized by the riveting-machine, the sweat-shop, and +the slum. There we discover that this poet's vision has pierced +straight through the city's veneer of ugly commonplace to the beauty +shimmering beneath. In his eyes the sinewy, heroic forms of the +builders, clinging high on their frail scaffoldings and nonchalantly +hurling red-hot rivets through space, are so many young gods at play +with elemental forces. The sweat-shop is transmuted into as grim and +glorious a battlefield as any Tours or Gettysburg of them all. And the +dingy, battered old "L" train, as it clatters through the East Side +early on "morose, gray Monday morning," becomes a divine chariot + + "winging through Deeps of the Lord with its eighty Earth-anchored + Souls." + +Oh, yes; there is "God's plenty" of poetry in these sights and sounds, +if only one looks deep enough to discover the beauty of homeliness. +But there is even more of beauty and poetic inspiration to be drawn +from the city by him who, instead of thus straitly confining his gaze +to any one aspect of urban life, is able to see it steadily and see it +whole, with its subtle _nuances_ and its over-powering dramatic +contrasts--as a twentieth-century Walt Whitman, for example, might see +it if he had a dash of Tennyson's technical equipment, of Arnold's +sculpturesque polish and restraint, of Lanier's instinct for sensuous +beauty. What "songs greater than before known" might such a poet not +sing as he wandered close to precious records of the Anglo-Saxon +culture of the race amid the stately colonial peace and simplicity of +St. Mark's church-yard, with the vividly colored life of all +southeastern Europe surging about that slender iron fence--children of +the blood of Chopin and Tschaikowsky; of Gutenberg, Kossuth, and +Napoleon; of Isaiah and Plato, Leonardo and Dante--with the wild +strains of the gypsy orchestra floating across Second Avenue, and to +the southward a glimpse aloft in a rarer, purer air of builders +clambering on the cupola of a neighboring Giotto's tower built of +steel? Who dares say that the city is unpoetic? _It is one of the most +poetic places on earth._ + +These, then, are the chief explanations which have been offered us +to-day of the historic decline of the American poetry-lover. We weigh +them, and find them wanting. Why? Because they have sought, like +radiographers, far beneath the surface; whereas the real trouble has +been only skin deep. I shall try to show the nature of this trouble; +and how, by beginning to cure it, we have already brought on a poetic +renaissance. + +Most of us who care for poetry frequently have one experience in +common. During our summer vacations in the country we suddenly +re-discover the well-thumbed "Golden Treasury" of Palgrave, and the +"Oxford Book of Verse" which have been so unaccountably neglected +during the city winter. We wander farther into the poetic fields and +revel in Keats and Shakespeare. We may even attempt once more to get +beyond the first book of the "Faërie Queene," or fumble again at the +combination lock which seems to guard the meaning of the second part +of "Faust." And we find these occupations so invigorating and joyful +that we model and cast an iron resolution to the effect that this +winter, whatever betide, we will read a little poetry every day, or +every week, as the case may be. On that we plunge back into the +beautiful, poetic, inspiring city, and adhere to our poetry-reading +program--for exactly a fortnight. Then, unaccountably, our resolve +begins to slacken. We cannot seem to settle our minds to ordered +rhythms "where more is meant than meets the ear." Our resolve +collapses. Once again Palgrave is covered with dust. But vacation time +returns. After a few days in green pastures and beside still waters +the soul suddenly turns like a homing-pigeon to poetry. And the old, +perplexing cycle begins anew. + +A popular magazine once sent a certain young writer and ardent +amateur of poetry on a long journey through the Middle West. He took +but one book in his bag. It was by Whitman (the poet of cities, mark). +And he determined to read it every evening in his bedroom after the +toils of the day. The first part of the trip ran in the country. +"Afoot and light-hearted" he took to the open road every morning, and +reveled every evening in such things as "Manahatta," "The Song of +Joys," and "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Then he carried his poet of +cities to a city. But the two would have nothing to do with one +another. And to the traveler's perplexity, a place no larger than +Columbus, Ohio, put a violent end to poetry on that trip. + +In our day most poetry-lovers have had such experiences. These have +been hard to explain, however, only because their cause has been +probed for too profoundly. _The chief cause of the decline of poetry +was not spiritual but physical._ Cities are not unpoetic in spirit. It +is only in the physical sense that Emerson's warning is true: "If +thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York ... thou shalt find no +radiance of meaning in the lonely wastes of the pine woods." The +trouble was this: that the modern type of city, when it started into +being, back in the seventies, began to take from men, and to use up, +that margin of nervous energy, that exuberant overplus of vitality of +which so much has already been said in this book, and which is always +needed for the true appreciation of poetry. Grant Allen has shown that +man, when he is conscious of a superfluity of sheer physical strength, +gives himself to play; and in like manner, when he is conscious of a +superfluity of receptive power, _which has a physical basis_, he gives +himself to art. + +Now, though all of the arts demand of their appreciators this overplus +of nervous energy (and Heaven knows perfectly well how inadequate a +supply is offered up to music and the arts of design!), yet the +appreciation of poetry above that of the sister arts demands this +bloom on the cheek of existence. For poetry, with quite as much of +emotional demand as the others, combines a considerably greater and +more persistent intellectual demand, involving an unusual amount of +physical wear and tear. Hence, in an era of overstrain, poetry is the +first of the arts to suffer. + +Most lovers of poetry must realize, when they come to consider it, +that their pleasure in verse rises and falls, like the column of +mercury in a barometer, with the varying levels of their physical +overplus. Physical overplus, however, is the thing which life in a +modern city is best calculated to keep down. + +Surely it was no mere coincidence that, back there in the seventies, +just at the edge of the poetic decline, city life began to grow so +immoderately in volume and to be "speeded up" and "noised up" so +abruptly that it took our bodies by surprise. This process has kept on +so furiously that the bodies of most of us have never been able to +catch up. No large number have yet succeeded in readjusting +themselves completely to the new pace of the city. And this continues +to exact from most of us more nervous energy than any life may, which +would keep us at our best. Hence, until we have succeeded either in +accomplishing the readjustment, or in spending more time in the +country, the appreciation of poetry has continued to suffer. + +Even in the country, it is, of course, perfectly true that life spins +faster now than it used to--what with telephones and inter-urban +trolleys, the motor, and the R.F.D. But this rural progress has +arrived with no such stunning abruptness as to outdistance our powers +of readjustment. When we go from city to country we recede to a rate +of living with which our nervous systems can comfortably fall in, and +still control for the use of the mind and spirit a margin of that +delicious vital bloom which resembles the ring of the overtones in +some beautiful voice. + +But how is it practicable to keep this margin in the city, when the +roar of noisy traffic over noisy pavements, the shrieks of newsboy and +peddler, the all-pervading chronic excitement, the universal +obligation to "step lively," even at a funeral, are every instant +laying waste our conscious or unconscious powers? How are we to give +the life of the spirit its due of poetry when our precious margin is +forever leaking away through lowered vitality and even sickness due to +lack of sleep, unhygienic surroundings, constant interruption (or the +expectation thereof), and the impossibility of relaxation owing to the +never-ending excitement and interest and sexual stimulus of the great +human pageant--its beauty and suggestiveness? + +Apart from the general destruction of the margin of energy, one +special thing that the new form of city life does to injure poetry is +to keep uppermost in men's consciousness a feverish sense of the +importance of the present moment. We might call this sense the +journalistic spirit of the city. How many typical metropolitans one +knows who are forever in a small flutter of excitement over whatever +is just happening, like a cub reporter on the way to his first fire, +or a neuræsthete--if one may coin a word--who perceives a spider on +her collarette. This habit of mind soon grows stereotyped, and is, of +course, immensely stimulated by the multitudinous editions of our +innumerable newspapers. The city gets one to living so intensely in +the present minute, and often in the very most sensational second of +that minute, that one grows impatient of the "olds," and comes to +regard a constantly renewed and increased dose of "news" as the only +present help in a chronic time of trouble. This is a kind of mental +drug-habit. And its origin is physical. It is a morbid condition +induced by the over-paced life of cities. + +Long before the rise of the modern city--indeed, more than a century +ago--Goethe, who was considerably more than a century ahead of his +age, wrote to Schiller from Frankfort of the journalistic spirit of +cities and its relation to poetry: + + It seems to me very remarkable how things stand with the + people of a large city. They live in a constant delirium of + getting and consuming, and the thing we call atmosphere can + neither be brought to their attention nor communicated to + them. All recreations, even the theater, must be mere + distractions; and the great weakness of the reading public + for newspapers and romances comes just from the fact that + the former always, and the latter generally, brings + distraction into the distraction. Indeed, I believe that I + have noticed a sort of dislike of poetic productions--or at + least in so far as they _are_ poetic--which seems to me to + follow quite naturally from these very causes. Poetry + requires, yes, it absolutely commands, concentration. It + isolates man against his own will. It forces itself upon him + again and again; and is as uncomfortable a possession as a + too constant mistress. + +If this reporter's attitude of mind was so rampant in cultivated urban +Germany a century ago as to induce "a sort of dislike of poetic +productions," what sort of dislike of them must it not be inducing +to-day? For the appreciation of poetry cannot live under the same +roof with the journalistic spirit. The art needs long, quiet vistas +backward and forward, such as are to be had daily on one of those +"lone heaths" where Hazlitt used to love to stalk ideas, but such as +are not to be met with in Times Square or the Subway. + +The joyful side of the situation is that this need is being met. A few +years ago the city dwellers of America began to return to nature. The +movement spread until every one who could afford it, habitually fled +from the city for as long a summer outing as possible. More and more +people learned the delightful sport of turning an abandoned farm into +a year-round country estate. The man who was tied to a city office +formed the commuting habit, thus keeping his wife and children +permanently away from the wear and tear of town. The suburban area was +immensely increased by the rapid spread of motoring. + +Thus, it was recently made possible for hundreds of thousands of +Americans to live, at least a considerable part of the year, where +they could hoard up an overplus of vitality. The result was that these +well-vitalized persons, whenever they returned to the city, were +better able to stand--and adjust themselves to--the severe urban pace, +than were the fagged city people. It was largely by the impact of this +new vitality that the city was roused to the importance of physical +efficiency, so that it went in for parks, gymnasia, baths, health and +welfare campaigns, athletic fields, playgrounds, Boy Scouts, Campfire +Girls, and the like. + +There are signs everywhere that we Americans have, by wise living, +begun to win back the exuberance which we lost at the rise of the +modern city. One of the surest indications of this is the fact that +the nation has suddenly begun to read poetry again, very much as the +exhausted poetry-lover instinctively turns again to his Palgrave +during the third week of vacation. In returning to neglected nature we +are returning to the most neglected of the arts. The renaissance of +poetry is here. And men like Masefield, Noyes, and Tagore begin to +vie in popularity with the moderately popular novelists. Moreover this +is only the beginning. Aviation has come and is reminding us of the +ancient prophecy of H. G. Wells that the suburbs of a city like New +York will now soon extend from Washington to Albany. Urban centers are +being diffused fast; but social-mindedness is being diffused faster. +Men are wishing more and more to share with each brother man the +brimming cup of life. Aircraft and true democracy are on the way to +bear all to the land of perpetual exuberance. And on their wings the +poet will again mount to that height of authority and esteem from +which, in the healthful, athletic days of old, Homer and Sophocles +dominated the minds and spirits of their fellow-men. That is to +say--he will mount if we let him. In the following chapter I shall +endeavor to show why the American poet has as yet scarcely begun to +share in the poetry-renaissance. + + + + +VIII + +THE JOYFUL HEART FOR POETS + + _Nothing probably is more dangerous for the human race than + science without poetry, civilization without culture._ + +HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN. + + _A poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is + a joke._ + +MAX EASTMAN. + + +In the last two chapters we have seen the contemporary master of +various arts, and the reader of poetry, engaged in cultivating the +joyful heart. But there is one artist who has not yet been permitted +to join in this agreeable pastime. He is the American poet. And as his +inclusion would be an even more joyful thing for his land than for +himself, this book may not ignore him. + +The American poet has not yet begun to keep pace with the +poetry-lovers' renaissance. He is no very arresting figure; and +therefore you, reader, are already considering a skip to chapter nine. +Well, if you are no more interested in him or his possibilities than +is the average American consumer of British poetry--I counsel you by +all means to skip in peace. But if you are one of the few who discern +the promise of a vast power latent in the American poet, and would +gladly help in releasing this power for the good of the race, I can +show you what is the matter with him and what to do about it. + +Why has the present renaissance of the poetry-lover not brought with +it a renaissance of the American poet? Almost every reason but the +true one has been given. The true reason is that our poets are tired. +They became exhausted a couple of generations ago; and we have kept +them in this condition ever since. In the previous chapter we saw how +city life began abruptly to be speeded up in the seventies. At that +time the poet--like almost every one else in the city--was unable to +readjust his body at once to the new pace. He was like a six-day +bicycle racer who should be lapped in a sudden and continued sprint. +That sprint is still going on. Never again has the American poet felt +the abounding energy with which he began. And never has he overtaken +the leaders. + +The reason why the poet is tired is that he lives in the over-paced +city. The reason why he lives in the city is that he is chained to it +by the nature of his hack-work. And the reason for the hack-work is +that the poet is the only one of all the artists whose art almost +never offers him a living. He alone is forced to earn in other ways +the luxury of performing his appointed task in the world. For, as +Goethe once observed, "people are so used to regarding poetic talent +as a free gift of the gods that they think the poet should be as +free-handed with the public as the gods have been with him." + +The poet is tired. Great art, however, is not the product of +exhaustion, but of exuberance. It will have none of the skimmed milk +of mere existence. Nothing less than the thick, pure cream of +abounding vitality will do. The exhausted artist has but three +courses open to him: either to stimulate himself into a counterfeit, +and suicidally brief, exuberance; or to relapse into mediocrity; or to +gain a healthy fullness of life. + +In the previous chapter it was shown why poetry demands more +imperatively than any other art, that the appreciator shall bring to +it a margin of vitality. For a like reason poetry makes this same +inordinate demand upon its maker. It insists that he shall keep +himself even more keenly alive than the maker of music or sculpture, +painting or architecture. This is the reason why, in the present era +of overstrain, the poet's art has been so swift to succumb and so slow +to recuperate. + +The poet who is obliged to live in the city has not yet been able to +readjust his body to the pace of modern urban life, so that he may +live among its never-ending conscious and unconscious stimulations and +still keep on hand a triumphant reserve of vitality to pour into his +poems. Under these new and strenuous conditions, very little real +poetry has been written in our cities. American poets, despite their +genuine love of town and their struggles to produce worthy lines amid +its turmoil, have almost invariably done the best of their actually +creative work during the random moments that could be snatched in wood +and meadow, by weedy marsh or rocky headland. To his friends it was +touching to see with what wistfulness Richard Watson Gilder used to +seek his farm at Tyringham for a day or two of poetry after a +fortnight of furious office life. Even Walt Whitman--poet of cities +that he was--had to retire "precipitate" from his beloved Manahatta in +order fitly to celebrate her perfections. In fact, Stedman was perhaps +the only one of our more important singers at the close of the century +who could do his best work in defiance of Emerson's injunction to the +poet: "Thou shalt lie close hid with Nature, and canst not be afforded +to the Capitol or the Exchange." But it is pleasant to recall how +even that poetic banker brightened up and let his soul expand in the +peace of the country. + +One reason for the rapidly growing preponderance of women--and +especially of unmarried women--among our poetic leaders is, I think, +to be found in the fact that women, more often than men, command the +means of living for a generous portion of the year that vital, +unstrenuous, contemplative existence demanded by poetry as an +antecedent condition of its creation. It is a significant fact that, +according to Arnold Bennett, nearly all of the foremost English +writers live far from the town. Most of the more promising American +poets of both sexes, however, have of late had little enough to do +with the country. And the result is that the supreme songs of the +twentieth century have remained unsung, to eat out the hearts of their +potential singers. For fate has thrown most of our poets quite on +their own resources, so that they have been obliged to live in the +large cities, supporting life within the various kinds of hack-harness +into which the uncommercially shaped withers of Pegasus can be forced. +Such harness, I mean, as journalism, editing, compiling, reading for +publishers, hack-article writing, and so on. Fate has also seen to it +that the poet's make-up is seldom conspicuous by reason of a +bull-neck, pugilistic limbs, and the nervous equipoise of a +dray-horse. What he may lack in strength, however, he is apt to make +up in hectic ambition. Thus it often happens that when the city does +not consume quite all of his available energy, the poet, with his +probably inadequate physique, chafes against the hack-work and yields +to the call of the luring creative ideas that constantly beset him. +Then, after yielding, he chafes again, and more bitterly, at his +faint, imperfect expression of these dreams, recognizing in despair +that he has been creating a mere crude by-product of the strenuous +life about him. So he burns the torch of life at both ends, and the +superhuman speed of modern existence eats it through in the middle. +Then suddenly the light fails altogether. + +Those poets alone who have unusual physical endurance are able to do +even a small amount of steady, fine-grained work in the city. The rest +are as effectually debarred from it as factory children are debarred +from learning the violin well at the fag end of their days of toil. In +her autobiography Miss Jane Addams speaks some luminous words about +the state of society which forces finely organized artistic talent +into the wearing struggle for mere existence. She refers to it as "one +of the haunting problems of life; why do we permit the waste of this +most precious human faculty, this consummate possession of all +civilization? When we fail to provide the vessel in which it may be +treasured, it runs out upon the ground and is irretrievably lost." + +I wonder if we have ever stopped to ask ourselves why so many of our +more recent poets have died young. Was it the hand of God, or the +effort to do the work of two in a hostile environment, that struck +down before their prime such spirits as Sidney Lanier, Edward Rowland +Sill, Frederic Lawrence Knowles, Arthur Upson, Richard Hovey, William +Vaughn Moody, and the like? These were poets whom we bound to the +strenuous city, or at least to hack-work which sapped over-much of +their vitality. An old popular fallacy keeps insisting that genius +"will out." This is true, but only in a sadder sense than the stupidly +proverbial one. As a matter of fact, the light of genius is all too +easily blown out and trampled out by a blind and deaf world. But we of +America are loath to admit this. And if we do not think of genius as +an unquenchable flame, we are apt to think of it as an amazingly hardy +plant, more tough than horse-brier or cactus. Only a few of us have +yet begun to realize that the flower of genius is not the flower of an +indestructible weed, but of a fastidious exotic, which usually +demands good conditions for bare existence, and needs a really +excellent environment and constant tending if it is to thrive and +produce the finest possible blooms. Mankind has usually shown enormous +solicitude lest the man of genius be insufficiently supplied with that +trouble and sorrow which is supposed to be quite indispensable to his +best work. But here and there the thinkers are beginning to realize +that the irritable, impulsive, impractical nature of the genius, in +even the most favorable environment, is formed for trouble "as the +sparks to fly upward." They see that fortune has slain its hundreds of +geniuses, but trouble its ten thousands. And they conclude that their +own real solicitude should be, not lest the genius have too little +adversity to contend with, but lest he have too much. + +We have heard not a little about the conservation of land, ore, wood, +and water. The poetry problem concerns itself with an older sort of +conservation about which we heard much even as youngsters in college. +I mean the conservation of energy. Our poetry will never emerge from +the dusk until either the bodies of our city-prisoned poets manage to +overtake the speeding-up process and readjust themselves to it--or +until we allow them an opportunity to return for an appreciable part +of every year to the country--the place where the poet belongs. + +It is true that the masters of the other arts have not fared any too +well at our hands; but they do not need help as badly by far as the +poets need it. What with commissions and sales, scholarships, +fellowships, and substantial prizes, the painters and sculptors and +architects and even the musicians have, broadly speaking, been able to +learn and practise their art in that peace and security which is +well-nigh essential to all artistic apprenticeship and productive +mastery. They have usually been able to spend more of the year in the +country than the poet. And even when bound as fast as he to the city, +they have not been forced to choose between burning the candle at +both ends or abandoning their art. + +But for some recondite reason--perhaps because this art cannot be +taught at all--it has always been an accepted American conviction that +poetry is a thing which may be thrown off at any time as a side issue +by highly organized persons, most of whose time and strength and +faculties are engaged in a vigorous and engrossing hand-to-hand bout +with the wolf on the threshold--a most practical, philistine wolf, +moreover, which never heard of rhyme or rhythm, and whose whole +acquaintance with prosody is confined to a certain greedy familiarity +with frayed masculine and feminine endings. + +As a result of this common conviction our poets have almost invariably +been obliged to make their art a quite subsidiary and haphazard +affair, like the rearing of children by a mother who is forced to go +out and scrub from early morning till late at night and has to leave +little Johnnie tied in his high chair to be fed by an older sister on +crusts dabbled in the pot of cold coffee. No wonder that so much of +our verse "jest growed," like Topsy. And the resulting state of things +has but served to reinforce our belief that to make the race of poets +spend their days in correcting encyclopædia proof, or clerking, or +running, notebook in hand, to fires--inheres in the eternal fitness of +things. + +Bergson says in "Creative Evolution," that "an intelligence which +reflects is one that originally had a surplus of energy to spend, over +and above practically useful efforts." Does it not follow that when we +make the poet spend all his energy in the practically useful effort of +running to fires, we prevent him from enjoying the very advantage +which made man a reflective being, to say nothing of a poet? + +Perhaps we have never yet realized that this attitude of ours would +turn poetic success into a question of the survival of that paradox, +the commercially shrewd poet, or of the poet who by some happy +accident of birth or marriage has been given an income, or of that +prodigy of versatility who, in our present stage of civilization, +besides being mentally and spiritually fit for the poet's calling, is +also physically fit to bear the strain of doing two men's work; or, +perhaps we had better say, three men's--for simply being a good poet +is about as nerve-consuming an occupation as any two ordinary men +could support in common--and the third would have to run to fires for +the first two. + +It is natural to the character of the American business man to declare +that the professional poet has no reason for existence _qua_ poet +unless he can make his art support him. But let the business man bear +in mind that if he had the power to enforce such a condition, he would +be practically annihilating the art. For it is literally true that, if +plays were excluded, it would take not even a five-foot shelf to +contain all the first-rate poetry which was ever written by poets in a +state of poetic self-support. "Could a man live by it," the author of +"The Deserted Village" once wrote to Henry Goldsmith, "it were not +unpleasant employment to be a poet." Alas, the fatal condition! For +the art itself has almost never fed and clothed its devotee--at least +until his best creative days are done and he has become a "grand old +man." More often the poet has attained not even this reward. +Wordsworth's lines on Chatterton have a wider application: + + "What treasure found he? Chains and pains and sorrow-- + Yea, all the wealth those noble seekers find + Whose footsteps mark the music of mankind! + 'T was his to lend a life: 't was Man's to borrow: + 'T was his to make, but not to share, the morrow." + +Those who insist upon judging the art of poetry on the hard American +"cash basis" ought to be prepared, for the sake of consistency, to +apply the same criterion as well to colleges, public schools, symphony +orchestras, institutions for scientific research, missions, +settlements, libraries, and all other unlucrative educational +enterprises. With inexorable logic they should be prepared to insist +that people really do not desire or need knowledge or any sort of +uplift because they are not prepared to pay its full cost. It is +precisely this sort of logic which would treat the Son of Man if He +should appear among us, to a bench in Bryant Park, and a place in the +bread-line, and send the mounted police to ride down his socialistic +meetings in Union Square. No! poetry and most other forms of higher +education have always had to be subsidized--and probably always will. +When wisely subsidized, however, this art is very likely to repay its +support in princely fashion. In fact, I know of no other investment +to-day that would bid fair to bring us in so many thousand per cent. +of return as a small fresh-air fund for poets. + +We Americans are rather apt to complain of the comparatively poor, +unoriginal showing which our poets have as yet made among those of +other civilized nations. We are quietly disgusted that only two of +all our bards have ever made their work forcibly felt in Europe; and +that neither Poe nor Whitman has ever profoundly influenced the great +masses of his own people. + +Despite our splendid inheritance, our richly mingled blood, our +incomparably stimulating New World atmosphere, why has our poetry made +such a meager showing among the nations? The chief reason is obvious. +_We have been unwilling to let our poets live while they were working +for us._ True, we have the reputation of being an open-handed, even an +extravagantly generous folk. But thriftiness in small things often +goes with an extravagant disposition, much as manifestations of piety +often accompany wickedness like flying buttresses consciously placed +outside the edifice. We have spent millions on bronze and marble +book-palaces which shall house the works of the poets. We have spent +more millions on universities which shall teach these works. But as +for making it possible for our few real poets to produce works, and +completely fulfill their priceless functions, we have always satisfied +ourselves by decreeing: "Let there be a sound cash basis." + +So it came to pass that when the first exuberant, pioneer +energy-margin of our race began to be consumed by the new and abnormal +type of city life, it became no longer possible for the poets to put +as much soul-sinew as theretofore into their lines, after they had +toilfully earned the luxury of trying to be our idealistic leaders. +For often their initial efforts consumed their less than pioneer +vitality. And how did we treat them from the first? In the old days we +set Longfellow and Lowell at one of the most exhausting of +professions--teaching. We made Emerson do one-night lecture-stands all +winter long in the West--sometimes for five dollars a lecture and feed +for his horse. We made Bryant ruin a gift as elemental as +Wordsworth's, in journalism; Holmes, visit patients at all hours of +the day and night; Poe, take to newspaper offices and drink. We made +Whitman drive nails, set type and drudge in the Indian Bureau in +Washington, from which he was dismissed for writing the most original +and the most poetic of American books. Later he was rescued from want +only by the humiliation of a public European subscription. Lanier we +allowed to waste away in a dingy lawyer's office, then kill himself so +fast by teaching and writing railway advertisements and playing the +flute in a city orchestra that he was forced to defer composing +"Sunrise" until too weak with fever to carry his hand to his lips. And +this was eleven years after that brave spirit's single cry of +reproach: + + "Why can we poets dream us beauty, so, + But cannot dream us bread?" + +With Lanier the physical exhaustion incident to the modern speeding-up +process began to be more apparent. Edward Rowland Sill we did away +with in his early prime through journalism and teaching. We curbed +and pinched and stunted the promising art of Richard Watson Gilder by +piling upon him several men's editorial work. We created a poetic +resemblance between Arthur Upson and the hero of "The Divine Fire" by +employing him in a bookstore. We made William Vaughn Moody teach in a +city environment utterly hostile to his poetry, and later set the hand +that gave us "An Ode in Time of Hesitation" to the building of popular +melodrama. These are only a tithe of the things that we have done to +the hardiest of those benefactors of ours: + + "The poets, who on earth have made us heirs + Of truth and pure delight." + +It is not pleasant to dwell on the fate of those less sturdy ones who +have remained mute, inglorious Miltons for lack of a little practical +appreciation and a small part of a small fresh-air fund. + +So far as I know, Thomas Bailey Aldrich is the only prominent figure +among the poets of our elder generations who was given the means of +devoting himself entirely to his art. And even _his_ fortune was not +left to him by his practical, poetry-loving friend until so late in +the day that his creative powers had already begun to decline through +age and over-much magazine editing. + +More than almost any other civilized nation we have earned Allen +Upward's reproach in "The New Word": + + There are two kinds of human outcasts. Man, in his march + upward out of the deep into the light, throws out a vanguard + and a rearguard, and both are out of step with the main + body. Humanity condemns equally those who are too good for + it, and those who are too bad. On its Procrustean bed the + stunted members of the race are racked; the giants are cut + down. It puts to death with the same ruthless equality the + prophet and the atavist. The poet and the drunkard starve + side by side.... Literature is the chief ornament of + humanity; and perhaps humanity never shows itself uglier + than when it stands with the pearl shining on its forehead, + and the pearl-maker crushed beneath its heel.... England + will always have fifteen thousand a year for some + respectable clergyman; she will never have it for Shelley. + +Yes, but how incomparably better England has treated her poets than +America has treated hers! What convenient little plums, as De Quincey +somewhat wistfully remarked, were always being found for Wordsworth +just at the psychological moment; and they were not withheld, +moreover, until he was full of years and honors. Indeed, we owe this +poet to the poet-by-proxy of whom Wordsworth wrote, in "The Prelude": + + "He deemed that my pursuits and labours, lay + Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even + A necessary maintenance insures + Without some hazard to the finer sense." + +How tenderly the frail bodies of Coleridge and of Francis Thompson +were cared for by their appreciators. How potently the Civil List and +the laureateship have helped a long, if most uneven, line of England's +singers. Over against our solitary ageing Aldrich, how many great +English poets like Byron, Keats, the Brownings, Tennyson, and +Swinburne have found themselves with small but independent incomes, +free to give their whole unembarrassed souls and all that in them was +to their art. And all this since the close of the age of patronage! + +Why have we never had a Wordsworth, or a Browning? For one thing, +because this nation of philanthropists has been too thoughtless to +found the small fellowship in creative poetry which might have freed a +Wordsworth of ours from communion with a cash-book to wander chanting +his new-born lines among the dreamy Adirondack lakes or the frowning +Sierras; or that might have sought out our Browning in his grocery +store and built him a modest retreat among the Thousand Islands. If +not too thoughtless to act thus, we have been too timid. We have been +too much afraid of encouraging weaklings by mistake. We have been, in +fact, more afraid of encouraging a single mediocre poet than of +neglecting a score of Shelleys. But we should remember that even if +the weak are encouraged with the strong, no harm is done. + +It can not be too strongly insisted upon that the poor and mediocre +verse which has always been produced by every age is practically +innocuous. It hurts only the publishers who are constantly being +importuned to print the stuff, and the distinguished men and women who +are burdened with presentation copies or requests for criticism. These +unfortunates all happen to be capable of emitting loud and +authoritative cries of distress about the menace of bad poets. But we +should discount these cries one hundred per cent. For nobody else is +hurt by the bad poets, because nobody else pays the slightest +attention to them. Time and their own "inherent perishableness" soon +remove all traces of the poetasters. It were better to help hundreds +of them than to risk the loss of one new Shelley. And do we realize +how many Shelleys we may actually have lost already? I think it +possible that we may have had more than one such potential singer to +whom we never allowed any leisure or sympathy or margin of vitality to +turn into poetry. Perhaps there is more grim truth than humor in Mark +Twain's vision of heaven where Captain Stormfield saw a poet as great +as Shakespeare who hailed, I think, from Tennessee. The reason why the +world had never heard of him was that his neighbors in Tennessee had +regarded him as eccentric and had ridden him out of town on a rail and +assisted his departure to a more congenial clime above. + +We complain that we have had no poet to rank with England's greatest. +I fear that it would have been useless for us to have had such a +person. We probably would not have known what to do with him. + +I realize that mine is not the popular side of this question and that +an occasional poet with an income may be found who will even argue +against giving incomes to other poets. Mr. Aldrich, for instance, +wrote, after coming into his inheritance: + + "A man should live in a garret aloof, + And have few friends, and go poorly clad, + With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof, + To keep the goddess constant and glad." + +But a friend of Mr. Aldrich's, one of his poetic peers, has assured me +that it was not the poet's freedom from financial cares at all, but +premature age, instead, that made his goddess of poesy fickle after +the advent of the pitifully belated fortune. Mr. Stedman spoke a far +truer word on this subject. "Poets," he said, "in spite of the +proverb, sing best when fed by wage or inheritance." "'Tis the +convinced belief of mankind," wrote Francis Thompson with a sardonic +smile, "that to make a poet sing you must pinch his belly, as if the +Almighty had constructed him like certain rudimentarily vocal dolls." +"No artist," declares Arnold Bennett, "was ever assisted in his career +by the yoke, by servitude, by enforced monotony, by economic +inferiority." And Bliss Carman speaks out loud and bold: "The best +poets who have come to maturity have always had some means of +livelihood at their command. The idea that any sort of artist or +workman is all the better for being doomed to a life of penurious +worry, is such a silly old fallacy, one wonders it could have +persisted so long." The wolf may be splendid at suckling journalism +and various other less inspired sorts of writing, but she is a +ferocious old stepmother to poetry. + +There are some who snatch eagerly at any argument in support of the +existing order, and who triumphantly point out the number of good +poems that have been written under "seemingly" adverse conditions. But +they do not stop to consider how much better these poems might have +been made under "seemingly" favorable conditions. Percy Mackaye is +right in declaring that the few singers left to English poetry after +our "wholesale driving-out and killing-out of poets ... are of two +sorts: those with incomes and those without. Among the former are +found most of the excellent names in English poetry, a fact which is +hardly a compliment to our civilization." + +Would that one of those excellent philanthropists who has grown so +accustomed to giving a million to libraries and universities that the +act has become slightly mechanical--might realize that he has, with +all his generosity, made no provision as yet for helping one of the +most indispensable of all educational institutions--the poet. Would +that he might realize how little good the poet of genius can derive +from the universities--places whose conservative formalism is even +dangerous to his originality, because they try to melt him along with +all the other students and pour him into their one mold. It is +distressing to think of all the sums now devoted to inducing callow, +overdriven sophomores to compose forced essays and doggerel, by luring +them on with the glitter of cash prizes. One shudders to think of all +the fellowship money which is now being used to finance reluctant +young dry-as-dusts while they are preparing to pack still tighter the +already overcrowded ranks of "professors of English literature"--whose +profession, as Gerald Stanley Lee justly remarks, is founded on the +striking principle that a very great book can be taught by a very +little man. This is a department of human effort which, as now usually +conducted, succeeds in destroying much budding appreciation of poetry. +Why endow these would-be interpreters of poetry, to the neglect of the +class of artists whose work they profess to interpret? What should we +think of England if her Victorian poets had all happened to be +penniless, and she had packed them off to Grub Street and invested, +instead, in a few more professors of Victorian literature? + +Why should not a few thousands out of the millions we spend on +education be used to found fellowships of creative poetry? These would +not be given at first to those who wish to learn to write poetry; for +the first thousands would be far too precious for use in any such +wild-cat speculations. They would be devoted, rather, to poets of +proved quality, who have already, somehow, learned their art, and who +ask no more wondrous boon from life than fresh air and time to regain +and keep that necessary margin of vitality which must go to the making +of genuine poetry. + +I would not have the incumbent of such a fellowship, however, deprived +suddenly of all outer incentives for effort. The abrupt transition +from constant worry and war among his members to an absolutely +unclouded life of pure vocation-following might be almost too violent +a shock, and unsettle him and injure his productivity for a time. + +The award of such a fellowship must not, of course, involve the least +hint of charity or coercion. It should be offered and accepted as an +honor, not as a donation. The yearly income should, in my opinion, be +small. It should be such a sum as would almost, but not quite, support +the incumbent very simply in the country, and still allow for books +and an occasional trip to town. In some cases an income of a thousand +dollars, supplemented by the little that poetry earns and possibly by +a random article or story in the magazines, would enable a poet to +lead a life of the largest effectiveness. + +It is my belief that almost any genuine poet who is now kept in the +whirl by economic reasons and thus debarred from the free practice of +his calling would gladly relinquish even a large salary and reduce his +life to simple terms to gain the inestimable privilege of devoting +himself wholly to his art before the golden bowl is broken. Many of +those who are in intimate touch with the poets of America to-day could +show any philanthropist how to do his land and the world more actual, +visible, immediate good by devoting a thousand dollars to poetry, than +by allowing an hundred times that sum to slip into the ordinary +well-worn grooves of philanthropy. + +Some years ago a _questionnaire_ was submitted to various literary men +by a poetry-lover who hoped to induce a wealthy friend to subsidize +poets of promise in case these literary leaders approved the plan. +While the younger writers warmly favored the idea, a few of the older +ones discouraged it. These were, in all cases, men who had made a +financial success in more lucrative branches of literature than +poetry; and it was natural for the veterans, who had brawnily +struggled through the burden and heat of the day, to look with the +unsympathetic eye of the sturdy upon those frailer ones of the rising +generation who perhaps might, without assistance, be eliminated in the +rough-and-tumble of the literary market-place. Of course it was but +human for the veterans to insist that any real genius among their +youthful competitors "would out," and that any assistance would but +make life too soft for the youngsters, and go to swell the growing +"menace" of bad verse by mitigating the primal rigors of natural +selection. No doubt the generation of writers older than Wordsworth +quite innocently uttered these very same sentiments in voices of deep +authority when it was proposed to offer this young person a chance to +compose in peace. No. One fears that the attitude of these veterans +was not wholly judicial. But then, why should any haphazard group of +creative artists be expected to be judicial, anyway? One might as +reasonably go to the Louvre for classes in conic sections, or to the +Garden of the Gods for instruction in Rabbinical theology. + +Few supporters of the general plan, on the other hand, were wholly in +favor of all the measures proposed for carrying it out. Some of the +most telling criticisms went to show that while poets of undoubted +ability ought to be helped, the method of their selection offers a +grave difficulty. H. G. Wells, who heartily approved the main idea, +brought out the fact that it would never do to leave the choice to a +jury, as no jury would ever have voted for half of the great poets who +have perished miserably. Juries are much too conventionally minded. +For they are public functionaries; or, if not that, at least they feel +self-consciously as if they were going to be held publicly +responsible, and are apt to bring extremely conventional, and perhaps +priggish, standards to bear upon their choice. "They invariably become +timid and narrow," wrote Mr. Wells, "and seek refuge in practical, +academic, and moral tests that invariably exclude the real men of +genius." + +Prizes and competitions were considered equally ill-advised methods of +selection. It is significant that these methods are now being rapidly +dropped in the fields of sculpture and architecture. For the mere +thought of a competition is a thing essentially antagonistic to the +creative impulse; and talent is likely to acquit itself better than +genius in such a struggle. The idea of a poetic competition is a relic +of a pioneer mode of thought. Mr. Wells concluded that the decision +should be made by the individual. But I cannot agree with him that +that same individual should be the donor of the fellowship. It seems +to me that this would-be savior of our American poetry should select +the best judge of poets and poetry that he can discover and be guided +by his advice. + +On general principles, there are several things that this judge should +_not_ be. He should not be a professor of English, because of the +professor's usual bias toward the academic. Besides, these fellowships +ought not in any way to be associated with institutions of +learning--places which are apt to fetter poets and surround them with +an atmosphere hostile to the creative impulse. Neither should this +momentous decision be left to editors or publishers, because they are +usually suffering from literary indigestion caused by skimming too +many manuscripts too fast, and because, at any rate, they ordinarily +pay little attention to poetry and hold it commercially "in one grand +despise." Nor should the normal type of poet be chosen as judge to +decide this question. For the poet is apt to have a narrow, one-sided +view of the field. He has probably developed his own distinctive style +and personality at the expense of artistic catholicity and kindly +breadth of critical judgment. The creative and the critical faculties +are usually as distinct and as mutually exclusive spheres as that of +the impassioned, partisan lawyer and the cool, impartial judge. + +To whom, then, should the decision be left? It should, in my opinion, +be left to a real _judge_--to some broad, keen critic of poetry with a +clear, unbiased contemporary view of the whole domain of the art. It +matters not whether he is professional or amateur, so he is untouched +by academicism and has not done so much reading or writing as to +impair his mental digestion and his clarity of vision. Care, of +course, would have to be used in safeguarding the critic-judge against +undue pressure in favor of this candidate or that; and in safeguarding +the incumbent of the fellowship from yet more insidious influences. +For the apparently liberated poet would merely have exchanged prisons +if he learned that the founder of the fellowship wished to dictate +what sort of poetry he should write. + +The idea of poetry fellowships is not as novel as it perhaps may +sound. It is no mere empirical theory. Americans ought to be proud to +know that, in a modest way, it has recently been tried here, and is +proving a success. I am told that already two masters of poetry have +been presented to us as free workers in their art by two Boston +philanthropists, and have been enabled to accomplish some of their +best work through such fellowships as are here advocated. This fact +should put cities like New York, Pittsburg, and Chicago on their +mettle. For they must realize that Boston, with her quiet, +slow-moving, Old-World pace, has not done to poetry a tithe of the +harm that her more energetic neighbors have, and should therefore not +be suffered to bear the entire brunt of the expiation. + +Men say that money cannot buy a joyful heart. But next to writing a +great poem, I can scarcely imagine a greater happiness than to know +that a thousand of my dollars had enabled an imprisoned genius to +shake from his shoes the dust of a city office and go for a year to +"God's outdoors," there to free his system of some of the beauty that +had chokingly accumulated there until it had grown an almost +intolerable pain. What joy to know that my fellowship had given men +the modern New World "Hyperion," or "Prelude," or "Ring and the Book"! +And even if that whole year resulted in nothing more than a "Skylark," +or a "Rabbi Ben Ezra," or a "Crossing the Bar"--could one possibly +consider such a result in the same thought-wave with dollars and +cents? + +But this thousand dollars might do something even better than help +produce counterparts of famous poems created in other times and lands. +It might actually secure the inestimable boon of a year's leisure, a +procession of peaceful vistas, and a brimming cup for one of that "new +brood" of "poets to come" which Walt Whitman so confidently counted +upon to 'justify him and answer what he was for.' This handful of gold +might make it possible for one of these new poets to come into his +own, and ours, at once, and in his own person accomplish that fusion, +so devoutly to be wished, of those diverse factors of the greatest +poetry which have existed among us thus far only in awful +isolation--the possession of this one and that of our chief singers. + +How fervently we poetry-lovers wish that one of the captains of +industry would feel impelled to put his hand into his pocket--if only +into his watch-pocket--or adorn his last testament with a modest +codicil! It would be such poetic justice if one of those who have +prospered through the very speeding-up process which has so seriously +crippled our poetry, should devote to its service a small tithe of +what he has won from poetry's loss--and thus hasten our renaissance of +singers, and bring a new dawn, 'brighter than before known,' out of +the dusk of the poets. + + + + +IX + +THE JOYOUS MISSION OF MECHANICAL MUSIC + + +I wonder if any other invention has ever, in such a brief time, made +so many joyful hearts as the invention of mechanical music. It has +brought light, peace, gladness, and the gift of self-expression to +every third or fourth flat, villa, and lonely farmhouse in the land. +Its voice has literally gone out through all the earth, and with a +swiftness more like that of light than of sound. + +Only yesterday we were marveling at the discovery of the larger +magazine audience. Until then we had never dreamed of addressing +millions of fellow creatures at one time, as the popular magazine now +does. Imagine the astonished delight of Plato or Cervantes, Poe or +Dickens, if they had been given in one week an audience equivalent in +number to five thousand readers a year for ten centuries! Dickens +would have called it, I think, "immortality-while-you-wait." Yet this +sort of immortality was recently placed at the immediate disposal of +the ordinary writer. + +The miracle was unique in history. But it did not long remain so. Not +content with raining this wonder upon us, history at once poured down +a greater. One morning we awoke to find a new and still vaster medium +of expression, a medium whose globe-girdling voice was to that of the +five-million reader magazine as the roar of Niagara to the roar of a +Philadelphia trolley-car. To-day, from wherever civilized man has +obtained even a temporary foothold, there arise without ceasing the +accents of mechanical music, which talk persuasively to all in a +language so universal that even the beasts understand it and cock +applauding ears at the sound of the master voice. So that, while the +magazine writers now address the million, the composers and singers +and players make their bows to the billion. + +Their omnipresence is astonishing. They are the last to bid you +farewell when you leave civilization. They are the first to greet you +on your return. When I canoed across the wild Allagash country, I was +sped from Moosehead Lake by Caruso, received with open arms at the +halfway house by the great-hearted Plancon, and welcomed to Fort Kent +by Sousa and his merry men. With Schumann-Heinck, Melba, and +Tetrazzini I once camped in the heart of the Sierras. When I persisted +to the uttermost secret corner of the Dolomites, I found myself +anticipated by Kreisler and his fiddle. They tell me that the portly +Victor Herbert has even penetrated with his daring orchestra through +darkest Africa and gone on to arrange a special benefit, in his home +town, for the dalai-lama of Tibet. + +One of the most promising things about mechanical music is this: No +matter what kind of music or quality of performance it offers you, +you presently long for something a little better--unless your +development has been arrested. It makes small difference in this +respect which one of the three main varieties of instrument you happen +to own. It may be the phonograph. It may be the kind of automatic +piano which accurately reproduces the performances of the master +pianists. It may be the piano-player which indulgently supplies you +with technic ready-made, and allows you to throw your own soul into +the music, whether you have ever taken lessons or not. Or it may be a +combination of the last two. The influence of these machines is +progressive. It stands for evolution rather than for devolution or +revolution. + +Often, however, the evolution seems to progress by sheer accident. +This is the way the accident is likely to happen. Jones is buying +records for the family phonograph. One may judge of his particular +stage of musical evolution by his purchases, which are: "Meet me in +St. Louis, Louis," "Dance of the Honey Bells," "Hello Central, Give me +Heaven," "Fashion Plate March," and "I Know that I'll be Happy when I +Die." He also notices in the catalogue a piece called "Tannhäuser +March," and, after some hesitation, buys this as well, because the +name sounds so much like his favorite brand of beer that he suspects +it to be music of a convivial nature--a medley of drinking-songs, +perhaps. + +But that evening in the parlor it does not seem much like beer. When +the Mephisto Military Band strikes it up--far from seeming in the +least alcoholic, it exhilarates nobody. So Jones inters it in the +darkest corner of the music-cabinet. And the family devote themselves +to the cake-walks and comic medleys, the fandangoes and tangos, the +xylophone solos, the shakedowns and break-downs and the rags and +tatters of their collection until they have thoroughly exhausted the +delights thereof. Then, having had time to forget somewhat the +flatness of "Tannhäuser," and for want of anything better to do, they +take out the despised record, dust it, and insert it into the machine. +But this time, curiously enough, the thing does not sound quite so +flat. After repeated playings, it even begins to rival the "Fashion +Plate March" in its appeal. And it keeps on growing in grace until +within a year the "Fashion Plate March" is as obsolete as fashion +plates have a habit of growing within a year, while "Tannhäuser" has +won the distinction of being the best-wearing record in the cabinet. + +Then it begins to occur to the Jones family that there must be two +kinds of musical food: candy and staples. Candy, like the "Fashion +Plate March," tastes wonderfully sweet to the unsophisticated palate +as it goes down; but it is easy to take too much. And the cheaper the +candy, the swifter the consequent revulsion of feeling. As for the +staples, there is nothing very piquant about their flavor; but if they +are of first quality, and if one keeps his appetite healthy, one +seems to enjoy them more and more and to thrive on them three times a +day. + +Accordingly, Jones is commissioned, when next he visits the +music-store, to get a few more records like "Tannhäuser." On this +occasion, he may even be rash enough to experiment with a Schubert +march, or a Weber overture, or one of the more popular movements of a +Beethoven sonata. And so the train of evolution will rush onward, +bearing the Joneses with it until fashion-plate marches are things of +the misty, backward horizon, and the family has, by little and little, +come to know and love the whole blessed field of classical music. And +they have found that the word "classical" is not a synonym for +dry-rot, but that it simply means the music that wears best. + +However the glorious mistake may occur, it is being made by someone +every hour. By such hooks and crooks as these, good music is finding +its way into more and more homes. Although its true "classical" +nature is detected at the first trial, it is not thrown away, because +it cost good money. It is put away and bides its time; and some day +the surprising fact that it has wearing qualities is bound to be +discovered. To those who believe in the law of musical evolution, and +who realize that mechanical music has reached the wide world, and is +even beginning to penetrate into the public library, the possibility +of these happy accidents means a sure and swift general development in +the appreciation of the best music. + +Those who know that man's musical taste tends to grow better and not +worse, know also that _any_ music is better than no music. A +mechanical instrument which goes is better than a new concert grand +piano that remains shut. + +"Canned music may not be the highest form of art," the enthusiast will +say with a needless air of half apology, half defiance, "but I enjoy +it no end." And then he will go on to tell how the parlor melodeon +had gathered dust for years until it was given in part exchange for a +piano-player. And now the thing is the joy of the family, and the home +is filled with color and effervescence, and every one's head is filled +with at least a rudiment of living, growing musical culture. + +The fact is, the piano-player is turning thousands of supposedly +humdrum, prosaic people into musical enthusiasts, to their own immense +surprise. Many of these people are actually taking lessons in the +subtle art of manipulating the machine. They are spending more money +than they can afford on vast collections of rolls. They are going more +and more to every important concert for hints on interpretation. +Better still, the most musical among them are being piqued, by the +combined merits and defects of the machine, into learning to play an +_un_mechanical instrument for the joy of feeling less mechanism +interposed between themselves and "the real thing." + +Machinery has already done as much for the true spirit of music as the +"safe and sane" movement has done for the true spirit of the Fourth of +July. Both have shifted the emphasis from brute noise and fireworks to +more spiritual considerations. The piano-player has done a great deal +to cheapen the glamour of mere technical display on the part of the +virtuosi and to redeem us from the thralldom of the school of Liszt. +Our admiration for musical gymnastics and tight-rope balancing is now +leaking away so fast through the perforations of the paper rolls that +the kind of display-piece known as the concerto is going out of +fashion. The only sort of concerto destined to keep our favor is, I +imagine, that of the Schumann or Brahms type, which depends for its +effect not at all on display, but on sound musicianship alone. The +virtuoso is destined soon to leave the circus business and bid a long +farewell to his late colleagues, the sword-swallower, the trapeze +artist, the strong man, the fat lady, the contortionist, and the +gentleman who conducts the shell-and-pea game. For presently the only +thing that will be able to entice people to concerts will be the soul +of music. Its body will be a perfectly commonplace affair. + +Many a good musician fears, I know, that machine-made music will not +stop with annihilating vulgar display, but will do to death all +professional music as well. This fear is groundless. Mechanical +instruments will no more drive the good pianist or violinist or +'cellist out of his profession than the public library, as many once +feared, will drive the bookseller out of business. For the library, +after persuading people to read, has taught them how much pleasure may +be had from owning a book, with the privilege of marking it and +scribbling one's own ideas on the margins, and not having to rush it +back to headquarters at inopportune moments and pay to a stern young +woman a fine of eight cents. Likewise people are eventually led to +realize that the joy of passively absorbing the product of phonograph +or electric piano contrasts with the higher joy of listening +creatively to music which the hearer helps to make, in the same way +that borrowing a book of Browning contrasts with owning a book of +Browning. I believe that, just as the libraries are yearly educating +hosts of book-buyers, so mechanical music is coöperating with +evolution to swell the noble army of those who support concerts and +give private musicales. + +Of course there is no denying that the existence of music-making +machinery has a certain relaxing effect on some of the less talented +followers of the muse of strumming, scraping, screeching, and +blatting. This is because the soul of music is not in them. And in +striving to reproduce its body, they perceive how hopeless it is to +compete with the physical perfection of the manufactured product. In +like manner, the invention of canned meats doubtless discouraged many +minor cooks from further struggles with their craft. But these +losses, I, for one, cannot bring myself to mourn. + +What seems a sounder complaint is that the phonograph, because it +reproduces with equal readiness music and the spoken word, may become +an effective instrument of satire in the hands of the clever +philistine. Let me illustrate. To the Jones collection of records, +shortly after "Tannhäuser" began to win its way, there was added a +reactionary "comic" record entitled "Maggie Clancy's New Piano." In +the record Maggie begins playing "Tannhäuser" very creditably on her +new instrument. Presently the voice of old Clancy is heard from +another room calling, "Maggie!" The music goes on. There is a +_crescendo_ series of calls. The piano stops. + +"Yes, Father?" + +"Maggie, is the new pianny broke?" + +"No, Father; I was merely playing Wagner." + +Old Clancy meditates a moment; then, with a gentleness of touch that +might turn a New York music critic green with envy, he replies: "Oh, +I thought ye wuz shovelin' coal in the parlor stove." + +Records like these have power to retard and roughen the otherwise +smooth course of a family's musical evolution; but they are usually +unable to arrest it. In general I think that such satires may fortify +the elder generation in its conservative mistrust of classical music. +But if they are only heard often enough by the young, I believe that +the sympathies of the latter will end in chiming with the taste of the +enlightened Maggie rather than with that of her father. + +Until recently a graver charge against the phonograph has been that it +was so much better adapted for reproducing song than pure instrumental +music that it was tending to identify the art of music in the minds of +most men with song alone. This tendency was dangerous. For song is not +all of music, nor even its most important part. The voice is naturally +more limited in range, technic, and variety of color than many +another instrument. And it is artificially handicapped by the rather +absurd custom which forces the singer to drag in poetry (much to the +latter's disadvantage), and therewith distract his own attention and +that of his audience from the music. + +The fact remains that one art at a time is none too easy for even the +most perfect medium of expression to cope with. To make a somewhat +less than perfect instrument like the human voice, cope always with +two simultaneously is an indication that the young art of music has +not yet emerged from its teens. This is one reason why most song is as +yet so intrinsically unmusical. Its reach is, as a rule, forced to +exceed its grasp. Also the accident of having a fine voice usually +determines a singer's career, though a perfect vocal organ does not +necessarily imply a musical nature. The best voices, in fact, often +belong, by some contrariety of fate, to the worst musicians. For these +and other reasons, there is less of the true spirit of music to be +heard from vocal cords than from the cords and reeds and brazen tubes +of piano, organ, string quartet, and orchestra. Thus, when the +phonograph threatened to identify song with music in general, it +threatened to give the art a setback and make the singer the +arch-enemy of the wider musical culture. Fortunately the phonograph +now gives promise of averting this peril by bringing up its +reproduction of absolute music near to its vocal standard. + +Another charge against most machine-made music is its unhuman +accuracy. The phonograph companies seldom give out a record which is +not practically perfect in technic and intonation. As for the +mechanical piano, there is no escape from the certainty of just what +notes are coming next--that is, if little Johnnie has not been editing +the paper record with his father's leather-punch. Therefore one grows +after a while to long for a few of those deviations from mathematical +precision which imply human frailty and lovableness. One reason why +the future is veiled from us is that it is so painful to be certain +that one's every prediction is coming true. + +A worse trouble with the phonograph is that it seems to leave out of +account that essential part of every true musical performance, the +creative listener. A great many phonograph records sound as though the +recorder had been performing to an audience no more spiritually +resonant than the four walls of a factory. I think that the makers of +another kind of mechanical instrument must have realized this +oversight on the part of the phonograph manufacturer. I mean the sort +of electric piano which faithfully reproduces every _nuance_ of the +master pianists. Many of the records of this marvelous instrument +sound as though the recording-room of the factory had been "papered" +with creative listeners who coöperated mightily with the master on the +stage. Would that the phonographers might take the hint! + +But no matter how effectively the creative listener originally +coöperates with the maker of this kind of record, the electric piano +does not appeal as strongly to the creative listener in his home as +does the less perfect but more impressionable piano-player, which +responds like a cycle to pedal and brake. For the records of the +phonograph and of the electric piano, once they are made, are made. +Thereafter they are as insensible to influence as the laws of the +Medes and Persians. They do not admit the audience to an active, +influential part in the performance. But such a part in the +performance is exactly what the true listener demands as his +democratic right. And rather than be balked of it, he turns to the +less sophisticated mechanism of the piano-player. This, at least, +responds to his control. + +Undeniably, though, even the warmest enthusiasts for the piano-player +come in time to realize that their machine has distinct limitations; +that it is better suited to certain pieces than to others. They find +that music may be performed on it with the more triumphant success +the less human it is and the nearer it comes to the soullessness of an +arabesque. The best operator, by pumping or pulling stops or switching +levers, cannot entirely succeed in imbuing it with the breath of life. +The disquieting fact remains that the more a certain piece demands to +be filled with soul, the thinner and more ghost-like it comes forth. +The less intimately human the music, the more satisfactorily it +emerges. For example, the performer is stirred by the "Tannhäuser +March," as rendered by himself, with its flourish of trumpets and its +general hurrah-boys. But he is unmoved by the apostrophe to the +"Evening Star" from the same opera. For this, in passing through the +piano-player, is almost reduced to a frigid astronomical basis. The +singer is no longer Scotti or Bispham, but Herschel or Laplace. The +operator may pump and switch until he breaks his heart--but if he has +any real musical instinct, he will surely grow to feel a sense of lack +in this sort of music. So for the present, while confidently awaiting +the invention of an improved piano-player, which shall give equally +free expression to every mood and tense of the human spirit--the +operator learns to avoid the very soulful things as much as is +practicable. + +At this stage of his development he usually begins to crave that +supreme kind of music which demands a perfect balance of the +intellectual, the sensuous, and the emotional. So he goes more often +to concerts where such music is given. Saturated with it, he returns +to his piano-player and plays the concert all over again. And his +imagination is now so full of the emotional side of what he has just +heard and is re-hearing, that he easily discounts the obvious +shortcomings of the mechanical instrument. This is an excellent way of +getting the most from music. One should not, as many do, take it from +the piano-player before the concert and then go with its somewhat +stereotyped accents so fixed in the mind as to obscure the heart of +the performance. Rather, in preparation, let the score be silently +glanced through. Leave wide the doors of the soul for the precious +spiritual part of the music to enter in and take possession. After +this happens, use mechanical music to renew your memories of the +concert, just as you would use a catalogue illustrated with etchings +in black and white, to renew your memory of an exhibition of +paintings. + + * * * * * + +The supreme mission of mechanical music is its direct educational +mission. By this I mean something more than its educational mission to +the many thousands of grown men and women whose latent interest in +music it is suddenly awakening. I have in mind the girls and boys of +the rising generation. If people can only hear enough good music when +they are young, without having it forcibly fed to them, they are +almost sure to care for it when they come to years of discretion. The +reason why America is not more musical is that we men and women of +to-day did not yesterday, as children, hear enough good music. Our +parents probably could not afford it. It was then a luxury, implying +expensive concert tickets or an elaborate musical training for someone +in the family. + +The invention of mechanical instruments ended this state of affairs +forever by suddenly making the best music as inexpensive as the worst. +There exists no longer any financial reason why most children should +not grow up in an atmosphere of the best music. And I believe that so +soon as parents learn how to educate their children through the +phonograph or the mechanical piano, the world will realize with a +start that the invention of these things is doing more for musical +culture than the invention of printing did for literary culture. + +We must bear in mind, however, that the invention of mechanical +instruments has come far earlier in the history of music than the +invention of printing came in the history of literature. Music is the +youngest of the fine arts. It is in somewhat the same stage of +development to-day that literature was in the time of Homer. It is in +the age of oral--and aural--tradition. Most people still take in music +through their ears alone. For all that the invention of note-printing +means to them as enjoyers of music, they might almost as well be +living æons before Gutenberg. Musically speaking, they belong to the +Homeric age. + +Now the entrance of mechanical music upon the scene is making men +depend on their ears more than ever. It is intensifying and speeding +up this age of oral tradition. But in so doing, I believe that it is +bound to shorten this age also, on the principle that the faster you +go the sooner you arrive. Thus, machinery is hastening us toward the +time when the person of ordinary culture will no more depend on his +ears alone for the enjoyment of music than he now depends on his ears +alone for the enjoyment of Shakespeare. + +Thanks to machine-made music, the day is coming the sooner when we +shall behold, as neighbors in the ordinary bookcase, such pairs of +counterparts as Milton and Bach, Beethoven and Shakespeare, Loeffler +and Maeterlinck, Byron and Tschaikowsky, Mendelssohn and Longfellow, +Nietzsche and Richard Strauss. Browning will stand up cheek by jowl +with his one true affinity, Brahms. And the owner will sit by the +quiet hearth reading to himself with equal fluency and joy from +Schubert and Keats. + + + + +X + +MASTERS BY PROXY + + _It is only in a surrounding of personalities that + personalities can as such make themselves seen and heard._ + +HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN. + + +Between many of my readers and the joyful heart there seems to stand +but a single obstacle--their lack of creativeness. They feel that they +could live and die happy if only they might become responsible for the +creation of something which would remain to bless mankind after they +are gone. But as it is, how can they have the joyful heart when they +are continually being tortured by regret because God did not make +masters of them? + +One is sad because he is not a master of poetry. He never sees A, his +golden-tongued friend, without a pang very like the envy of a +childless man for a happy father. But he has no suspicion that he is +partly responsible for A's poetic excellence. Another thinks her life +a mistake because the Master of all good workmen did not make her a +sculptor. Yet all the while she is lavishing unawares upon her brother +or son or husband the very stuff that art is made of. Others are +inconsolable because no fairy wand at their birth destined them for +men of original action, for discoverers in science, pianists, +statesmen, or actors; for painters, philosophers, inventors, or +architects of temples or of religions. + +Now my task in this last chapter is a more delightful one than if I +were the usual solicitor of fiction, come to inform the +poor-but-honest newsboy that he is a royal duke. It is my privilege to +comfort many of the comfortless by revealing to them how and why they +are--or may be--masters of an art as indispensable as the arts which +they now regard so wistfully. I mean the art of master-making--the art +of being a master by proxy. + +To be specific, let us single out one of the arts and see what it +means to master it by proxy. Suppose we consider the simple case of +executive music. In a book called "The Musical Amateur" I have tried +to prove (more fully than is here possible) that the reproduction of +music is a social act. It needs two: one to perform, one to +appreciate. Both are almost equally essential to a good performance. +The man who appreciates a musical phrase unconsciously imitates it +with almost imperceptible contractions of throat or lips. These +contractions represent an incipient singing or whistling. Motions +similar to these, and probably more fully developed, are made at the +same time by his mind and his spirit. The whole man actually feels his +way, physically and psychically, into the heart of the music. He is +turned into a sentient sounding-board which adds its own contribution +of emotion to the music and sends it back by wireless telegraphy to +the performer. When a violinist and a listener of the right sort meet +for musical purposes, this is what happens. The violinist happens to +be in the mood for playing. This means that he has feelings which +demand expression. These his bow releases. The music strikes the +listener, sets him in vibration as if he were a sounding-board, and +rouses in him feelings similar to those of the violinist. Enriched by +this new contribution, the emotional complex resounds back to the +violinist, intensifying his original "feeling-state." In its +heightened form it then recoils back to the appreciator, "and so on, +back and forth, growing in stimulating power at each recoil. The whole +process is something like a hot 'rally' in tennis, with the opponents +closing in on each other and the ball shuttling across the net faster +with every stroke as the point gains in excitement and pleasure. +'Social resonance' might be a good way of describing the thing." This, +briefly told, is what passes between the player of music and his +creative listener. + +In application this principle does not by any means stop with +performing or composing music or with the fine arts. It goes on to +embrace more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in the +fiddler's or in any other artist's philosophy. Perhaps it is not too +much to say that no great passion or action has ever had itself +adequately expressed without the coöperation of this social resonance, +without the help of at least one of those modest, unrecognized +partners of genius, the social resonators, the masters by proxy. + +Thanks, dear master-makers unawares! The gratitude of the few who +understand you is no less sincere because you do not yet realize your +own thankworthiness. Our children shall rise up and call you blessed. +For in your quiet way, you have helped to create the world's +creators--the preachers, prophets, captains, artists, discoverers, and +seers of the ages. To these, you, unrecognized and unawares, have been +providing the very sinews of peace, vision, war, beauty, originality, +and insight. + +What made the game of art so brilliant in the age of Pericles? It was +not star playing by individuals. It was steady, consistent team-work +by the many. Almost every one of the Athenians who were not masters +were masters by proxy. In "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century" +Chamberlain holds that Greek culture derived its incomparable charm +from "a peculiar harmony of greatness"; and that "if our poets are not +in every respect equal to the greatest poets of Athens, that is not +the fault of their talent, but of those who surround them." Only +imagine the joyful ease of being a poet in the Periclean atmosphere! +It must have been as exhilarating as coasting down into the Yosemite +Valley with John Muir on an avalanche of snow. + +But even in that enlightened age the master received all the credit +for every achievement, and his creative appreciator none at all. And +so it has been ever since that particular amoeba which was destined +for manhood had a purse made up for him and was helped upon the train +of evolution by his less fortunate and more self-effacing friends who +were destined to remain amoebæ; because the master by proxy is such +a retiring, unspectacular sort of person that he has never caught the +popular imagination or found any one to sing his praises. But if he +should ever resent this neglect and go on strike, we should realize +that without him progress is impossible. For the real lords of +creation are not always the apparent lords. We should bear in mind +that the most important part of many a throne is not the red velvet +seat, the back of cloth of gold, or the onyx arms that so sumptuously +accommodate the awe and majesty of acknowledged kings. Neither is it +the seed-pearl canopy that intercepts a too searching light from +majesty's complexion. It is a certain little filigreed hole in the +throne-back which falls conveniently close to the sovereign's ear when +he leans back between the periods of the wise, beauteous, and +thrilling address to his subjects. + +For doubled up in a dark, close box behind the chair of state is a +humble, drab individual who, from time to time, applies his mouth to +the wrong side of the filigreed hole and whispers things. If he were +visible at all, he would look like the absurd prompter under the hood +at the opera. He is not a famous person. Most people are so ignorant +of his very existence that he might be pardoned for being an agnostic +about it himself. The few others know little and care less. Only two +or three of the royal family are aware of his name and real function. +They refer to him as M. Power-Behind-the-Throne, Master-by-Proxy of +State. + +There is one sign by which masters by proxy may be detected wherever +met. They are people whose presence is instantly invigorating. Before +you can make out the color of their eyes you begin to feel that you +are greater than you know. It is as if they wore diffused about them +auras so extensive and powerful that entering these auras was +equivalent to giving your soul electric massage. You do not have to +touch the hem of their garments nor even see them. The auras penetrate +a brick wall as a razor penetrates Swiss cheese. And if you are +fortunate enough to be on the other side of the partition, you become +aware with a thrill that "virtue," in the beautiful, Biblical sense of +the word, has gone out of somebody and into you. + +If ever I return to live in a city apartment (which may the gods +forfend!) I shall this time select the apartment with almost sole +reference to what comes through the walls. I shall enter one of those +typical New York piles which O. Henry described as "paved with Parian +marble in the entrance-hall, and cobblestones above the first floor," +and my inquiry will be focused on things far other than Parian marble +and cobblestones. I shall walk about the rooms and up and down the +bowling-alleys of halls trying to make myself as sensitive to +impressions as are the arms of the divining-rod man during his solemn +parade with the wand of witch-hazel. And when I feel "virtue" from the +next apartment streaming through the partition, there will I instantly +give battle to the agent and take up my abode. And this though it be +up six flights of cobblestones, without elevator, without closet-room, +with a paranoiac for janitor, and radiators whose musical performance +all the day long would make a Cleveland boiler factory pale with envy. +For none of these things would begin to offset the privilege of living +beside a red-letter wall whose influence should be as benignly +constructive as Richard Washburn Child's "Blue Wall" was malignly +destructive. + +To-day I should undoubtedly be much more of a person if I had once had +the pleasure of living a wall away from Richard Watson Gilder. He was +a true master by proxy. For he was a vastly more creative person than +his published writings will ever accredit him with being. Not only +with his pen, but also with his whole self he went about doing good. +"Virtue" fairly streamed from him all the time. Those bowed shoulders +and deep-set, kindly eyes would emerge from the inner sanctum of the +"Century" office. In three short sentences he would reject the story +which had cost you two years of labor and travail. But all the time +the fatal words were getting themselves uttered, so much "virtue" was +passing from him into you that you would turn from his presence +exhilarated, uplifted, and while treading higher levels for the next +week, would produce a check-bearing tale. The check, however, would +not bring you a tithe of the "virtue" that the great editor's personal +rebuff had brought. + +But more than to any editor, writers look to their readers for +support, especially to their unknown correspondents--postal and +psychic. Leonard Merrick has so finely expressed the attitude of many +writers that I cannot forbear giving his words to his "public": + + I have thought of you so often and wanted to win a smile + from you; you don't realize how I have longed to meet + you--to listen to you, to have you lift the veil that hides + your mind from me. Sometimes in a crowd I have fancied I + caught a glimpse of you; I can't explain--the poise of the + head, a look in the eyes, there was something that hinted it + was You. And in a whirlwind of an instant it almost seemed + that you would recognize me; but you said no word--you + passed, a secret from me still. To yourself where you are + sitting you are just a charming woman with "a local + habitation and a name"; but to me you are not Miss or Madam, + not M. or N.--you are a Power, and I have sought you by a + name you have not heard--you are my Public. And O my Lady, I + am speaking to you! I feel your presence in my senses, + though you are far away and I can't hear your answer.... It + is as if I had touched your hand across the page. + +There are probably more masters by proxy to be found among the world's +mothers than in any other class. The profession of motherhood is such +a creative one, and demands so constant an outgo of unselfish +sympathy, that a mother's technic as silent partner is usually kept in +a highly efficient state. And occasionally a mother of a genius +deserves as much credit for him spiritually as physically. Think of +Frau Goethe, for example. + +Many a genius attains a commanding position largely through the happy +chance of meeting many powerful masters by proxy and through his happy +facility for taking and using whatever creativeness these have to +offer. Genius has been short-sightedly defined as "an infinite +capacity for taking pains." Galton more truthfully holds that the +triune factors of genius are industry, enthusiasm, and ability. Now if +we were to insist, as so many do, on making a definition out of a +single one of these factors to the neglect of the others, we should +come perhaps nearer the mark by saying that genius is an infinite +capacity for taking others' pains. But all such definings are absurd. +For the genius absorbs and alchemizes not only the industry of his +silent partners, but also their ability and enthusiasm. Their +enthusiasm is fortunately contained in a receptacle as generous as +Philemon's famous pitcher. And the harder the genius tries to pour it +empty, the more the sparkling liquid bubbles up inside. The +transaction is like "the quality of mercy"-- + + "It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." + +The ability to receive as well as give this sort of help varies widely +with the individual. Some geniuses of large psychic power are able +instantly to seize out of any crowd whatever creativeness there is in +it. These persons are spiritual giants. Their strength is as the +strength of ten because their grasp is sure. They are such stuff as +Shakespeares are made of. + +Others are not psychically gifted. They can absorb creativeness only +from their nearest and dearest, in the most favoring environment, and +only after the current has been seriously depleted by wastage in +transmission. But these are the two extremes. They are as rare as +extremes usually are. + +In general I believe that genius, though normally capable of drawing +creativeness from a number of different sources, has as a rule +depended largely on the collaboration of one chief master by proxy. +This idea gazes wide-eyed down a fascinating vista of speculation. +Who, for instance, was Lincoln's silent partner? the power behind the +throne of Charlemagne? Buddha's better self? Who were the secret +commanders of Grant, Wellington, and Cæsar? Who was Molière's hidden +prompter? the conductor of the orchestra called Beethoven? the psychic +comrade of Columbus? + +I do not know. For history has never commemorated, as such, the +masters by proxy with honor due, or indeed with any honor or +remembrance at all. It will take centuries to explore the past with +the sympathetic eye and the understanding heart in order to discover +what great tombs we have most flagrantly neglected. + +Already we can single out a few of them. The time is coming when +music-lovers will never make a pilgrimage to the resting-place of +Wagner without making another to the grave of Mathilde Wesendonk, +whose "virtue" breathed into "Tristan and Isolde" the breath of life. +We shall not much longer neglect the tomb of Charles Darwin's father, +who, by making the evolutionist financially independent, gave his +services to the world. Nor shall we disregard the memory of that other +Charles-Darwin-by-proxy--his wife. For her tireless comradeship and +devotion and freely lavished vitality were an indispensable reservoir +of strength to the great invalid. Without it the world would never +have had the "Origin of Species" or the "Descent of Man." + +Other instances throng to mind. I have small doubt that Charles Eliot +Norton was the silent partner of Carlyle, Ruskin, and Lowell; Ste. +Clare of Francis of Assisi; Joachim and Billroth of Brahms, and +Dorothy Wordsworth of William. By a pleasant coincidence, I had no +sooner noted down the last of these names than I came upon this +sentence in Sarah Orne Jewett's Letters: "How much that we call +Wordsworth himself was Dorothy to begin with." And soon after, I found +these words in a letter which Brahms sent Joachim with the score of +his second "Serenade": "Care for the piece a little, dear friend; it +is very much yours and sounds of you. Whence comes it, anyway, that +music sounds so friendly, if it is not the doing of the one or two +people whom one loves as I love you?" The impressionable Charles Lamb +must have had many such partners besides his sister Mary. Hazlitt +wrote: "He is one of those of whom it may be said, 'Tell me your +company, and I'll tell you your manners.' He is the creature of +sympathy, and makes good whatever opinion you seem to entertain of +him." + +Perhaps the most creative master by proxy I have ever known was the +wife of one of our ex-Presidents. To call upon her was to experience +the elevation and mental unlimbering of three or four glasses of +champagne, with none of that liquid's less desirable after-effects. I +should not wonder if her eminent husband's success were not due as +much to her creativeness as to his own. + +It sometimes happens that the most potent masters in their own right +are also the most potent masters by proxy. They grind out more power +than they can consume in their own particular mill-of-the-gods. I am +inclined to think that Sir Humphry Davy was one of these. He was the +discoverer of chlorine and laughing-gas, and the inventor of the +miner's safety lamp. He was also the _deus ex machina_ who rescued +Faraday from the bookbinder's bench, made him the companion of his +travels, and incidentally poured out the overplus of his own creative +energy upon the youth who has recently been called "perhaps the most +remarkable discoverer of the nineteenth century." Schiller was another +of these. "In more senses than one your sympathy is fruitful," wrote +Goethe to him during the composition of "Faust." + +Indeed, the greatest Master known to history was first and foremost a +master by proxy. It was He who declared that we all are "members one +of another." Writing nothing Himself, He inspired others to write +thousands of immortal books. He was unskilled as painter, or sculptor, +or architect; yet the greatest canvases, marbles, and cathedrals since +He trod the earth have sprung directly from his influence. He was no +musician. + + "His song was only living aloud." + +But that silent song was the direct inspiration of much of the +sublimest music of the centuries to come. And so we might go on and on +about this Master of all vicarious masters. + +Yet it is a strange and touching thing to note that even his exuberant +creativeness sometimes needed the refreshment of silent partners. When +He was at last to perform a great action in his own right He looked +about for support and found a master by proxy in Mary, the sister of +the practical Martha. But when He turned for help in uttermost need +to his best-beloved disciples He found them only negative, destructive +influences. This accounts for the anguish of his reproach: "Could ye +not watch with me one hour?" + +Having never been properly recognized as such, the world's masters by +proxy have never yet been suitably rewarded. Now the world is +convinced that its acknowledged masters deserve more of a feast at +life's surprise party than they can bring along for themselves in +their own baskets. So the world bows them to the places of honor at +the banquet board. True, the invitation sometimes comes so late that +the master has long since devoured everything in his basket and is +dead of starvation. But that makes not the slightest difference to +humanity, which will take no refusal, and props the cynically amused +skeleton up at the board next the toastmaster. My point is, however, +that humanity is often forehanded enough with its invitations to give +the masters a charming time of it before they, too, into the dust +descend, _sans_ wine, _sans_ song, etc. But I do not know that it has +ever yet consciously bidden a master by proxy--as such--to the feast. +And I contend that if a man's deserts are to be measured at all by his +creativeness, then the great masters by proxy deserve seats well up +above the salt. + +For is it any less praiseworthy to make a master than to make a +masterpiece? I grant that the masterpiece is the more sudden and +dramatic in appearing and can be made immediate use of, whereas the +master is slowly formed, and even then turns out unsatisfactory in +many ways. He is apt to be that well-known and inconvenient sort of +person who, when he comes in out of the rain to dress for his wedding, +abstractedly prepares to retire instead, and then, still more +abstractedly, puts his umbrella to bed and stands himself in the +corner. All the same, it is no less divine to create a master by slow, +laborious methods than to snatch a masterpiece apparently out of +nothing-at-all. In the eye of the evolutionist, man is not of any the +less value because he was made by painful degrees instead of having +been produced, a perfect gentleman, out of the void somewhat as the +magician brings forth from the empty saucepan an omelette, containing +a live pigeon with the loaned wedding-ring in its beak. + +The master-makers have long been expending their share of the power. +It is high time they were enjoying their share of the glory. What an +unconscionable leveling up and down there will presently be when it +dawns upon humanity what a large though inglorious share it has been +having in the spiritually creative work of the world! In that day the +seats of the mighty individualists of science, industry, politics, and +discovery; of religion and its ancient foe ecclesiasticism; of +economy, the arts and philosophy, will all be taken down a peg by the +same knowledge that shall exalt "them of low degree." + +I can imagine how angrily ruffled the sallow shade of Arthur +Schopenhauer will become at the dawn of this spiritual Commune. When +the first full notes of the soul's "Marseillaise" burst upon his +irritable eardrums, I can hear above them his savage snarl. I can see +his malignant expression as he is forced to divide his unearned +increment of fame with some of those _Mitmenschen_ whom he, like a bad +Samaritan, loved to lash with his tongue before pouring in oil of +vitriol and the sour wine of sadness. And how like red-ragged +turkey-cocks Lord Byron and Nietzsche and Napoleon will puff out when +required to stand and deliver some of their precious credit! + +There will be compensations, though, to the genius who, safely dead, +feels himself suddenly despoiled of a fullness of fame which he had +counted on enjoying in _sæcula sæculorum_. When he comes to balance +things up, perhaps he will not, after all, find the net loss so +serious. Though he lose some credit for his successes, he will also +lose some discredit for his failures. Humanity will recognize that +while the good angels of genius are the masters by proxy, the bad +angels of genius exert an influence as negative and destructive as the +influence of the others is positive and constructive. + +How jolly it will be, for all but the bad angels, when we can assign +to them such failures as Browning's "The Inn Album"; Davy's contention +that iodine was not an element, and Luther's savage hounding of the +nobles upon the wretched peasants who had risen in revolt under his +own inspiration. But enough of the bad angels! Let us inter them with +this epitaph: "They did their worst; devils could do no more." + +Turn we to the bright side of the situation. How delighted Keats will +be when at last the world develops a little sense of proportion, and +after first neglecting and then over-praising him, finally proposes to +give poor old Severn his due as a master by proxy. Imagine Sir William +Herschel's pleasure when his beloved sister Caroline begins to +receive her full deserts. And Tschaikowsky will slough his morbidness +and improvise a Slavic Hallelujah Chorus when his unseen patroness +comes into her own. It is true that the world has already given her +memory two fingers and a perfunctory "thank ye." This was for putting +her purse at Tschaikowsky's disposal, thus making it possible for him +to write a few immortal compositions instead of teaching mortals the +piano in a maddening conservatory. But now, glory! hallelujah! the +world is soon going to render her honor long overdue for the spiritual +support which so ably reinforced the financial. + +And Sir Thomas More, that early socialist--imagine his elation! For he +will regard our desire to transfer some of his own credit to the man +in the pre-Elizabethan street as a sure sign that we are steadily +approaching the golden gates of his Utopia. For good Sir Thomas knows +that our view of heroes and hero-worship has always been too little +democratic. We have been over-inclined, with the aristocratic +Carlyle, to see all history as a procession of a few transcendent +masters surrounded, preceded, and followed by enormous herds of abject +and quite insignificant slaves. Between these slaves and the masters, +there is, in the old view, about as much similarity as exists in the +child's imagination between the overwhelming dose of castor oil and +the single pluperfect chocolate drop whereby the dose is supposed to +be made endurable. Already the idea is beginning to glimmer that +heroic stuff is far more evenly distributed throughout the throng than +we had supposed. + +It is, of course, very meet and very right and our bounden duty to +admire the world's standard, official heroes. But it is wrong to +revere them to the exclusion of folk less showy but perhaps no less +essential. It is almost as wrong as it would be for the judges at the +horse-show to put the dog-cart before the horse and then focus their +admiring glances so exclusively upon the vehicle that they forgot the +very existence of its patient and unself-conscious propeller. + +It is especially fitting that we should awake to the worth of the +master by proxy just now, when the movement for the socialization of +the world, after so many ineffectual centuries, is beginning to engage +the serious attention of mankind. Thus far, one of the chief +reactionary arguments against all men being free has been that men are +so shockingly unequal. And the reactionaries have called us to witness +the gulf that yawns, for example, between the god-like individualist, +Ysaye, and the worm-like little factory girl down there in the +audience balanced on the edge of the seat and listening to the +violin--her rapt soul sitting in her eyes. Now, however, we know that, +but for the wireless tribute of creativeness that flashes up to the +monarch of tone from that "rapt soul" and others as humble and as +rapt--the king of fiddlers would then and there be obliged to lay down +his horsehair scepter and abdicate. + +We have reached a stage of social evolution where it is high time that +one foolish old fallacy should share the fate of the now partially +discredited belief that "genius will out" in spite of man or devil. +This fallacy is the supposition that man's creativeness is to be +measured solely by its visible, audible, or tangible results. +Browning's old Rabbi made a shrewd commentary on this question when he +declared: + + "Not on the vulgar mass + Called 'work,' must sentence pass, + Things done that took the eye and had the price.... + But all the world's coarse thumb + And finger failed to plumb.... + Thoughts hardly to be packed + Into a narrow act, + Fancies that broke through language and escaped: + All I could never be, + All men ignored in me, + This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped." + +Yes, we are being slowly socialized, even to our way of regarding +genius; and this has been until now the last unchallenged stronghold +of individualism. We perceive that even there individualism must no +longer be allowed to have it all its own way. After a century we are +beginning to realize that the truth was in our first socially minded +English poet when he sang: + + "Nothing in the world is single, + All things by a law divine + In one another's being mingle." + +To-day we have in library, museum, gallery, and cathedral tangible +records of the creativeness of the world's masters. Soon I think we +are to possess--thanks to Edison and the cinematographers--intangible +records--or at least suggestions--of the modest creativeness of our +masters by proxy. Some day every son with this inspiring sort of +mother will have as complete means as science and his purse affords, +of perpetuating her voice, her changing look, her walk, her tender +smile. Thus he may keep at least a gleam of her essential creativeness +always at hand for help in the hour of need. + +I would give almost anything if I could have in a storage battery +beside me now some of the electric current that was forever flowing +out of my own mother, or out of Richard Watson Gilder, or out of Hayd +Sampson, a glorious old "inglorious Milton" of a master by proxy whom +I once found toiling in a small livery-stable in Minnesota. My faith +is firm that some such miracle will one day be performed. And in our +irreverent, Yankee way we may perhaps call the captured product of the +master by proxy--"canned virtue." In that event the twenty-first +centurion will no more think of setting out on a difficult task or for +a God-forsaken environment without a supply of "canned virtue" than of +starting for one of the poles equipped with only a pocketful of +pemmican. + +There is a grievous amount of latent master-making talent spoiling +to-day for want of development. Many an one feels creative energy +crying aloud within himself for vicarious spiritual expression. He +would be a master by proxy, yet is at a loss how to learn. Him I +would recommend to try learning the easiest form of the art. Let him +resolve to become a creative listener to music. Once he is able to +influence reproducers of art like pianists and singers, he can then +begin groping by analogy toward the more difficult art of influencing +directly the world's creators. But even if he finds himself quite +lacking in creativeness, he can still be a silent partner of genius if +he will relax purse-strings, or cause them to be relaxed, for the +founding of creative fellowships. + +I do not know if ever yet in the history of the planet the mighty +force which resides in the masters by proxy has been systematically +used. I am sure it has never been systematically conserved, and that +it is one of the least understood and least developed of earth's +natural resources. One of our next long steps forward should be along +this line of the conservation of "virtue." The last physical frontier +has practically been passed. Now let us turn to the undiscovered +continents of soul which have so long been awaiting their Columbuses +and Daniel Boones, their country-life commissions and conferences of +governors. + +When the hundredth part of you possible masters by proxy shall grow +aware of your possibilities, and take your light from under the +bushel, and use it to reinforce the flickering flame of talent at your +elbow, or to illumine the path of some unfortunate and stumbling +genius, or to heighten the brilliance of the consummate master--our +civilization will take a mighty step towards God. + +Try it, my masters! + +THE END + + * * * * * + + +By Robert Haven Schauffler + +THE JOYFUL HEART. +SCUM O' THE EARTH AND OTHER POEMS. +THE MUSICAL AMATEUR. + + * * * * * + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + * * * * * + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Joyful Heart, by Robert Haven Schauffler + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOYFUL HEART *** + +***** This file should be named 19696-8.txt or 19696-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/9/19696/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Joyful Heart + +Author: Robert Haven Schauffler + +Release Date: November 2, 2006 [EBook #19696] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOYFUL HEART *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + +<h1>THE JOYFUL HEART</h1> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER</h2> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF THE MUSICAL AMATEUR, SCUM O' THE EARTH<br /> +AND OTHER POEMS, ROMANTIC AMERICA, ETC.</h4> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"People who are nobly happy constitute +the power, the beauty and the foundation +of the state."</p></div> + +<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Jean Finot</span>: <i>The Science of Happiness.</i></p> +<p> </p> + + +<p class="center"><img src="images/image_01.jpg" alt="Seal" width="150" height="199" /></p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h4>BOSTON AND NEW YORK</h4> +<h3>HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</h3> +<h4>The Riverside Press Cambridge</h4> +<h3>1914</h3> +<p> </p> +<p class="center f1">COPYRIGHT, 1914 BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>TO</h2> + +<h2>MY WIFE</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> +<h2>FOREWORD</h2> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_02.jpg" alt="T" width="50" height="57" /></div> +<p> +his is a guide-book to joy. It is for the use of the sad, the bored, +the tired, anxious, disheartened and disappointed. It is for the use +of all those whose cup of vitality is not brimming over.</p> + +<p>The world has not yet seen enough of joy. It bears the reputation of +an elusive sprite with finger always at lip bidding farewell. In +certain dark periods, especially in times of international warfare, it +threatens to vanish altogether from the earth. It is then the first +duty of all peaceful folk to find and hold fast to joy, keeping it in +trust for their embattled brothers.</p> + +<p>Even if this were not their duty as citizens of the world, it would be +their duty as patriots. For Jean Finot is right in declaring that +"people who are nobly happy constitute the power, the beauty and the +foundation of the state."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p> + +<p>This book is a manual of enthusiasm—the power which drives the +world—and of those kinds of exuberance (physical, mental and +spiritual) which can make every moment of every life worth living. It +aims to show how to get the most joy not only from traveling hopefully +toward one's goal, but also from the goal itself on arrival there. It +urges sound business methods in conducting that supreme business, the +investment of one's vitality.</p> + +<p>It would show how one may find happiness all alone with his better +self, his 'Auto-Comrade'—an accomplishment well-nigh lost in this +crowded age. It would show how the gospel of exuberance, by offering +the joys of hitherto unsuspected power to the artist and his audience, +bids fair to lift the arts again to the lofty level of the Periclean +age. It would show the so-called "common" man or woman how to develop +that creative sympathy which may make him a 'master by proxy,' and +thus let him know the conscious happiness of playing an essential part +in the creation of works<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> of genius. In short, the book tries to show +how the cup of joy may not only be kept full for one's personal use, +but may also be made hospitably to brim over for others.</p> + +<p>To the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> thanks are due for permission to reprint +chapters I, III and IV; to the <i>North American Review</i>, for chapter +VIII; and to the <i>Century</i>, for chapters V, VI, IX and X.</p> + +<p class="sig2">R. H. S.</p> + +<p class="sig1"><span class="smcap">Geeenbush, Mass.</span></p> + +<p class="sig3">August, 1914.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<table summary="Contents"> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">I.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#I">A Defense of Joy</a></span></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocch">II.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#II">The Brimming Cup</a></span></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocch">III.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#III">Enthusiasm</a></span></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocch">IV.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#IV">A Chapter of Enthusiasms</a></span></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocch">V.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#V">The Auto-Comrade</a></span></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocch">VI.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#VI">Vim and Vision</a></span></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocch">VII.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#VII">Printed Joy</a></span></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocch">VIII.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#VIII">The Joyful Heart for Poets</a></span></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocch">IX.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#IX">The Joyous Mission of Mechanical Music</a></span></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocch">X.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#X">Masters by Proxy</a></span></td> +<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>THE JOYFUL HEART</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + +<h3>A DEFENSE OF JOY</h3> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_03.jpg" alt="J" width="50" height="75" /></div> + +<p>oy is such stuff as the hinges of Heaven's doors are made of. So our +fathers believed. So we supposed in childhood. Since then it has +become the literary fashion to oppose this idea. The writers would +have us think of joy not as a supernal hinge, but as a pottle of hay, +hung by a crafty creator before humanity's asinine nose. The donkey is +thus constantly incited to unrewarded efforts. And when he arrives at +the journey's end he is either defrauded of the hay outright, or he +dislikes it, or it disagrees with him.</p> + +<p>Robert Louis Stevenson warns us that "to travel hopefully is a better +thing than to arrive," beautifully portraying the emptiness and +illusory character of achievement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> And, of those who have attained, +Mr. E. F. Benson exclaims, "God help them!" These sayings are typical +of a widespread literary fashion. Now to slander Mistress Joy to-day +is a serious matter. For we are coming to realize that she is a far +more important person than we had supposed; that she is, in fact, one +of the chief managers of life. Instead of doing a modest little +business in an obscure suburb, she has offices that embrace the whole +first floor of humanity's city hall.</p> + +<p>Of course I do not doubt that our writer-friends note down the truth +as they see it. But they see it imperfectly. They merely have a corner +of one eye on a corner of the truth. Therefore they tell untruths that +are the falser for being so charmingly and neatly expressed. What they +say about joy being the bribe that achievement offers us to get itself +realized may be true in a sense. But they are wrong in speaking of the +bribe as if it were an apple rotten at the core, or a bag of +counterfeit coin, or a wisp of artificial hay.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> It is none of these +things. It is sweet and genuine and well worth the necessary effort, +once we are in a position to appreciate it at anything like its true +worth. We must learn not to trust the beautiful writers too +implicitly. For there is no more treacherous guide than the consummate +artist on the wrong track.</p> + +<p>Those who decry the joy of achievement are like tyros at skating who +venture alone upon thin ice, fall down, fall in, and insist on the way +home that winter sports have been grossly overestimated. This outcry +about men being unable to enjoy what they have attained is a +half-truth which cannot skate two consecutive strokes in the right +direction without the support of its better half. And its better half +is the fact that one may enjoy achievement hugely, provided only he +will get himself into proper condition.</p> + +<p>Of course I am not for one moment denying that achievement is harder +to enjoy than the hope of achievement. Undoubtedly the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> former lacks +the glamour of the indistinct, "that sweet bloom of all that is far +away." But our celebrated writer-friends overlook the fact that +glamour and "sweet bloom" are so much pepsin to help weak stomachs +digest strong joy. If you would have the best possible time of it in +the world, develop your joy-digesting apparatus to the point where it +can, without a qualm, dispose of that tough morsel, the present, +obvious and attained. There will always be enough of the unachieved at +table to furnish balanced rations.</p> + +<p>"God help the attainers!"—forsooth! Why, the ideas which I have +quoted, if they were carried to logical lengths, would make heaven a +farcical kill-joy, a weary, stale, flat, unprofitable morgue of +disappointed hopes, with Ennui for janitor. I admit that the old +heaven of the Semitic poets was constructed somewhat along these +lines. But that was no real heaven. The real heaven is a quiet, +harpless, beautiful place where every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> one is a heaven-born creator +and is engaged—not caring in the least for food or sleep—in turning +out, one after another, the greatest of masterpieces, and enjoying +them to the quick, both while they are being done and when they are +quite achieved.</p> + +<p>I would not, however, fall into the opposite error and disparage the +joy of traveling hopefully. It is doubtless easy to amuse one's self +in a wayside air-castle of an hundred suites, equipped with +self-starting servants, a Congressional Library, a National Gallery of +pictures, a Vatican-ful of sculpture, with Hoppe for billiard-marker, +Paderewski to keep things going in the music-room, Wright as grand +hereditary master of the hangar, and Miss Annette Kellerman in charge +of the swimming-pool. I am not denying that such a castle is easier to +enjoy before the air has been squeezed out of it by the horny clutch +of reality, which moves it to the journey's end and sets it down with +a jar in its fifty-foot lot, complete with seven rooms and bath,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> and +only half an hour from the depot. But this is not for one moment +admitting the contention of the lords of literature that the +air-castle has a monopoly of joy, while the seven rooms and bath have +a monopoly of disillusionized boredom and anguish of mind. If your +before-mentioned apparatus is only in working order, you can have no +end of joy out of the cottage. And any morning before breakfast you +can build another, and vastly superior, air-castle on the vacant land +behind the woodshed.</p> + +<p>"What is all this," I heard the reader ask, "about a joy-digesting +apparatus?"</p> + +<p>It consists of four parts. Physical exuberance is the first. To a +considerable extent joy depends on an overplus of health. The joy of +artistic creation, for instance, lies not so intensely and +intoxicatingly in what you may some time accomplish as in what has +actually just started into life under your pencil or clayey thumb, +your bow or brush. For what you are about to receive, the Lord, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> a +rule, makes you duly thankful. But with the thankfulness is always +mingled the shadowy apprehension that your powers may fail you when +next you wish to use them. Thus the joy of anticipatory creation is +akin to pain. It holds no such pure bliss as actual creation. When you +are in full swing, what you have just finished (unless you are +exhausted) seems to you nearly always the best piece of work that you +have ever done. For your critical, inhibitory apparatus is temporarily +paralyzed by the intoxication of the moment. What makes so many +artists fail at these times to enjoy a maximum of pleasure and a +minimum of its opposite, is that they do not train their bodies "like +a strong man to run a race," and make and keep them aboundingly vital. +The actual toil takes so much of their meager vitality that they have +too little left with which to enjoy the resulting achievement. If they +become ever so slightly intoxicated over the work, they have a +dreadful morning after, whose pain they read back into the joy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +preceding. And then they groan out that all is vanity, and slander joy +by calling it a pottle of hay.</p> + +<p>It takes so much vitality to enjoy achievement because achievement is +something finished. And you cannot enjoy what is finished in art, for +instance, without re-creating it for yourself. But, though re-creation +demands almost as much vital overplus as creation, the layman should +realize that he has, as a rule, far more of this overplus than the +pallid, nervous sort of artist. And he should accordingly discount the +other's lamentations over the vanity of human achievement.</p> + +<p>The reason why Hazlitt took no pleasure in writing, and in having +written, his delicious essays is that he did not know how to take +proper care of his body. To be extremely antithetical, I, on the other +hand, take so much pleasure in writing and in having written these +essays of mine (which are no hundredth part as beautiful, witty, wise, +or brilliant as Hazlitt's), that the leaden showers of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> drudgery, +discouragement, and disillusionment which accompany and follow almost +every one of them, and the need of Spartan training for their sake, +hardly displace a drop from the bucket of joy that the work brings. +Training has meant so much vital overplus to me that I long ago +spurted and caught up with my pottle of joy. And, finding that it made +a cud of unimagined flavor and durability, I substituted for the +pottle a placard to this effect:</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">REMEMBER THE RACE!</span></p> + +<p>This placard, hung always before me, is a reminder that a decent +respect for the laws of good sportsmanship requires one to keep in as +hard condition as possible for the hundred-yard dash called Life. Such +a regimen pays thousands of per cent. in yearly dividends. It allows +one to live in an almost continual state of exaltation rather like +that which the sprinter enjoys when, after months of flawless +preparation, he hurls himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> through space like some winged creature +too much in love with the earth to leave it; while every drop of his +tingling blood makes him conscious of endless reserves of vitality.</p> + +<p>Tingling blood is a reagent which is apt to transmute all things into +joy—even sorrow itself. I wonder if any one seriously doubts that it +was just this which was giving Browning's young David such a glorious +time of it when he broke into that jubilant war-whoop about "our +manhood's prime vigor" and "the wild joys of living."</p> + +<p>The physical variety of exuberance, once won, makes easy the winning +of the mental variety. This, when it is almost isolated from the other +kinds, is what you enjoy when you soar easily along over the world of +abstract thought, or drink delight of battle with your intellectual +peers, or follow with full understanding the phonographic version of +some mighty, four-part fugue. To attain this means work. But if your +body is shouting for joy over the mere act of living, mental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +calisthenics no longer appear so impossibly irksome. And anyway, the +discipline of your physical training has induced your will to put up +with a good deal of irksomeness. This is partly because its eye is +fixed on something beyond the far-off, divine event of achieving +concentration on one subject for five minutes without allowing the +mind to wander from it more than twenty-five times. That something is +a keenness of perception which makes any given fragment of nature or +human nature or art, however seemingly barren and commonplace, +endlessly alive with possibilities of joyful discovery—with +possibilities, even, of a developing imagination. For the +Auto-Comrade, your better self, is a magician. He can get something +out of nothing.</p> + +<p>At this stage of your development you will probably discover in +yourself enough mental adroitness and power of concentration to enable +you to weed discordant thoughts out of the mind. As you wander through +your mental pleasure-grounds, whenever you come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> upon an ugly intruder +of a thought which might bloom into some poisonous emotion such as +fear, envy, hate, remorse, anger, and the like, there is only one +right way to treat it. Pull it up like a weed; drop it on the rubbish +heap as if it were a stinging nettle; and let some harmonious thought +grow in its place. There is no more reckless consumer of all kinds of +exuberance than the discordant thought, and weeding it out saves such +an amazing quantity of <i>eau de vie</i> wherewith to water the garden of +joy, that every man may thus be his own Burbank and accomplish marvels +of mental horticulture.</p> + +<p>When you have won physical and mental exuberance, you will have +pleased your Auto-Comrade to such an extent that he will most likely +startle and delight you with a birthday present as the reward of +virtue. Some fine morning you will climb out of the right side of your +bed and come whistling down to breakfast and find by your plate a neat +packet of spiritual exuberance with his best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> wishes. Such a gift is +what the true artist enjoys when inspiration comes too fast and full +for a dozen pens or brushes to record. Jeanne d'Arc knew it when the +mysterious voices spoke to her; and St. John on Patmos; and every true +lover at certain moments; and each one of us who has ever flung wide +the gates of prayer and felt the infinite come flooding in as the +clean vigor of the tide swirls up through a sour, stagnant marsh; or +who at some supreme instant has felt enfolding him, like the +everlasting arms, a sure conviction of immortality.</p> + +<p>Now for purposes of convenience we may speak of these three kinds of +exuberance as we would speak of different individuals. But in reality +they hardly ever exist alone. The physical variety is almost sure to +induce the mental and spiritual varieties and to project itself into +them. The mental kind looks before and after and warms body and soul +with its radiant smile. And even when we are in the throes of a purely +spiritual love or religious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> ecstasy, we have a feeling—though +perhaps it is illusory—that the flesh and the intellect are more +potent than we knew.</p> + +<p>These, then, constitute the first three parts of the joy-digesting +apparatus. I think there is no need of dwelling on their efficacy in +helping one to enjoy achievement. Let us pass, therefore, to the +fourth and last part, which is self-restraint.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the worst charge usually made against achievement is its +sameness, its dry monotony. On the way to it (the writers say) you are +constantly falling in with something new. But, once there, you must +abandon the variegated delights of yesterday and settle down, to-day +and forever, to the same old thing. In this connection I recall an +epigram of Professor Woodrow Wilson's. He was lecturing to us young +Princetonians about Gladstone's ability to make any subject of +absorbing interest, even a four hours' speech on the budget. "Young +gentlemen," cried the professor, "it is not the subject that is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> dry. +It is <i>you</i> that are dry!" Similarly, it is not achievement that is +dry; it is the achievers, who fondly suppose that now, having +achieved, they have no further use for the exuberance of body, mind, +and spirit, or the self-restraint which helped them toward their goal.</p> + +<p>Particularly the self-restraint. One chief reason why the thing +attained palls so often and so quickly is that men seek to enjoy it +immoderately. Why, if Ponce de Leon had found the fountain of youth +and drunk of it as bibulously as we are apt to guzzle the cup of +achievement, he would not only have arrested the forward march of +time, but would have over-reached himself and slipped backward through +the years of his age to become a chronic infant in arms. Even +traveling hopefully would pall if one kept at it twenty-four hours a +day. Just feast on the rich food of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony +morning, noon, and night for a few months, and see how you feel. There +is no other way. Achievement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> must be moderately indulged in, not made +the pretext for a debauch. If one has achieved a new cottage, for +example, let him take numerous week-end vacations from it. And let not +an author sit down and read through his own book the moment it comes +from the binder. A few more months will suffice to blur the memory of +those irrevocable, nauseating foundry proofs. If he forbears—instead +of being sickened by the stuff, no gentle reader, I venture to +predict, will be more keenly and delicately intrigued by the volume's +vigors and subtleties.</p> + +<p>If you have recently made a fortune, be sure, in the course of your +Continental wanderings, to take many a third-class carriage full of +witty peasants, and stop at many an "unpretending" inn "Of the White +Hind," with bowered rose-garden and bowling-green running down to the +trout-filled river, and mine ample hostess herself to make and bring +you the dish for which she is famous over half the countryside. Thus +you will increase by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> at least one Baedekerian star-power the luster +of the next Grand Hotel Royal de l'Univers which may receive you. And +be sure to alternate pedestrianism with motoring, and the "peanut" +gallery with the stage-box. Omit not to punctuate with stag vacations +long periods of domestic felicity. When Solomon declared that all was +vanity and vexation of spirit I suspect that he had been more than +unusually intemperate in frequenting the hymeneal altar.</p> + +<p>Why is it that the young painters, musicians, and playwrights who win +fame and fortune as heroes in the novels of Mr. E. F. Benson enjoy +achievement so hugely? Simply because they are exuberant in mind, +body, and spirit, and, if not averse to brandy and soda, are in other +ways, at least, paragons of moderation. And yet, in his "Book of +Months," Mr. Benson requests God to help those who have attained!</p> + +<p>With this fourfold equipment of the three exuberances and moderation, +I defy Solomon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> himself in all his glory not to enjoy the situation +immensely and settle down in high good humor and content with the +paltry few scores of wives already achieved. I defy him not to enjoy +even his fame.</p> + +<p>We have heard much from the gloomily illustrious about the fraudulent +promise of fame. At a distance, they admit, it seems like a banquet +board spread with a most toothsome feast. But step up to the table. +All you find there is dust and ashes, vanity and vexation of spirit +and a desiccated joint that defies the stoutest carver. If a man holds +this view, however, you may be rather sure that he belongs to the +<i>bourgeois</i> great. For it is just as <i>bourgeois</i> to win fame and then +not know what on earth to do with it, as it is to win fortune and then +not know what on earth to do with it. The more cultivated a famous man +is, the more he must enjoy the situation; for along with his dry scrag +of fame, the more he must have of the sauce which alone makes it +palatable. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> recipe for this sauce runs as follows: to one +amphoraful best physical exuberance add spice of keen perception, +cream of imagination, and fruits of the spirit. Serve with grain of +salt.</p> + +<p>That famous person is sauceless who can, without a tingle of joy, +overhear the couple in the next steamer-chairs mentioning his name +casually to each other as an accepted and honored household word. He +has no sauce for his scrag if he, unmoved, can see the face of some +beautiful child in the holiday crowd suddenly illuminated by the +pleasure of recognizing him, from his pictures, as the author of her +favorite story. He is <i>bourgeois</i> if it gives him no joy when the +weight of his name swings the beam toward the good cause; or when the +mail brings luminous gratitude and comprehension from the perfect +stranger in Topeka or Tokyo. No; fame to the truly cultivated should +be fully as enjoyable as traveling hopefully toward fame.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p> + +<p>In certain other cases, indeed, attainment is even more delicious than +the hope thereof. Think of the long, cool drink at the New Mexican +pueblo after a day in the incandescent desert, with your tongue +gradually enlarging itself from thirst. How is it with you, O golfer, +when, even up at the eighteenth, you top into the hazard, make a +desperate demonstration with the niblick, and wipe the sand out of +your eyes barely in time to see your ball creep across the distant +green and drop into the hole? Has not the new president's aged father +a slightly better time at the inauguration of his dear boy than he had +at any time during the fifty years of hoping for and predicting that +consummation? Does not the successful altruist enjoy more keenly the +certainty of having made the world a better place to live in, than he +had enjoyed the hope of achieving that desirable end? Can there be any +comparison between the joys of the tempest-driven soul aspiring, now +hopefully, now despairingly, to port,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> and the joys of the same soul +which has at last found a perfect haven in the heart of God?</p> + +<p>And still the writers go on talking of joy as if it were a pottle of +hay—a flimsy fraud—and of the satisfaction of attainment as if it +were unattainable. Why do they not realize, at least, that their every +thrill of response to a beautiful melody, their every laugh of +delighted comprehension of Hazlitt or Crothers, is in itself +attainment? The creative appreciator of art is always at his goal. And +the much-maligned present is the only time at our disposal in which to +enjoy the much-advertised future.</p> + +<p>Too bad that our literary friends should have gone to extremes on this +point! If Robert Louis Stevenson had noted that "to travel hopefully is +an easier thing than to arrive," he would undoubtedly have hit the +truth. If Mr. Benson had said, "If you attain, God help you bountifully +to exuberance," etc., that would have been unexceptionable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> It would +even have been a more useful—though slightly supererogatory—service, +to point out for the million-and-first time that achievement is not all +that it seems to be from a considerable distance. In other words, that +the laws of perspective will not budge. These writers would thus quite +sufficiently have played dentist to Disappointment and extracted his +venomous fangs for us in advance. What the gentlemen really should have +done was to perform the dentistry first, reminding us once again that a +part of attainment is illusory and consists of such stuff as +dreams—good and bad—are made of. Then, on the other hand, they should +have demonstrated attainment's good points, finally leading up to its +supreme advantage. This advantage is—its strategic position.</p> + +<p>Arriving beats hoping to arrive, in this: that while the hoper is so +keenly hopeful that he has little attention to spare for anything +besides the future, the arriver may take a broader, more leisurely +survey of things.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> The hoper's eyes are glued to the distant peak. The +attainer of that peak may recover his breath and enjoy a complete +panorama of his present achievement and may amuse himself moreover by +re-climbing the mountain in retrospect. He has also yonder farther and +loftier peak in his eye, which he may now look forward to attacking +the week after next; for this little preliminary jaunt is giving him +his mountain legs. Hence, while the hoper enjoys only the future, the +achiever, if his joy-digesting apparatus be working properly, rejoices +with exceeding great joy in past, present, and future alike. He has an +advantage of three to one over the merely hopeful traveler. And when +they meet this is the song he sings:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Mistress Joy is at your side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waiting to become a bride.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Soft! Restrain your jubilation.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That ripe mouth may not be kissed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere you stand examination.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mistress Joy's a eugenist.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Is your crony Moderation?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do your senses say you sooth?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are your veins the kind that tingle?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is your soul awake in truth?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If these traits in you commingle<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Joy no more shall leave you single.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<h3>THE BRIMMING CUP</h3> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_04.jpg" alt="E" width="50" height="61" /></div> +<p>xuberance is the income yielded by a wise investment of one's +vitality. On this income, so long as it flows in regularly, the +moderate man may live in the Land of the Joyful Heart, incased in +triple steel against any arrows of outrageous fortune that happen to +stray in across the frontier. Immigrants to this land who have no such +income are denied admission. They may steam into the country's +principal port, past the great statue of the goddess Joy who holds +aloft a brimming cup in the act of pledging the world. But they are +put ashore upon a small island for inspection. And so soon as the +inferior character of their investments becomes known, or their +recklessness in eating into their principal, they are deported.</p> + +<p>The contrast between those within the well-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>guarded gates and those +without is an affecting one. The latter often squander vast fortunes +in futile attempts to gain a foothold in the country. And they have a +miserable time of it. Many of the natives, on the other hand, are so +poor that they have constantly to fight down the temptation to touch +their principal. But every time they resist, the old miracle happens +for them once more: the sheer act of living turns out to be "paradise +enow."</p> + +<p>Now no mere fullness of life will qualify a man for admission to the +Land of the Joyful Heart. One must have overflowingness of life. In +his book "The Science of Happiness" Jean Finot declares, that the +"disenchantment and the sadness which degenerate into a sort of +pessimistic melancholy are frequently due to the diminution of the +vital energy. And as pain and sorrow mark the diminution, the joy of +living and the upspringing of happiness signify the increase of +energy.... By using special instruments, such as the plethysmo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>graph +of Hallion, the pneumograph of Marey, the sphygmometer of Cheron, and +so many others which have come in fashion during these latter years, +we have succeeded in proving experimentally that joy, sadness, and +pain depend upon our energy." To keep exuberant one must possess more +than just enough vitality to fill the cup of the present. There must +be enough to make it brim over. Real exuberance, however, is not the +extravagant, jarring sort of thing that some thoughtless persons +suppose it to be. The word is not accented on the first syllable. +Indeed, it might just as well be "<i>in</i>uberance." It does not long to +make an impression or, in vulgar phrase, to "get a rise"; but tends to +be self-contained. It is not boisterousness. It is generous and +infectious, while boisterousness is inclined to be selfish and +repellent. Most of us would rather spend a week among a crowd of +mummies than in a gang of boisterous young blades. For boisterousness +is only a degenerate exuberance, drunk and on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> rampage. The royal +old musician and poet was not filled with this, but with the real +thing, when he sang:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He leadeth me beside the still waters.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He restoreth my soul ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My cup runneth over."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The merely boisterous man, on the other hand, is a fatuous spendthrift +of his fortune. He reminds us how close we are of kin to the +frolicsome chimpanzee. His attitude was expressed on election night by +a young man of Manhattan who shouted hoarsely to his fellow:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"On with the dance; let joy be unrefined!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Neither should mere vivacity be mistaken for exuberance. It is no more +surely indicative of the latter than is the laugh of a parrot. One of +the chief advantages of the Teutonic over the Latin type of man is +that the Latin is tempted to waste his precious vital overplus through +a continuous display of vivacity, while the less demonstrative Teuton +more easily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> stores his up for use where it will count. This gives him +an advantage in such pursuits as athletics and empire-building.</p> + +<p>The more exuberance of all varieties one has stored up in body and +mind and spirit, the more of it one can bring to bear at the right +moment upon the things that count for most in the world—the things +that owe to it their lasting worth and their very existence. A little +of this precious commodity, more or less, is what often makes the +difference between the ordinary and the supreme achievement. It is the +liquid explosive that shatters the final, and most stubborn, barrier +between man and the Infinite. It is what Walt Whitman called "that +last spark, that sharp flash of power, that something or other more +which gives life to all great literature."</p> + +<p>The happy man is the one who possesses these three kinds of overplus, +and whose will is powerful enough to keep them all healthy and to keep +him from indulging in their delights intemperately.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is a ridiculous fallacy to assume, as many do, that such fullness +of life is an attribute of youth alone and slips out of the back door +when middle age knocks at the front. It is no more bound to go as the +wrinkles and gray hairs arrive than your income is bound to take wings +two or three score years after the original investment of the +principal. To ascribe it to youth as an exclusive attribute is as +fatuous as it would be to ascribe a respectable income only to the +recent investor.</p> + +<p>A red-letter day it will be for us when we realize that exuberance +represents for every one the income from his fund of vitality; that +when one's exuberance is all gone, his income is temporarily +exhausted; and that he cannot go on living at the same rate without +touching the principal. The hard-headed, harder-worked American +business man is admittedly clever and prudent about money matters. But +when he comes to deal with immensely more important matters such as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +life, health, and joy, he often needs a guardian. He has not yet +grasped the obvious truth that a man's fund of vitality ought to be +administered upon at least as sound a business basis as his fund of +dollars. The principal should not be broken into for living expenses +during a term of at least ninety-nine years. (Metchnikoff says that +this term is one hundred and twenty or so if you drink enough of the +Bulgarian bacillus.) And one should not be content with anything short +of a substantial rate of interest.</p> + +<p>In one respect this life-business is a simpler thing to manage than +the dollar-business. For, in the former, if the interest comes in +regularly and unimpaired, you may know that the principal is safe, +while in the dollar-business they may be paying your interest out of +your principal, and you none the wiser until the crash. But here the +difference ceases. For if little or no vital interest comes in, your +generous scale of living is pinched. You may defer the catastrophe a +little by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> borrowing short-time loans at a ruinous rate from usurious +stimulants, giving many pounds of flesh as security. But soon Shylock +forecloses and you are forced to move with your sufferings to the +slums and ten-cent lodging-houses of Life. Moreover, you must face a +brutal dispossession from even the poor flat or dormitory cot you +there occupy—out amid the snows and blasts—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>there to pay slack life's "arrears of pain, darkness, and cold."</p> + +<p>The reason why every day is a joy to the normal child is that he fell +heir at birth to a fortune of vitality and has not yet had time to +squander all his substance in riotous or thoughtless living, or to +overdraw his account in the Bank of Heaven on Earth. Every one of his +days is a joy—that is, except in so far as his elders have impressed +their tired standards of behavior too masterfully upon him. "Happy as +a child"—the commonness of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> phrase is in itself a commentary. In +order to remain as happy as this for a century or so, all that a child +has to do is to invest his vitality on sound business principles, and +never overdraw or borrow. I shall not here go into the myriad details +of just how to invest and administer one's vitality. For there is no +dearth of wise books and physicians and "Masters of the Inn," +competent to mark out sound business programs of work, exercise, +recreation, and regimen for body, mind, and spirit; while all that you +must contribute to the enterprise is the requisite comprehension, +time, money, and will-power. You see, I am not a professor of vital +commerce and investment; I am a stump-speaker, trying to induce the +voters to elect a sound business administration.</p> + +<p>I believe that the blessings of climate give us of North America less +excuse than most other people for failing to put such an +administration into office. It is noteworthy that many of the +Europeans who have recently written<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> their impressions of the United +States imagine that Colonel Roosevelt's brimming cup of vitality is +shared by nearly the whole nation. If it only were! But the fact that +these observers think so would seem to confirm our belief that our own +cup brims over more plentifully than that of Europe. This is probably +due to the exhilarating climate which makes America—physically, at +least, though not yet economically and socially—the promised land.</p> + +<p>Of course I realize the absurdity of urging the great majority of +human beings to keep within their vital incomes. To ask the +overworked, under-fed, under-rested, under-played, shoddily dressed, +overcrowded masses of humanity why they are not exuberant, is to ask +again, with Marie Antoinette, why the people who are starving for +bread do not eat cake. The fact is that to keep within one's income +to-day, either financially or vitally, is an aristocratic luxury that +is absolutely denied to the many. Most men—the rich<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> as well as the +poor—stumble through life three parts dead. The ruling class, if it +had the will and the skill, might awaken itself to fullness of life. +But only a comparatively few of the others could, because the world is +conducted on a principle which makes it even less possible for them to +store up a little hoard of vitality in their bodies against a rainy +day than to store up an overplus of dollars in the savings bank.</p> + +<p>I think that this state of things is very different from the one which +the fathers contemplated in founding our nation. When they undertook +to secure for us all "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," +they did not mean a bare clinging to existence, liberty to starve, and +the pursuit of a nimble happiness by the lame, the halt, and the +blind. They meant fullness of life, liberty in the broadest sense, +both outer and inner, and that almost certain success in the +attainment of happiness which these two guarantee a man. In a word, +the fathers meant to offer us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> all a good long draft of the brimming +cup with the full sum of benefits implied by that privilege. For the +vitalized man possesses real life and liberty, and finds happiness +usually at his disposal without putting himself to the trouble of +pursuit.</p> + +<p>I can imagine the good fathers' chagrin if they are aware to-day of +how things have gone on in their republic. Perhaps they realize that +the possibility of exuberance has now become a special privilege. And +if they are still as wise as they once were, they will be doubly +exasperated by this state of affairs because they will see that it is +needless. It has been proved over and over again that modern machinery +has removed all real necessity for poverty and overwork. There is +enough to go 'round. Under a more democratic system we might have +enough of the necessities and reasonable comforts of life to supply +each of the hundred million Americans, if every man did no more than a +wholesome amount of productive labor in a day and had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> the rest of his +time for constructive leisure and real living.</p> + +<p>On the same terms there is likewise enough exuberance to go 'round. +The only obstacle to placing it within the reach of all exists in +men's minds. Men are still too inert and blindly conservative to stand +up together and decree that industry shall be no longer conducted for +the inordinate profit of the few, but for the use of the many. Until +that day comes, the possibility of exuberance will remain a special +privilege.</p> + +<p>In the mean while it is too bad that the favored classes do not make +more use of this privilege. It is absurd that such large numbers of +them are still as far from exuberance as the unprivileged. They keep +reducing their overplus of vitality to an <i>under-minus</i> of it by too +much work and too foolish play, by plain thinking and high living and +the dissipation of maintaining a pace too swift for their as yet +unadjusted organisms. They keep their house of life always a little +chilly by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> opening the windows before the furnace has had a chance to +take the chill out of the rooms.</p> + +<p>If we would bring joy to the masses why not first vitalize the +classes? If the latter can be led to develop a fondness for that +brimming cup which is theirs for the asking, a long step will be taken +toward the possibility of overflowing life for all. The classes will +come to realize that, even from a selfish point of view, democracy is +desirable; that because man is a social animal, the best-being of the +one is inseparable from the best-being of the many; that no one can be +perfectly exuberant until all are exuberant. Jean Finot is right: +"True happiness is so much the greater and deeper in the proportion +that it embraces and unites in a fraternal chain more men, more +countries, more worlds."</p> + +<p>But the classes may also be moved by instincts less selfish. For the +brimming cup has this at least in common with the cup that inebriates: +its possessor is usually filled with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> generous—if sometimes +maudlin—anxiety to have others enjoy his own form of beverage. The +present writer is a case in point. His reason for making this book lay +in a convivial desire to share with as many as possible the contents +of a newly acquired brimming cup. Before getting hold of this cup, the +writer would have looked with an indifferent and perhaps hostile eye +upon the proposition to make such a blessing generally available. But +now he cannot for the life of him see how any one whose body, mind, +and spirit are alive and reasonably healthy can help wishing the same +jolly good fortune for all mankind.</p> + +<p>Horace Traubel records that the aged Walt Whitman was once talking +philosophy with some of his friends when an intensely bored youngster +slid down from his high chair and remarked to nobody in particular: +"There's too much old folk here for me!"</p> + +<p>"For me, too," cried the poet with one of his hearty laughs. "We are +all of us a good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> deal older than we need to be, than we think we are. +Let's all get young again."</p> + +<p>Even so! Here's to eternal youth for every one. And here's to the hour +when we may catch the eye of humanity and pledge all brother men in +the brimming cup.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<h3>ENTHUSIASM</h3> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_04.jpg" alt="E" width="50" height="61" /></div> +<p>nthusiasm is exuberance-with-a-motive. It is the power that makes the +world go 'round. The old Greeks who christened it knew that it was the +god-energy in the human machine. Without its driving force nothing +worth doing has ever been done. It is man's dearest possession. Love, +friendship, religion, altruism, devotion to hobby or career—all +these, and most of the other good things in life, are forms of +enthusiasm. A medicine for the most diverse ills, it alleviates both +the pains of poverty and the boredom of riches. Apart from it man's +heart is seldom joyful. Therefore it should be husbanded with zeal and +spent with wisdom.</p> + +<p>To waste it is folly; to misuse it, disaster. For it is safe to +utilize this god-energy only in its own proper sphere. Enthusiasm +moves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> the human vessel. To let it move the rudder, too, is criminal +negligence. Brahms once made a remark somewhat to this effect: The +reason why there is so much bad music in the world is that composers +are in too much of a hurry. When an inspiration comes to them, what do +they do? Instead of taking it out for a long, cool walk, they sit down +at once to work it up, but let it work <i>them</i> up instead into an +absolutely uncritical enthusiasm in which every splutter of the +goose-quill looks to them like part of a swan-song.</p> + +<p>Love is blind, they say. This is an exaggeration. But it is based on +the fact that enthusiasm, whether it appears as love, or in any other +form, always has trouble with its eyes. In its own place it is +incomparably efficient; only keep it away from the pilot-house!</p> + +<p>Since this god-energy is the most precious and important thing that we +have, why should our word for its possessor have sunk almost to the +level of a contemptuous epithet?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> Nine times in ten we apply it to the +man who allows his enthusiasm to steer his vessel. It would be full as +logical to employ the word "writer" for one who misuses his literary +gift in writing dishonest advertisements. When we speak of an +"enthusiast" to-day, we usually mean a person who has all the +ill-judging impulsiveness of a child without its compensating charm, +and is therefore not to be taken seriously. "He's only an enthusiast!" +This has been said about Columbus and Christ and every other great man +who ever lived.</p> + +<p>But besides its poor sense of distance and direction, men have another +complaint against enthusiasm. They think it insincere on account of +its capacity for frequent and violent fluctuation in temperature. In +his "Creative Evolution," Bergson shows how "our most ardent +enthusiasm, as soon as it is externalized into action, is so naturally +congealed into the cold calculation of interest or vanity, the one so +easily takes the shape of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> the other, that we might confuse them +together, doubt our own sincerity, deny goodness and love, if we did +not know that the dead retain for a time the features of the living."</p> + +<p>The philosopher then goes on to show how, when we fall into this +confusion, we are unjust to enthusiasm, which is the materialization +of the invisible breath of life itself. It is "the spirit." The action +it induces is "the letter." These constitute two different and often +antagonistic movements. The letter kills the spirit. But when this +occurs we are apt to mistake the slayer for the slain and impute to +the ardent spirit all the cold vices of its murderer. Hence, the taint +of insincerity that seems to hang about enthusiasm is, after all, +nothing but illusion. To be just we should discount this illusion in +advance as the wise man discounts discouragement. And the epithet for +the man whose lungs are large with the breath of life should cease to +be a term of reproach.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> + +<p>Enthusiasm is the prevailing characteristic of the child and of the +adult who does memorable things. The two are near of kin and bear a +family resemblance. Youth trails clouds of glory. Glory often trails +clouds of youth. Usually the eternal man is the eternal boy; and the +more of a boy he is, the more of a man. The most conventional-seeming +great men possess as a rule a secret vein of eternal-boyishness. Our +idea of Brahms, for example, is of a person hopelessly mature and +respectable. But we open Kalbeck's new biography and discover him +climbing a tree to conduct his chorus while swaying upon a branch; or, +in his fat forties, playing at frog-catching like a five-year-old.</p> + +<p>The prominent American is no less youthful. Not long ago one of our +good gray men of letters was among his children, awaiting dinner and +his wife. Her footsteps sounded on the stairs. "Quick, children!" he +exclaimed. "Here's mother. Let's hide under the table and when she +comes in we'll rush<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> out on all-fours and pretend we're bears." The +maneuver was executed with spirit. At the preconcerted signal, out +they all waddled and galumphed with horrid grunts—only to find +something unfamiliar about mother's skirt, and, glancing up, to +discover that it hung upon a strange and terrified guest.</p> + +<p>The biographers have paid too little attention to the god-energy of +their heroes. I think that it should be one of the crowning +achievements of biography to communicate to the reader certain actual +vibrations of the enthusiasm that filled the scientist or philosopher +for truth; the patriot for his country; the artist for beauty and +self-expression; the altruist for humanity; the discoverer for +knowledge; the lover or friend for a kindred soul; the prophet, +martyr, or saint for his god.</p> + +<p>Every lover, according to Emerson, is a poet. Not only is this true, +but every one of us, when in the sway of any enthusiasm, has in him +something creative. Therefore a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> record of the most ordinary person's +enthusiasms should prove as well worth reading as the ordinary record +we have of the extraordinary person's life if written with the usual +neglect of this important subject. Now I should like to try the +experiment of sketching in outline a new kind of biography. It would +consist entirely of the record of an ordinary person's enthusiasms. +But, as I know no other life-story so well as my own, perhaps the +reader will pardon me for abiding in the first person singular. He may +grant pardon the more readily if he realizes the universality of this +offense among writers. For it is a fact that almost all novels, +stories, poems, and essays are only more or less cleverly disguised +autobiography. So here follow some of my enthusiasms in a new +chapter.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<h3>A CHAPTER OF ENTHUSIASMS</h3> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="I" width="30" height="66" /></div> +<p>n looking back over my own life, a series of enthusiasms would appear +to stand out as a sort of spinal system, about which are grouped as +tributaries all the dry bones and other minor phenomena of existence. +Or, rather, enthusiasm is the deep, clear, sparkling stream which +carries along and solves and neutralizes, if not sweetens, in its +impetuous flow life's rubbish and superfluities of all kinds, such as +school, the Puritan Sabbath, boot and hair-brushing, polite and +unpolemic converse with bores, prigs, pedants, and shorter +catechists—and so on all the way down between the shores of age to +the higher mathematics, bank failures, and the occasional editor whose +word is not as good as his bond.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> + +<p>My first enthusiasm was for good things to eat. It was stimulated by +that priceless asset, a virginal palate. But here at once the medium +of expression fails. For what may words presume to do with the flavor +of that first dish of oatmeal; with the first pear, grape, watermelon; +with the Bohemian roll called <i>Hooska</i>, besprinkled with poppy and +mandragora; or the wondrous dishes which our Viennese cook called +<i>Aepfelstrudel</i> and <i>Scheiterhaufen</i>? The best way for me to express +my reaction to each of these delicacies would be to play it on the +'cello. The next best would be to declare that they tasted somewhat +better than Eve thought the apple was going to taste. But how absurdly +inadequate this sounds! I suppose the truth is that such enthusiasms +have become too utterly congealed in our <i>blasé</i> minds when at last +these minds have grown mature enough to grasp the principles of +penmanship. So that whatever has been recorded about the sensations of +extreme youth is probably all false. Why, even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Heaven lies about us in our infancy,"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>as Wordsworth revealed in his "Ode on Immortality." And though +Tennyson pointed out that we try to revenge ourselves by lying about +heaven in our maturity, this does not serve to correct a single one of +crabbed age's misapprehensions about youth.</p> + +<p>Games next inflamed my fancy. More than dominoes or Halma, lead +soldiers appealed to me, and tops, marbles, and battledore and +shuttlecock. Through tag, fire-engine, pom-pom-pull-away, +hide-and-seek, baseball, and boxing, I came to tennis, which I knew +instinctively was to be my athletic <i>grand passion</i>. Perhaps I was +first attracted by the game's constant humor which was forever making +the ball imitate or caricature humanity, or beguiling the players to +act like solemn automata. For children are usually quicker than +grown-ups to see these droll resemblances. I came by degrees to like +the game's variety, its tense excitement, its beauty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> of posture and +curve. And before long I vaguely felt what I later learned +consciously: that tennis is a sure revealer of character. Three sets +with a man suffice to give one a working knowledge of his moral +equipment; six, of his chief mental traits; and a dozen, of that most +important, and usually veiled part of him, his subconscious +personality. Young people of opposite sexes are sometimes counseled to +take a long railway journey together before deciding on a matrimonial +merger. But I would respectfully advise them rather to play "singles" +with each other before venturing upon a continuous game of doubles.</p> + +<p>The collecting mania appeared some time before tennis. I first +collected ferns under a crag in a deep glen. Mere amassing soon gave +way to discrimination, which led to picking out a favorite fern. This +was chosen, I now realize, with a woeful lack of fine feeling. I +called it "The Alligator" from its fancied resemblance to my brother's +alli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>gator-skin traveling-bag. But admiration of this fern brought a +dawning consciousness that certain natural objects were preferable to +others. This led, in years, to an enthusiasm for collecting +impressions of the beauty, strength, sympathy, and significance of +nature. The Alligator fern, as I still call it, has become a symbolic +thing to me; and the sight of it now stands for my supreme or +best-loved impression, not alone in the world of ferns, but also in +each department of nature. Among forests it symbolizes the immemorial +incense cedars and redwoods of the Yosemite; among shores, those of +Capri and Monterey; among mountains, the glowing one called Isis as +seen at dawn from the depths of the Grand Cañon.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> +<p>Next, I collected postage-stamps. I know that it is customary to-day +for writers to sneer at this pursuit. But surely they have forgotten +its variety and subtlety; its demand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> on the imagination; how it makes +history and geography live, and initiates one painlessly into the +mysteries of the currency of all nations. Then what a tonic it is for +the memory! Only think of the implications of the annual +price-catalogue! Soon after the issue of this work, every collector +worthy the name has almost unconsciously filed away in his mind the +current market values of thousands of stamps. And he can tell you +offhand, not only their worth in the normal perforated and canceled +condition, but also how their values vary if they are uncanceled, +unperforated, embossed, rouletted, surcharged with all manner of +initials, printed by mistake with the king standing on his head, or +water-marked anything from a horn of plenty to the seven lean kine of +Egypt. This feat of memory is, moreover, no hardship at all, for the +enthusiasm of the normal stamp-collector is so potent that its +proprietor has only to stand by and let it do all the work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> + +<p>We often hear that the wealthy do not enjoy their possessions. This +depends entirely upon the wealthy. That some of them enjoy their +treasures giddily, madly, my own experience proves. For, as youthful +stamp-collectors went in those days, I was a philatelic magnate. By +inheritance, by the ceaseless and passionate trading of duplicates, by +rummaging in every available attic, by correspondence with a wide +circle of foreign missionaries, and by delivering up my whole +allowance, to the dealers, I had amassed a collection of several +thousand varieties. Among these were such gems as all of the +triangular Cape of Good Hopes, almost all of the early Persians, and +our own spectacular issue of 1869 unused, including the one on which +the silk-stockinged fathers are signing the Declaration of +Independence. Such possessions as these I well-nigh worshiped.</p> + +<p>Even to-day, after having collected no stamps for a generation, the +chance sight of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> an "approval sheet," with its paper-hinged reminders +of every land, gives me a curious sensation. There visit my spine +echoes of the thrills that used to course it on similar occasions in +boyhood. These were the days when my stamps had formed for me mental +pictures—more or less accurate—of each country from Angola to +Zululand, its history, climate, scenery, inhabitants, and rulers. To +possess its rarest stamp was mysteriously connected in my mind with +being given the freedom of the land itself, and introduced with warm +recommendations to its <i>genius loci</i>.</p> + +<p>Even old circulars issued by dealers, now long gone to stampless +climes, have power still to raise the ghost of the vanished glamour. I +prefer those of foreign dealers because their English has the quaint, +other-world atmosphere of what they dealt in. The other day I found in +an old scrapbook a circular from Vienna, which annihilated a score of +years with its very first words:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CLEARING</h3> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">OF A LARGE PART OF MY RETAIL DEPOSITORY</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Being lately so much engaged into my wholesale business ... +I have made up my mind to sell out a large post of my +retail-stamps at under-prices. They are rests of larger +collections containing for the most, only older marks and +not thrash possibly put together purposedly as they used to +be composed by the other dealers and containing therefore +mostly but worthless and useless nouveautés of Central +America.</p></div> + + + +<p>Before continuing this persuasive flow, the dealer inserts a number of +testimonials like the following. He calls them:</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Sent package having surpassed my expectations I beg to remit +by to-days post-office-ordres Mk. 100. Kindly please send me +by return of post offered album wanted for retail sale.</p></div> + +<p class="sig4">G. B.—<span class="smcap">Hannover</span>.</p> + +<p>The dealer now comes to his peroration:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I beg to call the kind of attention of every buyer to the +fact of my selling all these packages and albums with my own +loss merely for clearings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> sake of my retail business and in +order to get rid of them as much and as soon as possible. +With 25-60 % abatement I give stamps and whole things to +societies against four weeks calculation.</p> + +<p>All collectors are bound to oblige themselves by writing +contemporaneously with sending in the depository amount to +make calculation within a week as latest term.</p></div> + + + +<p>It is enough! As I read, the old magic enfolds me, and I am seized +with longing to turn myself into a society of collectors and to +implore the altruistic dealer "kindly please" to send me, at a +prodigious "abatement," "stamps and whole things against four weeks +calculation."</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> +<p>The youngest children of large families are apt to be lonely folk, +somewhat retired and individualistic in their enthusiasms. I was such +a child, blessed by circumstances with few playfellows and rather +inclined to sedentary joys. Even when I reached the barbaric stage of +evolution where youth is gripped by enthusiasm for the main pursuits<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +of his primitive ancestors, I was fain to enjoy these in the more +sophisticated forms natural to a lonely young city-dweller.</p> + +<p>When stamps had passed their zenith I was filled with a lust for +slaughter. Fish were at first the desired victims. Day after day I sat +watching a hopelessly buoyant cork refuse to bob into the depths of +the muddy and torpid Cuyahoga. I was like some fond parent, hoping +against hope to see his child out-live the flippant period and dive +beneath the surface of things, into touch with the great living +realities. And when the cork finally marked a historic epoch by +vanishing, and a small, inert, and intensely bored sucker was pulled +in hand over hand, I felt thrills of gratified longing and conquest +old and strong as the race.</p> + +<p>But presently I myself was drawn, like the cork, beneath the +superficial surface of the angler's art. For in the public library I +chanced on a shelf of books, that told about fishing of a nobler, +jollier, more seductive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> sort. At once I was consumed with a passion +for five-ounce split-bamboo fly-rods, ethereal leaders, double-tapered +casting-lines of braided silk, and artificial flies more fair than +birds of paradise. Armed in spirit, with all these, I waded the +streams of England with kindly old Isaak Walton, and ranged the +Restigouche with the predecessors of Henry van Dyke. These dreams +brought with them a certain amount of satisfaction—about as much +satisfaction as if they had come as guests to a surprise party, each +equipped with a small sandwich and a large appetite. The visions were +pleasant, of course, but they cried out, and made me cry out, for +action. There were no trout, to be sure, within a hundred miles, and +there was no way of getting to any trouty realm of delight. But I did +what I could to be prepared for the blessed hour when we should meet. +I secured five new subscriptions or so to "The Boys' Chronicle" (let +us call it), and received in return a fly-rod so flimsy that it would +have resolved itself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> into its elements at sight of a half-pound +trout. It was destined, though, never to meet with this embarrassment.</p> + +<p>My casting-line bore a family resemblance to grocery string. My leader +was a piece of gut from my brother's 'cello; my flybook, an old +wallet. As for flies, they seemed beyond my means; and it was +perplexing to know what to do, until I found a book which said that it +was better by far to tie your own flies. With joyful relief I acted on +this counsel. Plucking the feather-duster, I tied two White Millers +with shoe-thread upon cod-hooks. One of these I stained and streaked +with my heart's blood into the semblance of a Parmacheene Belle. The +canary furnished materials for a Yellow May; a dooryard English +sparrow, for a Brown Hackle. My masterpiece, the beautiful, +parti-colored fly known as Jock Scott, owed its being to my sister's +Easter bonnet.</p> + +<p>I covered the points of the hooks with pieces of cork, and fished on +the front lawn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> from morning to night, leaning with difficulty against +the thrust of an imaginary torrent. And I never ceased striving to +make the three flies straighten out properly as the books directed, +and fall like thistledown upon the strategic spot where the empty +tomato can was anchored, and then jiggle appetizingly down over the +four-pounder, where he sulked in the deep hole just beyond the +hydrant.</p> + +<p>The hunting fever was wakened by the need for the Brown Hackle already +mentioned. But as the choice of weapons and of victims culminated in +the air-gun and the sparrow, respectively, my earliest hunting was +confined even more closely than my fishing to the library and the +dense and teeming forests of the imagination.</p> + +<p>But while somewhat handicapped here by the scarcity of ferocious game, +I was more fortunate in another enthusiasm which attacked me at almost +the same time. For however unpropitious the hunting is on any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> given +part of the earth's surface, there is everywhere and always an +abundance of good hidden-treasure-seeking to be had. The garden, the +attic, the tennis lawn all suffered. And my initiative was +strengthened by the discovery of an incomparable book all about a dead +man's chest, and not only digging for gold in a secret island, but +finding it, too, by jingo! and fighting off the mutineers.</p> + +<p>These aspirations naturally led to games of Pirate, or Outlaw, which +were handicapped, however, by the scarcity of playmates, and their +curious hesitation to serve as victims. As pirates and outlaws are +well known to be the most superstitious of creatures, inclining to the +primitive in their religious views, we were naturally led into a sort +of dread enthusiasm for—or enthusiastic dread of—the whole pantheon +of spooks, sprites, and bugaboos to which savages and children, great +and small, bow the knee. My dreams at that time ran something like +this:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>PARADISE REVISED</h3> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Playing hymn-tunes day and night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On a harp <i>may</i> be all right<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the grown-ups; but for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I do wish that heaven could be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sort o' like a circus, run<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So a kid could have some fun!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There I'd not play harps, but horns<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I chased the unicorns—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Magic tubes with pistons greasy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slides that pushed and pulled out easy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cylinders of snaky brass<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the fingers like to fuss,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Polished like a looking-glass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ending in a blunderbuss.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I would ride a horse of steel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wound up with a ratchet-wheel.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every beast I'd put to rout<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the man I read about.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would singe the leopard's hair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stalk the vampire and the adder,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drive the werewolf from his lair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Make the mad gorilla madder.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Needle-guns my work should do.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, if beasts got closer to,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would pierce them to the marrow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a barbed and poisoned arrow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or I'd whack 'em on the skull<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till my scimiter was dull.<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If these weapons didn't work,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a kris or bowie-knife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poniard, assegai, or dirk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would make them beg for life;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spare them, though, if they'd be good<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And guard me from what haunts the wood—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From those creepy, shuddery sights<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That come round a fellow nights—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Imps that squeak and trolls that prowl,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ghouls, the slimy devil-fowl,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Headless goblins with lassoes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scarlet witches worse than those,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flying dragon-fish that bellow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So as most to scare a fellow....<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There, as nearly as I could,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would live like Robin Hood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taking down the mean and haughty,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Getting plunder from the naughty<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To reward all honest men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who should seek my outlaw's den.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When I'd wearied of these pleasures<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd go hunt for hidden treasures—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In no ordinary way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pirates' luggers I'd waylay;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Board them from my sinking dory,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wade through decks of gore and glory,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drive the fiends, with blazing matchlock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down below, and snap the hatch-lock.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Next, I'd scud beneath the sky-land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sight the hills of Treasure Island,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span><span class="i0">Prowl and peer and prod and prise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till there burst upon my eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just the proper pirate's freight:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gold doubloons and pieces of eight!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then—the very best of all—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suddenly a stranger tall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would appear, and I'd forget<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That we hadn't ever met.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with cap upthrown I'd greet him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Turning from the plunder, yellow)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I'd hurry fast to meet him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For he'd be the very fellow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who, I think, invented fun—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Robert Louis Stevenson.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The enthusiasms of this barbaric period never died. They grew up, +instead, and proved serviceable friends. Fishing and hunting are now +the high-lights of vacation time. The crude call of the weird and the +inexplicable has modulated into a siren note from the forgotten +psychic continents which we Western peoples have only just discovered +and begun to explore. As for the buried treasure craze—why, my +life-work practically amounts to a daily search for hidden valuables +in the cellars and attics, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> chimney-pieces and desert islands of +the mind, and secret attempts to coin them into currency.</p> + +<p>And so I might go on to tell of my enthusiasms for no end of other +things like reading, modeling, folk-lore, cathedrals, writing, +pictures, and the theater. Then there is the long story of that +enthusiasm called Love, of Friendship its twin, and their elder +brother, Religion, and their younger sister, Altruism. And travel and +adventure and so on. But no! It is, I believe, a misdemeanor to obtain +attention under false pretenses. If I have caught the reader's eye by +promising to illustrate in outline a new method of writing +autobiography, I must not abuse his confidence by putting that method +into practice. So, with a regret almost equal to that of Lewis +Carroll's famous Bellman—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I skip twenty years—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and close with my latest enthusiasm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> +<p>Confirmed wanderers that we were, my wife and I had rented a house for +the winter in a Massachusetts coast village and had fallen somewhat +under the spell of the place. Nevertheless, we had decided to move on +soon—to try, in fact, another trip through Italy. Our friendly +neighbors urged us to buy land up the "back lane" instead, and build +and settle down. We knew nothing of this region, however, and scarcely +heard them.</p> + +<p>But they were so insistent that one day we ventured up the back lane +at dusk and began to explore the woods. It grew dark and we thought of +turning back. Then it began to grow light again. A full moon was +climbing up through the maples, inviting further explorations. We +pushed through a dense undergrowth and presently were in a grove of +great white pines. There was a faint sound of running water, and +suddenly we came upon an astonishing brook—wide, swift, and musical.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +We had not suspected the existence of such a brook within a dozen +leagues. It was over-arched by tall oaks and elms, beeches, tupelos, +and maples. The moonbeams were dancing in the ripples and on the +floating castles of foam.</p> + +<p>"What a place for a study!"</p> + +<p>"Yes; a log cabin with a big stone fireplace."</p> + +<p>The remarks came idly, but our eyes met and held. Moved by one impulse +we turned from the stream and remarked what bosh people will sometimes +talk, and discussed the coming Italian trip as we moved cautiously +among the briers. But when we came once more to the veteran pines, +they seemed more glamorous than ever in the moonlight, especially one +that stood near a large holly, apart from the rest—a three-prong +lyrical fellow—and his opposite, a burly, thickset archer, bending +his long-bow into a most exquisite curve. The fragrant pine needles +whispered. The brook lent its faint music.</p> + +<p>"Quick! We had better get away!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> + +<p>A forgotten lumber road led us safe from briers up a hill. Out of a +dense oak grove we suddenly emerged upon the more open crest. Our feet +sank deep in moss.</p> + +<p>"Look," I said.</p> + +<p>Over the heads of the high forest trees below shimmered a mile of +moonlit marshes, and beyond them a gleam—perhaps from some vessel far +at sea, perhaps even from a Provincetown lighthouse.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but look!"</p> + +<p>At a touch I faced around and beheld, crowning the hill, a stately +company of red cedars, comely and dense and mysterious as the +cypresses of Tivoli, and gloriously drenched in moonlight.</p> + +<p>"But what a place for a house!"</p> + +<p>"Let's give up Italy," was the answer, "and make this wood our home."</p> + +<p>By instinct and training we were two inveterate wanderers. Never had +we possessed so much as a shingle or a spoonful of earth. But the +nest-building enthusiasm had us at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> last. Our hands met in compact. As +we strolled reluctantly homeward to a ten-o'clock dinner we talked of +road-making, swamps, pneumatic water-systems, the nimbleness of +dollars, and mountains of other difficulties. And we agreed that the +only kind of faith which can easily remove mountains is the faith of +the enthusiast.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + +<h3>THE AUTO-COMRADE</h3> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_06.jpg" alt="H" width="55" height="53" /></div> +<p>uman nature abhors a vacuum, especially a vacuum inside itself. Offer +the ordinary man a week's vacation all alone, and he will look as +though you were offering him a cell in Sing Sing.</p> + +<p>"There are," as Ruth Cameron truly observes, "a great many people to +whom there is no prospect more terrifying than that of a few hours +with only their own selves for company. To escape that terrible +catastrophe, they will make friends with the most fearful bore or read +the most stupid story.... If such people are marooned a few hours, not +only without human companionship, but even without a book or magazine +with which to screen their own stupidity from themselves, they are +fairly frantic."</p> + +<p>If any one hates to be alone with himself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> the chances are that he +has not much of any self to be alone with. He is in as desolate a +condition as a certain Mr. Pease of Oberlin, who, having lost his wife +and children, set up his own tombstone and chiseled upon it this +epitaph:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i5">"Here lies the pod.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Pease are shelled and gone to God."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Now, pod-like people such as he are always solitary wherever other +people are not; and there is, of course, nothing much more distressing +than solitariness. These people, however, fall through sheer ignorance +into a confusion of thought. They suppose that solitude and +solitariness are the same thing. To the artist in life—to the wise +keeper of the joyful heart—there is just one difference between these +two: it is the difference between heaven and its antipodes. For, to +the artist in life, solitude is solitariness plus the Auto-Comrade.</p> + +<p>As it is the Auto-Comrade who makes all the difference, I shall try to +describe his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> appearance. His eyes are the most arresting part of him. +They never peer stupidly through great, thick spectacles of others' +making. They are scarcely ever closed in sleep, and sometimes make +their happiest discoveries during the small hours. These hours are +truly small because the Auto-Comrade often turns his eyes into the +lenses of a moving-picture machine—such an entertaining one that it +compresses the hours to seconds. It is through constant, alert use +that his eyes have become sharp. They can pierce through the rinds of +the toughest personalities, and even penetrate on occasion into the +future. They can also take in whole panoramas of the past in one +sweeping look. For they are of that "inner" variety through which +Wordsworth, winter after winter, used to survey his daffodil-fields. +"The bliss of solitude," he called them.</p> + +<p>The Auto-Comrade has an adjustable brow. It can be raised high enough +to hold and reverberate and add rich overtones to, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> grandest +chords of thought ever struck by a Plato, a Buddha, or a Kant. The +next instant it may easily be lowered to the point where the ordinary +cartoon of commerce or the tiny cachinnation of a machine-made +Chesterton paradox will not ring entirely hollow. As for his voice, it +can at times be more musical than Melba's or Caruso's. Without being +raised above a whisper, it can girdle the globe. It can barely breathe +some delicious new melody; yet the thing will float forth not only +undiminished, but gathering beauty, significance, and incisiveness in +every land it passes through.</p> + +<p>The Auto-Comrade is an erect, wiry young figure of an athlete. As he +trades at the Seven-League Boot and Shoe Concern, it never bothers him +to accompany you on the longest tramps. His feet simply cannot be +tired out. As for his hands, they are always alert to give you a lift +up the rough places on the mountain-side. He has remarkable presence +of body. In any emergency he is usually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> the best man on the spot. He +is at once seer, creator, accomplisher, and present help in time of +trouble. But his everyday occupation is that of entertainer. He is the +joy-bringer—the Prometheus of pleasure. In his vicinity there is no +such thing as ennui or lonesomeness. Emerson wrote:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"When I would spend a lonely day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sun and moon are in my way."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But for pals of the Auto-Comrade, not only sun, moon, etc., are in the +way, but all of his own unlimited resources. For every time and season +he has a fittingly varied repertory of entertainment.</p> + +<p>Now and again he startles you by the legerdemain feat of snatching +brand-new ideas out of the blue, like rabbits out of a hat. While you +stand at the port-hole of your cabin and watch the rollers rushing +back to the beloved home-land you are quitting, he marshals your +friends and acquaintances into a long line for a word of greeting or a +rapid-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>fire chat, just as though you were some idol of the people, and +were steaming in past the Statue of Liberty on your way home from +lionizing and being lionized abroad, and the Auto-Comrade were the +factotum at your elbow who asks, "What name, please?"</p> + +<p>After the friends and acquaintances, he even brings up your <i>bêtes +noires</i> and dearest enemies for inspection and comment. Strangely +enough, viewed in this way, these persons no longer seem so +contemptible or pernicious or devilish as they once did. At this point +your factotum rubs your eye-glasses bright with the handkerchief he +always carries about for slate-cleaning purposes, and lo! you even +begin to discover good points about the chaps, hitherto unsuspected.</p> + +<p>Then there are always your million-and-one favorite melodies which +nobody but that all-around musical amateur, the Auto-Comrade, can so +exquisitely whistle, hum, strum, fiddle, blat, or roar. There is also +a universe full of new ones for him to improvise. And he is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +jolliest sort of fellow musician, because, when you play or sing a +duet with him, you can combine with the exciting give-and-take and +reciprocal stimulation of the duet, the god-like autocracy of the +solo, its opportunity for wide, uninterrupted, uncoerced +self-expression. Sometimes, however, in the first flush of escape with +him to the wilds, you are fain to clap your hand over his mouth in +order the better to taste the essentially folk-less savor of solitude. +For music is a curiously social art, and Browning was more than half +right when he said, "Who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at +once."</p> + +<p>Perhaps you can find your entertainer a small lump of clay or +modeling-wax to thumb into bad caricatures of those you love and good +ones of those you hate, until increasing facility impels him to try +and model not a Tanagra figurine, for that would be unlike his +original fancy, but a Hoboken figurine, say, or a sketch for some +Elgin (Illinois) marbles.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> + +<p>If you care anything for poetry and can find him a stub of pencil and +an unoccupied cuff, he will be most completely in his element; for if +there is any one occupation more closely identified with him than +another, it is that of poet. And though all Auto-Comrades are not +poets, all poets are Auto-Comrades. Every poem which has ever thrilled +this world or another has been written by the Auto-Comrade of some +so-called poet. This is one reason why the so-called poets think so +much of their great companions. "Allons! after the great companions!" +cried old Walt to his fellow poets. If he had not overtaken, and held +fast to, his, we should never have heard the "Leaves of Grass" +whispering "one or two indicative words for the future." The bards +have always obeyed this call. And they have known how to value their +Auto-Comrades, too. See, for example, what Keats thought of his:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Though the most beautiful Creature were waiting for me at +the end of a Journey or a Walk;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> though the Carpet were of +Silk, the Curtains of the morning Clouds; the chairs and +Sofa stuffed with Cygnet's down; the food Manna, the Wine +beyond Claret, the Window opening on Winander mere, I should +not feel—or rather my Happiness would not be so fine, as my +Solitude is sublime. Then instead of what I have described, +there is a sublimity to welcome me home—The roaring of the +wind is my wife and the Stars through the window pane are my +Children.... I feel more and more every day, as my +imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world +alone but in a thousand worlds—No sooner am I alone than +shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve +my Spirit the office which is equivalent to a King's +body-guard.... I live more out of England than in it. The +Mountains of Tartary are a favorite lounge, if I happen to +miss the Alleghany ridge, or have no whim for Savoy.</p></div> + +<p>This last sentence not only reveals the fact that the Auto-Comrade, +equipped as he is with a wishing-mat, is the very best cicerone in the +world, but also that he is the ideal tramping companion. Suppose you +are mountain-climbing. As you start up into "nature's observatory," he +kneels in the dust and fastens wings upon your feet. He conveniently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +adjusts a microscope to your hat-brim, and hangs about your neck an +excellent telescope. He has enough sense, too, to keep his mouth +closed. For, like Hazlitt, he "can see no wit in walking and talking." +The joy of existence, you find, rarely tastes more cool and sweet and +sparkling than when you and your Auto-Comrade make a picnic thus, +swinging in a basket between you a real, live thought for lunch. On +such a day you come to believe that Keats, on another occasion, must +have had his own Auto-Comrade in mind when he remarked to his friend +Solitude that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"... it sure must be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The Auto-Comrade can sit down with you in thick weather on a barren +lighthouse rock and give you a breathless day by hanging upon the +walls of fog the mellow screeds of old philosophies, and causing to +march and countermarch over against them the scarlet and purple +pageants of history. Hour by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> hour, too, he will linger with you in +the metropolis, that breeder of the densest solitudes—in market or +terminal, subway, court-room, library, or lobby—and hour by hour +unlock you those chained books of the soul to which the human +countenance offers the master key.</p> + +<p>Something of a sportsman, too, is the Auto-Comrade. He it is who makes +the fabulously low score at golf—the kind of score, by the way, that is +almost invariably born to blush unseen. And he will uncomplainingly, +even zestfully, fish from dawn to dusk in a solitude so complete that +there is not even a fin to break it. But if there are fish, he finds +them. He knows how to make the flies float indefinitely forward through +yonder narrow opening, and drop, as light as thistledown, in the center +of the temptingly inaccessible pool. He knows without looking, exactly +how thick and how prehensile are the bushes and branches that lie in +wait for the back cast, and he can calculate to a grain how much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> urging +the reactionary three-pounder and the blest tie that binds him to the +four-ounce rod will stand.</p> + +<p>He is one of the handiest possible persons to have along in the woods. +When you take him on a canoe trip with others, and the party comes to +"white water," he turns out to be a dead shot at rapid-shooting. He is +sure to know what to do at the supreme moment when you jam your +setting-pole immutably between two rocks and, with the alternative of +taking a bath, are forced to let go and grab your paddle; and are then +hung up on a slightly submerged rock at the head of the chief rapid +just in time to see the rest of the party disappear majestically +around the lower bend. At such a time, simply look to the +Auto-Comrade. He will carry you through. Also there is no one like him +at the moment when, having felled your moose, leaned your rifle +against a tree, and bent down the better to examine him, the creature +suddenly comes to life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p> + +<p>In tennis, when you wake up to find that your racket has just smashed +a lob on the bounce from near the back-net, scoring a clean ace +between your paralyzed opponents, you ought to know that the racket +was guided by that superior sportsman; and if you are truly modest, +you will admit that your miraculous stop wherewith the team whisked +the baseball championship out of the fire in the fourteenth inning was +due to his unaided efforts.</p> + +<p>There are other games about which he is not so keen: solitaire, for +instance. For solitaire is a social game that soon loses its zest if +there be not some devoted friend or relative sitting by and simulating +that pleasureable absorption in the performance which you yourself +only wish that you could feel.</p> + +<p>This great companion can keep you from being lonely even in a crowd. +But there is a certain kind of crowd that he cannot abide. Beware how +you try to keep him in a crowd of unadulterated human porcupines! You +know how the philosopher Schopenhauer once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> likened average humanity +to a herd of porcupines on a cold day, who crowd stupidly together for +warmth, prick one another with their quills, are mutually repelled, +forget the incident, grow cold again, and repeat the whole thing <i>ad +infinitum</i>.</p> + +<p>In other words, the human porcupine is the person considered at the +beginning of this one-sided discussion who, to escape the terrible +catastrophe of confronting his own inner vacuum, will make friends +with the most hideous bore. This creature, however, is much more rare +than the misanthropic Schopenhauer imagined. It takes a long time to +find one among such folk as lumbermen, gypsies, shirt-waist +operatives, fishermen, masons, trappers, sailors, tramps, and +teamsters. If the sour philosopher had only had the pleasure of +knowing those teamsters who sent him into paroxysms of rage by +cracking their whips in the alley, I am sure that he would never have +spoken as harshly of their minds as he did. The fact is that +porcupines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> are not extremely common among the very "common" people. +It may be that there is something stupefying about the airs which the +upper classes, the best people, breathe and put on, but the social +climber is apt to find the human porcupine in increasing herds as he +scales the heights. This curious fact would seem incidentally to show +that our misanthropic philosopher must have moved exclusively in the +best circles.</p> + +<p>Now, if there is one thing above all others that the Auto-Comrade +cannot away with, it is the flaccid, indolent, stodgy brain of the +porcupine. If people have let their minds slump down into +porcupinishness, or have never taken the trouble to rescue them from +that ignominious condition—well, the Auto-Comrade is no snob; when +all's said, he is a rather democratic sort of chap. But he has to draw +the line somewhere, you know, and he really must beg to be excused +from rubbing shoulders with such intellectual rabble, for instance, as +blocks upper Fifth Avenue on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> Sunday noons. He prefers instead the +rabble which, on all other noons of the week, blocks the lower end of +that variegated thoroughfare.</p> + +<p>Such exclusiveness lays the Auto-Comrade open, of course, to the +charge of inhospitality. But "is not he hospitable," asks Thoreau, +"who entertains good thoughts?" Personally, I think he is. And I +believe that this sort of hospitality does more to make the world +worth living in than much conventional hugging to your bosom of +porcupines whose language you do not speak, yet with whom it is +embarrassing to keep silence.</p> + +<p>If the Auto-Comrade mislikes the porcupine, however, the feeling is +returned with exorbitant interest. The alleged failings of +auto-comradeship have always drawn grins, jokes, fleers, and nudges, +from the auto-comradeless. It is time the latter should know that the +joke is really on him; for he is the most forlorn of mankind. The +other is never at a loss. He is invulnerable, being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> one whom "destiny +may not surprise nor death dismay." But the porcupine is liable at any +moment to be deserted by associates who are bored by his sharp, hollow +quills. He finds himself the victim of a paradox which decrees that +the hermit shall "find his crowds in solitude" and never be alone; but +that the flocker shall every now and then be cast into inner darkness, +where shall be "weeping and gnashing of teeth."</p> + +<p>The laugh is on the porcupine; but the laugh turns almost into a tear +when one stops to realize the nature of his plight. Why, the poor +wretch is actually obliged to be near someone else in order to enjoy a +sense of vitality! In other words, he needs somebody else to do his +living for him. He is a vicarious citizen of the world, holding his +franchise only by courtesy of Tom, Dick, and Harry. All the same, it +is rather hard to pity him very profoundly while he continues to feel +quite as contemptuously superior as he usually does. For, the contempt +of the average<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> porcupine for pals of the Auto-Comrade is akin to the +contempt which the knights of chivalry felt for those paltry beings +who were called clerks because they possessed the queer, unfashionable +accomplishment of being able to read and write.</p> + +<p>I remember that the loudest laugh achieved by a certain class-day +orator at college came when he related how the literary guy and the +tennis-player were walking one day in the woods, and the literary guy +suddenly exclaimed: "Ah, leave me, Louis! I would be alone." Even +apart from the stilted language in which the orator clothed the +thought of the literary guy, there is, to the porcupine, something +irresistibly comic in such a situation. It is to him as though the +literary guy had stepped up to the nearest policeman and begged for +the room at Sing Sing already referred to.</p> + +<p>Indeed, the modern porcupine is as suspicious of pals of the +Auto-Comrade as the porcupines of the past were of sorcerers and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +witches—folk, by the way, who probably consorted with spirits no more +malign than Auto-Comrades. "What," asked the porcupines of one +another, "can they be doing, all alone there in those solitary huts? +What honest man would live like that? Ah, they must be up to no good. +They must be hand in glove with the Evil One. Well, then, away with +them to the stake and the river!"</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, it probably was not the Evil One that these poor +folk were consorting with, but the Good One. For what is a man's +Auto-Comrade, anyway, but his own soul, or the same thing by what +other name soever he likes to call it, with which he divides the +practical, conscious part of his brain, turn and turn about, share and +share alike? And what is a man's own soul but a small stream of the +infinite, eternal water of life? And what is heaven but a vast harbor +where myriad streams of soul flow down, returning at last to their +Source in the bliss of perfect reunion? I believe that many a Salem +witch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> was dragged to her death from sanctuary; for church is not +exclusively connected with stained glass and collection-baskets. +Church is also wherever you and your Auto-Comrade can elude the +starched throng and fall together, if only for a moment, on your +knees.</p> + +<p>The Auto-Comrade has much to gain by contrast with one's +flesh-and-blood associates, especially if this contrast is suddenly +brought home to one after a too long separation from him. I shall +never forget the thrill that was mine early one morning after two +months of close, uninterrupted communion with one of my best and +dearest friends. At the very instant when the turn of the road cut off +that friend's departing hand-wave, I was aware of a welcoming, almost +boisterous shout from the hills of dream, and turning quickly, beheld +my long-lost Auto-Comrade rushing eagerly down the slopes toward me.</p> + +<p>Few joys may compare with the joy of such a sudden unexpected reunion. +It is like "the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> land." No, +this simile is too disloyal to my friend. Well, then, it is like a +beaker full of the warm South when you are leaving a good beer country +and are trying to reconcile yourself to ditch-water for the next few +weeks. At any rate, similes or not, there were we two together again +at last. What a week of weeks we spent, pacing back and forth on the +veranda of our log cabin, where we overlooked the pleasant sinuosities +of the Sebois and gazed out together over golden beech and ghostly +birch and blood-red maple banners to the far violet mountains of the +Aroostook! And how we did take stock of the immediate past, chuckling +to find that it had not been a quarter so bad as I had stupidly +supposed. What gilded forest trails were those which we blazed into +the glamorous land of to-morrow! And every other moment these +recreative labors would be interrupted while I pressed between the +pages of a notebook some butterfly or sunset leaf or quadruply +fortunate clover which my Auto-Com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>rade found and turned over to me. +(Between two of those pages, by the way, I afterwards found the +argument of this chapter.)</p> + +<p>Then, when the effervescence of our meeting had lost a little of its +first, fine, carbonated sting, what Elysian hours we did spend over +the correspondence of those other two friends, Goethe and Schiller! +Passage after passage we would turn back to re-read and muse over. +These we would discuss without any of the rancor or dogmatic +insistence or one-eyed stubbornness that usually accompany the clash +of mental steel on mental steel from a different mill. And without +making any one else lose the thread or grow short-breathed or accuse +us passionately of reading ahead, we would, on the slightest +provocation, out-Fletcher Fletcher chewing the cud of sweet and bitter +fancy. And we would underline and bracket and side-line and overline +the ragged little paper volume, and scribble up and down its margins, +and dream over its footnotes, to our hearts' content.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> + +<p>Such experiences, though, are all too rare with me. Why? Because my +Auto-Comrade is a rather particular person and will not associate with +me unless I toe his mark.</p> + +<p>"Come," I propose to him, "let us go a journey."</p> + +<p>"Hold hard," says he, and looks me over appraisingly. "You know the +rule of the Auto-Comrades' Union. We are supposed to associate with +none but fairly able persons. Are you a fairly able person?"</p> + +<p>If it turns out that I am not, he goes on a rampage, and begins to +talk like an athletic trainer. The first thing he demands is that his +would-be associate shall keep on hand a jolly good store of surplus +vitality. You are expected to supply exuberance to him somewhat as you +supply gasolene to your motor. Now, of course, there are in the world +not a few invalids and other persons of low physical vitality whose +Auto-Comrades happen to have sufficient gasolene to keep them both +running, if only on short rations. Most of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> these cases, however, are +pathological. They have hot-boxes at both ends of the machine, and +their progress is destined all too soon to cease and determine +disastrously. The rest of these cases are the rare exceptions which +prove the rule. For unexuberant yet unpathological pals of the +Auto-Comrade are as rare as harmonious households in which the efforts +of a devoted and blissful wife support an able-bodied husband.</p> + +<p>The rule is that you have got to earn exuberance for two. "Learn to +eat balanced rations right," thunders the Auto-Comrade, laying down +the law; "exercise, perspire, breathe, bathe, sleep out of doors, and +sleep enough; rule your liver with a rod of iron, don't take drugs or +nervines, cure sickness beforehand, keep love in your heart, do an +adult's work in the world, have at least as much fun as you ought to +have."</p> + +<p>"That," he goes on, "is the way to develop enough physical overplus so +that you will be enabled to overcome your present sad addic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>tion to +mob-intoxication. And, provided your mind is not in as bad condition +as your body, this physical overplus will transmute some of itself +into mental exuberance. This will enable you to have more fun with +your mind than an enthusiastic kitten has with its tail. It will +enable you to look before and after, and purr over what is, as well as +to discern, with pleasurable longing, what is not, and set forth +confidently to capture it."</p> + +<p>But if, by any chance, you have allowed your mind to get into the sort +of condition which the old-fashioned German scholar used to allow his +body to get into, it develops that the Auto-Comrade hates a flabby +brain almost as much as he hates a flabby body. He soon makes it clear +that he will not have much to do with any one who has not yet mastered +the vigorous and highly complex art of not worrying. Also, he demands +of his companion the knack of calm, consecutive thought. This is one +reason why so many more Auto-Comrades are to be found in +crow's-nests,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> gypsy-vans, and shirt-waist factories than on upper +Fifth Avenue. For, watching the stars and the sea from a swaying +masthead, taking light-heartedly to the open road, or even operating a +rather unwholesome sewing-machine all day in silence, is better for +consecutiveness of mind than a never-ending round of offices, clubs, +committees, servants, dinners, teas, and receptions, to each of which +one is a little late.</p> + +<p>In diffusing knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, this knack of +concentration, Arnold Bennett's little books on mental efficiency have +done wonders for the art of auto-comradeship. Their popular +persuasiveness has coaxed thousands on thousands of us to go in for a +few minutes' worth of mental calisthenics every day. They have +actually cajoled us into the painful feat of glancing over a page of a +book and then putting it down and trying to retrace the argument in +memory. Or they have coaxed us to fix on some subject—any +subject—for reflection,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> and then scourge our straying minds back to +it at every few steps of the walk to the morning train. And we have +found that the mental muscles have responded at once to this +treatment. They have hardened under the exercise until being left +alone has begun to change from confinement in the same cell with that +worst of enemies who has the right to forge one's own name—into a +joyful pleasure jaunt with a totally different person who, if not +one's best friend, is at least to be counted on as a trusty, +entertaining, resourceful, unselfish associate—at times, perhaps, a +little exacting—yet certainly a far more brilliant and generally +satisfactory person than his companion.</p> + +<p>No matter what the ignorant or the envious may say, there is nothing +really unsocial in a moderate indulgence in the art of auto-comradeship. +A few weeks of it bring you back with a fresher, keener appreciation of +your other friends and of humanity in general than you had before +setting forth. In the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> continuous performance of the psalm of life such +contrasts as this of solos and choruses have a reciprocal advantage.</p> + +<p>But auto-comradeship must not be overdone, as it was overdone by the +mediæval monks. Its delights are too delicious, its particular vintage +of the wine of experience too rich, for long-continued consumption. +Consecutive thought, though it is one of man's greatest pleasures, is +at the same time perhaps the most arduous labor that he can perform. +And after a long period of it, both the Auto-Comrade and his companion +become exhausted and, perforce, less comradely.</p> + +<p>Besides the incidental exhaustion, there is another reason why this +beatific association must have its time-limit; for, unfortunately, +one's Auto-Comrade is always of the same sex as one's self, and in +youth, at least, if the presence of the complementary part of creation +is long denied, there comes a time when this denial surges higher and +higher in subconsciousness, then breaks into consciousness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> and keeps +on surging until it deluges all the tranquillities, zests, surprises, +and excitements of auto-comradeship, and makes them of no effect.</p> + +<p>This is, probably, a wise provision for the salvation of the human +digestion. For otherwise, many a man, having tasted of the fruit of +the tree of the knowledge of auto-comradeship, might thereupon be +tempted to retire to his hermit's den hard by and endeavor to sustain +himself for life on this food alone.</p> + +<p>Most of us, however, long before such extremes have been reached, are +sure to rush back to our kind for the simple reason that we are +enjoying auto-comradeship so much that we want someone else to enjoy +it with.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + +<h3>VIM AND VISION</h3> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_04.jpg" alt="E" width="50" height="61" /></div> +<p>fficiency is to-day the Hallelujah Chorus of industry. I know a +manufacturer who recently read a book on business management. +Stop-watch in hand he then made an exhaustive study of his office +force and their every action. After considering the tabulated results +he arose, smashed all but one of the many office mirrors, bought +modern typewriters, and otherwise eliminated works of supererogation. +The sequel is that a dozen stenographers to-day perform the work of +the former thirty-two.</p> + +<p>This sort of thing is spreading through the business world and beyond +it in every direction. Even the artists are studying the bearing of +industrial efficiency on the arts of sculpture, music, literature, +architecture, and painting. But beyond the card catalogue and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> +filing cabinet the artists find that this new gospel has little to +offer them. Their sympathies go out, instead, to a different kind of +efficiency. The kind that bids fair to shatter their old lives to bits +and re-mold them nearer to the heart's desire is not industrial but +human. For inspiration it goes back of the age of Brandeis to the age +of Pericles.</p> + +<p>The enthusiasm for human efficiency is beginning to rival that for +industrial efficiency. Preventive medicine, public playgrounds, the +new health education, school hygiene, city planning, eugenics, housing +reform, the child-welfare and country-life movements, the cult of +exercise and sport—these all are helping to lower the death-rate and +enrich the life-rate the world over. Health has fought with smoke and +germs and is now in the air. It would be strange if the receptive +nature of the artist should escape the benignant infection.</p> + +<p>There is an excellent reason why human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> efficiency should appeal less +to the industrial than to the artistic worlds. Industry has a new +supply of human machines always available. Their initial cost is +nothing. So it pays to overwork them, scrap them promptly, and install +fresh ones. Thus it comes that the costly spinning machines in the +Southern mills are exquisitely cared for, while the cheap little boys +and girls who tie the broken threads are made to last an average four +or five years. In art it is different. The artist knows that he is, +like Swinburne's Hertha, at once the machine and the machinist. It is +dawning upon him that one chief reason why the old Greeks scaled +Parnassus so efficiently is that all the master-climbers got, and +kept, their human machines in good order for the climb. They trained +for the event as an Olympic athlete trains to-day for the Marathon. +One other reason why there was so much record-breaking in ancient +Greece is that the non-artists trained also, and thus, through their +heightened sympathy and appre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>ciation of the master-climbers, became +masters by proxy. But that is another chapter.</p> + +<p>Why has art never again reached the Periclean plane? Chiefly because +the artist broke training when Greece declined, and has never since +then brought his body up to the former level of efficiency.</p> + +<p>Now, as the physiological psychologists assure us, the artist needs a +generous overplus of physical vitality. The art-impulse is a +brimming-over of the cups of mental and spiritual exuberance. And the +best way to insure this mental and spiritual overplus is to gain the +physical. The artist's first duty is to make his body as vim-full as +possible. He will soon find that he is greater than he knows. He will +discover that he has, until then, been walking the earth more than +half a corpse. With joy he will come to see that living in a glow of +health bears the same relation to merely not being sick that a plunge +in the cold salt surf bears to using a tepid wash-rag in a hall +bedroom.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All through the life of a feeble-bodied man, his path is lined with +memory's grave-stones which mark the spots where noble enterprises +perished for lack of physical vigor to embody them in deeds." Thus +wrote the educator, Horace Mann. And his words apply with special +force to the worker in the arts. One should bear in mind that the +latter is in a peculiar dilemma. His nerve-racking, confining, +exhausting work always tends to enfeeble and derange his body. But the +claims of the work are so exacting that it is no use for him to spare +intensity. Unless he is doing his utmost he had better be doing +nothing at all. And to do his utmost he must keep his body in that +supremely fit condition which the work itself is always tending to +destroy. The one lasting solution is for him to reduce his working +time to a safe maximum and increase his recreation and sleeping-time +to a safe minimum, and to train "without haste, without rest."</p> + +<p>"The first requisite to great intellectuality<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> in a man is to be a +good animal," says Maxim the inventor. Hamerton, in his best-known +book, offers convincing proof that overflowing health is one of the +first essentials of genius; and shows how triumphant a part it played +in the careers of such mighty men of intellectual valor as Leonardo da +Vinci, Kant, Wordsworth, and Sir Walter Scott.</p> + +<p>Is the reader still unconvinced that physical exuberance is necessary +to the artist? Then let him read biography and note the paralyzing +effect upon the biographees of sickness and half sickness and three +quarter wellness. He will see that, as a rule, the masters have done +their most telling and lasting work with the tides of physical vim at +flood. For the genius is no Joshua. He cannot make the sun of the mind +and the moon of the spirit stand still while the tides of health are +ebbing seaward. Indeed biography should not be necessary to convince +the fair-minded reader. Autobiography should answer. Just let him +glance back over his own experience and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> say whether he has not +thought his deepest thoughts and performed his most brilliant deeds +under the intoxication of a stimulant no less heady than that of +exuberant health.</p> + +<p>There is, of course, the vexed question of the sickly genius. My +personal belief is firm that, as a rule, he has won his triumphs +<i>despite</i> bad health, and not—as some like to imagine—because of bad +health. To this rule there are a few often cited exceptions. Now, no +one can deny that there is a pathological brilliance of good cheer in +the works of Stevenson and other tubercular artists. The white plague +is a powerful mental stimulant. It is a double-distilled extract of +baseless optimism. But this optimism, like that resulting from other +stimulants, is dearly bought. Its shrift is too short. And let nobody +forget that for each variety of pathological optimism and brilliance +and beauty there are ninety and nine corresponding sorts of +pathological pessimism and dullness and ugliness induced by disorders +of the liver,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> heart, stomach, brain, skin, and so on without end.</p> + +<p>The thing for artists to do is to find out what physical conditions +make for the best art in the long run, and then secure these +conditions in as short a run as possible. If tuberculosis makes for +it, then by all means let those of us who are sincerely devoted to art +be inoculated without delay. If the family doctor refuses to oblige, +all we have to do is to avoid fresh air, kiss indiscriminately, +practice a systematic neglect of colds, and frequent the subway during +rush hours. If alcohol makes for the best art, let us forthwith be +admitted to the bar—the stern judgment bar where each solitary +drinker is arraigned. For it is universally admitted that in art, +quality is more important than quantity. "If that powerful corrosive, +alcohol, only makes us do a little first-class work, what matter if it +corrode us to death immediately afterwards? We shall have had our +day." Thus many a gallant soul argues. But is there not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> another ideal +which is as far above mere quality as quality is above mere quantity? +I think there is. It is quantity of quality. And quantity of quality +is exactly the thing that cannot brook the corrosiveness of powerful +stimulants.</p> + +<p>I am not satisfied, however, that stimulants make entirely for the +fine quality of even the short shrift. To my ear, tubercular optimism, +when thumped on the chest, sounds a bit hollow. It does not ring quite +as true as healthy optimism because one feels in the long run its +automatic, pathological character. Thus tubercular, alcoholized, and +drugged art may often be recognized by its somewhat artificial, +unhuman, abnormal quality. I believe that if the geniuses who have +done their work under the influence of these stimulants had, instead, +trained sound bodies as for an Olympic victory, the arts would to-day +be the richer in quantity of quality. On this point George Meredith +wrote a trenchant word in a letter to W. G. Collins:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I think that the notion of drinking any kind of alcohol as a +stimulant for intellectual work can have entered the minds +of those only who snatch at the former that they may +conceive a fictitious execution of the latter. Stimulants +may refresh, and may even temporarily comfort, the body +after labor of brain; they do not help it—not even in the +lighter kinds of labor. They unseat the judgment, pervert +vision. Productions, cast off by the aid of the use of them, +are but flashy, trashy stuff—or exhibitions of the +prodigious in wildness or grotesque conceit, of the kind +which Hoffman's tales give, for example; he was one of the +few at all eminent, who wrote after drinking.</p></div> + +<p>To reinforce the opinion of the great Englishman I cannot forbear +giving that of an equally great American:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Never [wrote Emerson] can any advantage be taken of nature +by a trick. The spirit of the world, the great calm presence +of the Creator, comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or +of wine. The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple +soul in a clean and chaste body.... The poet's habit of +living should be set on so low a key that the common +influences should delight him. His cheerfulness should be +the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his +inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p> + +<p>In other words, the artist should keep himself in a condition so fit +as to need no other stimulant than his own exuberance. But this should +always flow as freely as beer at a college reunion. And there should +always be plenty in reserve. It were well to consider whether there is +not some connection between decadent art and decadent bodies. A friend +of mine recently attended a meeting of decadent painters and reported +that he could not find a chin or a forehead in the room.</p> + +<p>One reason why so many of the world's great since Greece have +neglected to store up an overplus of vitality is that exercise is +well-nigh indispensable thereto; and exercise has not seemed to them +sufficiently dignified. We are indebted to the dark ages for this dull +superstition. It was then that the monasteries built gloomy granite +greenhouses for the flower of the world's intellect, that it might +deteriorate in the darkness and perish without reproducing its kind. +The monastic system held the body a vile thing, and believed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> that to +develop and train it was beneath the dignity of the spiritually elect. +So flagellation was substituted for perspiration, much as, in the +Orient, scent is substituted for soap—and with no more satisfactory +result. This false notion of dignity has since then, by keeping men +out of flannels, gymnasium suits, running-tights, and overalls, +performed prodigies in the work of blighting the flowers of the mind +and stunting the fruit trees of the spirit.</p> + +<p>To-day, however, we are escaping from the old superstition. We begin +to see that there is no complete dignity for man without a dignified +physique; and that there is no physical dignity to compare with that +of the hard-trained athlete. True, he who trains can hardly keep up +the old-time pose of the grand old man or the grand young man. He must +perforce be more human and natural. But this sort of grandeur is now +going out of fashion. And its absence must show to advantage in his +work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> + +<p>As a rule the true artist is a most devoted and self-sacrificing +person. Ever since the piping times of Pericles he has usually been +willing to sacrifice to the demands of his art most of the things he +enjoys excepting poor health. Wife, children, friends, credit—all may +go by the board. But his poor health he addresses with solemn, +scriptural loyalty: "Whither thou goest I will go: and where thou +lodgest I will lodge. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I +be buried." Not that he enjoys the misery incidental to poor health. +But he most thoroughly enjoys a number of its causes. Sitting up too +late at night is what he enjoys; smoking too much, drinking too much, +yielding to the exhausting sway of the divine efflatus for longer +hours at a time than he has any business to, bolting unbalanced meals, +and so on.</p> + +<p>But the artist is finding out that poor health is the very first +enjoyment which he ought to sacrifice; that the sacrifice is by no +means as heroic as it appears; and that, once it is ac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>complished, the +odds are that all the other things he thought he must offer up may be +added unto him through his own increased efficiency.</p> + +<p>No doubt, all this business of regimen, of constant alertness and +petty self-sacrifice, is bound to grow irksome before it settles down +in life and becomes habitual. But what does a little irksomeness +count—or even a great deal of irksomeness—as against the long, deep +thrill of doing better than you thought you ever knew how—of going +from strength to strength and creating that which will elevate and +delight mankind long after the pangs of installing regimen are +forgotten and you have once and for all broken training and laid you +down to sleep over?</p> + +<p>The reason why great men and women are so often cynical about their +own success is this: they have been so immoderate in their enjoyment +of poor health that when the hour of victory comes, they lack the +exuberance and self-restraint essential to the savoring of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> +achievement or of any other pleasure. I believe that the successful +invalid is more apt to be cynical about his success than the healthy +failure about his failure. The latter is usually an optimist. But this +is a hard belief to substantiate. For the perfectly healthy failure +does not grow on every bush.</p> + +<p>If only the physical conscientiousness of the Greeks had never been +allowed to die out, the world to-day would be manifoldly a richer, +fairer, and more inspiring place. As it is, we shall never be able to +reckon up our losses in genius: in Shakespeares whose births were +frustrated by the preventable illness or death of their possible +parents; in Schuberts who sickened or died from preventable causes +before they had delivered a note of their message; in Giorgiones whom +a suicidally ignorant conduct of physical life condemned to have their +work cheapened and curtailed. What overwhelming losses has art not +sustained by having the ranks of its artists and their most creative +audiences decimated by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> the dullness of mediocre health! It is hard to +endure the thought of what the geniuses of the modern world might have +been able to accomplish if only they had lived and trained like +athletes and been treated with a small part of the practical +consideration and live sympathy which humanity bestows on a favorite +ball-player or prize-fighter.</p> + +<p>To-day there is still a vast amount of superstition arrayed against +the truth that fullness of life and not grievous necessity is the +mother of artistic invention. Necessity is, of course, only the +stepmother of invention. But men like to convince themselves that +sickness and morbidity are good for the arts, just as they delightedly +embrace the conviction, and hold it with a death-grip, that a life of +harassing poverty and anxious preoccupation is indispensable to the +true poet. The circumstance that this belief runs clean counter to the +showing of history does not embarrass them. Convinced against their +will, most people are of the same opinion still.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> And they +enthusiastically assault and batter any one who points out the truth, +as I shall endeavor to do in chapter eight.</p> + +<p>Even if the ideal of physical efficiency had been revived as little as +a century ago, how much our world would be the gainer! If Richard +Wagner had only known how and what to eat and how to avoid catching +cold every other month, we would not have so many dull, dreary places +to overlook in "The Ring," and would, instead, have three or four more +immortal tone-dramas than his colds and indigestions gave him time to +write. One hates to think what Poe might have done in literature if he +had taken a cure and become a chip of the old oaken bucket. +Tuberculosis, they now say, is preventable. If only they had said so +before the death of Keats!...</p> + +<p>It makes one lose patience to think how Schiller shut himself up in a +stuffy closet of a room all day with his exhausting work; and how the +sole recreation he allowed himself during the week was a solemn game +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> <i>l'hombre</i> with the philosopher Schelling. And then he wondered +why he could not get on with his writing and why he was forever +catching cold (<i>einen starken Schnupfen</i>); and why his head was so +thick half the time that he couldn't do a thing with it. In his +correspondence with Goethe it is exasperating to observe that these +great poets kept so little reserve vim in stock that a slight change +of temperature or humidity, or even a dark day, was enough to overdraw +their health account and bankrupt their work. How glorious it would +have been if they had only stored up enough exuberance to have made +them health magnates, impervious to the slings and arrows of +outrageous February, and able to snap their fingers and flourish +inspired quills in the face of a vile March! In that case their +published works might not, perhaps, have gained much in bulk, but the +masterpieces would now surely represent a far larger proportion of +their <i>Sämmtliche Werke</i> than they do. And the second part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> "Faust" +would not, I think, contain that lament about the flesh so seldom +having wings to match those of the spirit.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ach! zu des Geistes Flügeln wird so leicht<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kein korperlicher Flügel sich gesellen."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Some of the most opulent and powerful spirits ever seen on earth have +scarcely done more than indicate what kind of birthrights they +bartered away for a mess of pottage. Coleridge, for example, ceased to +write poetry after thirty because, by dissipating his overplus of +life, he had too grievously wronged what he described as</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"This body that does me grievous wrong."</p></div> + +<p>After all, there are comparatively few masters, since the glory that +was Greece, who have not half buried their talents in the earthy +darkness of mediocre health. When we survey the army of modern genius, +how little of the sustained ring and resilience and triumphant +immortal youth of real exuberance do we find there! Instead of a band +of sound, alert,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> well-equipped soldiers of the mind and spirit, +behold a sorry-looking lot of stragglers painfully limping along with +lack-luster eyes, or eyes bright with the luster of fever. And the +people whom they serve are not entirely free from blame. They have +neglected to fill the soldiers' knapsacks, or put shirts on their +backs. As for footgear, it is the usual campaign army shoe, made of +blotting paper—the shoe that left red marks behind it at Valley Forge +and Gettysburg and San Juan Hill. I believe that a better time is +coming and that the real renaissance of creative art is about to dawn. +For we and our army of artists are now beginning to see that if the +artist is completely to fulfill his function he must be able to +run—not alone with patience, but also with the brilliance born of +abounding vitality—the race that is set before him. This dawning +belief is the greatest hope of modern art.</p> + +<p>It does one good to see how artists, here, there, and everywhere, are +beginning to grow enthusiastic over the new-old gospel of bodily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> +efficiency, and physically to "revive the just designs of Greece." The +encouraging thing is that the true artist who once finds what an +impulse is given his work by rigorous training, is never content to +slump back to his former vegetative, death-in-life existence. His +daily prayer has been said in a single line by a recent American poet:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Life, grant that we may live until we die."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In every way the artist finds himself the gainer by cutting down his +hours of work to the point where he never loses his reserve of energy. +He now is beginning to take absolute—not merely relative—vacations, +and more of them. For he remembers that no man's work—not even +Rembrandt's or Beethoven's or Shakespeare's—is ever <i>too</i> good; and +that every hour of needed rest or recreation makes the ensuing work +better. It is being borne in on the artist that a health-book like +Fisher's "Making Life Worth While" is of as much professional value to +him as many a treatise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> on the practice of his craft. Insight into the +physiological basis of his life-work can save the artist, it seems, +from those periods of black despair which he once used to employ in +running his head against a concrete wall, and raging impotently +because he could not butt through. Now, instead of laying his futility +to a mysteriously malignant fate, or to the persecution of secret +enemies, he is likely to throw over stimulants and late hours and take +to the open road, the closed squash-court, and the sleeping-porch. And +presently armies cannot withhold him from joyful, triumphant labor.</p> + +<p>The artist is finding that exuberance, this Open Sesame to the things +that count, may not be won without the friendly collaboration of the +pores; and that two birds of paradise may be killed with one stone +(which is precious above rubies) by giving the mind fun while one +gives the pores occupation. Sport is this precious stone. There is, of +course, something to be said for sportless exercise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> It is fairly +good for the artist to perform solemn antics in a gymnasium class, to +gesture impassionedly with dumb-bells, and tread the mill of the +circular running-track. But it is far better for him to go in with +equal energy for exercise which, while developing the body, re-creates +the mind and spirit. That kind of exercise is best, in my opinion, +which offers plenty of variety and humor and the excitement of +competition. I mean games like tennis, baseball, handball, golf, +lacrosse, and polo, and sports like swift-water canoeing and +fly-fishing, boxing, and fencing. These take the mind of the artist +quite away from its preoccupations and then restore it to them, unless +he has taken too much of a good thing, with a fresh viewpoint and a +zest for work.</p> + +<p>Sport is one of the chief makers of exuberance because of its purging, +exhilarating, and constructive effects on body, mind, and spirit. So +many contemporary artists are being converted to sport that the +artistic type seems to be changing under our eyes. It was only +yes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>terday that the worker in literature, sculpture, painting, or +music was a sickly, morbid, anæmic, peculiar specimen, distrusted at +sight by the average man, and a shining mark for all the cast-off wit +of the world. Gilbert never tired of describing him in "Patience." He +was a "foot-in-the-grave young man," or a "<i>Je-ne-sais-quoi</i> young +man." He was</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A most intense young man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A soulful-eyed young man.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An ultra-poetical, superæsthetical, Out-of-the-way young man."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>To-day, what a change! Where is this young man? Most of his ilk have +accompanied the snows of yester-year. And a goodly proportion of those +who make merry in their room are sure-eyed, well set-up, ruddy, +muscular chaps, about whom the average man may jeer and quote +slanderous doggerel only at his peril. But somehow or other the +average man likes this new type better and does not want to jeer at +him, but goes and buys his work instead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> + +<p>Faint though distinct, one begins to hear the new note of exuberance +spreading through the arts. On canvas it registers the fact that the +painters are migrating in hordes to live most of the year in the open +country. It vibrates in the sparkling tone of the new type of musical +performer like Willeke, the 'cellist. Like a starter's pistol it +sounds out of the writings of hard-trained men of the hour like John +Masefield and Alfred Noyes. One has only to compare the overflowing +life and sanity of workers like these with the condition of the +ordinary "Out-of-the-way young man" to see what a gulf yawns between +exuberance and exhaustion, between absolute sanity and a state +somewhere on the sunny side of mild insanity. And I believe that as +yet we catch only a faint glimpse of the glories of the physical +renaissance. Wait until this new religion of exuberance is a few +generations older and eugenics has said her say!</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, the decadent artists who pride themselves on their +extreme modernity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> are the ones who now seem to cling with the most +reactionary grip to the old-fashioned, invertebrate type of physique. +The rest are in a fair way to undergo such a change as came to Queed, +the sedentary hero of Mr. Harrison's novel, when he took up boxing. As +sport and the artists come closer together, they should have a good +effect on one another. The artists will doubtless make sport more +formful, rhythmical, and beautiful. Sport, on the other hand, ought +before long to influence the arts by making sportsmen of the artists.</p> + +<p>Now good sportsmanship is composed of fairness, team-work, the grace +of a good loser, the grace of a good winner, modesty, and gameness. +The first two of these amount to an equitable passion for a fair field +and no favor, and a willingness to subordinate star-play, or personal +gain, to team-play, or communal gain. Together they imply a feeling +for true democracy. To be converted to the religion of sportsmanship +means to become<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> more socially minded. I think it is more than a +coincidence that at the moment when the artists are turning to sport, +their work is taking on the brotherly tone of democracy. The call of +brotherhood is to-day one of the chief preoccupations of poetry, the +drama, ideal sculpture, and mural decoration. For this rapid change I +should not wonder if the democracy of sportsmanship were in part +responsible.</p> + +<p>The third element of sportsmanship is the grace of a good loser. +Artists to-day are better losers than were the "foot-in-the-grave +young men." Among them one now finds less and less childish petulance, +outspoken jealousy of others' success, and apology for their own +failure. Some of this has been shamed out of them by discovering that +the good sportsman never apologizes or explains away his defeat. And +they are importing these manly tactics into the game of art. It has +not taken them long to see how ridiculous an athlete makes himself who +hides behind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> the excuse of sickness or lack of training. They are +impressed by the way in which the non-apologetic spirit is invading +the less athletic games, even down to such a sedentary affair as +chess. This remarkable rule, for example, was proposed in the recent +chess match between Lasker and Capablanca:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Illness shall not interfere with the playing of any game, on +the ground that it is the business of the players so to +train themselves that their bodies shall be in perfect +condition; and it is their duty, which by this rule is +enforced, to study their health and live accordingly.</p></div> + +<p>The fourth factor of sportsmanship is the grace of a good winner. It +would seem as though the artist were learning not only to keep from +gloating over his vanquished rival, but also to be generous and +minimize his own victory. In Gilbert's day the failure did all the +apologizing. To-day less apologizing is done by the failure and more +by the success. The master in art is learning modesty, and from whom +but the master in sport? There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> are in the arts to-day fewer +megalomaniacs and persons afflicted with delusions of grandeur than +there were among the "<i>Je-ne-sais-quoi</i> young men." Sport has made +them more normal spiritually, while making them more normal +physically. It has kept them younger. Old age has been attacked and +driven back all along the line. One reason why we no longer have so +many grand old men is that we no longer have so many old men. Instead +we have numbers of octogenarian sportsmen like the late Dr. S. Weir +Mitchell, who have not yet been caught by the arch-reactionary +fossil-collector, Senility. This is a fair omen for the future of +progress. "If only the leaders of the world's thought and emotion," +writes Bourne in "Youth," "can, by caring for the physical basis, keep +themselves young, why, the world will go far to catching up with +itself and becoming contemporaneous."</p> + +<p>Gameness is the final factor of good sportsmanship. In the matter of +gameness, I grant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> that sport has little to teach the successful +artist. For it takes courage, dogged persistence, resiliency—in +short, the never-say-die spirit to succeed in any of the arts. It +takes the Browning spirit of those who</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It takes the typical Anglo-Saxon gameness of Johnny Armstrong of the +old ballad:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Said John, 'Fight on, my merry men all.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am a little hurt, but I am not slain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will lay me down for to bleed a while,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then I'll rise and fight with you again.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yes, but what of the weaker brothers and sisters in art who have not +yet succeeded—perhaps for want of these very qualities? I believe +that a newly developed spirit of sportsmanship, acting upon a newly +developed body, will presently bring to many a disheartened struggler +just that increment of resilient gameness which will mean success +instead of failure.</p> + +<p>Thus, while our artists show a tendency to hark back to the Greek +physical ideal, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> are not harking backward but forward when they +yield to the mental and spiritual influences of sportsmanship. For +this spirit was unknown to the ancient world. Until yesterday art and +sportsmanship never met. But now that they are mating I am confident +that there will come of this union sons and daughters who shall +joyfully obey the summons that is still ringing down to us over the +heads of the anæmic contemporaries of the exuberant old sportsman, +Walt Whitman:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Arouse! for you must justify me."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + +<h3>PRINTED JOY</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The old joy which makes us more debtors to poetry than +anything else in life.</i></p></div> + +<p class="sig4"><span class="smcap">Ralph Waldo Emerson</span>.</p> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_07.jpg" alt="A" width="50" height="54" /></div> +<p>merica is trying to emerge from the awkward age. Its body is +full-grown. Its spirit is still crude with a juvenile crudity. What +does this spirit need? Next to contact with true religion, it most +needs contact with true poetry. It needs to absorb the grace, the +wisdom, the idealistic beauty of the art, and thrill in rhyme with +poetry's profound, spiritual insights.</p> + +<p>The promising thing is that America is beginning to do exactly this +to-day. The entire history of our enjoyment of poetry might be summed +up in that curious symbol which appears over the letter <i>n</i> in the +word "cañon." A rise, a fall, a rise. Here is the whole story of the +American poetry-lover.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> His enthusiasm first reached a high point +about the middle of the nineteenth century. A generation later it fell +into a swift decline. But three or four years ago it began to revive +so rapidly that a poetry-lover's renaissance is now a reality. This +renaissance has not yet been explained, although the majority of +readers and writers feel able to tell why poetry declined. Let us +glance at a few of the more popular explanations.</p> + +<p>Many say that poetry declined in America because we turned ourselves +into a nation of entirely prosaic materialists. But if this is true, +how do they explain our present national solicitude for song-birds and +waterfalls, for groves of ancient trees, national parks, and +city-planning? How do they explain the fact that our annual +expenditure on the art of music is six times that of Germany, the +Fatherland of Tone? And how do they account for the flourishing +condition of some of our other arts? If we are hopelessly +materialistic, why should American painters and sculp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>tors have such a +high world-standing? And why should their strongest, most original, +most significant work be precisely in the sphere of poetic, suggestive +landscape, and ideal sculpture? The answer is self-evident. It is no +utterly prosaic age, and people that founded our superb orchestras, +that produced and supported Winslow Homer, Tryon, and Woodbury, +French, Barnard, and Saint Gaudens. A more poetic hand than Wall +Street's built St. Thomas's and the cathedral, terminals and towers of +New York, Trinity Church in Boston, the Minnesota State Capitol, Bar +Harbor's Building of Arts, West Point, and Princeton University. It is +plain that our poetic decline was not wholly due to materialism.</p> + +<p>Other philosophers are sure that whatever was the matter with poetry +was the fault of the poets themselves. Popular interest slackened, +they say, because the art first degenerated. Now an obvious answer to +this is that no matter how dead the living poets of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> any age become, +men may always turn, if they will, to those dead poets of old who live +forever on their shelves. But let us grant for the sake of argument +that any decline of contemporary poets is bound to effect +poetry-lovers in some mysteriously disastrous way. And let us recall +the situation back there in the seventies when the ebb of poetic +appreciation first set in. At that time Whittier, Holmes, Emerson, and +Whitman had only just topped the crest of the hill of accomplishment, +and the last-named was as yet no more generally known than was the +rare genius of the young Lanier. Longfellow, who remains even to-day +the most popular of our poets, was still in full swing. Lowell was in +his prime. Thus it appears that public appreciation, and not creative +power, was the first to trip and topple down the slopes of the +Parnassian hill. Not until then did the poet come "tumbling after."</p> + +<p>Moreover, in the light of modern æsthetic psychology, this seems the +more natural order<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> of events. It takes two to make a work of art: one +to produce, one to appreciate. The creative appreciator is a +correlative of all artistic expression. It is almost impossible for +the artist to accomplish anything amid the destructive atmosphere +exhaled by the ignorant, the stupid, the indifferent, the callous, or +the actively hostile. It follows that the demand for poetry is created +no more by the supply than the supply is created by the demand. Thus +the general indifference to this one department of American art was +<i>not</i> primarily caused by the degenerating supply.</p> + +<p>The decline and fall of our poetic empire have yet other Gibbons who +say that our civilization suddenly changed from the country to the +urban type, and that our love of poetry began to disappear +simultaneously with the general exodus from the countryside and the +mushroom growth of the large cities. So far I agree; but not with +their reason. For they say that poetry declined be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>cause cities are +such dreadfully unpoetic things; because they have become synonymous +only with riveting-machines and the kind of building that the Germans +call the "heaven-scratcher," with elevated railways, "sand hogs," +whirring factories, and alleys reeking with the so-called "dregs" of +Europe. They claim that the new and hopelessly vulgar creed of the +modern city is epitomized by such things as a certain signboard in New +York, which offers a typically neo-urban solution of the old problem, +"What is art?"</p> + +<table class="tab1"> + <tr> + <td>PARAGON</td> + <td>PANTS</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> ARE</td> + <td> ART</td> + </tr> +</table> + + + + +<p>the board declares. And this, they say, is about as poetic as a large +city ever becomes.</p> + +<p>Now let us glance for a moment at the poems in prose and verse of Mr. +James Oppenheim, a young man for whom a metropolis is almost +completely epitomized by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> the riveting-machine, the sweat-shop, and +the slum. There we discover that this poet's vision has pierced +straight through the city's veneer of ugly commonplace to the beauty +shimmering beneath. In his eyes the sinewy, heroic forms of the +builders, clinging high on their frail scaffoldings and nonchalantly +hurling red-hot rivets through space, are so many young gods at play +with elemental forces. The sweat-shop is transmuted into as grim and +glorious a battlefield as any Tours or Gettysburg of them all. And the +dingy, battered old "L" train, as it clatters through the East Side +early on "morose, gray Monday morning," becomes a divine chariot</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"winging through Deeps of the Lord with its eighty Earth-anchored Souls."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Oh, yes; there is "God's plenty" of poetry in these sights and sounds, +if only one looks deep enough to discover the beauty of homeliness. +But there is even more of beauty and poetic inspiration to be drawn +from the city<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> by him who, instead of thus straitly confining his gaze +to any one aspect of urban life, is able to see it steadily and see it +whole, with its subtle <i>nuances</i> and its over-powering dramatic +contrasts—as a twentieth-century Walt Whitman, for example, might see +it if he had a dash of Tennyson's technical equipment, of Arnold's +sculpturesque polish and restraint, of Lanier's instinct for sensuous +beauty. What "songs greater than before known" might such a poet not +sing as he wandered close to precious records of the Anglo-Saxon +culture of the race amid the stately colonial peace and simplicity of +St. Mark's church-yard, with the vividly colored life of all +southeastern Europe surging about that slender iron fence—children of +the blood of Chopin and Tschaikowsky; of Gutenberg, Kossuth, and +Napoleon; of Isaiah and Plato, Leonardo and Dante—with the wild +strains of the gypsy orchestra floating across Second Avenue, and to +the southward a glimpse aloft in a rarer, purer air of builders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> +clambering on the cupola of a neighboring Giotto's tower built of +steel? Who dares say that the city is unpoetic? <i>It is one of the most +poetic places on earth.</i></p> + +<p>These, then, are the chief explanations which have been offered us +to-day of the historic decline of the American poetry-lover. We weigh +them, and find them wanting. Why? Because they have sought, like +radiographers, far beneath the surface; whereas the real trouble has +been only skin deep. I shall try to show the nature of this trouble; +and how, by beginning to cure it, we have already brought on a poetic +renaissance.</p> + +<p>Most of us who care for poetry frequently have one experience in +common. During our summer vacations in the country we suddenly +re-discover the well-thumbed "Golden Treasury" of Palgrave, and the +"Oxford Book of Verse" which have been so unaccountably neglected +during the city winter. We wander farther into the poetic fields and +revel in Keats and Shakespeare. We may even attempt once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> more to get +beyond the first book of the "Faërie Queene," or fumble again at the +combination lock which seems to guard the meaning of the second part +of "Faust." And we find these occupations so invigorating and joyful +that we model and cast an iron resolution to the effect that this +winter, whatever betide, we will read a little poetry every day, or +every week, as the case may be. On that we plunge back into the +beautiful, poetic, inspiring city, and adhere to our poetry-reading +program—for exactly a fortnight. Then, unaccountably, our resolve +begins to slacken. We cannot seem to settle our minds to ordered +rhythms "where more is meant than meets the ear." Our resolve +collapses. Once again Palgrave is covered with dust. But vacation time +returns. After a few days in green pastures and beside still waters +the soul suddenly turns like a homing-pigeon to poetry. And the old, +perplexing cycle begins anew.</p> + +<p>A popular magazine once sent a certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> young writer and ardent +amateur of poetry on a long journey through the Middle West. He took +but one book in his bag. It was by Whitman (the poet of cities, mark). +And he determined to read it every evening in his bedroom after the +toils of the day. The first part of the trip ran in the country. +"Afoot and light-hearted" he took to the open road every morning, and +reveled every evening in such things as "Manahatta," "The Song of +Joys," and "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Then he carried his poet of +cities to a city. But the two would have nothing to do with one +another. And to the traveler's perplexity, a place no larger than +Columbus, Ohio, put a violent end to poetry on that trip.</p> + +<p>In our day most poetry-lovers have had such experiences. These have +been hard to explain, however, only because their cause has been +probed for too profoundly. <i>The chief cause of the decline of poetry +was not spiritual but physical.</i> Cities are not unpoetic in spirit. It +is only in the physical sense that Emerson's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> warning is true: "If +thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York ... thou shalt find no +radiance of meaning in the lonely wastes of the pine woods." The +trouble was this: that the modern type of city, when it started into +being, back in the seventies, began to take from men, and to use up, +that margin of nervous energy, that exuberant overplus of vitality of +which so much has already been said in this book, and which is always +needed for the true appreciation of poetry. Grant Allen has shown that +man, when he is conscious of a superfluity of sheer physical strength, +gives himself to play; and in like manner, when he is conscious of a +superfluity of receptive power, <i>which has a physical basis</i>, he gives +himself to art.</p> + +<p>Now, though all of the arts demand of their appreciators this overplus +of nervous energy (and Heaven knows perfectly well how inadequate a +supply is offered up to music and the arts of design!), yet the +appreciation of poetry above that of the sister arts demands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> this +bloom on the cheek of existence. For poetry, with quite as much of +emotional demand as the others, combines a considerably greater and +more persistent intellectual demand, involving an unusual amount of +physical wear and tear. Hence, in an era of overstrain, poetry is the +first of the arts to suffer.</p> + +<p>Most lovers of poetry must realize, when they come to consider it, +that their pleasure in verse rises and falls, like the column of +mercury in a barometer, with the varying levels of their physical +overplus. Physical overplus, however, is the thing which life in a +modern city is best calculated to keep down.</p> + +<p>Surely it was no mere coincidence that, back there in the seventies, +just at the edge of the poetic decline, city life began to grow so +immoderately in volume and to be "speeded up" and "noised up" so +abruptly that it took our bodies by surprise. This process has kept on +so furiously that the bodies of most of us have never been able to +catch up. No large<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> number have yet succeeded in readjusting +themselves completely to the new pace of the city. And this continues +to exact from most of us more nervous energy than any life may, which +would keep us at our best. Hence, until we have succeeded either in +accomplishing the readjustment, or in spending more time in the +country, the appreciation of poetry has continued to suffer.</p> + +<p>Even in the country, it is, of course, perfectly true that life spins +faster now than it used to—what with telephones and inter-urban +trolleys, the motor, and the R.F.D. But this rural progress has +arrived with no such stunning abruptness as to outdistance our powers +of readjustment. When we go from city to country we recede to a rate +of living with which our nervous systems can comfortably fall in, and +still control for the use of the mind and spirit a margin of that +delicious vital bloom which resembles the ring of the overtones in +some beautiful voice.</p> + +<p>But how is it practicable to keep this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> margin in the city, when the +roar of noisy traffic over noisy pavements, the shrieks of newsboy and +peddler, the all-pervading chronic excitement, the universal +obligation to "step lively," even at a funeral, are every instant +laying waste our conscious or unconscious powers? How are we to give +the life of the spirit its due of poetry when our precious margin is +forever leaking away through lowered vitality and even sickness due to +lack of sleep, unhygienic surroundings, constant interruption (or the +expectation thereof), and the impossibility of relaxation owing to the +never-ending excitement and interest and sexual stimulus of the great +human pageant—its beauty and suggestiveness?</p> + +<p>Apart from the general destruction of the margin of energy, one +special thing that the new form of city life does to injure poetry is +to keep uppermost in men's consciousness a feverish sense of the +importance of the present moment. We might call this sense the +journalistic spirit of the city. How many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> typical metropolitans one +knows who are forever in a small flutter of excitement over whatever +is just happening, like a cub reporter on the way to his first fire, +or a neuræsthete—if one may coin a word—who perceives a spider on +her collarette. This habit of mind soon grows stereotyped, and is, of +course, immensely stimulated by the multitudinous editions of our +innumerable newspapers. The city gets one to living so intensely in +the present minute, and often in the very most sensational second of +that minute, that one grows impatient of the "olds," and comes to +regard a constantly renewed and increased dose of "news" as the only +present help in a chronic time of trouble. This is a kind of mental +drug-habit. And its origin is physical. It is a morbid condition +induced by the over-paced life of cities.</p> + +<p>Long before the rise of the modern city—indeed, more than a century +ago—Goethe, who was considerably more than a century ahead of his +age, wrote to Schiller from Frank<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>fort of the journalistic spirit of +cities and its relation to poetry:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It seems to me very remarkable how things stand with the +people of a large city. They live in a constant delirium of +getting and consuming, and the thing we call atmosphere can +neither be brought to their attention nor communicated to +them. All recreations, even the theater, must be mere +distractions; and the great weakness of the reading public +for newspapers and romances comes just from the fact that +the former always, and the latter generally, brings +distraction into the distraction. Indeed, I believe that I +have noticed a sort of dislike of poetic productions—or at +least in so far as they <i>are</i> poetic—which seems to me to +follow quite naturally from these very causes. Poetry +requires, yes, it absolutely commands, concentration. It +isolates man against his own will. It forces itself upon him +again and again; and is as uncomfortable a possession as a +too constant mistress.</p></div> + +<p>If this reporter's attitude of mind was so rampant in cultivated urban +Germany a century ago as to induce "a sort of dislike of poetic +productions," what sort of dislike of them must it not be inducing +to-day? For the appreciation of poetry cannot live under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> the same +roof with the journalistic spirit. The art needs long, quiet vistas +backward and forward, such as are to be had daily on one of those +"lone heaths" where Hazlitt used to love to stalk ideas, but such as +are not to be met with in Times Square or the Subway.</p> + +<p>The joyful side of the situation is that this need is being met. A few +years ago the city dwellers of America began to return to nature. The +movement spread until every one who could afford it, habitually fled +from the city for as long a summer outing as possible. More and more +people learned the delightful sport of turning an abandoned farm into +a year-round country estate. The man who was tied to a city office +formed the commuting habit, thus keeping his wife and children +permanently away from the wear and tear of town. The suburban area was +immensely increased by the rapid spread of motoring.</p> + +<p>Thus, it was recently made possible for hundreds of thousands of +Americans to live, at least a considerable part of the year, where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> +they could hoard up an overplus of vitality. The result was that these +well-vitalized persons, whenever they returned to the city, were +better able to stand—and adjust themselves to—the severe urban pace, +than were the fagged city people. It was largely by the impact of this +new vitality that the city was roused to the importance of physical +efficiency, so that it went in for parks, gymnasia, baths, health and +welfare campaigns, athletic fields, playgrounds, Boy Scouts, Campfire +Girls, and the like.</p> + +<p>There are signs everywhere that we Americans have, by wise living, +begun to win back the exuberance which we lost at the rise of the +modern city. One of the surest indications of this is the fact that +the nation has suddenly begun to read poetry again, very much as the +exhausted poetry-lover instinctively turns again to his Palgrave +during the third week of vacation. In returning to neglected nature we +are returning to the most neglected of the arts. The renaissance of +poetry is here.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> And men like Masefield, Noyes, and Tagore begin to +vie in popularity with the moderately popular novelists. Moreover this +is only the beginning. Aviation has come and is reminding us of the +ancient prophecy of H. G. Wells that the suburbs of a city like New +York will now soon extend from Washington to Albany. Urban centers are +being diffused fast; but social-mindedness is being diffused faster. +Men are wishing more and more to share with each brother man the +brimming cup of life. Aircraft and true democracy are on the way to +bear all to the land of perpetual exuberance. And on their wings the +poet will again mount to that height of authority and esteem from +which, in the healthful, athletic days of old, Homer and Sophocles +dominated the minds and spirits of their fellow-men. That is to +say—he will mount if we let him. In the following chapter I shall +endeavor to show why the American poet has as yet scarcely begun to +share in the poetry-renaissance.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE JOYFUL HEART FOR POETS</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Nothing probably is more dangerous for the human race than +science without poetry, civilization without culture.</i></p></div> + +<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Houston Stewart Chamberlain</span>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>A poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is +a joke.</i></p></div> + +<p class="sig4"><span class="smcap">Max Eastman</span>.</p> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="T" width="30" height="66" /></div> +<p>n the last two chapters we have seen the contemporary master of +various arts, and the reader of poetry, engaged in cultivating the +joyful heart. But there is one artist who has not yet been permitted +to join in this agreeable pastime. He is the American poet. And as his +inclusion would be an even more joyful thing for his land than for +himself, this book may not ignore him.</p> + +<p>The American poet has not yet begun to keep pace with the +poetry-lovers' renaissance. He is no very arresting figure; and +therefore you, reader, are already considering a skip to chapter nine. +Well, if you are no more inter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>ested in him or his possibilities than +is the average American consumer of British poetry—I counsel you by +all means to skip in peace. But if you are one of the few who discern +the promise of a vast power latent in the American poet, and would +gladly help in releasing this power for the good of the race, I can +show you what is the matter with him and what to do about it.</p> + +<p>Why has the present renaissance of the poetry-lover not brought with +it a renaissance of the American poet? Almost every reason but the +true one has been given. The true reason is that our poets are tired. +They became exhausted a couple of generations ago; and we have kept +them in this condition ever since. In the previous chapter we saw how +city life began abruptly to be speeded up in the seventies. At that +time the poet—like almost every one else in the city—was unable to +readjust his body at once to the new pace. He was like a six-day +bicycle racer who should be lapped in a sudden and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> continued sprint. +That sprint is still going on. Never again has the American poet felt +the abounding energy with which he began. And never has he overtaken +the leaders.</p> + +<p>The reason why the poet is tired is that he lives in the over-paced +city. The reason why he lives in the city is that he is chained to it +by the nature of his hack-work. And the reason for the hack-work is +that the poet is the only one of all the artists whose art almost +never offers him a living. He alone is forced to earn in other ways +the luxury of performing his appointed task in the world. For, as +Goethe once observed, "people are so used to regarding poetic talent +as a free gift of the gods that they think the poet should be as +free-handed with the public as the gods have been with him."</p> + +<p>The poet is tired. Great art, however, is not the product of +exhaustion, but of exuberance. It will have none of the skimmed milk +of mere existence. Nothing less than the thick, pure cream of +abounding vitality will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> do. The exhausted artist has but three +courses open to him: either to stimulate himself into a counterfeit, +and suicidally brief, exuberance; or to relapse into mediocrity; or to +gain a healthy fullness of life.</p> + +<p>In the previous chapter it was shown why poetry demands more +imperatively than any other art, that the appreciator shall bring to +it a margin of vitality. For a like reason poetry makes this same +inordinate demand upon its maker. It insists that he shall keep +himself even more keenly alive than the maker of music or sculpture, +painting or architecture. This is the reason why, in the present era +of overstrain, the poet's art has been so swift to succumb and so slow +to recuperate.</p> + +<p>The poet who is obliged to live in the city has not yet been able to +readjust his body to the pace of modern urban life, so that he may +live among its never-ending conscious and unconscious stimulations and +still keep on hand a triumphant reserve of vitality to pour into his +poems. Under these new and strenu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>ous conditions, very little real +poetry has been written in our cities. American poets, despite their +genuine love of town and their struggles to produce worthy lines amid +its turmoil, have almost invariably done the best of their actually +creative work during the random moments that could be snatched in wood +and meadow, by weedy marsh or rocky headland. To his friends it was +touching to see with what wistfulness Richard Watson Gilder used to +seek his farm at Tyringham for a day or two of poetry after a +fortnight of furious office life. Even Walt Whitman—poet of cities +that he was—had to retire "precipitate" from his beloved Manahatta in +order fitly to celebrate her perfections. In fact, Stedman was perhaps +the only one of our more important singers at the close of the century +who could do his best work in defiance of Emerson's injunction to the +poet: "Thou shalt lie close hid with Nature, and canst not be afforded +to the Capitol or the Exchange." But it is pleas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>ant to recall how +even that poetic banker brightened up and let his soul expand in the +peace of the country.</p> + +<p>One reason for the rapidly growing preponderance of women—and +especially of unmarried women—among our poetic leaders is, I think, +to be found in the fact that women, more often than men, command the +means of living for a generous portion of the year that vital, +unstrenuous, contemplative existence demanded by poetry as an +antecedent condition of its creation. It is a significant fact that, +according to Arnold Bennett, nearly all of the foremost English +writers live far from the town. Most of the more promising American +poets of both sexes, however, have of late had little enough to do +with the country. And the result is that the supreme songs of the +twentieth century have remained unsung, to eat out the hearts of their +potential singers. For fate has thrown most of our poets quite on +their own resources, so that they have been obliged to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> live in the +large cities, supporting life within the various kinds of hack-harness +into which the uncommercially shaped withers of Pegasus can be forced. +Such harness, I mean, as journalism, editing, compiling, reading for +publishers, hack-article writing, and so on. Fate has also seen to it +that the poet's make-up is seldom conspicuous by reason of a +bull-neck, pugilistic limbs, and the nervous equipoise of a +dray-horse. What he may lack in strength, however, he is apt to make +up in hectic ambition. Thus it often happens that when the city does +not consume quite all of his available energy, the poet, with his +probably inadequate physique, chafes against the hack-work and yields +to the call of the luring creative ideas that constantly beset him. +Then, after yielding, he chafes again, and more bitterly, at his +faint, imperfect expression of these dreams, recognizing in despair +that he has been creating a mere crude by-product of the strenuous +life about him. So he burns the torch of life at both ends, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> the +superhuman speed of modern existence eats it through in the middle. +Then suddenly the light fails altogether.</p> + +<p>Those poets alone who have unusual physical endurance are able to do +even a small amount of steady, fine-grained work in the city. The rest +are as effectually debarred from it as factory children are debarred +from learning the violin well at the fag end of their days of toil. In +her autobiography Miss Jane Addams speaks some luminous words about +the state of society which forces finely organized artistic talent +into the wearing struggle for mere existence. She refers to it as "one +of the haunting problems of life; why do we permit the waste of this +most precious human faculty, this consummate possession of all +civilization? When we fail to provide the vessel in which it may be +treasured, it runs out upon the ground and is irretrievably lost."</p> + +<p>I wonder if we have ever stopped to ask ourselves why so many of our +more recent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> poets have died young. Was it the hand of God, or the +effort to do the work of two in a hostile environment, that struck +down before their prime such spirits as Sidney Lanier, Edward Rowland +Sill, Frederic Lawrence Knowles, Arthur Upson, Richard Hovey, William +Vaughn Moody, and the like? These were poets whom we bound to the +strenuous city, or at least to hack-work which sapped over-much of +their vitality. An old popular fallacy keeps insisting that genius +"will out." This is true, but only in a sadder sense than the stupidly +proverbial one. As a matter of fact, the light of genius is all too +easily blown out and trampled out by a blind and deaf world. But we of +America are loath to admit this. And if we do not think of genius as +an unquenchable flame, we are apt to think of it as an amazingly hardy +plant, more tough than horse-brier or cactus. Only a few of us have +yet begun to realize that the flower of genius is not the flower of an +indestructible weed, but of a fastidious exotic, which usually +demands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> good conditions for bare existence, and needs a really +excellent environment and constant tending if it is to thrive and +produce the finest possible blooms. Mankind has usually shown enormous +solicitude lest the man of genius be insufficiently supplied with that +trouble and sorrow which is supposed to be quite indispensable to his +best work. But here and there the thinkers are beginning to realize +that the irritable, impulsive, impractical nature of the genius, in +even the most favorable environment, is formed for trouble "as the +sparks to fly upward." They see that fortune has slain its hundreds of +geniuses, but trouble its ten thousands. And they conclude that their +own real solicitude should be, not lest the genius have too little +adversity to contend with, but lest he have too much.</p> + +<p>We have heard not a little about the conservation of land, ore, wood, +and water. The poetry problem concerns itself with an older sort of +conservation about which we heard much even as youngsters in college. +I mean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> the conservation of energy. Our poetry will never emerge from +the dusk until either the bodies of our city-prisoned poets manage to +overtake the speeding-up process and readjust themselves to it—or +until we allow them an opportunity to return for an appreciable part +of every year to the country—the place where the poet belongs.</p> + +<p>It is true that the masters of the other arts have not fared any too +well at our hands; but they do not need help as badly by far as the +poets need it. What with commissions and sales, scholarships, +fellowships, and substantial prizes, the painters and sculptors and +architects and even the musicians have, broadly speaking, been able to +learn and practise their art in that peace and security which is +well-nigh essential to all artistic apprenticeship and productive +mastery. They have usually been able to spend more of the year in the +country than the poet. And even when bound as fast as he to the city, +they have not been forced to choose between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> burning the candle at +both ends or abandoning their art.</p> + +<p>But for some recondite reason—perhaps because this art cannot be +taught at all—it has always been an accepted American conviction that +poetry is a thing which may be thrown off at any time as a side issue +by highly organized persons, most of whose time and strength and +faculties are engaged in a vigorous and engrossing hand-to-hand bout +with the wolf on the threshold—a most practical, philistine wolf, +moreover, which never heard of rhyme or rhythm, and whose whole +acquaintance with prosody is confined to a certain greedy familiarity +with frayed masculine and feminine endings.</p> + +<p>As a result of this common conviction our poets have almost invariably +been obliged to make their art a quite subsidiary and haphazard +affair, like the rearing of children by a mother who is forced to go +out and scrub from early morning till late at night and has to leave +little Johnnie tied in his high chair to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> be fed by an older sister on +crusts dabbled in the pot of cold coffee. No wonder that so much of +our verse "jest growed," like Topsy. And the resulting state of things +has but served to reinforce our belief that to make the race of poets +spend their days in correcting encyclopædia proof, or clerking, or +running, notebook in hand, to fires—inheres in the eternal fitness of +things.</p> + +<p>Bergson says in "Creative Evolution," that "an intelligence which +reflects is one that originally had a surplus of energy to spend, over +and above practically useful efforts." Does it not follow that when we +make the poet spend all his energy in the practically useful effort of +running to fires, we prevent him from enjoying the very advantage +which made man a reflective being, to say nothing of a poet?</p> + +<p>Perhaps we have never yet realized that this attitude of ours would +turn poetic success into a question of the survival of that paradox, +the commercially shrewd poet, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> of the poet who by some happy +accident of birth or marriage has been given an income, or of that +prodigy of versatility who, in our present stage of civilization, +besides being mentally and spiritually fit for the poet's calling, is +also physically fit to bear the strain of doing two men's work; or, +perhaps we had better say, three men's—for simply being a good poet +is about as nerve-consuming an occupation as any two ordinary men +could support in common—and the third would have to run to fires for +the first two.</p> + +<p>It is natural to the character of the American business man to declare +that the professional poet has no reason for existence <i>qua</i> poet +unless he can make his art support him. But let the business man bear +in mind that if he had the power to enforce such a condition, he would +be practically annihilating the art. For it is literally true that, if +plays were excluded, it would take not even a five-foot shelf to +contain all the first-rate poetry which was ever written by poets in a +state of poetic self-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>support. "Could a man live by it," the author of +"The Deserted Village" once wrote to Henry Goldsmith, "it were not +unpleasant employment to be a poet." Alas, the fatal condition! For +the art itself has almost never fed and clothed its devotee—at least +until his best creative days are done and he has become a "grand old +man." More often the poet has attained not even this reward. +Wordsworth's lines on Chatterton have a wider application:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"What treasure found he? Chains and pains and sorrow—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, all the wealth those noble seekers find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose footsteps mark the music of mankind!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T was his to lend a life: 't was Man's to borrow:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T was his to make, but not to share, the morrow."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Those who insist upon judging the art of poetry on the hard American +"cash basis" ought to be prepared, for the sake of consistency, to +apply the same criterion as well to colleges, public schools, symphony +orchestras, institutions for scientific research, missions, +settlements, libraries, and all other unlucra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>tive educational +enterprises. With inexorable logic they should be prepared to insist +that people really do not desire or need knowledge or any sort of +uplift because they are not prepared to pay its full cost. It is +precisely this sort of logic which would treat the Son of Man if He +should appear among us, to a bench in Bryant Park, and a place in the +bread-line, and send the mounted police to ride down his socialistic +meetings in Union Square. No! poetry and most other forms of higher +education have always had to be subsidized—and probably always will. +When wisely subsidized, however, this art is very likely to repay its +support in princely fashion. In fact, I know of no other investment +to-day that would bid fair to bring us in so many thousand per cent. +of return as a small fresh-air fund for poets.</p> + +<p>We Americans are rather apt to complain of the comparatively poor, +unoriginal showing which our poets have as yet made among those of +other civilized nations. We are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> quietly disgusted that only two of +all our bards have ever made their work forcibly felt in Europe; and +that neither Poe nor Whitman has ever profoundly influenced the great +masses of his own people.</p> + +<p>Despite our splendid inheritance, our richly mingled blood, our +incomparably stimulating New World atmosphere, why has our poetry made +such a meager showing among the nations? The chief reason is obvious. +<i>We have been unwilling to let our poets live while they were working +for us.</i> True, we have the reputation of being an open-handed, even an +extravagantly generous folk. But thriftiness in small things often +goes with an extravagant disposition, much as manifestations of piety +often accompany wickedness like flying buttresses consciously placed +outside the edifice. We have spent millions on bronze and marble +book-palaces which shall house the works of the poets. We have spent +more millions on universities which shall teach these works. But as +for making it possible for our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> few real poets to produce works, and +completely fulfill their priceless functions, we have always satisfied +ourselves by decreeing: "Let there be a sound cash basis."</p> + +<p>So it came to pass that when the first exuberant, pioneer +energy-margin of our race began to be consumed by the new and abnormal +type of city life, it became no longer possible for the poets to put +as much soul-sinew as theretofore into their lines, after they had +toilfully earned the luxury of trying to be our idealistic leaders. +For often their initial efforts consumed their less than pioneer +vitality. And how did we treat them from the first? In the old days we +set Longfellow and Lowell at one of the most exhausting of +professions—teaching. We made Emerson do one-night lecture-stands all +winter long in the West—sometimes for five dollars a lecture and feed +for his horse. We made Bryant ruin a gift as elemental as +Wordsworth's, in journalism; Holmes, visit patients at all hours of +the day and night; Poe, take to newspaper offices<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> and drink. We made +Whitman drive nails, set type and drudge in the Indian Bureau in +Washington, from which he was dismissed for writing the most original +and the most poetic of American books. Later he was rescued from want +only by the humiliation of a public European subscription. Lanier we +allowed to waste away in a dingy lawyer's office, then kill himself so +fast by teaching and writing railway advertisements and playing the +flute in a city orchestra that he was forced to defer composing +"Sunrise" until too weak with fever to carry his hand to his lips. And +this was eleven years after that brave spirit's single cry of +reproach:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Why can we poets dream us beauty, so,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But cannot dream us bread?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>With Lanier the physical exhaustion incident to the modern speeding-up +process began to be more apparent. Edward Rowland Sill we did away +with in his early prime through journalism and teaching. We curbed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> +and pinched and stunted the promising art of Richard Watson Gilder by +piling upon him several men's editorial work. We created a poetic +resemblance between Arthur Upson and the hero of "The Divine Fire" by +employing him in a bookstore. We made William Vaughn Moody teach in a +city environment utterly hostile to his poetry, and later set the hand +that gave us "An Ode in Time of Hesitation" to the building of popular +melodrama. These are only a tithe of the things that we have done to +the hardiest of those benefactors of ours:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The poets, who on earth have made us heirs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of truth and pure delight."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is not pleasant to dwell on the fate of those less sturdy ones who +have remained mute, inglorious Miltons for lack of a little practical +appreciation and a small part of a small fresh-air fund.</p> + +<p>So far as I know, Thomas Bailey Aldrich is the only prominent figure +among the poets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> of our elder generations who was given the means of +devoting himself entirely to his art. And even <i>his</i> fortune was not +left to him by his practical, poetry-loving friend until so late in +the day that his creative powers had already begun to decline through +age and over-much magazine editing.</p> + +<p>More than almost any other civilized nation we have earned Allen +Upward's reproach in "The New Word":</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>There are two kinds of human outcasts. Man, in his march +upward out of the deep into the light, throws out a vanguard +and a rearguard, and both are out of step with the main +body. Humanity condemns equally those who are too good for +it, and those who are too bad. On its Procrustean bed the +stunted members of the race are racked; the giants are cut +down. It puts to death with the same ruthless equality the +prophet and the atavist. The poet and the drunkard starve +side by side.... Literature is the chief ornament of +humanity; and perhaps humanity never shows itself uglier +than when it stands with the pearl shining on its forehead, +and the pearl-maker crushed beneath its heel.... England +will always have fifteen thousand a year for some +respectable clergyman; she will never have it for Shelley.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yes, but how incomparably better England has treated her poets than +America has treated hers! What convenient little plums, as De Quincey +somewhat wistfully remarked, were always being found for Wordsworth +just at the psychological moment; and they were not withheld, +moreover, until he was full of years and honors. Indeed, we owe this +poet to the poet-by-proxy of whom Wordsworth wrote, in "The Prelude":</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He deemed that my pursuits and labours, lay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A necessary maintenance insures<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without some hazard to the finer sense."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>How tenderly the frail bodies of Coleridge and of Francis Thompson +were cared for by their appreciators. How potently the Civil List and +the laureateship have helped a long, if most uneven, line of England's +singers. Over against our solitary ageing Aldrich, how many great +English poets like Byron, Keats, the Brownings, Tennyson, and +Swinburne have found themselves with small but inde<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>pendent incomes, +free to give their whole unembarrassed souls and all that in them was +to their art. And all this since the close of the age of patronage!</p> + +<p>Why have we never had a Wordsworth, or a Browning? For one thing, +because this nation of philanthropists has been too thoughtless to +found the small fellowship in creative poetry which might have freed a +Wordsworth of ours from communion with a cash-book to wander chanting +his new-born lines among the dreamy Adirondack lakes or the frowning +Sierras; or that might have sought out our Browning in his grocery +store and built him a modest retreat among the Thousand Islands. If +not too thoughtless to act thus, we have been too timid. We have been +too much afraid of encouraging weaklings by mistake. We have been, in +fact, more afraid of encouraging a single mediocre poet than of +neglecting a score of Shelleys. But we should remember that even if +the weak are encouraged with the strong, no harm is done.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p> + +<p>It can not be too strongly insisted upon that the poor and mediocre +verse which has always been produced by every age is practically +innocuous. It hurts only the publishers who are constantly being +importuned to print the stuff, and the distinguished men and women who +are burdened with presentation copies or requests for criticism. These +unfortunates all happen to be capable of emitting loud and +authoritative cries of distress about the menace of bad poets. But we +should discount these cries one hundred per cent. For nobody else is +hurt by the bad poets, because nobody else pays the slightest +attention to them. Time and their own "inherent perishableness" soon +remove all traces of the poetasters. It were better to help hundreds +of them than to risk the loss of one new Shelley. And do we realize +how many Shelleys we may actually have lost already? I think it +possible that we may have had more than one such potential singer to +whom we never allowed any leisure or sympathy or margin of vitality to +turn into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> poetry. Perhaps there is more grim truth than humor in Mark +Twain's vision of heaven where Captain Stormfield saw a poet as great +as Shakespeare who hailed, I think, from Tennessee. The reason why the +world had never heard of him was that his neighbors in Tennessee had +regarded him as eccentric and had ridden him out of town on a rail and +assisted his departure to a more congenial clime above.</p> + +<p>We complain that we have had no poet to rank with England's greatest. +I fear that it would have been useless for us to have had such a +person. We probably would not have known what to do with him.</p> + +<p>I realize that mine is not the popular side of this question and that +an occasional poet with an income may be found who will even argue +against giving incomes to other poets. Mr. Aldrich, for instance, +wrote, after coming into his inheritance:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A man should live in a garret aloof,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And have few friends, and go poorly clad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To keep the goddess constant and glad."<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>But a friend of Mr. Aldrich's, one of his poetic peers, has assured me +that it was not the poet's freedom from financial cares at all, but +premature age, instead, that made his goddess of poesy fickle after +the advent of the pitifully belated fortune. Mr. Stedman spoke a far +truer word on this subject. "Poets," he said, "in spite of the +proverb, sing best when fed by wage or inheritance." "'Tis the +convinced belief of mankind," wrote Francis Thompson with a sardonic +smile, "that to make a poet sing you must pinch his belly, as if the +Almighty had constructed him like certain rudimentarily vocal dolls." +"No artist," declares Arnold Bennett, "was ever assisted in his career +by the yoke, by servitude, by enforced monotony, by economic +inferiority." And Bliss Carman speaks out loud and bold: "The best +poets who have come to maturity have always had some means of +livelihood at their command. The idea that any sort of artist or +workman is all the better for being doomed to a life of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> penurious +worry, is such a silly old fallacy, one wonders it could have +persisted so long." The wolf may be splendid at suckling journalism +and various other less inspired sorts of writing, but she is a +ferocious old stepmother to poetry.</p> + +<p>There are some who snatch eagerly at any argument in support of the +existing order, and who triumphantly point out the number of good +poems that have been written under "seemingly" adverse conditions. But +they do not stop to consider how much better these poems might have +been made under "seemingly" favorable conditions. Percy Mackaye is +right in declaring that the few singers left to English poetry after +our "wholesale driving-out and killing-out of poets ... are of two +sorts: those with incomes and those without. Among the former are +found most of the excellent names in English poetry, a fact which is +hardly a compliment to our civilization."</p> + +<p>Would that one of those excellent philanthropists who has grown so +accustomed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> giving a million to libraries and universities that the +act has become slightly mechanical—might realize that he has, with +all his generosity, made no provision as yet for helping one of the +most indispensable of all educational institutions—the poet. Would +that he might realize how little good the poet of genius can derive +from the universities—places whose conservative formalism is even +dangerous to his originality, because they try to melt him along with +all the other students and pour him into their one mold. It is +distressing to think of all the sums now devoted to inducing callow, +overdriven sophomores to compose forced essays and doggerel, by luring +them on with the glitter of cash prizes. One shudders to think of all +the fellowship money which is now being used to finance reluctant +young dry-as-dusts while they are preparing to pack still tighter the +already overcrowded ranks of "professors of English literature"—whose +profession, as Gerald Stanley Lee justly remarks, is founded on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> +striking principle that a very great book can be taught by a very +little man. This is a department of human effort which, as now usually +conducted, succeeds in destroying much budding appreciation of poetry. +Why endow these would-be interpreters of poetry, to the neglect of the +class of artists whose work they profess to interpret? What should we +think of England if her Victorian poets had all happened to be +penniless, and she had packed them off to Grub Street and invested, +instead, in a few more professors of Victorian literature?</p> + +<p>Why should not a few thousands out of the millions we spend on +education be used to found fellowships of creative poetry? These would +not be given at first to those who wish to learn to write poetry; for +the first thousands would be far too precious for use in any such +wild-cat speculations. They would be devoted, rather, to poets of +proved quality, who have already, somehow, learned their art, and who +ask no more wondrous boon from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> life than fresh air and time to regain +and keep that necessary margin of vitality which must go to the making +of genuine poetry.</p> + +<p>I would not have the incumbent of such a fellowship, however, deprived +suddenly of all outer incentives for effort. The abrupt transition +from constant worry and war among his members to an absolutely +unclouded life of pure vocation-following might be almost too violent +a shock, and unsettle him and injure his productivity for a time.</p> + +<p>The award of such a fellowship must not, of course, involve the least +hint of charity or coercion. It should be offered and accepted as an +honor, not as a donation. The yearly income should, in my opinion, be +small. It should be such a sum as would almost, but not quite, support +the incumbent very simply in the country, and still allow for books +and an occasional trip to town. In some cases an income of a thousand +dollars, supplemented by the little that poetry earns and possibly by +a random article or story in the magazines,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> would enable a poet to +lead a life of the largest effectiveness.</p> + +<p>It is my belief that almost any genuine poet who is now kept in the +whirl by economic reasons and thus debarred from the free practice of +his calling would gladly relinquish even a large salary and reduce his +life to simple terms to gain the inestimable privilege of devoting +himself wholly to his art before the golden bowl is broken. Many of +those who are in intimate touch with the poets of America to-day could +show any philanthropist how to do his land and the world more actual, +visible, immediate good by devoting a thousand dollars to poetry, than +by allowing an hundred times that sum to slip into the ordinary +well-worn grooves of philanthropy.</p> + +<p>Some years ago a <i>questionnaire</i> was submitted to various literary men +by a poetry-lover who hoped to induce a wealthy friend to subsidize +poets of promise in case these literary leaders approved the plan. +While the younger writers warmly favored the idea, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> few of the older +ones discouraged it. These were, in all cases, men who had made a +financial success in more lucrative branches of literature than +poetry; and it was natural for the veterans, who had brawnily +struggled through the burden and heat of the day, to look with the +unsympathetic eye of the sturdy upon those frailer ones of the rising +generation who perhaps might, without assistance, be eliminated in the +rough-and-tumble of the literary market-place. Of course it was but +human for the veterans to insist that any real genius among their +youthful competitors "would out," and that any assistance would but +make life too soft for the youngsters, and go to swell the growing +"menace" of bad verse by mitigating the primal rigors of natural +selection. No doubt the generation of writers older than Wordsworth +quite innocently uttered these very same sentiments in voices of deep +authority when it was proposed to offer this young person a chance to +compose in peace. No. One fears<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> that the attitude of these veterans +was not wholly judicial. But then, why should any haphazard group of +creative artists be expected to be judicial, anyway? One might as +reasonably go to the Louvre for classes in conic sections, or to the +Garden of the Gods for instruction in Rabbinical theology.</p> + +<p>Few supporters of the general plan, on the other hand, were wholly in +favor of all the measures proposed for carrying it out. Some of the +most telling criticisms went to show that while poets of undoubted +ability ought to be helped, the method of their selection offers a +grave difficulty. H. G. Wells, who heartily approved the main idea, +brought out the fact that it would never do to leave the choice to a +jury, as no jury would ever have voted for half of the great poets who +have perished miserably. Juries are much too conventionally minded. +For they are public functionaries; or, if not that, at least they feel +self-consciously as if they were going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> to be held publicly +responsible, and are apt to bring extremely conventional, and perhaps +priggish, standards to bear upon their choice. "They invariably become +timid and narrow," wrote Mr. Wells, "and seek refuge in practical, +academic, and moral tests that invariably exclude the real men of +genius."</p> + +<p>Prizes and competitions were considered equally ill-advised methods of +selection. It is significant that these methods are now being rapidly +dropped in the fields of sculpture and architecture. For the mere +thought of a competition is a thing essentially antagonistic to the +creative impulse; and talent is likely to acquit itself better than +genius in such a struggle. The idea of a poetic competition is a relic +of a pioneer mode of thought. Mr. Wells concluded that the decision +should be made by the individual. But I cannot agree with him that +that same individual should be the donor of the fellowship. It seems +to me that this would-be savior of our American poetry should select +the best judge of poets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> and poetry that he can discover and be guided +by his advice.</p> + +<p>On general principles, there are several things that this judge should +<i>not</i> be. He should not be a professor of English, because of the +professor's usual bias toward the academic. Besides, these fellowships +ought not in any way to be associated with institutions of +learning—places which are apt to fetter poets and surround them with +an atmosphere hostile to the creative impulse. Neither should this +momentous decision be left to editors or publishers, because they are +usually suffering from literary indigestion caused by skimming too +many manuscripts too fast, and because, at any rate, they ordinarily +pay little attention to poetry and hold it commercially "in one grand +despise." Nor should the normal type of poet be chosen as judge to +decide this question. For the poet is apt to have a narrow, one-sided +view of the field. He has probably developed his own distinctive style +and personality at the expense of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> artistic catholicity and kindly +breadth of critical judgment. The creative and the critical faculties +are usually as distinct and as mutually exclusive spheres as that of +the impassioned, partisan lawyer and the cool, impartial judge.</p> + +<p>To whom, then, should the decision be left? It should, in my opinion, +be left to a real <i>judge</i>—to some broad, keen critic of poetry with a +clear, unbiased contemporary view of the whole domain of the art. It +matters not whether he is professional or amateur, so he is untouched +by academicism and has not done so much reading or writing as to +impair his mental digestion and his clarity of vision. Care, of +course, would have to be used in safeguarding the critic-judge against +undue pressure in favor of this candidate or that; and in safeguarding +the incumbent of the fellowship from yet more insidious influences. +For the apparently liberated poet would merely have exchanged prisons +if he learned that the founder of the fellowship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> wished to dictate +what sort of poetry he should write.</p> + +<p>The idea of poetry fellowships is not as novel as it perhaps may +sound. It is no mere empirical theory. Americans ought to be proud to +know that, in a modest way, it has recently been tried here, and is +proving a success. I am told that already two masters of poetry have +been presented to us as free workers in their art by two Boston +philanthropists, and have been enabled to accomplish some of their +best work through such fellowships as are here advocated. This fact +should put cities like New York, Pittsburg, and Chicago on their +mettle. For they must realize that Boston, with her quiet, +slow-moving, Old-World pace, has not done to poetry a tithe of the +harm that her more energetic neighbors have, and should therefore not +be suffered to bear the entire brunt of the expiation.</p> + +<p>Men say that money cannot buy a joyful heart. But next to writing a +great poem, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> can scarcely imagine a greater happiness than to know +that a thousand of my dollars had enabled an imprisoned genius to +shake from his shoes the dust of a city office and go for a year to +"God's outdoors," there to free his system of some of the beauty that +had chokingly accumulated there until it had grown an almost +intolerable pain. What joy to know that my fellowship had given men +the modern New World "Hyperion," or "Prelude," or "Ring and the Book"! +And even if that whole year resulted in nothing more than a "Skylark," +or a "Rabbi Ben Ezra," or a "Crossing the Bar"—could one possibly +consider such a result in the same thought-wave with dollars and +cents?</p> + +<p>But this thousand dollars might do something even better than help +produce counterparts of famous poems created in other times and lands. +It might actually secure the inestimable boon of a year's leisure, a +procession of peaceful vistas, and a brimming cup for one of that "new +brood" of "poets to come"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> which Walt Whitman so confidently counted +upon to 'justify him and answer what he was for.' This handful of gold +might make it possible for one of these new poets to come into his +own, and ours, at once, and in his own person accomplish that fusion, +so devoutly to be wished, of those diverse factors of the greatest +poetry which have existed among us thus far only in awful +isolation—the possession of this one and that of our chief singers.</p> + +<p>How fervently we poetry-lovers wish that one of the captains of +industry would feel impelled to put his hand into his pocket—if only +into his watch-pocket—or adorn his last testament with a modest +codicil! It would be such poetic justice if one of those who have +prospered through the very speeding-up process which has so seriously +crippled our poetry, should devote to its service a small tithe of +what he has won from poetry's loss—and thus hasten our renaissance of +singers, and bring a new dawn, 'brighter than before known,' out of +the dusk of the poets.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + +<h3>THE JOYOUS MISSION OF MECHANICAL MUSIC</h3> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_05.jpg" alt="I" width="30" height="66" /></div> +<p> wonder if any other invention has ever, in such a brief time, made +so many joyful hearts as the invention of mechanical music. It has +brought light, peace, gladness, and the gift of self-expression to +every third or fourth flat, villa, and lonely farmhouse in the land. +Its voice has literally gone out through all the earth, and with a +swiftness more like that of light than of sound.</p> + +<p>Only yesterday we were marveling at the discovery of the larger +magazine audience. Until then we had never dreamed of addressing +millions of fellow creatures at one time, as the popular magazine now +does. Imagine the astonished delight of Plato or Cervantes, Poe or +Dickens, if they had been given in one week an audience equivalent in +number<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> to five thousand readers a year for ten centuries! Dickens +would have called it, I think, "immortality-while-you-wait." Yet this +sort of immortality was recently placed at the immediate disposal of +the ordinary writer.</p> + +<p>The miracle was unique in history. But it did not long remain so. Not +content with raining this wonder upon us, history at once poured down +a greater. One morning we awoke to find a new and still vaster medium +of expression, a medium whose globe-girdling voice was to that of the +five-million reader magazine as the roar of Niagara to the roar of a +Philadelphia trolley-car. To-day, from wherever civilized man has +obtained even a temporary foothold, there arise without ceasing the +accents of mechanical music, which talk persuasively to all in a +language so universal that even the beasts understand it and cock +applauding ears at the sound of the master voice. So that, while the +magazine writers now address the million, the composers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> and singers +and players make their bows to the billion.</p> + +<p>Their omnipresence is astonishing. They are the last to bid you +farewell when you leave civilization. They are the first to greet you +on your return. When I canoed across the wild Allagash country, I was +sped from Moosehead Lake by Caruso, received with open arms at the +halfway house by the great-hearted Plancon, and welcomed to Fort Kent +by Sousa and his merry men. With Schumann-Heinck, Melba, and +Tetrazzini I once camped in the heart of the Sierras. When I persisted +to the uttermost secret corner of the Dolomites, I found myself +anticipated by Kreisler and his fiddle. They tell me that the portly +Victor Herbert has even penetrated with his daring orchestra through +darkest Africa and gone on to arrange a special benefit, in his home +town, for the dalai-lama of Tibet.</p> + +<p>One of the most promising things about mechanical music is this: No +matter what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> kind of music or quality of performance it offers you, +you presently long for something a little better—unless your +development has been arrested. It makes small difference in this +respect which one of the three main varieties of instrument you happen +to own. It may be the phonograph. It may be the kind of automatic +piano which accurately reproduces the performances of the master +pianists. It may be the piano-player which indulgently supplies you +with technic ready-made, and allows you to throw your own soul into +the music, whether you have ever taken lessons or not. Or it may be a +combination of the last two. The influence of these machines is +progressive. It stands for evolution rather than for devolution or +revolution.</p> + +<p>Often, however, the evolution seems to progress by sheer accident. +This is the way the accident is likely to happen. Jones is buying +records for the family phonograph. One may judge of his particular +stage of musical evolution by his purchases, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> are: "Meet me in +St. Louis, Louis," "Dance of the Honey Bells," "Hello Central, Give me +Heaven," "Fashion Plate March," and "I Know that I'll be Happy when I +Die." He also notices in the catalogue a piece called "Tannhäuser +March," and, after some hesitation, buys this as well, because the +name sounds so much like his favorite brand of beer that he suspects +it to be music of a convivial nature—a medley of drinking-songs, +perhaps.</p> + +<p>But that evening in the parlor it does not seem much like beer. When +the Mephisto Military Band strikes it up—far from seeming in the +least alcoholic, it exhilarates nobody. So Jones inters it in the +darkest corner of the music-cabinet. And the family devote themselves +to the cake-walks and comic medleys, the fandangoes and tangos, the +xylophone solos, the shakedowns and break-downs and the rags and +tatters of their collection until they have thoroughly exhausted the +delights thereof. Then, having had time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> to forget somewhat the +flatness of "Tannhäuser," and for want of anything better to do, they +take out the despised record, dust it, and insert it into the machine. +But this time, curiously enough, the thing does not sound quite so +flat. After repeated playings, it even begins to rival the "Fashion +Plate March" in its appeal. And it keeps on growing in grace until +within a year the "Fashion Plate March" is as obsolete as fashion +plates have a habit of growing within a year, while "Tannhäuser" has +won the distinction of being the best-wearing record in the cabinet.</p> + +<p>Then it begins to occur to the Jones family that there must be two +kinds of musical food: candy and staples. Candy, like the "Fashion +Plate March," tastes wonderfully sweet to the unsophisticated palate +as it goes down; but it is easy to take too much. And the cheaper the +candy, the swifter the consequent revulsion of feeling. As for the +staples, there is nothing very piquant about their flavor; but if they +are of first quality, and if one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> keeps his appetite healthy, one +seems to enjoy them more and more and to thrive on them three times a +day.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, Jones is commissioned, when next he visits the +music-store, to get a few more records like "Tannhäuser." On this +occasion, he may even be rash enough to experiment with a Schubert +march, or a Weber overture, or one of the more popular movements of a +Beethoven sonata. And so the train of evolution will rush onward, +bearing the Joneses with it until fashion-plate marches are things of +the misty, backward horizon, and the family has, by little and little, +come to know and love the whole blessed field of classical music. And +they have found that the word "classical" is not a synonym for +dry-rot, but that it simply means the music that wears best.</p> + +<p>However the glorious mistake may occur, it is being made by someone +every hour. By such hooks and crooks as these, good music is finding +its way into more and more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> homes. Although its true "classical" +nature is detected at the first trial, it is not thrown away, because +it cost good money. It is put away and bides its time; and some day +the surprising fact that it has wearing qualities is bound to be +discovered. To those who believe in the law of musical evolution, and +who realize that mechanical music has reached the wide world, and is +even beginning to penetrate into the public library, the possibility +of these happy accidents means a sure and swift general development in +the appreciation of the best music.</p> + +<p>Those who know that man's musical taste tends to grow better and not +worse, know also that <i>any</i> music is better than no music. A +mechanical instrument which goes is better than a new concert grand +piano that remains shut.</p> + +<p>"Canned music may not be the highest form of art," the enthusiast will +say with a needless air of half apology, half defiance, "but I enjoy +it no end." And then he will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> go on to tell how the parlor melodeon +had gathered dust for years until it was given in part exchange for a +piano-player. And now the thing is the joy of the family, and the home +is filled with color and effervescence, and every one's head is filled +with at least a rudiment of living, growing musical culture.</p> + +<p>The fact is, the piano-player is turning thousands of supposedly +humdrum, prosaic people into musical enthusiasts, to their own immense +surprise. Many of these people are actually taking lessons in the +subtle art of manipulating the machine. They are spending more money +than they can afford on vast collections of rolls. They are going more +and more to every important concert for hints on interpretation. +Better still, the most musical among them are being piqued, by the +combined merits and defects of the machine, into learning to play an +<i>un</i>mechanical instrument for the joy of feeling less mechanism +interposed between themselves and "the real thing."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p> + +<p>Machinery has already done as much for the true spirit of music as the +"safe and sane" movement has done for the true spirit of the Fourth of +July. Both have shifted the emphasis from brute noise and fireworks to +more spiritual considerations. The piano-player has done a great deal +to cheapen the glamour of mere technical display on the part of the +virtuosi and to redeem us from the thralldom of the school of Liszt. +Our admiration for musical gymnastics and tight-rope balancing is now +leaking away so fast through the perforations of the paper rolls that +the kind of display-piece known as the concerto is going out of +fashion. The only sort of concerto destined to keep our favor is, I +imagine, that of the Schumann or Brahms type, which depends for its +effect not at all on display, but on sound musicianship alone. The +virtuoso is destined soon to leave the circus business and bid a long +farewell to his late colleagues, the sword-swallower, the trapeze +artist, the strong man, the fat lady, the contortionist,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> and the +gentleman who conducts the shell-and-pea game. For presently the only +thing that will be able to entice people to concerts will be the soul +of music. Its body will be a perfectly commonplace affair.</p> + +<p>Many a good musician fears, I know, that machine-made music will not +stop with annihilating vulgar display, but will do to death all +professional music as well. This fear is groundless. Mechanical +instruments will no more drive the good pianist or violinist or +'cellist out of his profession than the public library, as many once +feared, will drive the bookseller out of business. For the library, +after persuading people to read, has taught them how much pleasure may +be had from owning a book, with the privilege of marking it and +scribbling one's own ideas on the margins, and not having to rush it +back to headquarters at inopportune moments and pay to a stern young +woman a fine of eight cents. Likewise people are eventually led to +realize that the joy of passively absorbing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> the product of phonograph +or electric piano contrasts with the higher joy of listening +creatively to music which the hearer helps to make, in the same way +that borrowing a book of Browning contrasts with owning a book of +Browning. I believe that, just as the libraries are yearly educating +hosts of book-buyers, so mechanical music is coöperating with +evolution to swell the noble army of those who support concerts and +give private musicales.</p> + +<p>Of course there is no denying that the existence of music-making +machinery has a certain relaxing effect on some of the less talented +followers of the muse of strumming, scraping, screeching, and +blatting. This is because the soul of music is not in them. And in +striving to reproduce its body, they perceive how hopeless it is to +compete with the physical perfection of the manufactured product. In +like manner, the invention of canned meats doubtless discouraged many +minor cooks from further struggles with their craft. But these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> +losses, I, for one, cannot bring myself to mourn.</p> + +<p>What seems a sounder complaint is that the phonograph, because it +reproduces with equal readiness music and the spoken word, may become +an effective instrument of satire in the hands of the clever +philistine. Let me illustrate. To the Jones collection of records, +shortly after "Tannhäuser" began to win its way, there was added a +reactionary "comic" record entitled "Maggie Clancy's New Piano." In +the record Maggie begins playing "Tannhäuser" very creditably on her +new instrument. Presently the voice of old Clancy is heard from +another room calling, "Maggie!" The music goes on. There is a +<i>crescendo</i> series of calls. The piano stops.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Father?"</p> + +<p>"Maggie, is the new pianny broke?"</p> + +<p>"No, Father; I was merely playing Wagner."</p> + +<p>Old Clancy meditates a moment; then, with a gentleness of touch that +might turn a New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> York music critic green with envy, he replies: "Oh, +I thought ye wuz shovelin' coal in the parlor stove."</p> + +<p>Records like these have power to retard and roughen the otherwise +smooth course of a family's musical evolution; but they are usually +unable to arrest it. In general I think that such satires may fortify +the elder generation in its conservative mistrust of classical music. +But if they are only heard often enough by the young, I believe that +the sympathies of the latter will end in chiming with the taste of the +enlightened Maggie rather than with that of her father.</p> + +<p>Until recently a graver charge against the phonograph has been that it +was so much better adapted for reproducing song than pure instrumental +music that it was tending to identify the art of music in the minds of +most men with song alone. This tendency was dangerous. For song is not +all of music, nor even its most important part. The voice is naturally +more limited in range, technic,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> and variety of color than many +another instrument. And it is artificially handicapped by the rather +absurd custom which forces the singer to drag in poetry (much to the +latter's disadvantage), and therewith distract his own attention and +that of his audience from the music.</p> + +<p>The fact remains that one art at a time is none too easy for even the +most perfect medium of expression to cope with. To make a somewhat +less than perfect instrument like the human voice, cope always with +two simultaneously is an indication that the young art of music has +not yet emerged from its teens. This is one reason why most song is as +yet so intrinsically unmusical. Its reach is, as a rule, forced to +exceed its grasp. Also the accident of having a fine voice usually +determines a singer's career, though a perfect vocal organ does not +necessarily imply a musical nature. The best voices, in fact, often +belong, by some contrariety of fate, to the worst musicians. For these +and other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> reasons, there is less of the true spirit of music to be +heard from vocal cords than from the cords and reeds and brazen tubes +of piano, organ, string quartet, and orchestra. Thus, when the +phonograph threatened to identify song with music in general, it +threatened to give the art a setback and make the singer the +arch-enemy of the wider musical culture. Fortunately the phonograph +now gives promise of averting this peril by bringing up its +reproduction of absolute music near to its vocal standard.</p> + +<p>Another charge against most machine-made music is its unhuman +accuracy. The phonograph companies seldom give out a record which is +not practically perfect in technic and intonation. As for the +mechanical piano, there is no escape from the certainty of just what +notes are coming next—that is, if little Johnnie has not been editing +the paper record with his father's leather-punch. Therefore one grows +after a while to long for a few of those deviations from mathematical +precision<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> which imply human frailty and lovableness. One reason why +the future is veiled from us is that it is so painful to be certain +that one's every prediction is coming true.</p> + +<p>A worse trouble with the phonograph is that it seems to leave out of +account that essential part of every true musical performance, the +creative listener. A great many phonograph records sound as though the +recorder had been performing to an audience no more spiritually +resonant than the four walls of a factory. I think that the makers of +another kind of mechanical instrument must have realized this +oversight on the part of the phonograph manufacturer. I mean the sort +of electric piano which faithfully reproduces every <i>nuance</i> of the +master pianists. Many of the records of this marvelous instrument +sound as though the recording-room of the factory had been "papered" +with creative listeners who coöperated mightily with the master on the +stage. Would that the phonographers might take the hint!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p> + +<p>But no matter how effectively the creative listener originally +coöperates with the maker of this kind of record, the electric piano +does not appeal as strongly to the creative listener in his home as +does the less perfect but more impressionable piano-player, which +responds like a cycle to pedal and brake. For the records of the +phonograph and of the electric piano, once they are made, are made. +Thereafter they are as insensible to influence as the laws of the +Medes and Persians. They do not admit the audience to an active, +influential part in the performance. But such a part in the +performance is exactly what the true listener demands as his +democratic right. And rather than be balked of it, he turns to the +less sophisticated mechanism of the piano-player. This, at least, +responds to his control.</p> + +<p>Undeniably, though, even the warmest enthusiasts for the piano-player +come in time to realize that their machine has distinct limitations; +that it is better suited to certain pieces than to others. They find +that music may be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> performed on it with the more triumphant success +the less human it is and the nearer it comes to the soullessness of an +arabesque. The best operator, by pumping or pulling stops or switching +levers, cannot entirely succeed in imbuing it with the breath of life. +The disquieting fact remains that the more a certain piece demands to +be filled with soul, the thinner and more ghost-like it comes forth. +The less intimately human the music, the more satisfactorily it +emerges. For example, the performer is stirred by the "Tannhäuser +March," as rendered by himself, with its flourish of trumpets and its +general hurrah-boys. But he is unmoved by the apostrophe to the +"Evening Star" from the same opera. For this, in passing through the +piano-player, is almost reduced to a frigid astronomical basis. The +singer is no longer Scotti or Bispham, but Herschel or Laplace. The +operator may pump and switch until he breaks his heart—but if he has +any real musical instinct, he will surely grow to feel a sense of lack +in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> sort of music. So for the present, while confidently awaiting +the invention of an improved piano-player, which shall give equally +free expression to every mood and tense of the human spirit—the +operator learns to avoid the very soulful things as much as is +practicable.</p> + +<p>At this stage of his development he usually begins to crave that +supreme kind of music which demands a perfect balance of the +intellectual, the sensuous, and the emotional. So he goes more often +to concerts where such music is given. Saturated with it, he returns +to his piano-player and plays the concert all over again. And his +imagination is now so full of the emotional side of what he has just +heard and is re-hearing, that he easily discounts the obvious +shortcomings of the mechanical instrument. This is an excellent way of +getting the most from music. One should not, as many do, take it from +the piano-player before the concert and then go with its somewhat +stereotyped accents so fixed in the mind as to obscure the heart of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> +the performance. Rather, in preparation, let the score be silently +glanced through. Leave wide the doors of the soul for the precious +spiritual part of the music to enter in and take possession. After +this happens, use mechanical music to renew your memories of the +concert, just as you would use a catalogue illustrated with etchings +in black and white, to renew your memory of an exhibition of +paintings.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The supreme mission of mechanical music is its direct educational +mission. By this I mean something more than its educational mission to +the many thousands of grown men and women whose latent interest in +music it is suddenly awakening. I have in mind the girls and boys of +the rising generation. If people can only hear enough good music when +they are young, without having it forcibly fed to them, they are +almost sure to care for it when they come to years of discretion. The +reason why America is not more musical is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> that we men and women of +to-day did not yesterday, as children, hear enough good music. Our +parents probably could not afford it. It was then a luxury, implying +expensive concert tickets or an elaborate musical training for someone +in the family.</p> + +<p>The invention of mechanical instruments ended this state of affairs +forever by suddenly making the best music as inexpensive as the worst. +There exists no longer any financial reason why most children should +not grow up in an atmosphere of the best music. And I believe that so +soon as parents learn how to educate their children through the +phonograph or the mechanical piano, the world will realize with a +start that the invention of these things is doing more for musical +culture than the invention of printing did for literary culture.</p> + +<p>We must bear in mind, however, that the invention of mechanical +instruments has come far earlier in the history of music than the +invention of printing came in the history of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> literature. Music is the +youngest of the fine arts. It is in somewhat the same stage of +development to-day that literature was in the time of Homer. It is in +the age of oral—and aural—tradition. Most people still take in music +through their ears alone. For all that the invention of note-printing +means to them as enjoyers of music, they might almost as well be +living æons before Gutenberg. Musically speaking, they belong to the +Homeric age.</p> + +<p>Now the entrance of mechanical music upon the scene is making men +depend on their ears more than ever. It is intensifying and speeding +up this age of oral tradition. But in so doing, I believe that it is +bound to shorten this age also, on the principle that the faster you +go the sooner you arrive. Thus, machinery is hastening us toward the +time when the person of ordinary culture will no more depend on his +ears alone for the enjoyment of music than he now depends on his ears +alone for the enjoyment of Shakespeare.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thanks to machine-made music, the day is coming the sooner when we +shall behold, as neighbors in the ordinary bookcase, such pairs of +counterparts as Milton and Bach, Beethoven and Shakespeare, Loeffler +and Maeterlinck, Byron and Tschaikowsky, Mendelssohn and Longfellow, +Nietzsche and Richard Strauss. Browning will stand up cheek by jowl +with his one true affinity, Brahms. And the owner will sit by the +quiet hearth reading to himself with equal fluency and joy from +Schubert and Keats.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2> + +<h3>MASTERS BY PROXY</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>It is only in a surrounding of personalities that +personalities can as such make themselves seen and heard.</i></p></div> + +<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Houston Stewart Chamberlain</span>.</p> + +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_08.jpg" alt="B" width="50" height="59" /></div> +<p>etween many of my readers and the joyful heart there seems to stand +but a single obstacle—their lack of creativeness. They feel that they +could live and die happy if only they might become responsible for the +creation of something which would remain to bless mankind after they +are gone. But as it is, how can they have the joyful heart when they +are continually being tortured by regret because God did not make +masters of them?</p> + +<p>One is sad because he is not a master of poetry. He never sees A, his +golden-tongued friend, without a pang very like the envy of a +childless man for a happy father. But he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> has no suspicion that he is +partly responsible for A's poetic excellence. Another thinks her life +a mistake because the Master of all good workmen did not make her a +sculptor. Yet all the while she is lavishing unawares upon her brother +or son or husband the very stuff that art is made of. Others are +inconsolable because no fairy wand at their birth destined them for +men of original action, for discoverers in science, pianists, +statesmen, or actors; for painters, philosophers, inventors, or +architects of temples or of religions.</p> + +<p>Now my task in this last chapter is a more delightful one than if I +were the usual solicitor of fiction, come to inform the +poor-but-honest newsboy that he is a royal duke. It is my privilege to +comfort many of the comfortless by revealing to them how and why they +are—or may be—masters of an art as indispensable as the arts which +they now regard so wistfully. I mean the art of master-making—the art +of being a master by proxy.</p> + +<p>To be specific, let us single out one of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> arts and see what it +means to master it by proxy. Suppose we consider the simple case of +executive music. In a book called "The Musical Amateur" I have tried +to prove (more fully than is here possible) that the reproduction of +music is a social act. It needs two: one to perform, one to +appreciate. Both are almost equally essential to a good performance. +The man who appreciates a musical phrase unconsciously imitates it +with almost imperceptible contractions of throat or lips. These +contractions represent an incipient singing or whistling. Motions +similar to these, and probably more fully developed, are made at the +same time by his mind and his spirit. The whole man actually feels his +way, physically and psychically, into the heart of the music. He is +turned into a sentient sounding-board which adds its own contribution +of emotion to the music and sends it back by wireless telegraphy to +the performer. When a violinist and a listener of the right sort meet +for musical purposes, this is what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> happens. The violinist happens to +be in the mood for playing. This means that he has feelings which +demand expression. These his bow releases. The music strikes the +listener, sets him in vibration as if he were a sounding-board, and +rouses in him feelings similar to those of the violinist. Enriched by +this new contribution, the emotional complex resounds back to the +violinist, intensifying his original "feeling-state." In its +heightened form it then recoils back to the appreciator, "and so on, +back and forth, growing in stimulating power at each recoil. The whole +process is something like a hot 'rally' in tennis, with the opponents +closing in on each other and the ball shuttling across the net faster +with every stroke as the point gains in excitement and pleasure. +'Social resonance' might be a good way of describing the thing." This, +briefly told, is what passes between the player of music and his +creative listener.</p> + +<p>In application this principle does not by any means stop with +performing or composing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> music or with the fine arts. It goes on to +embrace more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in the +fiddler's or in any other artist's philosophy. Perhaps it is not too +much to say that no great passion or action has ever had itself +adequately expressed without the coöperation of this social resonance, +without the help of at least one of those modest, unrecognized +partners of genius, the social resonators, the masters by proxy.</p> + +<p>Thanks, dear master-makers unawares! The gratitude of the few who +understand you is no less sincere because you do not yet realize your +own thankworthiness. Our children shall rise up and call you blessed. +For in your quiet way, you have helped to create the world's +creators—the preachers, prophets, captains, artists, discoverers, and +seers of the ages. To these, you, unrecognized and unawares, have been +providing the very sinews of peace, vision, war, beauty, originality, +and insight.</p> + +<p>What made the game of art so brilliant in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> the age of Pericles? It was +not star playing by individuals. It was steady, consistent team-work +by the many. Almost every one of the Athenians who were not masters +were masters by proxy. In "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century" +Chamberlain holds that Greek culture derived its incomparable charm +from "a peculiar harmony of greatness"; and that "if our poets are not +in every respect equal to the greatest poets of Athens, that is not +the fault of their talent, but of those who surround them." Only +imagine the joyful ease of being a poet in the Periclean atmosphere! +It must have been as exhilarating as coasting down into the Yosemite +Valley with John Muir on an avalanche of snow.</p> + +<p>But even in that enlightened age the master received all the credit +for every achievement, and his creative appreciator none at all. And +so it has been ever since that particular amœba which was destined +for manhood had a purse made up for him and was helped upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> the train +of evolution by his less fortunate and more self-effacing friends who +were destined to remain amœbæ; because the master by proxy is such +a retiring, unspectacular sort of person that he has never caught the +popular imagination or found any one to sing his praises. But if he +should ever resent this neglect and go on strike, we should realize +that without him progress is impossible. For the real lords of +creation are not always the apparent lords. We should bear in mind +that the most important part of many a throne is not the red velvet +seat, the back of cloth of gold, or the onyx arms that so sumptuously +accommodate the awe and majesty of acknowledged kings. Neither is it +the seed-pearl canopy that intercepts a too searching light from +majesty's complexion. It is a certain little filigreed hole in the +throne-back which falls conveniently close to the sovereign's ear when +he leans back between the periods of the wise, beauteous, and +thrilling address to his subjects.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p> + +<p>For doubled up in a dark, close box behind the chair of state is a +humble, drab individual who, from time to time, applies his mouth to +the wrong side of the filigreed hole and whispers things. If he were +visible at all, he would look like the absurd prompter under the hood +at the opera. He is not a famous person. Most people are so ignorant +of his very existence that he might be pardoned for being an agnostic +about it himself. The few others know little and care less. Only two +or three of the royal family are aware of his name and real function. +They refer to him as M. Power-Behind-the-Throne, Master-by-Proxy of +State.</p> + +<p>There is one sign by which masters by proxy may be detected wherever +met. They are people whose presence is instantly invigorating. Before +you can make out the color of their eyes you begin to feel that you +are greater than you know. It is as if they wore diffused about them +auras so extensive and powerful that entering these auras was +equivalent to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> giving your soul electric massage. You do not have to +touch the hem of their garments nor even see them. The auras penetrate +a brick wall as a razor penetrates Swiss cheese. And if you are +fortunate enough to be on the other side of the partition, you become +aware with a thrill that "virtue," in the beautiful, Biblical sense of +the word, has gone out of somebody and into you.</p> + +<p>If ever I return to live in a city apartment (which may the gods +forfend!) I shall this time select the apartment with almost sole +reference to what comes through the walls. I shall enter one of those +typical New York piles which O. Henry described as "paved with Parian +marble in the entrance-hall, and cobblestones above the first floor," +and my inquiry will be focused on things far other than Parian marble +and cobblestones. I shall walk about the rooms and up and down the +bowling-alleys of halls trying to make myself as sensitive to +impressions as are the arms of the divining-rod man during his solemn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> +parade with the wand of witch-hazel. And when I feel "virtue" from the +next apartment streaming through the partition, there will I instantly +give battle to the agent and take up my abode. And this though it be +up six flights of cobblestones, without elevator, without closet-room, +with a paranoiac for janitor, and radiators whose musical performance +all the day long would make a Cleveland boiler factory pale with envy. +For none of these things would begin to offset the privilege of living +beside a red-letter wall whose influence should be as benignly +constructive as Richard Washburn Child's "Blue Wall" was malignly +destructive.</p> + +<p>To-day I should undoubtedly be much more of a person if I had once had +the pleasure of living a wall away from Richard Watson Gilder. He was +a true master by proxy. For he was a vastly more creative person than +his published writings will ever accredit him with being. Not only +with his pen, but also with his whole self he went about doing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> good. +"Virtue" fairly streamed from him all the time. Those bowed shoulders +and deep-set, kindly eyes would emerge from the inner sanctum of the +"Century" office. In three short sentences he would reject the story +which had cost you two years of labor and travail. But all the time +the fatal words were getting themselves uttered, so much "virtue" was +passing from him into you that you would turn from his presence +exhilarated, uplifted, and while treading higher levels for the next +week, would produce a check-bearing tale. The check, however, would +not bring you a tithe of the "virtue" that the great editor's personal +rebuff had brought.</p> + +<p>But more than to any editor, writers look to their readers for +support, especially to their unknown correspondents—postal and +psychic. Leonard Merrick has so finely expressed the attitude of many +writers that I cannot forbear giving his words to his "public":<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I have thought of you so often and wanted to win a smile +from you; you don't realize how I have longed to meet +you—to listen to you, to have you lift the veil that hides +your mind from me. Sometimes in a crowd I have fancied I +caught a glimpse of you; I can't explain—the poise of the +head, a look in the eyes, there was something that hinted it +was You. And in a whirlwind of an instant it almost seemed +that you would recognize me; but you said no word—you +passed, a secret from me still. To yourself where you are +sitting you are just a charming woman with "a local +habitation and a name"; but to me you are not Miss or Madam, +not M. or N.—you are a Power, and I have sought you by a +name you have not heard—you are my Public. And O my Lady, I +am speaking to you! I feel your presence in my senses, +though you are far away and I can't hear your answer.... It +is as if I had touched your hand across the page.</p></div> + +<p>There are probably more masters by proxy to be found among the world's +mothers than in any other class. The profession of motherhood is such +a creative one, and demands so constant an outgo of unselfish +sympathy, that a mother's technic as silent partner is usually kept in +a highly efficient state. And occa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>sionally a mother of a genius +deserves as much credit for him spiritually as physically. Think of +Frau Goethe, for example.</p> + +<p>Many a genius attains a commanding position largely through the happy +chance of meeting many powerful masters by proxy and through his happy +facility for taking and using whatever creativeness these have to +offer. Genius has been short-sightedly defined as "an infinite +capacity for taking pains." Galton more truthfully holds that the +triune factors of genius are industry, enthusiasm, and ability. Now if +we were to insist, as so many do, on making a definition out of a +single one of these factors to the neglect of the others, we should +come perhaps nearer the mark by saying that genius is an infinite +capacity for taking others' pains. But all such definings are absurd. +For the genius absorbs and alchemizes not only the industry of his +silent partners, but also their ability and enthusiasm. Their +enthusiasm is fortunately contained in a receptacle as generous as +Philemon's famous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> pitcher. And the harder the genius tries to pour it +empty, the more the sparkling liquid bubbles up inside. The +transaction is like "the quality of mercy"—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The ability to receive as well as give this sort of help varies widely +with the individual. Some geniuses of large psychic power are able +instantly to seize out of any crowd whatever creativeness there is in +it. These persons are spiritual giants. Their strength is as the +strength of ten because their grasp is sure. They are such stuff as +Shakespeares are made of.</p> + +<p>Others are not psychically gifted. They can absorb creativeness only +from their nearest and dearest, in the most favoring environment, and +only after the current has been seriously depleted by wastage in +transmission. But these are the two extremes. They are as rare as +extremes usually are.</p> + +<p>In general I believe that genius, though normally capable of drawing +creativeness from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> a number of different sources, has as a rule +depended largely on the collaboration of one chief master by proxy. +This idea gazes wide-eyed down a fascinating vista of speculation. +Who, for instance, was Lincoln's silent partner? the power behind the +throne of Charlemagne? Buddha's better self? Who were the secret +commanders of Grant, Wellington, and Cæsar? Who was Molière's hidden +prompter? the conductor of the orchestra called Beethoven? the psychic +comrade of Columbus?</p> + +<p>I do not know. For history has never commemorated, as such, the +masters by proxy with honor due, or indeed with any honor or +remembrance at all. It will take centuries to explore the past with +the sympathetic eye and the understanding heart in order to discover +what great tombs we have most flagrantly neglected.</p> + +<p>Already we can single out a few of them. The time is coming when +music-lovers will never make a pilgrimage to the resting-place of +Wagner without making another to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> grave of Mathilde Wesendonk, +whose "virtue" breathed into "Tristan and Isolde" the breath of life. +We shall not much longer neglect the tomb of Charles Darwin's father, +who, by making the evolutionist financially independent, gave his +services to the world. Nor shall we disregard the memory of that other +Charles-Darwin-by-proxy—his wife. For her tireless comradeship and +devotion and freely lavished vitality were an indispensable reservoir +of strength to the great invalid. Without it the world would never +have had the "Origin of Species" or the "Descent of Man."</p> + +<p>Other instances throng to mind. I have small doubt that Charles Eliot +Norton was the silent partner of Carlyle, Ruskin, and Lowell; Ste. +Clare of Francis of Assisi; Joachim and Billroth of Brahms, and +Dorothy Wordsworth of William. By a pleasant coincidence, I had no +sooner noted down the last of these names than I came upon this +sentence in Sarah Orne Jewett's Letters: "How much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> that we call +Wordsworth himself was Dorothy to begin with." And soon after, I found +these words in a letter which Brahms sent Joachim with the score of +his second "Serenade": "Care for the piece a little, dear friend; it +is very much yours and sounds of you. Whence comes it, anyway, that +music sounds so friendly, if it is not the doing of the one or two +people whom one loves as I love you?" The impressionable Charles Lamb +must have had many such partners besides his sister Mary. Hazlitt +wrote: "He is one of those of whom it may be said, 'Tell me your +company, and I'll tell you your manners.' He is the creature of +sympathy, and makes good whatever opinion you seem to entertain of +him."</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most creative master by proxy I have ever known was the +wife of one of our ex-Presidents. To call upon her was to experience +the elevation and mental unlimbering of three or four glasses of +champagne, with none of that liquid's less desirable after-effects.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> I +should not wonder if her eminent husband's success were not due as +much to her creativeness as to his own.</p> + +<p>It sometimes happens that the most potent masters in their own right +are also the most potent masters by proxy. They grind out more power +than they can consume in their own particular mill-of-the-gods. I am +inclined to think that Sir Humphry Davy was one of these. He was the +discoverer of chlorine and laughing-gas, and the inventor of the +miner's safety lamp. He was also the <i>deus ex machina</i> who rescued +Faraday from the bookbinder's bench, made him the companion of his +travels, and incidentally poured out the overplus of his own creative +energy upon the youth who has recently been called "perhaps the most +remarkable discoverer of the nineteenth century." Schiller was another +of these. "In more senses than one your sympathy is fruitful," wrote +Goethe to him during the composition of "Faust."</p> + +<p>Indeed, the greatest Master known to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> history was first and foremost a +master by proxy. It was He who declared that we all are "members one +of another." Writing nothing Himself, He inspired others to write +thousands of immortal books. He was unskilled as painter, or sculptor, +or architect; yet the greatest canvases, marbles, and cathedrals since +He trod the earth have sprung directly from his influence. He was no +musician.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"His song was only living aloud."</p></div> + +<p>But that silent song was the direct inspiration of much of the +sublimest music of the centuries to come. And so we might go on and on +about this Master of all vicarious masters.</p> + +<p>Yet it is a strange and touching thing to note that even his exuberant +creativeness sometimes needed the refreshment of silent partners. When +He was at last to perform a great action in his own right He looked +about for support and found a master by proxy in Mary, the sister of +the practical Martha.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> But when He turned for help in uttermost need +to his best-beloved disciples He found them only negative, destructive +influences. This accounts for the anguish of his reproach: "Could ye +not watch with me one hour?"</p> + +<p>Having never been properly recognized as such, the world's masters by +proxy have never yet been suitably rewarded. Now the world is +convinced that its acknowledged masters deserve more of a feast at +life's surprise party than they can bring along for themselves in +their own baskets. So the world bows them to the places of honor at +the banquet board. True, the invitation sometimes comes so late that +the master has long since devoured everything in his basket and is +dead of starvation. But that makes not the slightest difference to +humanity, which will take no refusal, and props the cynically amused +skeleton up at the board next the toastmaster. My point is, however, +that humanity is often forehanded enough with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> its invitations to give +the masters a charming time of it before they, too, into the dust +descend, <i>sans</i> wine, <i>sans</i> song, etc. But I do not know that it has +ever yet consciously bidden a master by proxy—as such—to the feast. +And I contend that if a man's deserts are to be measured at all by his +creativeness, then the great masters by proxy deserve seats well up +above the salt.</p> + +<p>For is it any less praiseworthy to make a master than to make a +masterpiece? I grant that the masterpiece is the more sudden and +dramatic in appearing and can be made immediate use of, whereas the +master is slowly formed, and even then turns out unsatisfactory in +many ways. He is apt to be that well-known and inconvenient sort of +person who, when he comes in out of the rain to dress for his wedding, +abstractedly prepares to retire instead, and then, still more +abstractedly, puts his umbrella to bed and stands himself in the +corner. All the same, it is no less divine to create a master by slow, +laborious methods<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> than to snatch a masterpiece apparently out of +nothing-at-all. In the eye of the evolutionist, man is not of any the +less value because he was made by painful degrees instead of having +been produced, a perfect gentleman, out of the void somewhat as the +magician brings forth from the empty saucepan an omelette, containing +a live pigeon with the loaned wedding-ring in its beak.</p> + +<p>The master-makers have long been expending their share of the power. +It is high time they were enjoying their share of the glory. What an +unconscionable leveling up and down there will presently be when it +dawns upon humanity what a large though inglorious share it has been +having in the spiritually creative work of the world! In that day the +seats of the mighty individualists of science, industry, politics, and +discovery; of religion and its ancient foe ecclesiasticism; of +economy, the arts and philosophy, will all be taken down a peg by the +same knowledge that shall exalt "them of low degree."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p> + +<p>I can imagine how angrily ruffled the sallow shade of Arthur +Schopenhauer will become at the dawn of this spiritual Commune. When +the first full notes of the soul's "Marseillaise" burst upon his +irritable eardrums, I can hear above them his savage snarl. I can see +his malignant expression as he is forced to divide his unearned +increment of fame with some of those <i>Mitmenschen</i> whom he, like a bad +Samaritan, loved to lash with his tongue before pouring in oil of +vitriol and the sour wine of sadness. And how like red-ragged +turkey-cocks Lord Byron and Nietzsche and Napoleon will puff out when +required to stand and deliver some of their precious credit!</p> + +<p>There will be compensations, though, to the genius who, safely dead, +feels himself suddenly despoiled of a fullness of fame which he had +counted on enjoying in <i>sæcula sæculorum</i>. When he comes to balance +things up, perhaps he will not, after all, find the net loss so +serious. Though he lose some credit for his successes, he will also +lose some discredit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> for his failures. Humanity will recognize that +while the good angels of genius are the masters by proxy, the bad +angels of genius exert an influence as negative and destructive as the +influence of the others is positive and constructive.</p> + +<p>How jolly it will be, for all but the bad angels, when we can assign +to them such failures as Browning's "The Inn Album"; Davy's contention +that iodine was not an element, and Luther's savage hounding of the +nobles upon the wretched peasants who had risen in revolt under his +own inspiration. But enough of the bad angels! Let us inter them with +this epitaph: "They did their worst; devils could do no more."</p> + +<p>Turn we to the bright side of the situation. How delighted Keats will +be when at last the world develops a little sense of proportion, and +after first neglecting and then over-praising him, finally proposes to +give poor old Severn his due as a master by proxy. Imagine Sir William +Herschel's pleasure when his be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>loved sister Caroline begins to +receive her full deserts. And Tschaikowsky will slough his morbidness +and improvise a Slavic Hallelujah Chorus when his unseen patroness +comes into her own. It is true that the world has already given her +memory two fingers and a perfunctory "thank ye." This was for putting +her purse at Tschaikowsky's disposal, thus making it possible for him +to write a few immortal compositions instead of teaching mortals the +piano in a maddening conservatory. But now, glory! hallelujah! the +world is soon going to render her honor long overdue for the spiritual +support which so ably reinforced the financial.</p> + +<p>And Sir Thomas More, that early socialist—imagine his elation! For he +will regard our desire to transfer some of his own credit to the man +in the pre-Elizabethan street as a sure sign that we are steadily +approaching the golden gates of his Utopia. For good Sir Thomas knows +that our view of heroes and hero-worship has always been too little +demo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>cratic. We have been over-inclined, with the aristocratic +Carlyle, to see all history as a procession of a few transcendent +masters surrounded, preceded, and followed by enormous herds of abject +and quite insignificant slaves. Between these slaves and the masters, +there is, in the old view, about as much similarity as exists in the +child's imagination between the overwhelming dose of castor oil and +the single pluperfect chocolate drop whereby the dose is supposed to +be made endurable. Already the idea is beginning to glimmer that +heroic stuff is far more evenly distributed throughout the throng than +we had supposed.</p> + +<p>It is, of course, very meet and very right and our bounden duty to +admire the world's standard, official heroes. But it is wrong to +revere them to the exclusion of folk less showy but perhaps no less +essential. It is almost as wrong as it would be for the judges at the +horse-show to put the dog-cart before the horse and then focus their +admiring glances so exclusively upon the vehicle that they for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>got the +very existence of its patient and unself-conscious propeller.</p> + +<p>It is especially fitting that we should awake to the worth of the +master by proxy just now, when the movement for the socialization of +the world, after so many ineffectual centuries, is beginning to engage +the serious attention of mankind. Thus far, one of the chief +reactionary arguments against all men being free has been that men are +so shockingly unequal. And the reactionaries have called us to witness +the gulf that yawns, for example, between the god-like individualist, +Ysaye, and the worm-like little factory girl down there in the +audience balanced on the edge of the seat and listening to the +violin—her rapt soul sitting in her eyes. Now, however, we know that, +but for the wireless tribute of creativeness that flashes up to the +monarch of tone from that "rapt soul" and others as humble and as +rapt—the king of fiddlers would then and there be obliged to lay down +his horsehair scepter and abdicate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p> + +<p>We have reached a stage of social evolution where it is high time that +one foolish old fallacy should share the fate of the now partially +discredited belief that "genius will out" in spite of man or devil. +This fallacy is the supposition that man's creativeness is to be +measured solely by its visible, audible, or tangible results. +Browning's old Rabbi made a shrewd commentary on this question when he +declared:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Not on the vulgar mass<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Called 'work,' must sentence pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Things done that took the eye and had the price....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But all the world's coarse thumb<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And finger failed to plumb....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thoughts hardly to be packed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into a narrow act,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fancies that broke through language and escaped:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All I could never be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All men ignored in me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yes, we are being slowly socialized, even to our way of regarding +genius; and this has been until now the last unchallenged strong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>hold +of individualism. We perceive that even there individualism must no +longer be allowed to have it all its own way. After a century we are +beginning to realize that the truth was in our first socially minded +English poet when he sang:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Nothing in the world is single,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All things by a law divine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In one another's being mingle."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>To-day we have in library, museum, gallery, and cathedral tangible +records of the creativeness of the world's masters. Soon I think we +are to possess—thanks to Edison and the cinematographers—intangible +records—or at least suggestions—of the modest creativeness of our +masters by proxy. Some day every son with this inspiring sort of +mother will have as complete means as science and his purse affords, +of perpetuating her voice, her changing look, her walk, her tender +smile. Thus he may keep at least a gleam of her essential creativeness +always at hand for help in the hour of need.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> + +<p>I would give almost anything if I could have in a storage battery +beside me now some of the electric current that was forever flowing +out of my own mother, or out of Richard Watson Gilder, or out of Hayd +Sampson, a glorious old "inglorious Milton" of a master by proxy whom +I once found toiling in a small livery-stable in Minnesota. My faith +is firm that some such miracle will one day be performed. And in our +irreverent, Yankee way we may perhaps call the captured product of the +master by proxy—"canned virtue." In that event the twenty-first +centurion will no more think of setting out on a difficult task or for +a God-forsaken environment without a supply of "canned virtue" than of +starting for one of the poles equipped with only a pocketful of +pemmican.</p> + +<p>There is a grievous amount of latent master-making talent spoiling +to-day for want of development. Many an one feels creative energy +crying aloud within himself for vicarious spiritual expression. He +would be a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> master by proxy, yet is at a loss how to learn. Him I +would recommend to try learning the easiest form of the art. Let him +resolve to become a creative listener to music. Once he is able to +influence reproducers of art like pianists and singers, he can then +begin groping by analogy toward the more difficult art of influencing +directly the world's creators. But even if he finds himself quite +lacking in creativeness, he can still be a silent partner of genius if +he will relax purse-strings, or cause them to be relaxed, for the +founding of creative fellowships.</p> + +<p>I do not know if ever yet in the history of the planet the mighty +force which resides in the masters by proxy has been systematically +used. I am sure it has never been systematically conserved, and that +it is one of the least understood and least developed of earth's +natural resources. One of our next long steps forward should be along +this line of the conservation of "virtue." The last physical frontier +has practically been passed. Now let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> us turn to the undiscovered +continents of soul which have so long been awaiting their Columbuses +and Daniel Boones, their country-life commissions and conferences of +governors.</p> + +<p>When the hundredth part of you possible masters by proxy shall grow +aware of your possibilities, and take your light from under the +bushel, and use it to reinforce the flickering flame of talent at your +elbow, or to illumine the path of some unfortunate and stumbling +genius, or to heighten the brilliance of the consummate master—our +civilization will take a mighty step towards God.</p> + +<p>Try it, my masters!</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>By Robert Haven Schauffler</h2> + +<ul> +<li>THE JOYFUL HEART.</li> +<li>SCUM O' THE EARTH AND OTHER POEMS.</li> +<li>THE MUSICAL AMATEUR.</li> +</ul> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Boston and New York</span> +</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Joyful Heart, by Robert Haven Schauffler + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOYFUL HEART *** + +***** This file should be named 19696-h.htm or 19696-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/9/19696/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Joyful Heart + +Author: Robert Haven Schauffler + +Release Date: November 2, 2006 [EBook #19696] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOYFUL HEART *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE JOYFUL HEART + + + + BY + + ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER + + AUTHOR OF THE MUSICAL AMATEUR, SCUM O' THE EARTH + AND OTHER POEMS, ROMANTIC AMERICA, ETC. + + + + "People who are nobly happy constitute the power, the beauty + and the foundation of the state." + + JEAN FINOT: _The Science of Happiness._ + + + + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + 1914 + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1914 BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER + + * * * * * + + + + +TO + +MY WIFE + + * * * * * + + + + +FOREWORD + + +This is a guide-book to joy. It is for the use of the sad, the bored, +the tired, anxious, disheartened and disappointed. It is for the use +of all those whose cup of vitality is not brimming over. + +The world has not yet seen enough of joy. It bears the reputation of +an elusive sprite with finger always at lip bidding farewell. In +certain dark periods, especially in times of international warfare, it +threatens to vanish altogether from the earth. It is then the first +duty of all peaceful folk to find and hold fast to joy, keeping it in +trust for their embattled brothers. + +Even if this were not their duty as citizens of the world, it would be +their duty as patriots. For Jean Finot is right in declaring that +"people who are nobly happy constitute the power, the beauty and the +foundation of the state." + +This book is a manual of enthusiasm--the power which drives the +world--and of those kinds of exuberance (physical, mental and +spiritual) which can make every moment of every life worth living. It +aims to show how to get the most joy not only from traveling hopefully +toward one's goal, but also from the goal itself on arrival there. It +urges sound business methods in conducting that supreme business, the +investment of one's vitality. + +It would show how one may find happiness all alone with his better +self, his 'Auto-Comrade'--an accomplishment well-nigh lost in this +crowded age. It would show how the gospel of exuberance, by offering +the joys of hitherto unsuspected power to the artist and his audience, +bids fair to lift the arts again to the lofty level of the Periclean +age. It would show the so-called "common" man or woman how to develop +that creative sympathy which may make him a 'master by proxy,' and +thus let him know the conscious happiness of playing an essential part +in the creation of works of genius. In short, the book tries to show +how the cup of joy may not only be kept full for one's personal use, +but may also be made hospitably to brim over for others. + +To the _Atlantic Monthly_ thanks are due for permission to reprint +chapters I, III and IV; to the _North American Review_, for chapter +VIII; and to the _Century_, for chapters V, VI, IX and X. + +R. H. S. + +GEEENBUSH, MASS. + +August, 1914. + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. A DEFENSE OF JOY + +II. THE BRIMMING CUP + +III. ENTHUSIASM + +IV. A CHAPTER OF ENTHUSIASMS + +V. THE AUTO-COMRADE + +VI. VIM AND VISION + +VII. PRINTED JOY + +VIII. THE JOYFUL HEART FOR POETS + +IX. THE JOYOUS MISSION OF MECHANICAL MUSIC + +X. MASTERS BY PROXY + + * * * * * + + + + +THE JOYFUL HEART + +I + +A DEFENSE OF JOY + + +Joy is such stuff as the hinges of Heaven's doors are made of. So our +fathers believed. So we supposed in childhood. Since then it has +become the literary fashion to oppose this idea. The writers would +have us think of joy not as a supernal hinge, but as a pottle of hay, +hung by a crafty creator before humanity's asinine nose. The donkey is +thus constantly incited to unrewarded efforts. And when he arrives at +the journey's end he is either defrauded of the hay outright, or he +dislikes it, or it disagrees with him. + +Robert Louis Stevenson warns us that "to travel hopefully is a better +thing than to arrive," beautifully portraying the emptiness and +illusory character of achievement. And, of those who have attained, +Mr. E. F. Benson exclaims, "God help them!" These sayings are typical +of a widespread literary fashion. Now to slander Mistress Joy to-day +is a serious matter. For we are coming to realize that she is a far +more important person than we had supposed; that she is, in fact, one +of the chief managers of life. Instead of doing a modest little +business in an obscure suburb, she has offices that embrace the whole +first floor of humanity's city hall. + +Of course I do not doubt that our writer-friends note down the truth +as they see it. But they see it imperfectly. They merely have a corner +of one eye on a corner of the truth. Therefore they tell untruths that +are the falser for being so charmingly and neatly expressed. What they +say about joy being the bribe that achievement offers us to get itself +realized may be true in a sense. But they are wrong in speaking of the +bribe as if it were an apple rotten at the core, or a bag of +counterfeit coin, or a wisp of artificial hay. It is none of these +things. It is sweet and genuine and well worth the necessary effort, +once we are in a position to appreciate it at anything like its true +worth. We must learn not to trust the beautiful writers too +implicitly. For there is no more treacherous guide than the consummate +artist on the wrong track. + +Those who decry the joy of achievement are like tyros at skating who +venture alone upon thin ice, fall down, fall in, and insist on the way +home that winter sports have been grossly overestimated. This outcry +about men being unable to enjoy what they have attained is a +half-truth which cannot skate two consecutive strokes in the right +direction without the support of its better half. And its better half +is the fact that one may enjoy achievement hugely, provided only he +will get himself into proper condition. + +Of course I am not for one moment denying that achievement is harder +to enjoy than the hope of achievement. Undoubtedly the former lacks +the glamour of the indistinct, "that sweet bloom of all that is far +away." But our celebrated writer-friends overlook the fact that +glamour and "sweet bloom" are so much pepsin to help weak stomachs +digest strong joy. If you would have the best possible time of it in +the world, develop your joy-digesting apparatus to the point where it +can, without a qualm, dispose of that tough morsel, the present, +obvious and attained. There will always be enough of the unachieved at +table to furnish balanced rations. + +"God help the attainers!"--forsooth! Why, the ideas which I have +quoted, if they were carried to logical lengths, would make heaven a +farcical kill-joy, a weary, stale, flat, unprofitable morgue of +disappointed hopes, with Ennui for janitor. I admit that the old +heaven of the Semitic poets was constructed somewhat along these +lines. But that was no real heaven. The real heaven is a quiet, +harpless, beautiful place where every one is a heaven-born creator +and is engaged--not caring in the least for food or sleep--in turning +out, one after another, the greatest of masterpieces, and enjoying +them to the quick, both while they are being done and when they are +quite achieved. + +I would not, however, fall into the opposite error and disparage the +joy of traveling hopefully. It is doubtless easy to amuse one's self +in a wayside air-castle of an hundred suites, equipped with +self-starting servants, a Congressional Library, a National Gallery of +pictures, a Vatican-ful of sculpture, with Hoppe for billiard-marker, +Paderewski to keep things going in the music-room, Wright as grand +hereditary master of the hangar, and Miss Annette Kellerman in charge +of the swimming-pool. I am not denying that such a castle is easier to +enjoy before the air has been squeezed out of it by the horny clutch +of reality, which moves it to the journey's end and sets it down with +a jar in its fifty-foot lot, complete with seven rooms and bath, and +only half an hour from the depot. But this is not for one moment +admitting the contention of the lords of literature that the +air-castle has a monopoly of joy, while the seven rooms and bath have +a monopoly of disillusionized boredom and anguish of mind. If your +before-mentioned apparatus is only in working order, you can have no +end of joy out of the cottage. And any morning before breakfast you +can build another, and vastly superior, air-castle on the vacant land +behind the woodshed. + +"What is all this," I heard the reader ask, "about a joy-digesting +apparatus?" + +It consists of four parts. Physical exuberance is the first. To a +considerable extent joy depends on an overplus of health. The joy of +artistic creation, for instance, lies not so intensely and +intoxicatingly in what you may some time accomplish as in what has +actually just started into life under your pencil or clayey thumb, +your bow or brush. For what you are about to receive, the Lord, as a +rule, makes you duly thankful. But with the thankfulness is always +mingled the shadowy apprehension that your powers may fail you when +next you wish to use them. Thus the joy of anticipatory creation is +akin to pain. It holds no such pure bliss as actual creation. When you +are in full swing, what you have just finished (unless you are +exhausted) seems to you nearly always the best piece of work that you +have ever done. For your critical, inhibitory apparatus is temporarily +paralyzed by the intoxication of the moment. What makes so many +artists fail at these times to enjoy a maximum of pleasure and a +minimum of its opposite, is that they do not train their bodies "like +a strong man to run a race," and make and keep them aboundingly vital. +The actual toil takes so much of their meager vitality that they have +too little left with which to enjoy the resulting achievement. If they +become ever so slightly intoxicated over the work, they have a +dreadful morning after, whose pain they read back into the joy +preceding. And then they groan out that all is vanity, and slander joy +by calling it a pottle of hay. + +It takes so much vitality to enjoy achievement because achievement is +something finished. And you cannot enjoy what is finished in art, for +instance, without re-creating it for yourself. But, though re-creation +demands almost as much vital overplus as creation, the layman should +realize that he has, as a rule, far more of this overplus than the +pallid, nervous sort of artist. And he should accordingly discount the +other's lamentations over the vanity of human achievement. + +The reason why Hazlitt took no pleasure in writing, and in having +written, his delicious essays is that he did not know how to take +proper care of his body. To be extremely antithetical, I, on the other +hand, take so much pleasure in writing and in having written these +essays of mine (which are no hundredth part as beautiful, witty, wise, +or brilliant as Hazlitt's), that the leaden showers of drudgery, +discouragement, and disillusionment which accompany and follow almost +every one of them, and the need of Spartan training for their sake, +hardly displace a drop from the bucket of joy that the work brings. +Training has meant so much vital overplus to me that I long ago +spurted and caught up with my pottle of joy. And, finding that it made +a cud of unimagined flavor and durability, I substituted for the +pottle a placard to this effect: + +REMEMBER THE RACE! + +This placard, hung always before me, is a reminder that a decent +respect for the laws of good sportsmanship requires one to keep in as +hard condition as possible for the hundred-yard dash called Life. Such +a regimen pays thousands of per cent. in yearly dividends. It allows +one to live in an almost continual state of exaltation rather like +that which the sprinter enjoys when, after months of flawless +preparation, he hurls himself through space like some winged creature +too much in love with the earth to leave it; while every drop of his +tingling blood makes him conscious of endless reserves of vitality. + +Tingling blood is a reagent which is apt to transmute all things into +joy--even sorrow itself. I wonder if any one seriously doubts that it +was just this which was giving Browning's young David such a glorious +time of it when he broke into that jubilant war-whoop about "our +manhood's prime vigor" and "the wild joys of living." + +The physical variety of exuberance, once won, makes easy the winning +of the mental variety. This, when it is almost isolated from the other +kinds, is what you enjoy when you soar easily along over the world of +abstract thought, or drink delight of battle with your intellectual +peers, or follow with full understanding the phonographic version of +some mighty, four-part fugue. To attain this means work. But if your +body is shouting for joy over the mere act of living, mental +calisthenics no longer appear so impossibly irksome. And anyway, the +discipline of your physical training has induced your will to put up +with a good deal of irksomeness. This is partly because its eye is +fixed on something beyond the far-off, divine event of achieving +concentration on one subject for five minutes without allowing the +mind to wander from it more than twenty-five times. That something is +a keenness of perception which makes any given fragment of nature or +human nature or art, however seemingly barren and commonplace, +endlessly alive with possibilities of joyful discovery--with +possibilities, even, of a developing imagination. For the +Auto-Comrade, your better self, is a magician. He can get something +out of nothing. + +At this stage of your development you will probably discover in +yourself enough mental adroitness and power of concentration to enable +you to weed discordant thoughts out of the mind. As you wander through +your mental pleasure-grounds, whenever you come upon an ugly intruder +of a thought which might bloom into some poisonous emotion such as +fear, envy, hate, remorse, anger, and the like, there is only one +right way to treat it. Pull it up like a weed; drop it on the rubbish +heap as if it were a stinging nettle; and let some harmonious thought +grow in its place. There is no more reckless consumer of all kinds of +exuberance than the discordant thought, and weeding it out saves such +an amazing quantity of _eau de vie_ wherewith to water the garden of +joy, that every man may thus be his own Burbank and accomplish marvels +of mental horticulture. + +When you have won physical and mental exuberance, you will have +pleased your Auto-Comrade to such an extent that he will most likely +startle and delight you with a birthday present as the reward of +virtue. Some fine morning you will climb out of the right side of your +bed and come whistling down to breakfast and find by your plate a neat +packet of spiritual exuberance with his best wishes. Such a gift is +what the true artist enjoys when inspiration comes too fast and full +for a dozen pens or brushes to record. Jeanne d'Arc knew it when the +mysterious voices spoke to her; and St. John on Patmos; and every true +lover at certain moments; and each one of us who has ever flung wide +the gates of prayer and felt the infinite come flooding in as the +clean vigor of the tide swirls up through a sour, stagnant marsh; or +who at some supreme instant has felt enfolding him, like the +everlasting arms, a sure conviction of immortality. + +Now for purposes of convenience we may speak of these three kinds of +exuberance as we would speak of different individuals. But in reality +they hardly ever exist alone. The physical variety is almost sure to +induce the mental and spiritual varieties and to project itself into +them. The mental kind looks before and after and warms body and soul +with its radiant smile. And even when we are in the throes of a purely +spiritual love or religious ecstasy, we have a feeling--though +perhaps it is illusory--that the flesh and the intellect are more +potent than we knew. + +These, then, constitute the first three parts of the joy-digesting +apparatus. I think there is no need of dwelling on their efficacy in +helping one to enjoy achievement. Let us pass, therefore, to the +fourth and last part, which is self-restraint. + +Perhaps the worst charge usually made against achievement is its +sameness, its dry monotony. On the way to it (the writers say) you are +constantly falling in with something new. But, once there, you must +abandon the variegated delights of yesterday and settle down, to-day +and forever, to the same old thing. In this connection I recall an +epigram of Professor Woodrow Wilson's. He was lecturing to us young +Princetonians about Gladstone's ability to make any subject of +absorbing interest, even a four hours' speech on the budget. "Young +gentlemen," cried the professor, "it is not the subject that is dry. +It is _you_ that are dry!" Similarly, it is not achievement that is +dry; it is the achievers, who fondly suppose that now, having +achieved, they have no further use for the exuberance of body, mind, +and spirit, or the self-restraint which helped them toward their goal. + +Particularly the self-restraint. One chief reason why the thing +attained palls so often and so quickly is that men seek to enjoy it +immoderately. Why, if Ponce de Leon had found the fountain of youth +and drunk of it as bibulously as we are apt to guzzle the cup of +achievement, he would not only have arrested the forward march of +time, but would have over-reached himself and slipped backward through +the years of his age to become a chronic infant in arms. Even +traveling hopefully would pall if one kept at it twenty-four hours a +day. Just feast on the rich food of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony +morning, noon, and night for a few months, and see how you feel. There +is no other way. Achievement must be moderately indulged in, not made +the pretext for a debauch. If one has achieved a new cottage, for +example, let him take numerous week-end vacations from it. And let not +an author sit down and read through his own book the moment it comes +from the binder. A few more months will suffice to blur the memory of +those irrevocable, nauseating foundry proofs. If he forbears--instead +of being sickened by the stuff, no gentle reader, I venture to +predict, will be more keenly and delicately intrigued by the volume's +vigors and subtleties. + +If you have recently made a fortune, be sure, in the course of your +Continental wanderings, to take many a third-class carriage full of +witty peasants, and stop at many an "unpretending" inn "Of the White +Hind," with bowered rose-garden and bowling-green running down to the +trout-filled river, and mine ample hostess herself to make and bring +you the dish for which she is famous over half the countryside. Thus +you will increase by at least one Baedekerian star-power the luster +of the next Grand Hotel Royal de l'Univers which may receive you. And +be sure to alternate pedestrianism with motoring, and the "peanut" +gallery with the stage-box. Omit not to punctuate with stag vacations +long periods of domestic felicity. When Solomon declared that all was +vanity and vexation of spirit I suspect that he had been more than +unusually intemperate in frequenting the hymeneal altar. + +Why is it that the young painters, musicians, and playwrights who win +fame and fortune as heroes in the novels of Mr. E. F. Benson enjoy +achievement so hugely? Simply because they are exuberant in mind, +body, and spirit, and, if not averse to brandy and soda, are in other +ways, at least, paragons of moderation. And yet, in his "Book of +Months," Mr. Benson requests God to help those who have attained! + +With this fourfold equipment of the three exuberances and moderation, +I defy Solomon himself in all his glory not to enjoy the situation +immensely and settle down in high good humor and content with the +paltry few scores of wives already achieved. I defy him not to enjoy +even his fame. + +We have heard much from the gloomily illustrious about the fraudulent +promise of fame. At a distance, they admit, it seems like a banquet +board spread with a most toothsome feast. But step up to the table. +All you find there is dust and ashes, vanity and vexation of spirit +and a desiccated joint that defies the stoutest carver. If a man holds +this view, however, you may be rather sure that he belongs to the +_bourgeois_ great. For it is just as _bourgeois_ to win fame and then +not know what on earth to do with it, as it is to win fortune and then +not know what on earth to do with it. The more cultivated a famous man +is, the more he must enjoy the situation; for along with his dry scrag +of fame, the more he must have of the sauce which alone makes it +palatable. The recipe for this sauce runs as follows: to one +amphoraful best physical exuberance add spice of keen perception, +cream of imagination, and fruits of the spirit. Serve with grain of +salt. + +That famous person is sauceless who can, without a tingle of joy, +overhear the couple in the next steamer-chairs mentioning his name +casually to each other as an accepted and honored household word. He +has no sauce for his scrag if he, unmoved, can see the face of some +beautiful child in the holiday crowd suddenly illuminated by the +pleasure of recognizing him, from his pictures, as the author of her +favorite story. He is _bourgeois_ if it gives him no joy when the +weight of his name swings the beam toward the good cause; or when the +mail brings luminous gratitude and comprehension from the perfect +stranger in Topeka or Tokyo. No; fame to the truly cultivated should +be fully as enjoyable as traveling hopefully toward fame. + +In certain other cases, indeed, attainment is even more delicious than +the hope thereof. Think of the long, cool drink at the New Mexican +pueblo after a day in the incandescent desert, with your tongue +gradually enlarging itself from thirst. How is it with you, O golfer, +when, even up at the eighteenth, you top into the hazard, make a +desperate demonstration with the niblick, and wipe the sand out of +your eyes barely in time to see your ball creep across the distant +green and drop into the hole? Has not the new president's aged father +a slightly better time at the inauguration of his dear boy than he had +at any time during the fifty years of hoping for and predicting that +consummation? Does not the successful altruist enjoy more keenly the +certainty of having made the world a better place to live in, than he +had enjoyed the hope of achieving that desirable end? Can there be any +comparison between the joys of the tempest-driven soul aspiring, now +hopefully, now despairingly, to port, and the joys of the same soul +which has at last found a perfect haven in the heart of God? + +And still the writers go on talking of joy as if it were a pottle of +hay--a flimsy fraud--and of the satisfaction of attainment as if it +were unattainable. Why do they not realize, at least, that their every +thrill of response to a beautiful melody, their every laugh of +delighted comprehension of Hazlitt or Crothers, is in itself +attainment? The creative appreciator of art is always at his goal. And +the much-maligned present is the only time at our disposal in which to +enjoy the much-advertised future. + +Too bad that our literary friends should have gone to extremes on this +point! If Robert Louis Stevenson had noted that "to travel hopefully is +an easier thing than to arrive," he would undoubtedly have hit the +truth. If Mr. Benson had said, "If you attain, God help you bountifully +to exuberance," etc., that would have been unexceptionable. It would +even have been a more useful--though slightly supererogatory--service, +to point out for the million-and-first time that achievement is not all +that it seems to be from a considerable distance. In other words, that +the laws of perspective will not budge. These writers would thus quite +sufficiently have played dentist to Disappointment and extracted his +venomous fangs for us in advance. What the gentlemen really should have +done was to perform the dentistry first, reminding us once again that a +part of attainment is illusory and consists of such stuff as +dreams--good and bad--are made of. Then, on the other hand, they should +have demonstrated attainment's good points, finally leading up to its +supreme advantage. This advantage is--its strategic position. + +Arriving beats hoping to arrive, in this: that while the hoper is so +keenly hopeful that he has little attention to spare for anything +besides the future, the arriver may take a broader, more leisurely +survey of things. The hoper's eyes are glued to the distant peak. The +attainer of that peak may recover his breath and enjoy a complete +panorama of his present achievement and may amuse himself moreover by +re-climbing the mountain in retrospect. He has also yonder farther and +loftier peak in his eye, which he may now look forward to attacking +the week after next; for this little preliminary jaunt is giving him +his mountain legs. Hence, while the hoper enjoys only the future, the +achiever, if his joy-digesting apparatus be working properly, rejoices +with exceeding great joy in past, present, and future alike. He has an +advantage of three to one over the merely hopeful traveler. And when +they meet this is the song he sings:-- + + Mistress Joy is at your side + Waiting to become a bride. + + Soft! Restrain your jubilation. + That ripe mouth may not be kissed + Ere you stand examination. + Mistress Joy's a eugenist. + + Is your crony Moderation? + Do your senses say you sooth? + Are your veins the kind that tingle? + Is your soul awake in truth? + + If these traits in you commingle + Joy no more shall leave you single. + + + + +II + +THE BRIMMING CUP + + +Exuberance is the income yielded by a wise investment of one's +vitality. On this income, so long as it flows in regularly, the +moderate man may live in the Land of the Joyful Heart, incased in +triple steel against any arrows of outrageous fortune that happen to +stray in across the frontier. Immigrants to this land who have no such +income are denied admission. They may steam into the country's +principal port, past the great statue of the goddess Joy who holds +aloft a brimming cup in the act of pledging the world. But they are +put ashore upon a small island for inspection. And so soon as the +inferior character of their investments becomes known, or their +recklessness in eating into their principal, they are deported. + +The contrast between those within the well-guarded gates and those +without is an affecting one. The latter often squander vast fortunes +in futile attempts to gain a foothold in the country. And they have a +miserable time of it. Many of the natives, on the other hand, are so +poor that they have constantly to fight down the temptation to touch +their principal. But every time they resist, the old miracle happens +for them once more: the sheer act of living turns out to be "paradise +enow." + +Now no mere fullness of life will qualify a man for admission to the +Land of the Joyful Heart. One must have overflowingness of life. In +his book "The Science of Happiness" Jean Finot declares, that the +"disenchantment and the sadness which degenerate into a sort of +pessimistic melancholy are frequently due to the diminution of the +vital energy. And as pain and sorrow mark the diminution, the joy of +living and the upspringing of happiness signify the increase of +energy.... By using special instruments, such as the plethysmograph +of Hallion, the pneumograph of Marey, the sphygmometer of Cheron, and +so many others which have come in fashion during these latter years, +we have succeeded in proving experimentally that joy, sadness, and +pain depend upon our energy." To keep exuberant one must possess more +than just enough vitality to fill the cup of the present. There must +be enough to make it brim over. Real exuberance, however, is not the +extravagant, jarring sort of thing that some thoughtless persons +suppose it to be. The word is not accented on the first syllable. +Indeed, it might just as well be "_in_uberance." It does not long to +make an impression or, in vulgar phrase, to "get a rise"; but tends to +be self-contained. It is not boisterousness. It is generous and +infectious, while boisterousness is inclined to be selfish and +repellent. Most of us would rather spend a week among a crowd of +mummies than in a gang of boisterous young blades. For boisterousness +is only a degenerate exuberance, drunk and on the rampage. The royal +old musician and poet was not filled with this, but with the real +thing, when he sang: + + "_He leadeth me beside the still waters. + He restoreth my soul ... + My cup runneth over._" + +The merely boisterous man, on the other hand, is a fatuous spendthrift +of his fortune. He reminds us how close we are of kin to the +frolicsome chimpanzee. His attitude was expressed on election night by +a young man of Manhattan who shouted hoarsely to his fellow: + + "On with the dance; let joy be unrefined!" + +Neither should mere vivacity be mistaken for exuberance. It is no more +surely indicative of the latter than is the laugh of a parrot. One of +the chief advantages of the Teutonic over the Latin type of man is +that the Latin is tempted to waste his precious vital overplus through +a continuous display of vivacity, while the less demonstrative Teuton +more easily stores his up for use where it will count. This gives him +an advantage in such pursuits as athletics and empire-building. + +The more exuberance of all varieties one has stored up in body and +mind and spirit, the more of it one can bring to bear at the right +moment upon the things that count for most in the world--the things +that owe to it their lasting worth and their very existence. A little +of this precious commodity, more or less, is what often makes the +difference between the ordinary and the supreme achievement. It is the +liquid explosive that shatters the final, and most stubborn, barrier +between man and the Infinite. It is what Walt Whitman called "that +last spark, that sharp flash of power, that something or other more +which gives life to all great literature." + +The happy man is the one who possesses these three kinds of overplus, +and whose will is powerful enough to keep them all healthy and to keep +him from indulging in their delights intemperately. + +It is a ridiculous fallacy to assume, as many do, that such fullness +of life is an attribute of youth alone and slips out of the back door +when middle age knocks at the front. It is no more bound to go as the +wrinkles and gray hairs arrive than your income is bound to take wings +two or three score years after the original investment of the +principal. To ascribe it to youth as an exclusive attribute is as +fatuous as it would be to ascribe a respectable income only to the +recent investor. + +A red-letter day it will be for us when we realize that exuberance +represents for every one the income from his fund of vitality; that +when one's exuberance is all gone, his income is temporarily +exhausted; and that he cannot go on living at the same rate without +touching the principal. The hard-headed, harder-worked American +business man is admittedly clever and prudent about money matters. But +when he comes to deal with immensely more important matters such as +life, health, and joy, he often needs a guardian. He has not yet +grasped the obvious truth that a man's fund of vitality ought to be +administered upon at least as sound a business basis as his fund of +dollars. The principal should not be broken into for living expenses +during a term of at least ninety-nine years. (Metchnikoff says that +this term is one hundred and twenty or so if you drink enough of the +Bulgarian bacillus.) And one should not be content with anything short +of a substantial rate of interest. + +In one respect this life-business is a simpler thing to manage than +the dollar-business. For, in the former, if the interest comes in +regularly and unimpaired, you may know that the principal is safe, +while in the dollar-business they may be paying your interest out of +your principal, and you none the wiser until the crash. But here the +difference ceases. For if little or no vital interest comes in, your +generous scale of living is pinched. You may defer the catastrophe a +little by borrowing short-time loans at a ruinous rate from usurious +stimulants, giving many pounds of flesh as security. But soon Shylock +forecloses and you are forced to move with your sufferings to the +slums and ten-cent lodging-houses of Life. Moreover, you must face a +brutal dispossession from even the poor flat or dormitory cot you +there occupy--out amid the snows and blasts-- + + "Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form" + +there to pay slack life's "arrears of pain, darkness, and cold." + +The reason why every day is a joy to the normal child is that he fell +heir at birth to a fortune of vitality and has not yet had time to +squander all his substance in riotous or thoughtless living, or to +overdraw his account in the Bank of Heaven on Earth. Every one of his +days is a joy--that is, except in so far as his elders have impressed +their tired standards of behavior too masterfully upon him. "Happy as +a child"--the commonness of the phrase is in itself a commentary. In +order to remain as happy as this for a century or so, all that a child +has to do is to invest his vitality on sound business principles, and +never overdraw or borrow. I shall not here go into the myriad details +of just how to invest and administer one's vitality. For there is no +dearth of wise books and physicians and "Masters of the Inn," +competent to mark out sound business programs of work, exercise, +recreation, and regimen for body, mind, and spirit; while all that you +must contribute to the enterprise is the requisite comprehension, +time, money, and will-power. You see, I am not a professor of vital +commerce and investment; I am a stump-speaker, trying to induce the +voters to elect a sound business administration. + +I believe that the blessings of climate give us of North America less +excuse than most other people for failing to put such an +administration into office. It is noteworthy that many of the +Europeans who have recently written their impressions of the United +States imagine that Colonel Roosevelt's brimming cup of vitality is +shared by nearly the whole nation. If it only were! But the fact that +these observers think so would seem to confirm our belief that our own +cup brims over more plentifully than that of Europe. This is probably +due to the exhilarating climate which makes America--physically, at +least, though not yet economically and socially--the promised land. + +Of course I realize the absurdity of urging the great majority of +human beings to keep within their vital incomes. To ask the +overworked, under-fed, under-rested, under-played, shoddily dressed, +overcrowded masses of humanity why they are not exuberant, is to ask +again, with Marie Antoinette, why the people who are starving for +bread do not eat cake. The fact is that to keep within one's income +to-day, either financially or vitally, is an aristocratic luxury that +is absolutely denied to the many. Most men--the rich as well as the +poor--stumble through life three parts dead. The ruling class, if it +had the will and the skill, might awaken itself to fullness of life. +But only a comparatively few of the others could, because the world is +conducted on a principle which makes it even less possible for them to +store up a little hoard of vitality in their bodies against a rainy +day than to store up an overplus of dollars in the savings bank. + +I think that this state of things is very different from the one which +the fathers contemplated in founding our nation. When they undertook +to secure for us all "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," +they did not mean a bare clinging to existence, liberty to starve, and +the pursuit of a nimble happiness by the lame, the halt, and the +blind. They meant fullness of life, liberty in the broadest sense, +both outer and inner, and that almost certain success in the +attainment of happiness which these two guarantee a man. In a word, +the fathers meant to offer us all a good long draft of the brimming +cup with the full sum of benefits implied by that privilege. For the +vitalized man possesses real life and liberty, and finds happiness +usually at his disposal without putting himself to the trouble of +pursuit. + +I can imagine the good fathers' chagrin if they are aware to-day of +how things have gone on in their republic. Perhaps they realize that +the possibility of exuberance has now become a special privilege. And +if they are still as wise as they once were, they will be doubly +exasperated by this state of affairs because they will see that it is +needless. It has been proved over and over again that modern machinery +has removed all real necessity for poverty and overwork. There is +enough to go 'round. Under a more democratic system we might have +enough of the necessities and reasonable comforts of life to supply +each of the hundred million Americans, if every man did no more than a +wholesome amount of productive labor in a day and had the rest of his +time for constructive leisure and real living. + +On the same terms there is likewise enough exuberance to go 'round. +The only obstacle to placing it within the reach of all exists in +men's minds. Men are still too inert and blindly conservative to stand +up together and decree that industry shall be no longer conducted for +the inordinate profit of the few, but for the use of the many. Until +that day comes, the possibility of exuberance will remain a special +privilege. + +In the mean while it is too bad that the favored classes do not make +more use of this privilege. It is absurd that such large numbers of +them are still as far from exuberance as the unprivileged. They keep +reducing their overplus of vitality to an _under-minus_ of it by too +much work and too foolish play, by plain thinking and high living and +the dissipation of maintaining a pace too swift for their as yet +unadjusted organisms. They keep their house of life always a little +chilly by opening the windows before the furnace has had a chance to +take the chill out of the rooms. + +If we would bring joy to the masses why not first vitalize the +classes? If the latter can be led to develop a fondness for that +brimming cup which is theirs for the asking, a long step will be taken +toward the possibility of overflowing life for all. The classes will +come to realize that, even from a selfish point of view, democracy is +desirable; that because man is a social animal, the best-being of the +one is inseparable from the best-being of the many; that no one can be +perfectly exuberant until all are exuberant. Jean Finot is right: +"True happiness is so much the greater and deeper in the proportion +that it embraces and unites in a fraternal chain more men, more +countries, more worlds." + +But the classes may also be moved by instincts less selfish. For the +brimming cup has this at least in common with the cup that inebriates: +its possessor is usually filled with a generous--if sometimes +maudlin--anxiety to have others enjoy his own form of beverage. The +present writer is a case in point. His reason for making this book lay +in a convivial desire to share with as many as possible the contents +of a newly acquired brimming cup. Before getting hold of this cup, the +writer would have looked with an indifferent and perhaps hostile eye +upon the proposition to make such a blessing generally available. But +now he cannot for the life of him see how any one whose body, mind, +and spirit are alive and reasonably healthy can help wishing the same +jolly good fortune for all mankind. + +Horace Traubel records that the aged Walt Whitman was once talking +philosophy with some of his friends when an intensely bored youngster +slid down from his high chair and remarked to nobody in particular: +"There's too much old folk here for me!" + +"For me, too," cried the poet with one of his hearty laughs. "We are +all of us a good deal older than we need to be, than we think we are. +Let's all get young again." + +Even so! Here's to eternal youth for every one. And here's to the hour +when we may catch the eye of humanity and pledge all brother men in +the brimming cup. + + + + +III + +ENTHUSIASM + + +Enthusiasm is exuberance-with-a-motive. It is the power that makes the +world go 'round. The old Greeks who christened it knew that it was the +god-energy in the human machine. Without its driving force nothing +worth doing has ever been done. It is man's dearest possession. Love, +friendship, religion, altruism, devotion to hobby or career--all +these, and most of the other good things in life, are forms of +enthusiasm. A medicine for the most diverse ills, it alleviates both +the pains of poverty and the boredom of riches. Apart from it man's +heart is seldom joyful. Therefore it should be husbanded with zeal and +spent with wisdom. + +To waste it is folly; to misuse it, disaster. For it is safe to +utilize this god-energy only in its own proper sphere. Enthusiasm +moves the human vessel. To let it move the rudder, too, is criminal +negligence. Brahms once made a remark somewhat to this effect: The +reason why there is so much bad music in the world is that composers +are in too much of a hurry. When an inspiration comes to them, what do +they do? Instead of taking it out for a long, cool walk, they sit down +at once to work it up, but let it work _them_ up instead into an +absolutely uncritical enthusiasm in which every splutter of the +goose-quill looks to them like part of a swan-song. + +Love is blind, they say. This is an exaggeration. But it is based on +the fact that enthusiasm, whether it appears as love, or in any other +form, always has trouble with its eyes. In its own place it is +incomparably efficient; only keep it away from the pilot-house! + +Since this god-energy is the most precious and important thing that we +have, why should our word for its possessor have sunk almost to the +level of a contemptuous epithet? Nine times in ten we apply it to the +man who allows his enthusiasm to steer his vessel. It would be full as +logical to employ the word "writer" for one who misuses his literary +gift in writing dishonest advertisements. When we speak of an +"enthusiast" to-day, we usually mean a person who has all the +ill-judging impulsiveness of a child without its compensating charm, +and is therefore not to be taken seriously. "He's only an enthusiast!" +This has been said about Columbus and Christ and every other great man +who ever lived. + +But besides its poor sense of distance and direction, men have another +complaint against enthusiasm. They think it insincere on account of +its capacity for frequent and violent fluctuation in temperature. In +his "Creative Evolution," Bergson shows how "our most ardent +enthusiasm, as soon as it is externalized into action, is so naturally +congealed into the cold calculation of interest or vanity, the one so +easily takes the shape of the other, that we might confuse them +together, doubt our own sincerity, deny goodness and love, if we did +not know that the dead retain for a time the features of the living." + +The philosopher then goes on to show how, when we fall into this +confusion, we are unjust to enthusiasm, which is the materialization +of the invisible breath of life itself. It is "the spirit." The action +it induces is "the letter." These constitute two different and often +antagonistic movements. The letter kills the spirit. But when this +occurs we are apt to mistake the slayer for the slain and impute to +the ardent spirit all the cold vices of its murderer. Hence, the taint +of insincerity that seems to hang about enthusiasm is, after all, +nothing but illusion. To be just we should discount this illusion in +advance as the wise man discounts discouragement. And the epithet for +the man whose lungs are large with the breath of life should cease to +be a term of reproach. + +Enthusiasm is the prevailing characteristic of the child and of the +adult who does memorable things. The two are near of kin and bear a +family resemblance. Youth trails clouds of glory. Glory often trails +clouds of youth. Usually the eternal man is the eternal boy; and the +more of a boy he is, the more of a man. The most conventional-seeming +great men possess as a rule a secret vein of eternal-boyishness. Our +idea of Brahms, for example, is of a person hopelessly mature and +respectable. But we open Kalbeck's new biography and discover him +climbing a tree to conduct his chorus while swaying upon a branch; or, +in his fat forties, playing at frog-catching like a five-year-old. + +The prominent American is no less youthful. Not long ago one of our +good gray men of letters was among his children, awaiting dinner and +his wife. Her footsteps sounded on the stairs. "Quick, children!" he +exclaimed. "Here's mother. Let's hide under the table and when she +comes in we'll rush out on all-fours and pretend we're bears." The +maneuver was executed with spirit. At the preconcerted signal, out +they all waddled and galumphed with horrid grunts--only to find +something unfamiliar about mother's skirt, and, glancing up, to +discover that it hung upon a strange and terrified guest. + +The biographers have paid too little attention to the god-energy of +their heroes. I think that it should be one of the crowning +achievements of biography to communicate to the reader certain actual +vibrations of the enthusiasm that filled the scientist or philosopher +for truth; the patriot for his country; the artist for beauty and +self-expression; the altruist for humanity; the discoverer for +knowledge; the lover or friend for a kindred soul; the prophet, +martyr, or saint for his god. + +Every lover, according to Emerson, is a poet. Not only is this true, +but every one of us, when in the sway of any enthusiasm, has in him +something creative. Therefore a record of the most ordinary person's +enthusiasms should prove as well worth reading as the ordinary record +we have of the extraordinary person's life if written with the usual +neglect of this important subject. Now I should like to try the +experiment of sketching in outline a new kind of biography. It would +consist entirely of the record of an ordinary person's enthusiasms. +But, as I know no other life-story so well as my own, perhaps the +reader will pardon me for abiding in the first person singular. He may +grant pardon the more readily if he realizes the universality of this +offense among writers. For it is a fact that almost all novels, +stories, poems, and essays are only more or less cleverly disguised +autobiography. So here follow some of my enthusiasms in a new +chapter. + + + + +IV + +A CHAPTER OF ENTHUSIASMS + + +I + +In looking back over my own life, a series of enthusiasms would appear +to stand out as a sort of spinal system, about which are grouped as +tributaries all the dry bones and other minor phenomena of existence. +Or, rather, enthusiasm is the deep, clear, sparkling stream which +carries along and solves and neutralizes, if not sweetens, in its +impetuous flow life's rubbish and superfluities of all kinds, such as +school, the Puritan Sabbath, boot and hair-brushing, polite and +unpolemic converse with bores, prigs, pedants, and shorter +catechists--and so on all the way down between the shores of age to +the higher mathematics, bank failures, and the occasional editor whose +word is not as good as his bond. + +My first enthusiasm was for good things to eat. It was stimulated by +that priceless asset, a virginal palate. But here at once the medium +of expression fails. For what may words presume to do with the flavor +of that first dish of oatmeal; with the first pear, grape, watermelon; +with the Bohemian roll called _Hooska_, besprinkled with poppy and +mandragora; or the wondrous dishes which our Viennese cook called +_Aepfelstrudel_ and _Scheiterhaufen_? The best way for me to express +my reaction to each of these delicacies would be to play it on the +'cello. The next best would be to declare that they tasted somewhat +better than Eve thought the apple was going to taste. But how absurdly +inadequate this sounds! I suppose the truth is that such enthusiasms +have become too utterly congealed in our _blase_ minds when at last +these minds have grown mature enough to grasp the principles of +penmanship. So that whatever has been recorded about the sensations of +extreme youth is probably all false. Why, even + + "Heaven lies about us in our infancy,"-- + +as Wordsworth revealed in his "Ode on Immortality." And though +Tennyson pointed out that we try to revenge ourselves by lying about +heaven in our maturity, this does not serve to correct a single one of +crabbed age's misapprehensions about youth. + +Games next inflamed my fancy. More than dominoes or Halma, lead +soldiers appealed to me, and tops, marbles, and battledore and +shuttlecock. Through tag, fire-engine, pom-pom-pull-away, +hide-and-seek, baseball, and boxing, I came to tennis, which I knew +instinctively was to be my athletic _grand passion_. Perhaps I was +first attracted by the game's constant humor which was forever making +the ball imitate or caricature humanity, or beguiling the players to +act like solemn automata. For children are usually quicker than +grown-ups to see these droll resemblances. I came by degrees to like +the game's variety, its tense excitement, its beauty of posture and +curve. And before long I vaguely felt what I later learned +consciously: that tennis is a sure revealer of character. Three sets +with a man suffice to give one a working knowledge of his moral +equipment; six, of his chief mental traits; and a dozen, of that most +important, and usually veiled part of him, his subconscious +personality. Young people of opposite sexes are sometimes counseled to +take a long railway journey together before deciding on a matrimonial +merger. But I would respectfully advise them rather to play "singles" +with each other before venturing upon a continuous game of doubles. + +The collecting mania appeared some time before tennis. I first +collected ferns under a crag in a deep glen. Mere amassing soon gave +way to discrimination, which led to picking out a favorite fern. This +was chosen, I now realize, with a woeful lack of fine feeling. I +called it "The Alligator" from its fancied resemblance to my brother's +alligator-skin traveling-bag. But admiration of this fern brought a +dawning consciousness that certain natural objects were preferable to +others. This led, in years, to an enthusiasm for collecting +impressions of the beauty, strength, sympathy, and significance of +nature. The Alligator fern, as I still call it, has become a symbolic +thing to me; and the sight of it now stands for my supreme or +best-loved impression, not alone in the world of ferns, but also in +each department of nature. Among forests it symbolizes the immemorial +incense cedars and redwoods of the Yosemite; among shores, those of +Capri and Monterey; among mountains, the glowing one called Isis as +seen at dawn from the depths of the Grand Canon. + + +II + +Next, I collected postage-stamps. I know that it is customary to-day +for writers to sneer at this pursuit. But surely they have forgotten +its variety and subtlety; its demand on the imagination; how it makes +history and geography live, and initiates one painlessly into the +mysteries of the currency of all nations. Then what a tonic it is for +the memory! Only think of the implications of the annual +price-catalogue! Soon after the issue of this work, every collector +worthy the name has almost unconsciously filed away in his mind the +current market values of thousands of stamps. And he can tell you +offhand, not only their worth in the normal perforated and canceled +condition, but also how their values vary if they are uncanceled, +unperforated, embossed, rouletted, surcharged with all manner of +initials, printed by mistake with the king standing on his head, or +water-marked anything from a horn of plenty to the seven lean kine of +Egypt. This feat of memory is, moreover, no hardship at all, for the +enthusiasm of the normal stamp-collector is so potent that its +proprietor has only to stand by and let it do all the work. + +We often hear that the wealthy do not enjoy their possessions. This +depends entirely upon the wealthy. That some of them enjoy their +treasures giddily, madly, my own experience proves. For, as youthful +stamp-collectors went in those days, I was a philatelic magnate. By +inheritance, by the ceaseless and passionate trading of duplicates, by +rummaging in every available attic, by correspondence with a wide +circle of foreign missionaries, and by delivering up my whole +allowance, to the dealers, I had amassed a collection of several +thousand varieties. Among these were such gems as all of the +triangular Cape of Good Hopes, almost all of the early Persians, and +our own spectacular issue of 1869 unused, including the one on which +the silk-stockinged fathers are signing the Declaration of +Independence. Such possessions as these I well-nigh worshiped. + +Even to-day, after having collected no stamps for a generation, the +chance sight of an "approval sheet," with its paper-hinged reminders +of every land, gives me a curious sensation. There visit my spine +echoes of the thrills that used to course it on similar occasions in +boyhood. These were the days when my stamps had formed for me mental +pictures--more or less accurate--of each country from Angola to +Zululand, its history, climate, scenery, inhabitants, and rulers. To +possess its rarest stamp was mysteriously connected in my mind with +being given the freedom of the land itself, and introduced with warm +recommendations to its _genius loci_. + +Even old circulars issued by dealers, now long gone to stampless +climes, have power still to raise the ghost of the vanished glamour. I +prefer those of foreign dealers because their English has the quaint, +other-world atmosphere of what they dealt in. The other day I found in +an old scrapbook a circular from Vienna, which annihilated a score of +years with its very first words: + +CLEARING + +OF A LARGE PART OF MY RETAIL DEPOSITORY + + Being lately so much engaged into my wholesale business ... I + have made up my mind to sell out a large post of my + retail-stamps at under-prices. They are rests of larger + collections containing for the most, only older marks and + not thrash possibly put together purposedly as they used to + be composed by the other dealers and containing therefore + mostly but worthless and useless nouveautes of Central + America. + +Before continuing this persuasive flow, the dealer inserts a number of +testimonials like the following. He calls them: + +ACKNOWLEDGMENTS + + Sent package having surpassed my expectations I beg to remit + by to-days post-office-ordres Mk. 100. Kindly please send me + by return of post offered album wanted for retail sale. + +G. B.--HANNOVER. + +The dealer now comes to his peroration: + + I beg to call the kind of attention of every buyer to the + fact of my selling all these packages and albums with my own + loss merely for clearings sake of my retail business and in + order to get rid of them as much and as soon as possible. + With 25-60 % abatement I give stamps and whole things to + societies against four weeks calculation. + + All collectors are bound to oblige themselves by writing + contemporaneously with sending in the depository amount to + make calculation within a week as latest term. + +It is enough! As I read, the old magic enfolds me, and I am seized +with longing to turn myself into a society of collectors and to +implore the altruistic dealer "kindly please" to send me, at a +prodigious "abatement," "stamps and whole things against four weeks +calculation." + + +III + +The youngest children of large families are apt to be lonely folk, +somewhat retired and individualistic in their enthusiasms. I was such +a child, blessed by circumstances with few playfellows and rather +inclined to sedentary joys. Even when I reached the barbaric stage of +evolution where youth is gripped by enthusiasm for the main pursuits +of his primitive ancestors, I was fain to enjoy these in the more +sophisticated forms natural to a lonely young city-dweller. + +When stamps had passed their zenith I was filled with a lust for +slaughter. Fish were at first the desired victims. Day after day I sat +watching a hopelessly buoyant cork refuse to bob into the depths of +the muddy and torpid Cuyahoga. I was like some fond parent, hoping +against hope to see his child out-live the flippant period and dive +beneath the surface of things, into touch with the great living +realities. And when the cork finally marked a historic epoch by +vanishing, and a small, inert, and intensely bored sucker was pulled +in hand over hand, I felt thrills of gratified longing and conquest +old and strong as the race. + +But presently I myself was drawn, like the cork, beneath the +superficial surface of the angler's art. For in the public library I +chanced on a shelf of books, that told about fishing of a nobler, +jollier, more seductive sort. At once I was consumed with a passion +for five-ounce split-bamboo fly-rods, ethereal leaders, double-tapered +casting-lines of braided silk, and artificial flies more fair than +birds of paradise. Armed in spirit, with all these, I waded the +streams of England with kindly old Isaak Walton, and ranged the +Restigouche with the predecessors of Henry van Dyke. These dreams +brought with them a certain amount of satisfaction--about as much +satisfaction as if they had come as guests to a surprise party, each +equipped with a small sandwich and a large appetite. The visions were +pleasant, of course, but they cried out, and made me cry out, for +action. There were no trout, to be sure, within a hundred miles, and +there was no way of getting to any trouty realm of delight. But I did +what I could to be prepared for the blessed hour when we should meet. +I secured five new subscriptions or so to "The Boys' Chronicle" (let +us call it), and received in return a fly-rod so flimsy that it would +have resolved itself into its elements at sight of a half-pound +trout. It was destined, though, never to meet with this embarrassment. + +My casting-line bore a family resemblance to grocery string. My leader +was a piece of gut from my brother's 'cello; my flybook, an old +wallet. As for flies, they seemed beyond my means; and it was +perplexing to know what to do, until I found a book which said that it +was better by far to tie your own flies. With joyful relief I acted on +this counsel. Plucking the feather-duster, I tied two White Millers +with shoe-thread upon cod-hooks. One of these I stained and streaked +with my heart's blood into the semblance of a Parmacheene Belle. The +canary furnished materials for a Yellow May; a dooryard English +sparrow, for a Brown Hackle. My masterpiece, the beautiful, +parti-colored fly known as Jock Scott, owed its being to my sister's +Easter bonnet. + +I covered the points of the hooks with pieces of cork, and fished on +the front lawn from morning to night, leaning with difficulty against +the thrust of an imaginary torrent. And I never ceased striving to +make the three flies straighten out properly as the books directed, +and fall like thistledown upon the strategic spot where the empty +tomato can was anchored, and then jiggle appetizingly down over the +four-pounder, where he sulked in the deep hole just beyond the +hydrant. + +The hunting fever was wakened by the need for the Brown Hackle already +mentioned. But as the choice of weapons and of victims culminated in +the air-gun and the sparrow, respectively, my earliest hunting was +confined even more closely than my fishing to the library and the +dense and teeming forests of the imagination. + +But while somewhat handicapped here by the scarcity of ferocious game, +I was more fortunate in another enthusiasm which attacked me at almost +the same time. For however unpropitious the hunting is on any given +part of the earth's surface, there is everywhere and always an +abundance of good hidden-treasure-seeking to be had. The garden, the +attic, the tennis lawn all suffered. And my initiative was +strengthened by the discovery of an incomparable book all about a dead +man's chest, and not only digging for gold in a secret island, but +finding it, too, by jingo! and fighting off the mutineers. + +These aspirations naturally led to games of Pirate, or Outlaw, which +were handicapped, however, by the scarcity of playmates, and their +curious hesitation to serve as victims. As pirates and outlaws are +well known to be the most superstitious of creatures, inclining to the +primitive in their religious views, we were naturally led into a sort +of dread enthusiasm for--or enthusiastic dread of--the whole pantheon +of spooks, sprites, and bugaboos to which savages and children, great +and small, bow the knee. My dreams at that time ran something like +this: + + +PARADISE REVISED + + Playing hymn-tunes day and night + On a harp _may_ be all right + For the grown-ups; but for me, + I do wish that heaven could be + Sort o' like a circus, run + So a kid could have some fun! + + There I'd not play harps, but horns + When I chased the unicorns-- + Magic tubes with pistons greasy, + Slides that pushed and pulled out easy, + Cylinders of snaky brass + Where the fingers like to fuss, + Polished like a looking-glass, + Ending in a blunderbuss. + + I would ride a horse of steel + Wound up with a ratchet-wheel. + Every beast I'd put to rout + Like the man I read about. + I would singe the leopard's hair, + Stalk the vampire and the adder, + Drive the werewolf from his lair, + Make the mad gorilla madder. + Needle-guns my work should do. + But, if beasts got closer to, + I would pierce them to the marrow + With a barbed and poisoned arrow, + Or I'd whack 'em on the skull + Till my scimiter was dull. + + If these weapons didn't work, + With a kris or bowie-knife, + Poniard, assegai, or dirk, + I would make them beg for life;-- + Spare them, though, if they'd be good + And guard me from what haunts the wood-- + From those creepy, shuddery sights + That come round a fellow nights-- + Imps that squeak and trolls that prowl, + Ghouls, the slimy devil-fowl, + Headless goblins with lassoes, + Scarlet witches worse than those, + Flying dragon-fish that bellow + So as most to scare a fellow.... + + There, as nearly as I could, + I would live like Robin Hood, + Taking down the mean and haughty, + Getting plunder from the naughty + To reward all honest men + Who should seek my outlaw's den. + + When I'd wearied of these pleasures + I'd go hunt for hidden treasures-- + In no ordinary way, + Pirates' luggers I'd waylay; + Board them from my sinking dory, + Wade through decks of gore and glory, + Drive the fiends, with blazing matchlock, + Down below, and snap the hatch-lock. + + Next, I'd scud beneath the sky-land, + Sight the hills of Treasure Island, + Prowl and peer and prod and prise, + Till there burst upon my eyes + Just the proper pirate's freight: + Gold doubloons and pieces of eight! + + Then--the very best of all-- + Suddenly a stranger tall + Would appear, and I'd forget + That we hadn't ever met. + And with cap upthrown I'd greet him + (Turning from the plunder, yellow) + And I'd hurry fast to meet him, + For he'd be the very fellow + Who, I think, invented fun-- + Robert Louis Stevenson. + +The enthusiasms of this barbaric period never died. They grew up, +instead, and proved serviceable friends. Fishing and hunting are now +the high-lights of vacation time. The crude call of the weird and the +inexplicable has modulated into a siren note from the forgotten +psychic continents which we Western peoples have only just discovered +and begun to explore. As for the buried treasure craze--why, my +life-work practically amounts to a daily search for hidden valuables +in the cellars and attics, the chimney-pieces and desert islands of +the mind, and secret attempts to coin them into currency. + +And so I might go on to tell of my enthusiasms for no end of other +things like reading, modeling, folk-lore, cathedrals, writing, +pictures, and the theater. Then there is the long story of that +enthusiasm called Love, of Friendship its twin, and their elder +brother, Religion, and their younger sister, Altruism. And travel and +adventure and so on. But no! It is, I believe, a misdemeanor to obtain +attention under false pretenses. If I have caught the reader's eye by +promising to illustrate in outline a new method of writing +autobiography, I must not abuse his confidence by putting that method +into practice. So, with a regret almost equal to that of Lewis +Carroll's famous Bellman-- + + I skip twenty years-- + +and close with my latest enthusiasm. + + +IV + +Confirmed wanderers that we were, my wife and I had rented a house for +the winter in a Massachusetts coast village and had fallen somewhat +under the spell of the place. Nevertheless, we had decided to move on +soon--to try, in fact, another trip through Italy. Our friendly +neighbors urged us to buy land up the "back lane" instead, and build +and settle down. We knew nothing of this region, however, and scarcely +heard them. + +But they were so insistent that one day we ventured up the back lane +at dusk and began to explore the woods. It grew dark and we thought of +turning back. Then it began to grow light again. A full moon was +climbing up through the maples, inviting further explorations. We +pushed through a dense undergrowth and presently were in a grove of +great white pines. There was a faint sound of running water, and +suddenly we came upon an astonishing brook--wide, swift, and musical. +We had not suspected the existence of such a brook within a dozen +leagues. It was over-arched by tall oaks and elms, beeches, tupelos, +and maples. The moonbeams were dancing in the ripples and on the +floating castles of foam. + +"What a place for a study!" + +"Yes; a log cabin with a big stone fireplace." + +The remarks came idly, but our eyes met and held. Moved by one impulse +we turned from the stream and remarked what bosh people will sometimes +talk, and discussed the coming Italian trip as we moved cautiously +among the briers. But when we came once more to the veteran pines, +they seemed more glamorous than ever in the moonlight, especially one +that stood near a large holly, apart from the rest--a three-prong +lyrical fellow--and his opposite, a burly, thickset archer, bending +his long-bow into a most exquisite curve. The fragrant pine needles +whispered. The brook lent its faint music. + +"Quick! We had better get away!" + +A forgotten lumber road led us safe from briers up a hill. Out of a +dense oak grove we suddenly emerged upon the more open crest. Our feet +sank deep in moss. + +"Look," I said. + +Over the heads of the high forest trees below shimmered a mile of +moonlit marshes, and beyond them a gleam--perhaps from some vessel far +at sea, perhaps even from a Provincetown lighthouse. + +"Yes, but look!" + +At a touch I faced around and beheld, crowning the hill, a stately +company of red cedars, comely and dense and mysterious as the +cypresses of Tivoli, and gloriously drenched in moonlight. + +"But what a place for a house!" + +"Let's give up Italy," was the answer, "and make this wood our home." + +By instinct and training we were two inveterate wanderers. Never had +we possessed so much as a shingle or a spoonful of earth. But the +nest-building enthusiasm had us at last. Our hands met in compact. As +we strolled reluctantly homeward to a ten-o'clock dinner we talked of +road-making, swamps, pneumatic water-systems, the nimbleness of +dollars, and mountains of other difficulties. And we agreed that the +only kind of faith which can easily remove mountains is the faith of +the enthusiast. + + + + +V + +THE AUTO-COMRADE + + +Human nature abhors a vacuum, especially a vacuum inside itself. Offer +the ordinary man a week's vacation all alone, and he will look as +though you were offering him a cell in Sing Sing. + +"There are," as Ruth Cameron truly observes, "a great many people to +whom there is no prospect more terrifying than that of a few hours +with only their own selves for company. To escape that terrible +catastrophe, they will make friends with the most fearful bore or read +the most stupid story.... If such people are marooned a few hours, not +only without human companionship, but even without a book or magazine +with which to screen their own stupidity from themselves, they are +fairly frantic." + +If any one hates to be alone with himself, the chances are that he +has not much of any self to be alone with. He is in as desolate a +condition as a certain Mr. Pease of Oberlin, who, having lost his wife +and children, set up his own tombstone and chiseled upon it this +epitaph: + + "Here lies the pod. + The Pease are shelled and gone to God." + +Now, pod-like people such as he are always solitary wherever other +people are not; and there is, of course, nothing much more distressing +than solitariness. These people, however, fall through sheer ignorance +into a confusion of thought. They suppose that solitude and +solitariness are the same thing. To the artist in life--to the wise +keeper of the joyful heart--there is just one difference between these +two: it is the difference between heaven and its antipodes. For, to +the artist in life, solitude is solitariness plus the Auto-Comrade. + +As it is the Auto-Comrade who makes all the difference, I shall try to +describe his appearance. His eyes are the most arresting part of him. +They never peer stupidly through great, thick spectacles of others' +making. They are scarcely ever closed in sleep, and sometimes make +their happiest discoveries during the small hours. These hours are +truly small because the Auto-Comrade often turns his eyes into the +lenses of a moving-picture machine--such an entertaining one that it +compresses the hours to seconds. It is through constant, alert use +that his eyes have become sharp. They can pierce through the rinds of +the toughest personalities, and even penetrate on occasion into the +future. They can also take in whole panoramas of the past in one +sweeping look. For they are of that "inner" variety through which +Wordsworth, winter after winter, used to survey his daffodil-fields. +"The bliss of solitude," he called them. + +The Auto-Comrade has an adjustable brow. It can be raised high enough +to hold and reverberate and add rich overtones to, the grandest +chords of thought ever struck by a Plato, a Buddha, or a Kant. The +next instant it may easily be lowered to the point where the ordinary +cartoon of commerce or the tiny cachinnation of a machine-made +Chesterton paradox will not ring entirely hollow. As for his voice, it +can at times be more musical than Melba's or Caruso's. Without being +raised above a whisper, it can girdle the globe. It can barely breathe +some delicious new melody; yet the thing will float forth not only +undiminished, but gathering beauty, significance, and incisiveness in +every land it passes through. + +The Auto-Comrade is an erect, wiry young figure of an athlete. As he +trades at the Seven-League Boot and Shoe Concern, it never bothers him +to accompany you on the longest tramps. His feet simply cannot be +tired out. As for his hands, they are always alert to give you a lift +up the rough places on the mountain-side. He has remarkable presence +of body. In any emergency he is usually the best man on the spot. He +is at once seer, creator, accomplisher, and present help in time of +trouble. But his everyday occupation is that of entertainer. He is the +joy-bringer--the Prometheus of pleasure. In his vicinity there is no +such thing as ennui or lonesomeness. Emerson wrote: + + "When I would spend a lonely day + Sun and moon are in my way." + +But for pals of the Auto-Comrade, not only sun, moon, etc., are in the +way, but all of his own unlimited resources. For every time and season +he has a fittingly varied repertory of entertainment. + +Now and again he startles you by the legerdemain feat of snatching +brand-new ideas out of the blue, like rabbits out of a hat. While you +stand at the port-hole of your cabin and watch the rollers rushing +back to the beloved home-land you are quitting, he marshals your +friends and acquaintances into a long line for a word of greeting or a +rapid-fire chat, just as though you were some idol of the people, and +were steaming in past the Statue of Liberty on your way home from +lionizing and being lionized abroad, and the Auto-Comrade were the +factotum at your elbow who asks, "What name, please?" + +After the friends and acquaintances, he even brings up your _betes +noires_ and dearest enemies for inspection and comment. Strangely +enough, viewed in this way, these persons no longer seem so +contemptible or pernicious or devilish as they once did. At this point +your factotum rubs your eye-glasses bright with the handkerchief he +always carries about for slate-cleaning purposes, and lo! you even +begin to discover good points about the chaps, hitherto unsuspected. + +Then there are always your million-and-one favorite melodies which +nobody but that all-around musical amateur, the Auto-Comrade, can so +exquisitely whistle, hum, strum, fiddle, blat, or roar. There is also +a universe full of new ones for him to improvise. And he is the +jolliest sort of fellow musician, because, when you play or sing a +duet with him, you can combine with the exciting give-and-take and +reciprocal stimulation of the duet, the god-like autocracy of the +solo, its opportunity for wide, uninterrupted, uncoerced +self-expression. Sometimes, however, in the first flush of escape with +him to the wilds, you are fain to clap your hand over his mouth in +order the better to taste the essentially folk-less savor of solitude. +For music is a curiously social art, and Browning was more than half +right when he said, "Who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at +once." + +Perhaps you can find your entertainer a small lump of clay or +modeling-wax to thumb into bad caricatures of those you love and good +ones of those you hate, until increasing facility impels him to try +and model not a Tanagra figurine, for that would be unlike his +original fancy, but a Hoboken figurine, say, or a sketch for some +Elgin (Illinois) marbles. + +If you care anything for poetry and can find him a stub of pencil and +an unoccupied cuff, he will be most completely in his element; for if +there is any one occupation more closely identified with him than +another, it is that of poet. And though all Auto-Comrades are not +poets, all poets are Auto-Comrades. Every poem which has ever thrilled +this world or another has been written by the Auto-Comrade of some +so-called poet. This is one reason why the so-called poets think so +much of their great companions. "Allons! after the great companions!" +cried old Walt to his fellow poets. If he had not overtaken, and held +fast to, his, we should never have heard the "Leaves of Grass" +whispering "one or two indicative words for the future." The bards +have always obeyed this call. And they have known how to value their +Auto-Comrades, too. See, for example, what Keats thought of his: + + Though the most beautiful Creature were waiting for me at + the end of a Journey or a Walk; though the Carpet were of + Silk, the Curtains of the morning Clouds; the chairs and + Sofa stuffed with Cygnet's down; the food Manna, the Wine + beyond Claret, the Window opening on Winander mere, I should + not feel--or rather my Happiness would not be so fine, as my + Solitude is sublime. Then instead of what I have described, + there is a sublimity to welcome me home--The roaring of the + wind is my wife and the Stars through the window pane are my + Children.... I feel more and more every day, as my + imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world + alone but in a thousand worlds--No sooner am I alone than + shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve + my Spirit the office which is equivalent to a King's + body-guard.... I live more out of England than in it. The + Mountains of Tartary are a favorite lounge, if I happen to + miss the Alleghany ridge, or have no whim for Savoy. + +This last sentence not only reveals the fact that the Auto-Comrade, +equipped as he is with a wishing-mat, is the very best cicerone in the +world, but also that he is the ideal tramping companion. Suppose you +are mountain-climbing. As you start up into "nature's observatory," he +kneels in the dust and fastens wings upon your feet. He conveniently +adjusts a microscope to your hat-brim, and hangs about your neck an +excellent telescope. He has enough sense, too, to keep his mouth +closed. For, like Hazlitt, he "can see no wit in walking and talking." +The joy of existence, you find, rarely tastes more cool and sweet and +sparkling than when you and your Auto-Comrade make a picnic thus, +swinging in a basket between you a real, live thought for lunch. On +such a day you come to believe that Keats, on another occasion, must +have had his own Auto-Comrade in mind when he remarked to his friend +Solitude that + + "... it sure must be + Almost the highest bliss of human-kind, + When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee." + +The Auto-Comrade can sit down with you in thick weather on a barren +lighthouse rock and give you a breathless day by hanging upon the +walls of fog the mellow screeds of old philosophies, and causing to +march and countermarch over against them the scarlet and purple +pageants of history. Hour by hour, too, he will linger with you in +the metropolis, that breeder of the densest solitudes--in market or +terminal, subway, court-room, library, or lobby--and hour by hour +unlock you those chained books of the soul to which the human +countenance offers the master key. + +Something of a sportsman, too, is the Auto-Comrade. He it is who makes +the fabulously low score at golf--the kind of score, by the way, that is +almost invariably born to blush unseen. And he will uncomplainingly, +even zestfully, fish from dawn to dusk in a solitude so complete that +there is not even a fin to break it. But if there are fish, he finds +them. He knows how to make the flies float indefinitely forward through +yonder narrow opening, and drop, as light as thistledown, in the center +of the temptingly inaccessible pool. He knows without looking, exactly +how thick and how prehensile are the bushes and branches that lie in +wait for the back cast, and he can calculate to a grain how much urging +the reactionary three-pounder and the blest tie that binds him to the +four-ounce rod will stand. + +He is one of the handiest possible persons to have along in the woods. +When you take him on a canoe trip with others, and the party comes to +"white water," he turns out to be a dead shot at rapid-shooting. He is +sure to know what to do at the supreme moment when you jam your +setting-pole immutably between two rocks and, with the alternative of +taking a bath, are forced to let go and grab your paddle; and are then +hung up on a slightly submerged rock at the head of the chief rapid +just in time to see the rest of the party disappear majestically +around the lower bend. At such a time, simply look to the +Auto-Comrade. He will carry you through. Also there is no one like him +at the moment when, having felled your moose, leaned your rifle +against a tree, and bent down the better to examine him, the creature +suddenly comes to life. + +In tennis, when you wake up to find that your racket has just smashed +a lob on the bounce from near the back-net, scoring a clean ace +between your paralyzed opponents, you ought to know that the racket +was guided by that superior sportsman; and if you are truly modest, +you will admit that your miraculous stop wherewith the team whisked +the baseball championship out of the fire in the fourteenth inning was +due to his unaided efforts. + +There are other games about which he is not so keen: solitaire, for +instance. For solitaire is a social game that soon loses its zest if +there be not some devoted friend or relative sitting by and simulating +that pleasureable absorption in the performance which you yourself +only wish that you could feel. + +This great companion can keep you from being lonely even in a crowd. +But there is a certain kind of crowd that he cannot abide. Beware how +you try to keep him in a crowd of unadulterated human porcupines! You +know how the philosopher Schopenhauer once likened average humanity +to a herd of porcupines on a cold day, who crowd stupidly together for +warmth, prick one another with their quills, are mutually repelled, +forget the incident, grow cold again, and repeat the whole thing _ad +infinitum_. + +In other words, the human porcupine is the person considered at the +beginning of this one-sided discussion who, to escape the terrible +catastrophe of confronting his own inner vacuum, will make friends +with the most hideous bore. This creature, however, is much more rare +than the misanthropic Schopenhauer imagined. It takes a long time to +find one among such folk as lumbermen, gypsies, shirt-waist +operatives, fishermen, masons, trappers, sailors, tramps, and +teamsters. If the sour philosopher had only had the pleasure of +knowing those teamsters who sent him into paroxysms of rage by +cracking their whips in the alley, I am sure that he would never have +spoken as harshly of their minds as he did. The fact is that +porcupines are not extremely common among the very "common" people. +It may be that there is something stupefying about the airs which the +upper classes, the best people, breathe and put on, but the social +climber is apt to find the human porcupine in increasing herds as he +scales the heights. This curious fact would seem incidentally to show +that our misanthropic philosopher must have moved exclusively in the +best circles. + +Now, if there is one thing above all others that the Auto-Comrade +cannot away with, it is the flaccid, indolent, stodgy brain of the +porcupine. If people have let their minds slump down into +porcupinishness, or have never taken the trouble to rescue them from +that ignominious condition--well, the Auto-Comrade is no snob; when +all's said, he is a rather democratic sort of chap. But he has to draw +the line somewhere, you know, and he really must beg to be excused +from rubbing shoulders with such intellectual rabble, for instance, as +blocks upper Fifth Avenue on Sunday noons. He prefers instead the +rabble which, on all other noons of the week, blocks the lower end of +that variegated thoroughfare. + +Such exclusiveness lays the Auto-Comrade open, of course, to the +charge of inhospitality. But "is not he hospitable," asks Thoreau, +"who entertains good thoughts?" Personally, I think he is. And I +believe that this sort of hospitality does more to make the world +worth living in than much conventional hugging to your bosom of +porcupines whose language you do not speak, yet with whom it is +embarrassing to keep silence. + +If the Auto-Comrade mislikes the porcupine, however, the feeling is +returned with exorbitant interest. The alleged failings of +auto-comradeship have always drawn grins, jokes, fleers, and nudges, +from the auto-comradeless. It is time the latter should know that the +joke is really on him; for he is the most forlorn of mankind. The +other is never at a loss. He is invulnerable, being one whom "destiny +may not surprise nor death dismay." But the porcupine is liable at any +moment to be deserted by associates who are bored by his sharp, hollow +quills. He finds himself the victim of a paradox which decrees that +the hermit shall "find his crowds in solitude" and never be alone; but +that the flocker shall every now and then be cast into inner darkness, +where shall be "weeping and gnashing of teeth." + +The laugh is on the porcupine; but the laugh turns almost into a tear +when one stops to realize the nature of his plight. Why, the poor +wretch is actually obliged to be near someone else in order to enjoy a +sense of vitality! In other words, he needs somebody else to do his +living for him. He is a vicarious citizen of the world, holding his +franchise only by courtesy of Tom, Dick, and Harry. All the same, it +is rather hard to pity him very profoundly while he continues to feel +quite as contemptuously superior as he usually does. For, the contempt +of the average porcupine for pals of the Auto-Comrade is akin to the +contempt which the knights of chivalry felt for those paltry beings +who were called clerks because they possessed the queer, unfashionable +accomplishment of being able to read and write. + +I remember that the loudest laugh achieved by a certain class-day +orator at college came when he related how the literary guy and the +tennis-player were walking one day in the woods, and the literary guy +suddenly exclaimed: "Ah, leave me, Louis! I would be alone." Even +apart from the stilted language in which the orator clothed the +thought of the literary guy, there is, to the porcupine, something +irresistibly comic in such a situation. It is to him as though the +literary guy had stepped up to the nearest policeman and begged for +the room at Sing Sing already referred to. + +Indeed, the modern porcupine is as suspicious of pals of the +Auto-Comrade as the porcupines of the past were of sorcerers and +witches--folk, by the way, who probably consorted with spirits no more +malign than Auto-Comrades. "What," asked the porcupines of one +another, "can they be doing, all alone there in those solitary huts? +What honest man would live like that? Ah, they must be up to no good. +They must be hand in glove with the Evil One. Well, then, away with +them to the stake and the river!" + +As a matter of fact, it probably was not the Evil One that these poor +folk were consorting with, but the Good One. For what is a man's +Auto-Comrade, anyway, but his own soul, or the same thing by what +other name soever he likes to call it, with which he divides the +practical, conscious part of his brain, turn and turn about, share and +share alike? And what is a man's own soul but a small stream of the +infinite, eternal water of life? And what is heaven but a vast harbor +where myriad streams of soul flow down, returning at last to their +Source in the bliss of perfect reunion? I believe that many a Salem +witch was dragged to her death from sanctuary; for church is not +exclusively connected with stained glass and collection-baskets. +Church is also wherever you and your Auto-Comrade can elude the +starched throng and fall together, if only for a moment, on your +knees. + +The Auto-Comrade has much to gain by contrast with one's +flesh-and-blood associates, especially if this contrast is suddenly +brought home to one after a too long separation from him. I shall +never forget the thrill that was mine early one morning after two +months of close, uninterrupted communion with one of my best and +dearest friends. At the very instant when the turn of the road cut off +that friend's departing hand-wave, I was aware of a welcoming, almost +boisterous shout from the hills of dream, and turning quickly, beheld +my long-lost Auto-Comrade rushing eagerly down the slopes toward me. + +Few joys may compare with the joy of such a sudden unexpected reunion. +It is like "the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land." No, +this simile is too disloyal to my friend. Well, then, it is like a +beaker full of the warm South when you are leaving a good beer country +and are trying to reconcile yourself to ditch-water for the next few +weeks. At any rate, similes or not, there were we two together again +at last. What a week of weeks we spent, pacing back and forth on the +veranda of our log cabin, where we overlooked the pleasant sinuosities +of the Sebois and gazed out together over golden beech and ghostly +birch and blood-red maple banners to the far violet mountains of the +Aroostook! And how we did take stock of the immediate past, chuckling +to find that it had not been a quarter so bad as I had stupidly +supposed. What gilded forest trails were those which we blazed into +the glamorous land of to-morrow! And every other moment these +recreative labors would be interrupted while I pressed between the +pages of a notebook some butterfly or sunset leaf or quadruply +fortunate clover which my Auto-Comrade found and turned over to me. +(Between two of those pages, by the way, I afterwards found the +argument of this chapter.) + +Then, when the effervescence of our meeting had lost a little of its +first, fine, carbonated sting, what Elysian hours we did spend over +the correspondence of those other two friends, Goethe and Schiller! +Passage after passage we would turn back to re-read and muse over. +These we would discuss without any of the rancor or dogmatic +insistence or one-eyed stubbornness that usually accompany the clash +of mental steel on mental steel from a different mill. And without +making any one else lose the thread or grow short-breathed or accuse +us passionately of reading ahead, we would, on the slightest +provocation, out-Fletcher Fletcher chewing the cud of sweet and bitter +fancy. And we would underline and bracket and side-line and overline +the ragged little paper volume, and scribble up and down its margins, +and dream over its footnotes, to our hearts' content. + +Such experiences, though, are all too rare with me. Why? Because my +Auto-Comrade is a rather particular person and will not associate with +me unless I toe his mark. + +"Come," I propose to him, "let us go a journey." + +"Hold hard," says he, and looks me over appraisingly. "You know the +rule of the Auto-Comrades' Union. We are supposed to associate with +none but fairly able persons. Are you a fairly able person?" + +If it turns out that I am not, he goes on a rampage, and begins to +talk like an athletic trainer. The first thing he demands is that his +would-be associate shall keep on hand a jolly good store of surplus +vitality. You are expected to supply exuberance to him somewhat as you +supply gasolene to your motor. Now, of course, there are in the world +not a few invalids and other persons of low physical vitality whose +Auto-Comrades happen to have sufficient gasolene to keep them both +running, if only on short rations. Most of these cases, however, are +pathological. They have hot-boxes at both ends of the machine, and +their progress is destined all too soon to cease and determine +disastrously. The rest of these cases are the rare exceptions which +prove the rule. For unexuberant yet unpathological pals of the +Auto-Comrade are as rare as harmonious households in which the efforts +of a devoted and blissful wife support an able-bodied husband. + +The rule is that you have got to earn exuberance for two. "Learn to +eat balanced rations right," thunders the Auto-Comrade, laying down +the law; "exercise, perspire, breathe, bathe, sleep out of doors, and +sleep enough; rule your liver with a rod of iron, don't take drugs or +nervines, cure sickness beforehand, keep love in your heart, do an +adult's work in the world, have at least as much fun as you ought to +have." + +"That," he goes on, "is the way to develop enough physical overplus so +that you will be enabled to overcome your present sad addiction to +mob-intoxication. And, provided your mind is not in as bad condition +as your body, this physical overplus will transmute some of itself +into mental exuberance. This will enable you to have more fun with +your mind than an enthusiastic kitten has with its tail. It will +enable you to look before and after, and purr over what is, as well as +to discern, with pleasurable longing, what is not, and set forth +confidently to capture it." + +But if, by any chance, you have allowed your mind to get into the sort +of condition which the old-fashioned German scholar used to allow his +body to get into, it develops that the Auto-Comrade hates a flabby +brain almost as much as he hates a flabby body. He soon makes it clear +that he will not have much to do with any one who has not yet mastered +the vigorous and highly complex art of not worrying. Also, he demands +of his companion the knack of calm, consecutive thought. This is one +reason why so many more Auto-Comrades are to be found in +crow's-nests, gypsy-vans, and shirt-waist factories than on upper +Fifth Avenue. For, watching the stars and the sea from a swaying +masthead, taking light-heartedly to the open road, or even operating a +rather unwholesome sewing-machine all day in silence, is better for +consecutiveness of mind than a never-ending round of offices, clubs, +committees, servants, dinners, teas, and receptions, to each of which +one is a little late. + +In diffusing knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, this knack of +concentration, Arnold Bennett's little books on mental efficiency have +done wonders for the art of auto-comradeship. Their popular +persuasiveness has coaxed thousands on thousands of us to go in for a +few minutes' worth of mental calisthenics every day. They have +actually cajoled us into the painful feat of glancing over a page of a +book and then putting it down and trying to retrace the argument in +memory. Or they have coaxed us to fix on some subject--any +subject--for reflection, and then scourge our straying minds back to +it at every few steps of the walk to the morning train. And we have +found that the mental muscles have responded at once to this +treatment. They have hardened under the exercise until being left +alone has begun to change from confinement in the same cell with that +worst of enemies who has the right to forge one's own name--into a +joyful pleasure jaunt with a totally different person who, if not +one's best friend, is at least to be counted on as a trusty, +entertaining, resourceful, unselfish associate--at times, perhaps, a +little exacting--yet certainly a far more brilliant and generally +satisfactory person than his companion. + +No matter what the ignorant or the envious may say, there is nothing +really unsocial in a moderate indulgence in the art of auto-comradeship. +A few weeks of it bring you back with a fresher, keener appreciation of +your other friends and of humanity in general than you had before +setting forth. In the continuous performance of the psalm of life such +contrasts as this of solos and choruses have a reciprocal advantage. + +But auto-comradeship must not be overdone, as it was overdone by the +mediaeval monks. Its delights are too delicious, its particular vintage +of the wine of experience too rich, for long-continued consumption. +Consecutive thought, though it is one of man's greatest pleasures, is +at the same time perhaps the most arduous labor that he can perform. +And after a long period of it, both the Auto-Comrade and his companion +become exhausted and, perforce, less comradely. + +Besides the incidental exhaustion, there is another reason why this +beatific association must have its time-limit; for, unfortunately, +one's Auto-Comrade is always of the same sex as one's self, and in +youth, at least, if the presence of the complementary part of creation +is long denied, there comes a time when this denial surges higher and +higher in subconsciousness, then breaks into consciousness, and keeps +on surging until it deluges all the tranquillities, zests, surprises, +and excitements of auto-comradeship, and makes them of no effect. + +This is, probably, a wise provision for the salvation of the human +digestion. For otherwise, many a man, having tasted of the fruit of +the tree of the knowledge of auto-comradeship, might thereupon be +tempted to retire to his hermit's den hard by and endeavor to sustain +himself for life on this food alone. + +Most of us, however, long before such extremes have been reached, are +sure to rush back to our kind for the simple reason that we are +enjoying auto-comradeship so much that we want someone else to enjoy +it with. + + + + +VI + +VIM AND VISION + + +Efficiency is to-day the Hallelujah Chorus of industry. I know a +manufacturer who recently read a book on business management. +Stop-watch in hand he then made an exhaustive study of his office +force and their every action. After considering the tabulated results +he arose, smashed all but one of the many office mirrors, bought +modern typewriters, and otherwise eliminated works of supererogation. +The sequel is that a dozen stenographers to-day perform the work of +the former thirty-two. + +This sort of thing is spreading through the business world and beyond +it in every direction. Even the artists are studying the bearing of +industrial efficiency on the arts of sculpture, music, literature, +architecture, and painting. But beyond the card catalogue and the +filing cabinet the artists find that this new gospel has little to +offer them. Their sympathies go out, instead, to a different kind of +efficiency. The kind that bids fair to shatter their old lives to bits +and re-mold them nearer to the heart's desire is not industrial but +human. For inspiration it goes back of the age of Brandeis to the age +of Pericles. + +The enthusiasm for human efficiency is beginning to rival that for +industrial efficiency. Preventive medicine, public playgrounds, the +new health education, school hygiene, city planning, eugenics, housing +reform, the child-welfare and country-life movements, the cult of +exercise and sport--these all are helping to lower the death-rate and +enrich the life-rate the world over. Health has fought with smoke and +germs and is now in the air. It would be strange if the receptive +nature of the artist should escape the benignant infection. + +There is an excellent reason why human efficiency should appeal less +to the industrial than to the artistic worlds. Industry has a new +supply of human machines always available. Their initial cost is +nothing. So it pays to overwork them, scrap them promptly, and install +fresh ones. Thus it comes that the costly spinning machines in the +Southern mills are exquisitely cared for, while the cheap little boys +and girls who tie the broken threads are made to last an average four +or five years. In art it is different. The artist knows that he is, +like Swinburne's Hertha, at once the machine and the machinist. It is +dawning upon him that one chief reason why the old Greeks scaled +Parnassus so efficiently is that all the master-climbers got, and +kept, their human machines in good order for the climb. They trained +for the event as an Olympic athlete trains to-day for the Marathon. +One other reason why there was so much record-breaking in ancient +Greece is that the non-artists trained also, and thus, through their +heightened sympathy and appreciation of the master-climbers, became +masters by proxy. But that is another chapter. + +Why has art never again reached the Periclean plane? Chiefly because +the artist broke training when Greece declined, and has never since +then brought his body up to the former level of efficiency. + +Now, as the physiological psychologists assure us, the artist needs a +generous overplus of physical vitality. The art-impulse is a +brimming-over of the cups of mental and spiritual exuberance. And the +best way to insure this mental and spiritual overplus is to gain the +physical. The artist's first duty is to make his body as vim-full as +possible. He will soon find that he is greater than he knows. He will +discover that he has, until then, been walking the earth more than +half a corpse. With joy he will come to see that living in a glow of +health bears the same relation to merely not being sick that a plunge +in the cold salt surf bears to using a tepid wash-rag in a hall +bedroom. + +"All through the life of a feeble-bodied man, his path is lined with +memory's grave-stones which mark the spots where noble enterprises +perished for lack of physical vigor to embody them in deeds." Thus +wrote the educator, Horace Mann. And his words apply with special +force to the worker in the arts. One should bear in mind that the +latter is in a peculiar dilemma. His nerve-racking, confining, +exhausting work always tends to enfeeble and derange his body. But the +claims of the work are so exacting that it is no use for him to spare +intensity. Unless he is doing his utmost he had better be doing +nothing at all. And to do his utmost he must keep his body in that +supremely fit condition which the work itself is always tending to +destroy. The one lasting solution is for him to reduce his working +time to a safe maximum and increase his recreation and sleeping-time +to a safe minimum, and to train "without haste, without rest." + +"The first requisite to great intellectuality in a man is to be a +good animal," says Maxim the inventor. Hamerton, in his best-known +book, offers convincing proof that overflowing health is one of the +first essentials of genius; and shows how triumphant a part it played +in the careers of such mighty men of intellectual valor as Leonardo da +Vinci, Kant, Wordsworth, and Sir Walter Scott. + +Is the reader still unconvinced that physical exuberance is necessary +to the artist? Then let him read biography and note the paralyzing +effect upon the biographees of sickness and half sickness and three +quarter wellness. He will see that, as a rule, the masters have done +their most telling and lasting work with the tides of physical vim at +flood. For the genius is no Joshua. He cannot make the sun of the mind +and the moon of the spirit stand still while the tides of health are +ebbing seaward. Indeed biography should not be necessary to convince +the fair-minded reader. Autobiography should answer. Just let him +glance back over his own experience and say whether he has not +thought his deepest thoughts and performed his most brilliant deeds +under the intoxication of a stimulant no less heady than that of +exuberant health. + +There is, of course, the vexed question of the sickly genius. My +personal belief is firm that, as a rule, he has won his triumphs +_despite_ bad health, and not--as some like to imagine--because of bad +health. To this rule there are a few often cited exceptions. Now, no +one can deny that there is a pathological brilliance of good cheer in +the works of Stevenson and other tubercular artists. The white plague +is a powerful mental stimulant. It is a double-distilled extract of +baseless optimism. But this optimism, like that resulting from other +stimulants, is dearly bought. Its shrift is too short. And let nobody +forget that for each variety of pathological optimism and brilliance +and beauty there are ninety and nine corresponding sorts of +pathological pessimism and dullness and ugliness induced by disorders +of the liver, heart, stomach, brain, skin, and so on without end. + +The thing for artists to do is to find out what physical conditions +make for the best art in the long run, and then secure these +conditions in as short a run as possible. If tuberculosis makes for +it, then by all means let those of us who are sincerely devoted to art +be inoculated without delay. If the family doctor refuses to oblige, +all we have to do is to avoid fresh air, kiss indiscriminately, +practice a systematic neglect of colds, and frequent the subway during +rush hours. If alcohol makes for the best art, let us forthwith be +admitted to the bar--the stern judgment bar where each solitary +drinker is arraigned. For it is universally admitted that in art, +quality is more important than quantity. "If that powerful corrosive, +alcohol, only makes us do a little first-class work, what matter if it +corrode us to death immediately afterwards? We shall have had our +day." Thus many a gallant soul argues. But is there not another ideal +which is as far above mere quality as quality is above mere quantity? +I think there is. It is quantity of quality. And quantity of quality +is exactly the thing that cannot brook the corrosiveness of powerful +stimulants. + +I am not satisfied, however, that stimulants make entirely for the +fine quality of even the short shrift. To my ear, tubercular optimism, +when thumped on the chest, sounds a bit hollow. It does not ring quite +as true as healthy optimism because one feels in the long run its +automatic, pathological character. Thus tubercular, alcoholized, and +drugged art may often be recognized by its somewhat artificial, +unhuman, abnormal quality. I believe that if the geniuses who have +done their work under the influence of these stimulants had, instead, +trained sound bodies as for an Olympic victory, the arts would to-day +be the richer in quantity of quality. On this point George Meredith +wrote a trenchant word in a letter to W. G. Collins: + + I think that the notion of drinking any kind of alcohol as a + stimulant for intellectual work can have entered the minds + of those only who snatch at the former that they may + conceive a fictitious execution of the latter. Stimulants + may refresh, and may even temporarily comfort, the body + after labor of brain; they do not help it--not even in the + lighter kinds of labor. They unseat the judgment, pervert + vision. Productions, cast off by the aid of the use of them, + are but flashy, trashy stuff--or exhibitions of the + prodigious in wildness or grotesque conceit, of the kind + which Hoffman's tales give, for example; he was one of the + few at all eminent, who wrote after drinking. + +To reinforce the opinion of the great Englishman I cannot forbear +giving that of an equally great American: + + Never [wrote Emerson] can any advantage be taken of nature + by a trick. The spirit of the world, the great calm presence + of the Creator, comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or + of wine. The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple + soul in a clean and chaste body.... The poet's habit of + living should be set on so low a key that the common + influences should delight him. His cheerfulness should be + the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his + inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water. + +In other words, the artist should keep himself in a condition so fit +as to need no other stimulant than his own exuberance. But this should +always flow as freely as beer at a college reunion. And there should +always be plenty in reserve. It were well to consider whether there is +not some connection between decadent art and decadent bodies. A friend +of mine recently attended a meeting of decadent painters and reported +that he could not find a chin or a forehead in the room. + +One reason why so many of the world's great since Greece have +neglected to store up an overplus of vitality is that exercise is +well-nigh indispensable thereto; and exercise has not seemed to them +sufficiently dignified. We are indebted to the dark ages for this dull +superstition. It was then that the monasteries built gloomy granite +greenhouses for the flower of the world's intellect, that it might +deteriorate in the darkness and perish without reproducing its kind. +The monastic system held the body a vile thing, and believed that to +develop and train it was beneath the dignity of the spiritually elect. +So flagellation was substituted for perspiration, much as, in the +Orient, scent is substituted for soap--and with no more satisfactory +result. This false notion of dignity has since then, by keeping men +out of flannels, gymnasium suits, running-tights, and overalls, +performed prodigies in the work of blighting the flowers of the mind +and stunting the fruit trees of the spirit. + +To-day, however, we are escaping from the old superstition. We begin +to see that there is no complete dignity for man without a dignified +physique; and that there is no physical dignity to compare with that +of the hard-trained athlete. True, he who trains can hardly keep up +the old-time pose of the grand old man or the grand young man. He must +perforce be more human and natural. But this sort of grandeur is now +going out of fashion. And its absence must show to advantage in his +work. + +As a rule the true artist is a most devoted and self-sacrificing +person. Ever since the piping times of Pericles he has usually been +willing to sacrifice to the demands of his art most of the things he +enjoys excepting poor health. Wife, children, friends, credit--all may +go by the board. But his poor health he addresses with solemn, +scriptural loyalty: "Whither thou goest I will go: and where thou +lodgest I will lodge. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I +be buried." Not that he enjoys the misery incidental to poor health. +But he most thoroughly enjoys a number of its causes. Sitting up too +late at night is what he enjoys; smoking too much, drinking too much, +yielding to the exhausting sway of the divine efflatus for longer +hours at a time than he has any business to, bolting unbalanced meals, +and so on. + +But the artist is finding out that poor health is the very first +enjoyment which he ought to sacrifice; that the sacrifice is by no +means as heroic as it appears; and that, once it is accomplished, the +odds are that all the other things he thought he must offer up may be +added unto him through his own increased efficiency. + +No doubt, all this business of regimen, of constant alertness and +petty self-sacrifice, is bound to grow irksome before it settles down +in life and becomes habitual. But what does a little irksomeness +count--or even a great deal of irksomeness--as against the long, deep +thrill of doing better than you thought you ever knew how--of going +from strength to strength and creating that which will elevate and +delight mankind long after the pangs of installing regimen are +forgotten and you have once and for all broken training and laid you +down to sleep over? + +The reason why great men and women are so often cynical about their +own success is this: they have been so immoderate in their enjoyment +of poor health that when the hour of victory comes, they lack the +exuberance and self-restraint essential to the savoring of +achievement or of any other pleasure. I believe that the successful +invalid is more apt to be cynical about his success than the healthy +failure about his failure. The latter is usually an optimist. But this +is a hard belief to substantiate. For the perfectly healthy failure +does not grow on every bush. + +If only the physical conscientiousness of the Greeks had never been +allowed to die out, the world to-day would be manifoldly a richer, +fairer, and more inspiring place. As it is, we shall never be able to +reckon up our losses in genius: in Shakespeares whose births were +frustrated by the preventable illness or death of their possible +parents; in Schuberts who sickened or died from preventable causes +before they had delivered a note of their message; in Giorgiones whom +a suicidally ignorant conduct of physical life condemned to have their +work cheapened and curtailed. What overwhelming losses has art not +sustained by having the ranks of its artists and their most creative +audiences decimated by the dullness of mediocre health! It is hard to +endure the thought of what the geniuses of the modern world might have +been able to accomplish if only they had lived and trained like +athletes and been treated with a small part of the practical +consideration and live sympathy which humanity bestows on a favorite +ball-player or prize-fighter. + +To-day there is still a vast amount of superstition arrayed against +the truth that fullness of life and not grievous necessity is the +mother of artistic invention. Necessity is, of course, only the +stepmother of invention. But men like to convince themselves that +sickness and morbidity are good for the arts, just as they delightedly +embrace the conviction, and hold it with a death-grip, that a life of +harassing poverty and anxious preoccupation is indispensable to the +true poet. The circumstance that this belief runs clean counter to the +showing of history does not embarrass them. Convinced against their +will, most people are of the same opinion still. And they +enthusiastically assault and batter any one who points out the truth, +as I shall endeavor to do in chapter eight. + +Even if the ideal of physical efficiency had been revived as little as +a century ago, how much our world would be the gainer! If Richard +Wagner had only known how and what to eat and how to avoid catching +cold every other month, we would not have so many dull, dreary places +to overlook in "The Ring," and would, instead, have three or four more +immortal tone-dramas than his colds and indigestions gave him time to +write. One hates to think what Poe might have done in literature if he +had taken a cure and become a chip of the old oaken bucket. +Tuberculosis, they now say, is preventable. If only they had said so +before the death of Keats!... + +It makes one lose patience to think how Schiller shut himself up in a +stuffy closet of a room all day with his exhausting work; and how the +sole recreation he allowed himself during the week was a solemn game +of _l'hombre_ with the philosopher Schelling. And then he wondered +why he could not get on with his writing and why he was forever +catching cold (_einen starken Schnupfen_); and why his head was so +thick half the time that he couldn't do a thing with it. In his +correspondence with Goethe it is exasperating to observe that these +great poets kept so little reserve vim in stock that a slight change +of temperature or humidity, or even a dark day, was enough to overdraw +their health account and bankrupt their work. How glorious it would +have been if they had only stored up enough exuberance to have made +them health magnates, impervious to the slings and arrows of +outrageous February, and able to snap their fingers and flourish +inspired quills in the face of a vile March! In that case their +published works might not, perhaps, have gained much in bulk, but the +masterpieces would now surely represent a far larger proportion of +their _Saemmtliche Werke_ than they do. And the second part of "Faust" +would not, I think, contain that lament about the flesh so seldom +having wings to match those of the spirit. + + "Ach! zu des Geistes Fluegeln wird so leicht + Kein korperlicher Fluegel sich gesellen." + +Some of the most opulent and powerful spirits ever seen on earth have +scarcely done more than indicate what kind of birthrights they +bartered away for a mess of pottage. Coleridge, for example, ceased to +write poetry after thirty because, by dissipating his overplus of +life, he had too grievously wronged what he described as + + "This body that does me grievous wrong." + +After all, there are comparatively few masters, since the glory that +was Greece, who have not half buried their talents in the earthy +darkness of mediocre health. When we survey the army of modern genius, +how little of the sustained ring and resilience and triumphant +immortal youth of real exuberance do we find there! Instead of a band +of sound, alert, well-equipped soldiers of the mind and spirit, +behold a sorry-looking lot of stragglers painfully limping along with +lack-luster eyes, or eyes bright with the luster of fever. And the +people whom they serve are not entirely free from blame. They have +neglected to fill the soldiers' knapsacks, or put shirts on their +backs. As for footgear, it is the usual campaign army shoe, made of +blotting paper--the shoe that left red marks behind it at Valley Forge +and Gettysburg and San Juan Hill. I believe that a better time is +coming and that the real renaissance of creative art is about to dawn. +For we and our army of artists are now beginning to see that if the +artist is completely to fulfill his function he must be able to +run--not alone with patience, but also with the brilliance born of +abounding vitality--the race that is set before him. This dawning +belief is the greatest hope of modern art. + +It does one good to see how artists, here, there, and everywhere, are +beginning to grow enthusiastic over the new-old gospel of bodily +efficiency, and physically to "revive the just designs of Greece." The +encouraging thing is that the true artist who once finds what an +impulse is given his work by rigorous training, is never content to +slump back to his former vegetative, death-in-life existence. His +daily prayer has been said in a single line by a recent American poet: + + "Life, grant that we may live until we die." + +In every way the artist finds himself the gainer by cutting down his +hours of work to the point where he never loses his reserve of energy. +He now is beginning to take absolute--not merely relative--vacations, +and more of them. For he remembers that no man's work--not even +Rembrandt's or Beethoven's or Shakespeare's--is ever _too_ good; and +that every hour of needed rest or recreation makes the ensuing work +better. It is being borne in on the artist that a health-book like +Fisher's "Making Life Worth While" is of as much professional value to +him as many a treatise on the practice of his craft. Insight into the +physiological basis of his life-work can save the artist, it seems, +from those periods of black despair which he once used to employ in +running his head against a concrete wall, and raging impotently +because he could not butt through. Now, instead of laying his futility +to a mysteriously malignant fate, or to the persecution of secret +enemies, he is likely to throw over stimulants and late hours and take +to the open road, the closed squash-court, and the sleeping-porch. And +presently armies cannot withhold him from joyful, triumphant labor. + +The artist is finding that exuberance, this Open Sesame to the things +that count, may not be won without the friendly collaboration of the +pores; and that two birds of paradise may be killed with one stone +(which is precious above rubies) by giving the mind fun while one +gives the pores occupation. Sport is this precious stone. There is, of +course, something to be said for sportless exercise. It is fairly +good for the artist to perform solemn antics in a gymnasium class, to +gesture impassionedly with dumb-bells, and tread the mill of the +circular running-track. But it is far better for him to go in with +equal energy for exercise which, while developing the body, re-creates +the mind and spirit. That kind of exercise is best, in my opinion, +which offers plenty of variety and humor and the excitement of +competition. I mean games like tennis, baseball, handball, golf, +lacrosse, and polo, and sports like swift-water canoeing and +fly-fishing, boxing, and fencing. These take the mind of the artist +quite away from its preoccupations and then restore it to them, unless +he has taken too much of a good thing, with a fresh viewpoint and a +zest for work. + +Sport is one of the chief makers of exuberance because of its purging, +exhilarating, and constructive effects on body, mind, and spirit. So +many contemporary artists are being converted to sport that the +artistic type seems to be changing under our eyes. It was only +yesterday that the worker in literature, sculpture, painting, or +music was a sickly, morbid, anaemic, peculiar specimen, distrusted at +sight by the average man, and a shining mark for all the cast-off wit +of the world. Gilbert never tired of describing him in "Patience." He +was a "foot-in-the-grave young man," or a "_Je-ne-sais-quoi_ young +man." He was + + "A most intense young man, + A soulful-eyed young man. + An ultra-poetical, superaesthetical, Out-of-the-way young man." + +To-day, what a change! Where is this young man? Most of his ilk have +accompanied the snows of yester-year. And a goodly proportion of those +who make merry in their room are sure-eyed, well set-up, ruddy, +muscular chaps, about whom the average man may jeer and quote +slanderous doggerel only at his peril. But somehow or other the +average man likes this new type better and does not want to jeer at +him, but goes and buys his work instead. + +Faint though distinct, one begins to hear the new note of exuberance +spreading through the arts. On canvas it registers the fact that the +painters are migrating in hordes to live most of the year in the open +country. It vibrates in the sparkling tone of the new type of musical +performer like Willeke, the 'cellist. Like a starter's pistol it +sounds out of the writings of hard-trained men of the hour like John +Masefield and Alfred Noyes. One has only to compare the overflowing +life and sanity of workers like these with the condition of the +ordinary "Out-of-the-way young man" to see what a gulf yawns between +exuberance and exhaustion, between absolute sanity and a state +somewhere on the sunny side of mild insanity. And I believe that as +yet we catch only a faint glimpse of the glories of the physical +renaissance. Wait until this new religion of exuberance is a few +generations older and eugenics has said her say! + +Curiously enough, the decadent artists who pride themselves on their +extreme modernity are the ones who now seem to cling with the most +reactionary grip to the old-fashioned, invertebrate type of physique. +The rest are in a fair way to undergo such a change as came to Queed, +the sedentary hero of Mr. Harrison's novel, when he took up boxing. As +sport and the artists come closer together, they should have a good +effect on one another. The artists will doubtless make sport more +formful, rhythmical, and beautiful. Sport, on the other hand, ought +before long to influence the arts by making sportsmen of the artists. + +Now good sportsmanship is composed of fairness, team-work, the grace +of a good loser, the grace of a good winner, modesty, and gameness. +The first two of these amount to an equitable passion for a fair field +and no favor, and a willingness to subordinate star-play, or personal +gain, to team-play, or communal gain. Together they imply a feeling +for true democracy. To be converted to the religion of sportsmanship +means to become more socially minded. I think it is more than a +coincidence that at the moment when the artists are turning to sport, +their work is taking on the brotherly tone of democracy. The call of +brotherhood is to-day one of the chief preoccupations of poetry, the +drama, ideal sculpture, and mural decoration. For this rapid change I +should not wonder if the democracy of sportsmanship were in part +responsible. + +The third element of sportsmanship is the grace of a good loser. +Artists to-day are better losers than were the "foot-in-the-grave +young men." Among them one now finds less and less childish petulance, +outspoken jealousy of others' success, and apology for their own +failure. Some of this has been shamed out of them by discovering that +the good sportsman never apologizes or explains away his defeat. And +they are importing these manly tactics into the game of art. It has +not taken them long to see how ridiculous an athlete makes himself who +hides behind the excuse of sickness or lack of training. They are +impressed by the way in which the non-apologetic spirit is invading +the less athletic games, even down to such a sedentary affair as +chess. This remarkable rule, for example, was proposed in the recent +chess match between Lasker and Capablanca: + + Illness shall not interfere with the playing of any game, on + the ground that it is the business of the players so to + train themselves that their bodies shall be in perfect + condition; and it is their duty, which by this rule is + enforced, to study their health and live accordingly. + +The fourth factor of sportsmanship is the grace of a good winner. It +would seem as though the artist were learning not only to keep from +gloating over his vanquished rival, but also to be generous and +minimize his own victory. In Gilbert's day the failure did all the +apologizing. To-day less apologizing is done by the failure and more +by the success. The master in art is learning modesty, and from whom +but the master in sport? There are in the arts to-day fewer +megalomaniacs and persons afflicted with delusions of grandeur than +there were among the "_Je-ne-sais-quoi_ young men." Sport has made +them more normal spiritually, while making them more normal +physically. It has kept them younger. Old age has been attacked and +driven back all along the line. One reason why we no longer have so +many grand old men is that we no longer have so many old men. Instead +we have numbers of octogenarian sportsmen like the late Dr. S. Weir +Mitchell, who have not yet been caught by the arch-reactionary +fossil-collector, Senility. This is a fair omen for the future of +progress. "If only the leaders of the world's thought and emotion," +writes Bourne in "Youth," "can, by caring for the physical basis, keep +themselves young, why, the world will go far to catching up with +itself and becoming contemporaneous." + +Gameness is the final factor of good sportsmanship. In the matter of +gameness, I grant that sport has little to teach the successful +artist. For it takes courage, dogged persistence, resiliency--in +short, the never-say-die spirit to succeed in any of the arts. It +takes the Browning spirit of those who + + "fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake." + +It takes the typical Anglo-Saxon gameness of Johnny Armstrong of the +old ballad: + + "Said John, 'Fight on, my merry men all. + I am a little hurt, but I am not slain; + I will lay me down for to bleed a while, + And then I'll rise and fight with you again.'" + +Yes, but what of the weaker brothers and sisters in art who have not +yet succeeded--perhaps for want of these very qualities? I believe +that a newly developed spirit of sportsmanship, acting upon a newly +developed body, will presently bring to many a disheartened struggler +just that increment of resilient gameness which will mean success +instead of failure. + +Thus, while our artists show a tendency to hark back to the Greek +physical ideal, they are not harking backward but forward when they +yield to the mental and spiritual influences of sportsmanship. For +this spirit was unknown to the ancient world. Until yesterday art and +sportsmanship never met. But now that they are mating I am confident +that there will come of this union sons and daughters who shall +joyfully obey the summons that is still ringing down to us over the +heads of the anaemic contemporaries of the exuberant old sportsman, +Walt Whitman: + + "Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! + Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for, + But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than + before known, + Arouse! for you must justify me." + + + + +VII + +PRINTED JOY + + _The old joy which makes us more debtors to poetry than + anything else in life._ + +RALPH WALDO EMERSON. + + +America is trying to emerge from the awkward age. Its body is +full-grown. Its spirit is still crude with a juvenile crudity. What +does this spirit need? Next to contact with true religion, it most +needs contact with true poetry. It needs to absorb the grace, the +wisdom, the idealistic beauty of the art, and thrill in rhyme with +poetry's profound, spiritual insights. + +The promising thing is that America is beginning to do exactly this +to-day. The entire history of our enjoyment of poetry might be summed +up in that curious symbol which appears over the letter _n_ in the +word "canon." A rise, a fall, a rise. Here is the whole story of the +American poetry-lover. His enthusiasm first reached a high point +about the middle of the nineteenth century. A generation later it fell +into a swift decline. But three or four years ago it began to revive +so rapidly that a poetry-lover's renaissance is now a reality. This +renaissance has not yet been explained, although the majority of +readers and writers feel able to tell why poetry declined. Let us +glance at a few of the more popular explanations. + +Many say that poetry declined in America because we turned ourselves +into a nation of entirely prosaic materialists. But if this is true, +how do they explain our present national solicitude for song-birds and +waterfalls, for groves of ancient trees, national parks, and +city-planning? How do they explain the fact that our annual +expenditure on the art of music is six times that of Germany, the +Fatherland of Tone? And how do they account for the flourishing +condition of some of our other arts? If we are hopelessly +materialistic, why should American painters and sculptors have such a +high world-standing? And why should their strongest, most original, +most significant work be precisely in the sphere of poetic, suggestive +landscape, and ideal sculpture? The answer is self-evident. It is no +utterly prosaic age, and people that founded our superb orchestras, +that produced and supported Winslow Homer, Tryon, and Woodbury, +French, Barnard, and Saint Gaudens. A more poetic hand than Wall +Street's built St. Thomas's and the cathedral, terminals and towers of +New York, Trinity Church in Boston, the Minnesota State Capitol, Bar +Harbor's Building of Arts, West Point, and Princeton University. It is +plain that our poetic decline was not wholly due to materialism. + +Other philosophers are sure that whatever was the matter with poetry +was the fault of the poets themselves. Popular interest slackened, +they say, because the art first degenerated. Now an obvious answer to +this is that no matter how dead the living poets of any age become, +men may always turn, if they will, to those dead poets of old who live +forever on their shelves. But let us grant for the sake of argument +that any decline of contemporary poets is bound to effect +poetry-lovers in some mysteriously disastrous way. And let us recall +the situation back there in the seventies when the ebb of poetic +appreciation first set in. At that time Whittier, Holmes, Emerson, and +Whitman had only just topped the crest of the hill of accomplishment, +and the last-named was as yet no more generally known than was the +rare genius of the young Lanier. Longfellow, who remains even to-day +the most popular of our poets, was still in full swing. Lowell was in +his prime. Thus it appears that public appreciation, and not creative +power, was the first to trip and topple down the slopes of the +Parnassian hill. Not until then did the poet come "tumbling after." + +Moreover, in the light of modern aesthetic psychology, this seems the +more natural order of events. It takes two to make a work of art: one +to produce, one to appreciate. The creative appreciator is a +correlative of all artistic expression. It is almost impossible for +the artist to accomplish anything amid the destructive atmosphere +exhaled by the ignorant, the stupid, the indifferent, the callous, or +the actively hostile. It follows that the demand for poetry is created +no more by the supply than the supply is created by the demand. Thus +the general indifference to this one department of American art was +_not_ primarily caused by the degenerating supply. + +The decline and fall of our poetic empire have yet other Gibbons who +say that our civilization suddenly changed from the country to the +urban type, and that our love of poetry began to disappear +simultaneously with the general exodus from the countryside and the +mushroom growth of the large cities. So far I agree; but not with +their reason. For they say that poetry declined because cities are +such dreadfully unpoetic things; because they have become synonymous +only with riveting-machines and the kind of building that the Germans +call the "heaven-scratcher," with elevated railways, "sand hogs," +whirring factories, and alleys reeking with the so-called "dregs" of +Europe. They claim that the new and hopelessly vulgar creed of the +modern city is epitomized by such things as a certain signboard in New +York, which offers a typically neo-urban solution of the old problem, +"What is art?" + --------------- + | PARAGON PANTS | + | ARE ART | + --------------- + +the board declares. And this, they say, is about as poetic as a large +city ever becomes. + +Now let us glance for a moment at the poems in prose and verse of Mr. +James Oppenheim, a young man for whom a metropolis is almost +completely epitomized by the riveting-machine, the sweat-shop, and +the slum. There we discover that this poet's vision has pierced +straight through the city's veneer of ugly commonplace to the beauty +shimmering beneath. In his eyes the sinewy, heroic forms of the +builders, clinging high on their frail scaffoldings and nonchalantly +hurling red-hot rivets through space, are so many young gods at play +with elemental forces. The sweat-shop is transmuted into as grim and +glorious a battlefield as any Tours or Gettysburg of them all. And the +dingy, battered old "L" train, as it clatters through the East Side +early on "morose, gray Monday morning," becomes a divine chariot + + "winging through Deeps of the Lord with its eighty Earth-anchored + Souls." + +Oh, yes; there is "God's plenty" of poetry in these sights and sounds, +if only one looks deep enough to discover the beauty of homeliness. +But there is even more of beauty and poetic inspiration to be drawn +from the city by him who, instead of thus straitly confining his gaze +to any one aspect of urban life, is able to see it steadily and see it +whole, with its subtle _nuances_ and its over-powering dramatic +contrasts--as a twentieth-century Walt Whitman, for example, might see +it if he had a dash of Tennyson's technical equipment, of Arnold's +sculpturesque polish and restraint, of Lanier's instinct for sensuous +beauty. What "songs greater than before known" might such a poet not +sing as he wandered close to precious records of the Anglo-Saxon +culture of the race amid the stately colonial peace and simplicity of +St. Mark's church-yard, with the vividly colored life of all +southeastern Europe surging about that slender iron fence--children of +the blood of Chopin and Tschaikowsky; of Gutenberg, Kossuth, and +Napoleon; of Isaiah and Plato, Leonardo and Dante--with the wild +strains of the gypsy orchestra floating across Second Avenue, and to +the southward a glimpse aloft in a rarer, purer air of builders +clambering on the cupola of a neighboring Giotto's tower built of +steel? Who dares say that the city is unpoetic? _It is one of the most +poetic places on earth._ + +These, then, are the chief explanations which have been offered us +to-day of the historic decline of the American poetry-lover. We weigh +them, and find them wanting. Why? Because they have sought, like +radiographers, far beneath the surface; whereas the real trouble has +been only skin deep. I shall try to show the nature of this trouble; +and how, by beginning to cure it, we have already brought on a poetic +renaissance. + +Most of us who care for poetry frequently have one experience in +common. During our summer vacations in the country we suddenly +re-discover the well-thumbed "Golden Treasury" of Palgrave, and the +"Oxford Book of Verse" which have been so unaccountably neglected +during the city winter. We wander farther into the poetic fields and +revel in Keats and Shakespeare. We may even attempt once more to get +beyond the first book of the "Faerie Queene," or fumble again at the +combination lock which seems to guard the meaning of the second part +of "Faust." And we find these occupations so invigorating and joyful +that we model and cast an iron resolution to the effect that this +winter, whatever betide, we will read a little poetry every day, or +every week, as the case may be. On that we plunge back into the +beautiful, poetic, inspiring city, and adhere to our poetry-reading +program--for exactly a fortnight. Then, unaccountably, our resolve +begins to slacken. We cannot seem to settle our minds to ordered +rhythms "where more is meant than meets the ear." Our resolve +collapses. Once again Palgrave is covered with dust. But vacation time +returns. After a few days in green pastures and beside still waters +the soul suddenly turns like a homing-pigeon to poetry. And the old, +perplexing cycle begins anew. + +A popular magazine once sent a certain young writer and ardent +amateur of poetry on a long journey through the Middle West. He took +but one book in his bag. It was by Whitman (the poet of cities, mark). +And he determined to read it every evening in his bedroom after the +toils of the day. The first part of the trip ran in the country. +"Afoot and light-hearted" he took to the open road every morning, and +reveled every evening in such things as "Manahatta," "The Song of +Joys," and "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Then he carried his poet of +cities to a city. But the two would have nothing to do with one +another. And to the traveler's perplexity, a place no larger than +Columbus, Ohio, put a violent end to poetry on that trip. + +In our day most poetry-lovers have had such experiences. These have +been hard to explain, however, only because their cause has been +probed for too profoundly. _The chief cause of the decline of poetry +was not spiritual but physical._ Cities are not unpoetic in spirit. It +is only in the physical sense that Emerson's warning is true: "If +thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York ... thou shalt find no +radiance of meaning in the lonely wastes of the pine woods." The +trouble was this: that the modern type of city, when it started into +being, back in the seventies, began to take from men, and to use up, +that margin of nervous energy, that exuberant overplus of vitality of +which so much has already been said in this book, and which is always +needed for the true appreciation of poetry. Grant Allen has shown that +man, when he is conscious of a superfluity of sheer physical strength, +gives himself to play; and in like manner, when he is conscious of a +superfluity of receptive power, _which has a physical basis_, he gives +himself to art. + +Now, though all of the arts demand of their appreciators this overplus +of nervous energy (and Heaven knows perfectly well how inadequate a +supply is offered up to music and the arts of design!), yet the +appreciation of poetry above that of the sister arts demands this +bloom on the cheek of existence. For poetry, with quite as much of +emotional demand as the others, combines a considerably greater and +more persistent intellectual demand, involving an unusual amount of +physical wear and tear. Hence, in an era of overstrain, poetry is the +first of the arts to suffer. + +Most lovers of poetry must realize, when they come to consider it, +that their pleasure in verse rises and falls, like the column of +mercury in a barometer, with the varying levels of their physical +overplus. Physical overplus, however, is the thing which life in a +modern city is best calculated to keep down. + +Surely it was no mere coincidence that, back there in the seventies, +just at the edge of the poetic decline, city life began to grow so +immoderately in volume and to be "speeded up" and "noised up" so +abruptly that it took our bodies by surprise. This process has kept on +so furiously that the bodies of most of us have never been able to +catch up. No large number have yet succeeded in readjusting +themselves completely to the new pace of the city. And this continues +to exact from most of us more nervous energy than any life may, which +would keep us at our best. Hence, until we have succeeded either in +accomplishing the readjustment, or in spending more time in the +country, the appreciation of poetry has continued to suffer. + +Even in the country, it is, of course, perfectly true that life spins +faster now than it used to--what with telephones and inter-urban +trolleys, the motor, and the R.F.D. But this rural progress has +arrived with no such stunning abruptness as to outdistance our powers +of readjustment. When we go from city to country we recede to a rate +of living with which our nervous systems can comfortably fall in, and +still control for the use of the mind and spirit a margin of that +delicious vital bloom which resembles the ring of the overtones in +some beautiful voice. + +But how is it practicable to keep this margin in the city, when the +roar of noisy traffic over noisy pavements, the shrieks of newsboy and +peddler, the all-pervading chronic excitement, the universal +obligation to "step lively," even at a funeral, are every instant +laying waste our conscious or unconscious powers? How are we to give +the life of the spirit its due of poetry when our precious margin is +forever leaking away through lowered vitality and even sickness due to +lack of sleep, unhygienic surroundings, constant interruption (or the +expectation thereof), and the impossibility of relaxation owing to the +never-ending excitement and interest and sexual stimulus of the great +human pageant--its beauty and suggestiveness? + +Apart from the general destruction of the margin of energy, one +special thing that the new form of city life does to injure poetry is +to keep uppermost in men's consciousness a feverish sense of the +importance of the present moment. We might call this sense the +journalistic spirit of the city. How many typical metropolitans one +knows who are forever in a small flutter of excitement over whatever +is just happening, like a cub reporter on the way to his first fire, +or a neuraesthete--if one may coin a word--who perceives a spider on +her collarette. This habit of mind soon grows stereotyped, and is, of +course, immensely stimulated by the multitudinous editions of our +innumerable newspapers. The city gets one to living so intensely in +the present minute, and often in the very most sensational second of +that minute, that one grows impatient of the "olds," and comes to +regard a constantly renewed and increased dose of "news" as the only +present help in a chronic time of trouble. This is a kind of mental +drug-habit. And its origin is physical. It is a morbid condition +induced by the over-paced life of cities. + +Long before the rise of the modern city--indeed, more than a century +ago--Goethe, who was considerably more than a century ahead of his +age, wrote to Schiller from Frankfort of the journalistic spirit of +cities and its relation to poetry: + + It seems to me very remarkable how things stand with the + people of a large city. They live in a constant delirium of + getting and consuming, and the thing we call atmosphere can + neither be brought to their attention nor communicated to + them. All recreations, even the theater, must be mere + distractions; and the great weakness of the reading public + for newspapers and romances comes just from the fact that + the former always, and the latter generally, brings + distraction into the distraction. Indeed, I believe that I + have noticed a sort of dislike of poetic productions--or at + least in so far as they _are_ poetic--which seems to me to + follow quite naturally from these very causes. Poetry + requires, yes, it absolutely commands, concentration. It + isolates man against his own will. It forces itself upon him + again and again; and is as uncomfortable a possession as a + too constant mistress. + +If this reporter's attitude of mind was so rampant in cultivated urban +Germany a century ago as to induce "a sort of dislike of poetic +productions," what sort of dislike of them must it not be inducing +to-day? For the appreciation of poetry cannot live under the same +roof with the journalistic spirit. The art needs long, quiet vistas +backward and forward, such as are to be had daily on one of those +"lone heaths" where Hazlitt used to love to stalk ideas, but such as +are not to be met with in Times Square or the Subway. + +The joyful side of the situation is that this need is being met. A few +years ago the city dwellers of America began to return to nature. The +movement spread until every one who could afford it, habitually fled +from the city for as long a summer outing as possible. More and more +people learned the delightful sport of turning an abandoned farm into +a year-round country estate. The man who was tied to a city office +formed the commuting habit, thus keeping his wife and children +permanently away from the wear and tear of town. The suburban area was +immensely increased by the rapid spread of motoring. + +Thus, it was recently made possible for hundreds of thousands of +Americans to live, at least a considerable part of the year, where +they could hoard up an overplus of vitality. The result was that these +well-vitalized persons, whenever they returned to the city, were +better able to stand--and adjust themselves to--the severe urban pace, +than were the fagged city people. It was largely by the impact of this +new vitality that the city was roused to the importance of physical +efficiency, so that it went in for parks, gymnasia, baths, health and +welfare campaigns, athletic fields, playgrounds, Boy Scouts, Campfire +Girls, and the like. + +There are signs everywhere that we Americans have, by wise living, +begun to win back the exuberance which we lost at the rise of the +modern city. One of the surest indications of this is the fact that +the nation has suddenly begun to read poetry again, very much as the +exhausted poetry-lover instinctively turns again to his Palgrave +during the third week of vacation. In returning to neglected nature we +are returning to the most neglected of the arts. The renaissance of +poetry is here. And men like Masefield, Noyes, and Tagore begin to +vie in popularity with the moderately popular novelists. Moreover this +is only the beginning. Aviation has come and is reminding us of the +ancient prophecy of H. G. Wells that the suburbs of a city like New +York will now soon extend from Washington to Albany. Urban centers are +being diffused fast; but social-mindedness is being diffused faster. +Men are wishing more and more to share with each brother man the +brimming cup of life. Aircraft and true democracy are on the way to +bear all to the land of perpetual exuberance. And on their wings the +poet will again mount to that height of authority and esteem from +which, in the healthful, athletic days of old, Homer and Sophocles +dominated the minds and spirits of their fellow-men. That is to +say--he will mount if we let him. In the following chapter I shall +endeavor to show why the American poet has as yet scarcely begun to +share in the poetry-renaissance. + + + + +VIII + +THE JOYFUL HEART FOR POETS + + _Nothing probably is more dangerous for the human race than + science without poetry, civilization without culture._ + +HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN. + + _A poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is + a joke._ + +MAX EASTMAN. + + +In the last two chapters we have seen the contemporary master of +various arts, and the reader of poetry, engaged in cultivating the +joyful heart. But there is one artist who has not yet been permitted +to join in this agreeable pastime. He is the American poet. And as his +inclusion would be an even more joyful thing for his land than for +himself, this book may not ignore him. + +The American poet has not yet begun to keep pace with the +poetry-lovers' renaissance. He is no very arresting figure; and +therefore you, reader, are already considering a skip to chapter nine. +Well, if you are no more interested in him or his possibilities than +is the average American consumer of British poetry--I counsel you by +all means to skip in peace. But if you are one of the few who discern +the promise of a vast power latent in the American poet, and would +gladly help in releasing this power for the good of the race, I can +show you what is the matter with him and what to do about it. + +Why has the present renaissance of the poetry-lover not brought with +it a renaissance of the American poet? Almost every reason but the +true one has been given. The true reason is that our poets are tired. +They became exhausted a couple of generations ago; and we have kept +them in this condition ever since. In the previous chapter we saw how +city life began abruptly to be speeded up in the seventies. At that +time the poet--like almost every one else in the city--was unable to +readjust his body at once to the new pace. He was like a six-day +bicycle racer who should be lapped in a sudden and continued sprint. +That sprint is still going on. Never again has the American poet felt +the abounding energy with which he began. And never has he overtaken +the leaders. + +The reason why the poet is tired is that he lives in the over-paced +city. The reason why he lives in the city is that he is chained to it +by the nature of his hack-work. And the reason for the hack-work is +that the poet is the only one of all the artists whose art almost +never offers him a living. He alone is forced to earn in other ways +the luxury of performing his appointed task in the world. For, as +Goethe once observed, "people are so used to regarding poetic talent +as a free gift of the gods that they think the poet should be as +free-handed with the public as the gods have been with him." + +The poet is tired. Great art, however, is not the product of +exhaustion, but of exuberance. It will have none of the skimmed milk +of mere existence. Nothing less than the thick, pure cream of +abounding vitality will do. The exhausted artist has but three +courses open to him: either to stimulate himself into a counterfeit, +and suicidally brief, exuberance; or to relapse into mediocrity; or to +gain a healthy fullness of life. + +In the previous chapter it was shown why poetry demands more +imperatively than any other art, that the appreciator shall bring to +it a margin of vitality. For a like reason poetry makes this same +inordinate demand upon its maker. It insists that he shall keep +himself even more keenly alive than the maker of music or sculpture, +painting or architecture. This is the reason why, in the present era +of overstrain, the poet's art has been so swift to succumb and so slow +to recuperate. + +The poet who is obliged to live in the city has not yet been able to +readjust his body to the pace of modern urban life, so that he may +live among its never-ending conscious and unconscious stimulations and +still keep on hand a triumphant reserve of vitality to pour into his +poems. Under these new and strenuous conditions, very little real +poetry has been written in our cities. American poets, despite their +genuine love of town and their struggles to produce worthy lines amid +its turmoil, have almost invariably done the best of their actually +creative work during the random moments that could be snatched in wood +and meadow, by weedy marsh or rocky headland. To his friends it was +touching to see with what wistfulness Richard Watson Gilder used to +seek his farm at Tyringham for a day or two of poetry after a +fortnight of furious office life. Even Walt Whitman--poet of cities +that he was--had to retire "precipitate" from his beloved Manahatta in +order fitly to celebrate her perfections. In fact, Stedman was perhaps +the only one of our more important singers at the close of the century +who could do his best work in defiance of Emerson's injunction to the +poet: "Thou shalt lie close hid with Nature, and canst not be afforded +to the Capitol or the Exchange." But it is pleasant to recall how +even that poetic banker brightened up and let his soul expand in the +peace of the country. + +One reason for the rapidly growing preponderance of women--and +especially of unmarried women--among our poetic leaders is, I think, +to be found in the fact that women, more often than men, command the +means of living for a generous portion of the year that vital, +unstrenuous, contemplative existence demanded by poetry as an +antecedent condition of its creation. It is a significant fact that, +according to Arnold Bennett, nearly all of the foremost English +writers live far from the town. Most of the more promising American +poets of both sexes, however, have of late had little enough to do +with the country. And the result is that the supreme songs of the +twentieth century have remained unsung, to eat out the hearts of their +potential singers. For fate has thrown most of our poets quite on +their own resources, so that they have been obliged to live in the +large cities, supporting life within the various kinds of hack-harness +into which the uncommercially shaped withers of Pegasus can be forced. +Such harness, I mean, as journalism, editing, compiling, reading for +publishers, hack-article writing, and so on. Fate has also seen to it +that the poet's make-up is seldom conspicuous by reason of a +bull-neck, pugilistic limbs, and the nervous equipoise of a +dray-horse. What he may lack in strength, however, he is apt to make +up in hectic ambition. Thus it often happens that when the city does +not consume quite all of his available energy, the poet, with his +probably inadequate physique, chafes against the hack-work and yields +to the call of the luring creative ideas that constantly beset him. +Then, after yielding, he chafes again, and more bitterly, at his +faint, imperfect expression of these dreams, recognizing in despair +that he has been creating a mere crude by-product of the strenuous +life about him. So he burns the torch of life at both ends, and the +superhuman speed of modern existence eats it through in the middle. +Then suddenly the light fails altogether. + +Those poets alone who have unusual physical endurance are able to do +even a small amount of steady, fine-grained work in the city. The rest +are as effectually debarred from it as factory children are debarred +from learning the violin well at the fag end of their days of toil. In +her autobiography Miss Jane Addams speaks some luminous words about +the state of society which forces finely organized artistic talent +into the wearing struggle for mere existence. She refers to it as "one +of the haunting problems of life; why do we permit the waste of this +most precious human faculty, this consummate possession of all +civilization? When we fail to provide the vessel in which it may be +treasured, it runs out upon the ground and is irretrievably lost." + +I wonder if we have ever stopped to ask ourselves why so many of our +more recent poets have died young. Was it the hand of God, or the +effort to do the work of two in a hostile environment, that struck +down before their prime such spirits as Sidney Lanier, Edward Rowland +Sill, Frederic Lawrence Knowles, Arthur Upson, Richard Hovey, William +Vaughn Moody, and the like? These were poets whom we bound to the +strenuous city, or at least to hack-work which sapped over-much of +their vitality. An old popular fallacy keeps insisting that genius +"will out." This is true, but only in a sadder sense than the stupidly +proverbial one. As a matter of fact, the light of genius is all too +easily blown out and trampled out by a blind and deaf world. But we of +America are loath to admit this. And if we do not think of genius as +an unquenchable flame, we are apt to think of it as an amazingly hardy +plant, more tough than horse-brier or cactus. Only a few of us have +yet begun to realize that the flower of genius is not the flower of an +indestructible weed, but of a fastidious exotic, which usually +demands good conditions for bare existence, and needs a really +excellent environment and constant tending if it is to thrive and +produce the finest possible blooms. Mankind has usually shown enormous +solicitude lest the man of genius be insufficiently supplied with that +trouble and sorrow which is supposed to be quite indispensable to his +best work. But here and there the thinkers are beginning to realize +that the irritable, impulsive, impractical nature of the genius, in +even the most favorable environment, is formed for trouble "as the +sparks to fly upward." They see that fortune has slain its hundreds of +geniuses, but trouble its ten thousands. And they conclude that their +own real solicitude should be, not lest the genius have too little +adversity to contend with, but lest he have too much. + +We have heard not a little about the conservation of land, ore, wood, +and water. The poetry problem concerns itself with an older sort of +conservation about which we heard much even as youngsters in college. +I mean the conservation of energy. Our poetry will never emerge from +the dusk until either the bodies of our city-prisoned poets manage to +overtake the speeding-up process and readjust themselves to it--or +until we allow them an opportunity to return for an appreciable part +of every year to the country--the place where the poet belongs. + +It is true that the masters of the other arts have not fared any too +well at our hands; but they do not need help as badly by far as the +poets need it. What with commissions and sales, scholarships, +fellowships, and substantial prizes, the painters and sculptors and +architects and even the musicians have, broadly speaking, been able to +learn and practise their art in that peace and security which is +well-nigh essential to all artistic apprenticeship and productive +mastery. They have usually been able to spend more of the year in the +country than the poet. And even when bound as fast as he to the city, +they have not been forced to choose between burning the candle at +both ends or abandoning their art. + +But for some recondite reason--perhaps because this art cannot be +taught at all--it has always been an accepted American conviction that +poetry is a thing which may be thrown off at any time as a side issue +by highly organized persons, most of whose time and strength and +faculties are engaged in a vigorous and engrossing hand-to-hand bout +with the wolf on the threshold--a most practical, philistine wolf, +moreover, which never heard of rhyme or rhythm, and whose whole +acquaintance with prosody is confined to a certain greedy familiarity +with frayed masculine and feminine endings. + +As a result of this common conviction our poets have almost invariably +been obliged to make their art a quite subsidiary and haphazard +affair, like the rearing of children by a mother who is forced to go +out and scrub from early morning till late at night and has to leave +little Johnnie tied in his high chair to be fed by an older sister on +crusts dabbled in the pot of cold coffee. No wonder that so much of +our verse "jest growed," like Topsy. And the resulting state of things +has but served to reinforce our belief that to make the race of poets +spend their days in correcting encyclopaedia proof, or clerking, or +running, notebook in hand, to fires--inheres in the eternal fitness of +things. + +Bergson says in "Creative Evolution," that "an intelligence which +reflects is one that originally had a surplus of energy to spend, over +and above practically useful efforts." Does it not follow that when we +make the poet spend all his energy in the practically useful effort of +running to fires, we prevent him from enjoying the very advantage +which made man a reflective being, to say nothing of a poet? + +Perhaps we have never yet realized that this attitude of ours would +turn poetic success into a question of the survival of that paradox, +the commercially shrewd poet, or of the poet who by some happy +accident of birth or marriage has been given an income, or of that +prodigy of versatility who, in our present stage of civilization, +besides being mentally and spiritually fit for the poet's calling, is +also physically fit to bear the strain of doing two men's work; or, +perhaps we had better say, three men's--for simply being a good poet +is about as nerve-consuming an occupation as any two ordinary men +could support in common--and the third would have to run to fires for +the first two. + +It is natural to the character of the American business man to declare +that the professional poet has no reason for existence _qua_ poet +unless he can make his art support him. But let the business man bear +in mind that if he had the power to enforce such a condition, he would +be practically annihilating the art. For it is literally true that, if +plays were excluded, it would take not even a five-foot shelf to +contain all the first-rate poetry which was ever written by poets in a +state of poetic self-support. "Could a man live by it," the author of +"The Deserted Village" once wrote to Henry Goldsmith, "it were not +unpleasant employment to be a poet." Alas, the fatal condition! For +the art itself has almost never fed and clothed its devotee--at least +until his best creative days are done and he has become a "grand old +man." More often the poet has attained not even this reward. +Wordsworth's lines on Chatterton have a wider application: + + "What treasure found he? Chains and pains and sorrow-- + Yea, all the wealth those noble seekers find + Whose footsteps mark the music of mankind! + 'T was his to lend a life: 't was Man's to borrow: + 'T was his to make, but not to share, the morrow." + +Those who insist upon judging the art of poetry on the hard American +"cash basis" ought to be prepared, for the sake of consistency, to +apply the same criterion as well to colleges, public schools, symphony +orchestras, institutions for scientific research, missions, +settlements, libraries, and all other unlucrative educational +enterprises. With inexorable logic they should be prepared to insist +that people really do not desire or need knowledge or any sort of +uplift because they are not prepared to pay its full cost. It is +precisely this sort of logic which would treat the Son of Man if He +should appear among us, to a bench in Bryant Park, and a place in the +bread-line, and send the mounted police to ride down his socialistic +meetings in Union Square. No! poetry and most other forms of higher +education have always had to be subsidized--and probably always will. +When wisely subsidized, however, this art is very likely to repay its +support in princely fashion. In fact, I know of no other investment +to-day that would bid fair to bring us in so many thousand per cent. +of return as a small fresh-air fund for poets. + +We Americans are rather apt to complain of the comparatively poor, +unoriginal showing which our poets have as yet made among those of +other civilized nations. We are quietly disgusted that only two of +all our bards have ever made their work forcibly felt in Europe; and +that neither Poe nor Whitman has ever profoundly influenced the great +masses of his own people. + +Despite our splendid inheritance, our richly mingled blood, our +incomparably stimulating New World atmosphere, why has our poetry made +such a meager showing among the nations? The chief reason is obvious. +_We have been unwilling to let our poets live while they were working +for us._ True, we have the reputation of being an open-handed, even an +extravagantly generous folk. But thriftiness in small things often +goes with an extravagant disposition, much as manifestations of piety +often accompany wickedness like flying buttresses consciously placed +outside the edifice. We have spent millions on bronze and marble +book-palaces which shall house the works of the poets. We have spent +more millions on universities which shall teach these works. But as +for making it possible for our few real poets to produce works, and +completely fulfill their priceless functions, we have always satisfied +ourselves by decreeing: "Let there be a sound cash basis." + +So it came to pass that when the first exuberant, pioneer +energy-margin of our race began to be consumed by the new and abnormal +type of city life, it became no longer possible for the poets to put +as much soul-sinew as theretofore into their lines, after they had +toilfully earned the luxury of trying to be our idealistic leaders. +For often their initial efforts consumed their less than pioneer +vitality. And how did we treat them from the first? In the old days we +set Longfellow and Lowell at one of the most exhausting of +professions--teaching. We made Emerson do one-night lecture-stands all +winter long in the West--sometimes for five dollars a lecture and feed +for his horse. We made Bryant ruin a gift as elemental as +Wordsworth's, in journalism; Holmes, visit patients at all hours of +the day and night; Poe, take to newspaper offices and drink. We made +Whitman drive nails, set type and drudge in the Indian Bureau in +Washington, from which he was dismissed for writing the most original +and the most poetic of American books. Later he was rescued from want +only by the humiliation of a public European subscription. Lanier we +allowed to waste away in a dingy lawyer's office, then kill himself so +fast by teaching and writing railway advertisements and playing the +flute in a city orchestra that he was forced to defer composing +"Sunrise" until too weak with fever to carry his hand to his lips. And +this was eleven years after that brave spirit's single cry of +reproach: + + "Why can we poets dream us beauty, so, + But cannot dream us bread?" + +With Lanier the physical exhaustion incident to the modern speeding-up +process began to be more apparent. Edward Rowland Sill we did away +with in his early prime through journalism and teaching. We curbed +and pinched and stunted the promising art of Richard Watson Gilder by +piling upon him several men's editorial work. We created a poetic +resemblance between Arthur Upson and the hero of "The Divine Fire" by +employing him in a bookstore. We made William Vaughn Moody teach in a +city environment utterly hostile to his poetry, and later set the hand +that gave us "An Ode in Time of Hesitation" to the building of popular +melodrama. These are only a tithe of the things that we have done to +the hardiest of those benefactors of ours: + + "The poets, who on earth have made us heirs + Of truth and pure delight." + +It is not pleasant to dwell on the fate of those less sturdy ones who +have remained mute, inglorious Miltons for lack of a little practical +appreciation and a small part of a small fresh-air fund. + +So far as I know, Thomas Bailey Aldrich is the only prominent figure +among the poets of our elder generations who was given the means of +devoting himself entirely to his art. And even _his_ fortune was not +left to him by his practical, poetry-loving friend until so late in +the day that his creative powers had already begun to decline through +age and over-much magazine editing. + +More than almost any other civilized nation we have earned Allen +Upward's reproach in "The New Word": + + There are two kinds of human outcasts. Man, in his march + upward out of the deep into the light, throws out a vanguard + and a rearguard, and both are out of step with the main + body. Humanity condemns equally those who are too good for + it, and those who are too bad. On its Procrustean bed the + stunted members of the race are racked; the giants are cut + down. It puts to death with the same ruthless equality the + prophet and the atavist. The poet and the drunkard starve + side by side.... Literature is the chief ornament of + humanity; and perhaps humanity never shows itself uglier + than when it stands with the pearl shining on its forehead, + and the pearl-maker crushed beneath its heel.... England + will always have fifteen thousand a year for some + respectable clergyman; she will never have it for Shelley. + +Yes, but how incomparably better England has treated her poets than +America has treated hers! What convenient little plums, as De Quincey +somewhat wistfully remarked, were always being found for Wordsworth +just at the psychological moment; and they were not withheld, +moreover, until he was full of years and honors. Indeed, we owe this +poet to the poet-by-proxy of whom Wordsworth wrote, in "The Prelude": + + "He deemed that my pursuits and labours, lay + Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even + A necessary maintenance insures + Without some hazard to the finer sense." + +How tenderly the frail bodies of Coleridge and of Francis Thompson +were cared for by their appreciators. How potently the Civil List and +the laureateship have helped a long, if most uneven, line of England's +singers. Over against our solitary ageing Aldrich, how many great +English poets like Byron, Keats, the Brownings, Tennyson, and +Swinburne have found themselves with small but independent incomes, +free to give their whole unembarrassed souls and all that in them was +to their art. And all this since the close of the age of patronage! + +Why have we never had a Wordsworth, or a Browning? For one thing, +because this nation of philanthropists has been too thoughtless to +found the small fellowship in creative poetry which might have freed a +Wordsworth of ours from communion with a cash-book to wander chanting +his new-born lines among the dreamy Adirondack lakes or the frowning +Sierras; or that might have sought out our Browning in his grocery +store and built him a modest retreat among the Thousand Islands. If +not too thoughtless to act thus, we have been too timid. We have been +too much afraid of encouraging weaklings by mistake. We have been, in +fact, more afraid of encouraging a single mediocre poet than of +neglecting a score of Shelleys. But we should remember that even if +the weak are encouraged with the strong, no harm is done. + +It can not be too strongly insisted upon that the poor and mediocre +verse which has always been produced by every age is practically +innocuous. It hurts only the publishers who are constantly being +importuned to print the stuff, and the distinguished men and women who +are burdened with presentation copies or requests for criticism. These +unfortunates all happen to be capable of emitting loud and +authoritative cries of distress about the menace of bad poets. But we +should discount these cries one hundred per cent. For nobody else is +hurt by the bad poets, because nobody else pays the slightest +attention to them. Time and their own "inherent perishableness" soon +remove all traces of the poetasters. It were better to help hundreds +of them than to risk the loss of one new Shelley. And do we realize +how many Shelleys we may actually have lost already? I think it +possible that we may have had more than one such potential singer to +whom we never allowed any leisure or sympathy or margin of vitality to +turn into poetry. Perhaps there is more grim truth than humor in Mark +Twain's vision of heaven where Captain Stormfield saw a poet as great +as Shakespeare who hailed, I think, from Tennessee. The reason why the +world had never heard of him was that his neighbors in Tennessee had +regarded him as eccentric and had ridden him out of town on a rail and +assisted his departure to a more congenial clime above. + +We complain that we have had no poet to rank with England's greatest. +I fear that it would have been useless for us to have had such a +person. We probably would not have known what to do with him. + +I realize that mine is not the popular side of this question and that +an occasional poet with an income may be found who will even argue +against giving incomes to other poets. Mr. Aldrich, for instance, +wrote, after coming into his inheritance: + + "A man should live in a garret aloof, + And have few friends, and go poorly clad, + With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof, + To keep the goddess constant and glad." + +But a friend of Mr. Aldrich's, one of his poetic peers, has assured me +that it was not the poet's freedom from financial cares at all, but +premature age, instead, that made his goddess of poesy fickle after +the advent of the pitifully belated fortune. Mr. Stedman spoke a far +truer word on this subject. "Poets," he said, "in spite of the +proverb, sing best when fed by wage or inheritance." "'Tis the +convinced belief of mankind," wrote Francis Thompson with a sardonic +smile, "that to make a poet sing you must pinch his belly, as if the +Almighty had constructed him like certain rudimentarily vocal dolls." +"No artist," declares Arnold Bennett, "was ever assisted in his career +by the yoke, by servitude, by enforced monotony, by economic +inferiority." And Bliss Carman speaks out loud and bold: "The best +poets who have come to maturity have always had some means of +livelihood at their command. The idea that any sort of artist or +workman is all the better for being doomed to a life of penurious +worry, is such a silly old fallacy, one wonders it could have +persisted so long." The wolf may be splendid at suckling journalism +and various other less inspired sorts of writing, but she is a +ferocious old stepmother to poetry. + +There are some who snatch eagerly at any argument in support of the +existing order, and who triumphantly point out the number of good +poems that have been written under "seemingly" adverse conditions. But +they do not stop to consider how much better these poems might have +been made under "seemingly" favorable conditions. Percy Mackaye is +right in declaring that the few singers left to English poetry after +our "wholesale driving-out and killing-out of poets ... are of two +sorts: those with incomes and those without. Among the former are +found most of the excellent names in English poetry, a fact which is +hardly a compliment to our civilization." + +Would that one of those excellent philanthropists who has grown so +accustomed to giving a million to libraries and universities that the +act has become slightly mechanical--might realize that he has, with +all his generosity, made no provision as yet for helping one of the +most indispensable of all educational institutions--the poet. Would +that he might realize how little good the poet of genius can derive +from the universities--places whose conservative formalism is even +dangerous to his originality, because they try to melt him along with +all the other students and pour him into their one mold. It is +distressing to think of all the sums now devoted to inducing callow, +overdriven sophomores to compose forced essays and doggerel, by luring +them on with the glitter of cash prizes. One shudders to think of all +the fellowship money which is now being used to finance reluctant +young dry-as-dusts while they are preparing to pack still tighter the +already overcrowded ranks of "professors of English literature"--whose +profession, as Gerald Stanley Lee justly remarks, is founded on the +striking principle that a very great book can be taught by a very +little man. This is a department of human effort which, as now usually +conducted, succeeds in destroying much budding appreciation of poetry. +Why endow these would-be interpreters of poetry, to the neglect of the +class of artists whose work they profess to interpret? What should we +think of England if her Victorian poets had all happened to be +penniless, and she had packed them off to Grub Street and invested, +instead, in a few more professors of Victorian literature? + +Why should not a few thousands out of the millions we spend on +education be used to found fellowships of creative poetry? These would +not be given at first to those who wish to learn to write poetry; for +the first thousands would be far too precious for use in any such +wild-cat speculations. They would be devoted, rather, to poets of +proved quality, who have already, somehow, learned their art, and who +ask no more wondrous boon from life than fresh air and time to regain +and keep that necessary margin of vitality which must go to the making +of genuine poetry. + +I would not have the incumbent of such a fellowship, however, deprived +suddenly of all outer incentives for effort. The abrupt transition +from constant worry and war among his members to an absolutely +unclouded life of pure vocation-following might be almost too violent +a shock, and unsettle him and injure his productivity for a time. + +The award of such a fellowship must not, of course, involve the least +hint of charity or coercion. It should be offered and accepted as an +honor, not as a donation. The yearly income should, in my opinion, be +small. It should be such a sum as would almost, but not quite, support +the incumbent very simply in the country, and still allow for books +and an occasional trip to town. In some cases an income of a thousand +dollars, supplemented by the little that poetry earns and possibly by +a random article or story in the magazines, would enable a poet to +lead a life of the largest effectiveness. + +It is my belief that almost any genuine poet who is now kept in the +whirl by economic reasons and thus debarred from the free practice of +his calling would gladly relinquish even a large salary and reduce his +life to simple terms to gain the inestimable privilege of devoting +himself wholly to his art before the golden bowl is broken. Many of +those who are in intimate touch with the poets of America to-day could +show any philanthropist how to do his land and the world more actual, +visible, immediate good by devoting a thousand dollars to poetry, than +by allowing an hundred times that sum to slip into the ordinary +well-worn grooves of philanthropy. + +Some years ago a _questionnaire_ was submitted to various literary men +by a poetry-lover who hoped to induce a wealthy friend to subsidize +poets of promise in case these literary leaders approved the plan. +While the younger writers warmly favored the idea, a few of the older +ones discouraged it. These were, in all cases, men who had made a +financial success in more lucrative branches of literature than +poetry; and it was natural for the veterans, who had brawnily +struggled through the burden and heat of the day, to look with the +unsympathetic eye of the sturdy upon those frailer ones of the rising +generation who perhaps might, without assistance, be eliminated in the +rough-and-tumble of the literary market-place. Of course it was but +human for the veterans to insist that any real genius among their +youthful competitors "would out," and that any assistance would but +make life too soft for the youngsters, and go to swell the growing +"menace" of bad verse by mitigating the primal rigors of natural +selection. No doubt the generation of writers older than Wordsworth +quite innocently uttered these very same sentiments in voices of deep +authority when it was proposed to offer this young person a chance to +compose in peace. No. One fears that the attitude of these veterans +was not wholly judicial. But then, why should any haphazard group of +creative artists be expected to be judicial, anyway? One might as +reasonably go to the Louvre for classes in conic sections, or to the +Garden of the Gods for instruction in Rabbinical theology. + +Few supporters of the general plan, on the other hand, were wholly in +favor of all the measures proposed for carrying it out. Some of the +most telling criticisms went to show that while poets of undoubted +ability ought to be helped, the method of their selection offers a +grave difficulty. H. G. Wells, who heartily approved the main idea, +brought out the fact that it would never do to leave the choice to a +jury, as no jury would ever have voted for half of the great poets who +have perished miserably. Juries are much too conventionally minded. +For they are public functionaries; or, if not that, at least they feel +self-consciously as if they were going to be held publicly +responsible, and are apt to bring extremely conventional, and perhaps +priggish, standards to bear upon their choice. "They invariably become +timid and narrow," wrote Mr. Wells, "and seek refuge in practical, +academic, and moral tests that invariably exclude the real men of +genius." + +Prizes and competitions were considered equally ill-advised methods of +selection. It is significant that these methods are now being rapidly +dropped in the fields of sculpture and architecture. For the mere +thought of a competition is a thing essentially antagonistic to the +creative impulse; and talent is likely to acquit itself better than +genius in such a struggle. The idea of a poetic competition is a relic +of a pioneer mode of thought. Mr. Wells concluded that the decision +should be made by the individual. But I cannot agree with him that +that same individual should be the donor of the fellowship. It seems +to me that this would-be savior of our American poetry should select +the best judge of poets and poetry that he can discover and be guided +by his advice. + +On general principles, there are several things that this judge should +_not_ be. He should not be a professor of English, because of the +professor's usual bias toward the academic. Besides, these fellowships +ought not in any way to be associated with institutions of +learning--places which are apt to fetter poets and surround them with +an atmosphere hostile to the creative impulse. Neither should this +momentous decision be left to editors or publishers, because they are +usually suffering from literary indigestion caused by skimming too +many manuscripts too fast, and because, at any rate, they ordinarily +pay little attention to poetry and hold it commercially "in one grand +despise." Nor should the normal type of poet be chosen as judge to +decide this question. For the poet is apt to have a narrow, one-sided +view of the field. He has probably developed his own distinctive style +and personality at the expense of artistic catholicity and kindly +breadth of critical judgment. The creative and the critical faculties +are usually as distinct and as mutually exclusive spheres as that of +the impassioned, partisan lawyer and the cool, impartial judge. + +To whom, then, should the decision be left? It should, in my opinion, +be left to a real _judge_--to some broad, keen critic of poetry with a +clear, unbiased contemporary view of the whole domain of the art. It +matters not whether he is professional or amateur, so he is untouched +by academicism and has not done so much reading or writing as to +impair his mental digestion and his clarity of vision. Care, of +course, would have to be used in safeguarding the critic-judge against +undue pressure in favor of this candidate or that; and in safeguarding +the incumbent of the fellowship from yet more insidious influences. +For the apparently liberated poet would merely have exchanged prisons +if he learned that the founder of the fellowship wished to dictate +what sort of poetry he should write. + +The idea of poetry fellowships is not as novel as it perhaps may +sound. It is no mere empirical theory. Americans ought to be proud to +know that, in a modest way, it has recently been tried here, and is +proving a success. I am told that already two masters of poetry have +been presented to us as free workers in their art by two Boston +philanthropists, and have been enabled to accomplish some of their +best work through such fellowships as are here advocated. This fact +should put cities like New York, Pittsburg, and Chicago on their +mettle. For they must realize that Boston, with her quiet, +slow-moving, Old-World pace, has not done to poetry a tithe of the +harm that her more energetic neighbors have, and should therefore not +be suffered to bear the entire brunt of the expiation. + +Men say that money cannot buy a joyful heart. But next to writing a +great poem, I can scarcely imagine a greater happiness than to know +that a thousand of my dollars had enabled an imprisoned genius to +shake from his shoes the dust of a city office and go for a year to +"God's outdoors," there to free his system of some of the beauty that +had chokingly accumulated there until it had grown an almost +intolerable pain. What joy to know that my fellowship had given men +the modern New World "Hyperion," or "Prelude," or "Ring and the Book"! +And even if that whole year resulted in nothing more than a "Skylark," +or a "Rabbi Ben Ezra," or a "Crossing the Bar"--could one possibly +consider such a result in the same thought-wave with dollars and +cents? + +But this thousand dollars might do something even better than help +produce counterparts of famous poems created in other times and lands. +It might actually secure the inestimable boon of a year's leisure, a +procession of peaceful vistas, and a brimming cup for one of that "new +brood" of "poets to come" which Walt Whitman so confidently counted +upon to 'justify him and answer what he was for.' This handful of gold +might make it possible for one of these new poets to come into his +own, and ours, at once, and in his own person accomplish that fusion, +so devoutly to be wished, of those diverse factors of the greatest +poetry which have existed among us thus far only in awful +isolation--the possession of this one and that of our chief singers. + +How fervently we poetry-lovers wish that one of the captains of +industry would feel impelled to put his hand into his pocket--if only +into his watch-pocket--or adorn his last testament with a modest +codicil! It would be such poetic justice if one of those who have +prospered through the very speeding-up process which has so seriously +crippled our poetry, should devote to its service a small tithe of +what he has won from poetry's loss--and thus hasten our renaissance of +singers, and bring a new dawn, 'brighter than before known,' out of +the dusk of the poets. + + + + +IX + +THE JOYOUS MISSION OF MECHANICAL MUSIC + + +I wonder if any other invention has ever, in such a brief time, made +so many joyful hearts as the invention of mechanical music. It has +brought light, peace, gladness, and the gift of self-expression to +every third or fourth flat, villa, and lonely farmhouse in the land. +Its voice has literally gone out through all the earth, and with a +swiftness more like that of light than of sound. + +Only yesterday we were marveling at the discovery of the larger +magazine audience. Until then we had never dreamed of addressing +millions of fellow creatures at one time, as the popular magazine now +does. Imagine the astonished delight of Plato or Cervantes, Poe or +Dickens, if they had been given in one week an audience equivalent in +number to five thousand readers a year for ten centuries! Dickens +would have called it, I think, "immortality-while-you-wait." Yet this +sort of immortality was recently placed at the immediate disposal of +the ordinary writer. + +The miracle was unique in history. But it did not long remain so. Not +content with raining this wonder upon us, history at once poured down +a greater. One morning we awoke to find a new and still vaster medium +of expression, a medium whose globe-girdling voice was to that of the +five-million reader magazine as the roar of Niagara to the roar of a +Philadelphia trolley-car. To-day, from wherever civilized man has +obtained even a temporary foothold, there arise without ceasing the +accents of mechanical music, which talk persuasively to all in a +language so universal that even the beasts understand it and cock +applauding ears at the sound of the master voice. So that, while the +magazine writers now address the million, the composers and singers +and players make their bows to the billion. + +Their omnipresence is astonishing. They are the last to bid you +farewell when you leave civilization. They are the first to greet you +on your return. When I canoed across the wild Allagash country, I was +sped from Moosehead Lake by Caruso, received with open arms at the +halfway house by the great-hearted Plancon, and welcomed to Fort Kent +by Sousa and his merry men. With Schumann-Heinck, Melba, and +Tetrazzini I once camped in the heart of the Sierras. When I persisted +to the uttermost secret corner of the Dolomites, I found myself +anticipated by Kreisler and his fiddle. They tell me that the portly +Victor Herbert has even penetrated with his daring orchestra through +darkest Africa and gone on to arrange a special benefit, in his home +town, for the dalai-lama of Tibet. + +One of the most promising things about mechanical music is this: No +matter what kind of music or quality of performance it offers you, +you presently long for something a little better--unless your +development has been arrested. It makes small difference in this +respect which one of the three main varieties of instrument you happen +to own. It may be the phonograph. It may be the kind of automatic +piano which accurately reproduces the performances of the master +pianists. It may be the piano-player which indulgently supplies you +with technic ready-made, and allows you to throw your own soul into +the music, whether you have ever taken lessons or not. Or it may be a +combination of the last two. The influence of these machines is +progressive. It stands for evolution rather than for devolution or +revolution. + +Often, however, the evolution seems to progress by sheer accident. +This is the way the accident is likely to happen. Jones is buying +records for the family phonograph. One may judge of his particular +stage of musical evolution by his purchases, which are: "Meet me in +St. Louis, Louis," "Dance of the Honey Bells," "Hello Central, Give me +Heaven," "Fashion Plate March," and "I Know that I'll be Happy when I +Die." He also notices in the catalogue a piece called "Tannhaeuser +March," and, after some hesitation, buys this as well, because the +name sounds so much like his favorite brand of beer that he suspects +it to be music of a convivial nature--a medley of drinking-songs, +perhaps. + +But that evening in the parlor it does not seem much like beer. When +the Mephisto Military Band strikes it up--far from seeming in the +least alcoholic, it exhilarates nobody. So Jones inters it in the +darkest corner of the music-cabinet. And the family devote themselves +to the cake-walks and comic medleys, the fandangoes and tangos, the +xylophone solos, the shakedowns and break-downs and the rags and +tatters of their collection until they have thoroughly exhausted the +delights thereof. Then, having had time to forget somewhat the +flatness of "Tannhaeuser," and for want of anything better to do, they +take out the despised record, dust it, and insert it into the machine. +But this time, curiously enough, the thing does not sound quite so +flat. After repeated playings, it even begins to rival the "Fashion +Plate March" in its appeal. And it keeps on growing in grace until +within a year the "Fashion Plate March" is as obsolete as fashion +plates have a habit of growing within a year, while "Tannhaeuser" has +won the distinction of being the best-wearing record in the cabinet. + +Then it begins to occur to the Jones family that there must be two +kinds of musical food: candy and staples. Candy, like the "Fashion +Plate March," tastes wonderfully sweet to the unsophisticated palate +as it goes down; but it is easy to take too much. And the cheaper the +candy, the swifter the consequent revulsion of feeling. As for the +staples, there is nothing very piquant about their flavor; but if they +are of first quality, and if one keeps his appetite healthy, one +seems to enjoy them more and more and to thrive on them three times a +day. + +Accordingly, Jones is commissioned, when next he visits the +music-store, to get a few more records like "Tannhaeuser." On this +occasion, he may even be rash enough to experiment with a Schubert +march, or a Weber overture, or one of the more popular movements of a +Beethoven sonata. And so the train of evolution will rush onward, +bearing the Joneses with it until fashion-plate marches are things of +the misty, backward horizon, and the family has, by little and little, +come to know and love the whole blessed field of classical music. And +they have found that the word "classical" is not a synonym for +dry-rot, but that it simply means the music that wears best. + +However the glorious mistake may occur, it is being made by someone +every hour. By such hooks and crooks as these, good music is finding +its way into more and more homes. Although its true "classical" +nature is detected at the first trial, it is not thrown away, because +it cost good money. It is put away and bides its time; and some day +the surprising fact that it has wearing qualities is bound to be +discovered. To those who believe in the law of musical evolution, and +who realize that mechanical music has reached the wide world, and is +even beginning to penetrate into the public library, the possibility +of these happy accidents means a sure and swift general development in +the appreciation of the best music. + +Those who know that man's musical taste tends to grow better and not +worse, know also that _any_ music is better than no music. A +mechanical instrument which goes is better than a new concert grand +piano that remains shut. + +"Canned music may not be the highest form of art," the enthusiast will +say with a needless air of half apology, half defiance, "but I enjoy +it no end." And then he will go on to tell how the parlor melodeon +had gathered dust for years until it was given in part exchange for a +piano-player. And now the thing is the joy of the family, and the home +is filled with color and effervescence, and every one's head is filled +with at least a rudiment of living, growing musical culture. + +The fact is, the piano-player is turning thousands of supposedly +humdrum, prosaic people into musical enthusiasts, to their own immense +surprise. Many of these people are actually taking lessons in the +subtle art of manipulating the machine. They are spending more money +than they can afford on vast collections of rolls. They are going more +and more to every important concert for hints on interpretation. +Better still, the most musical among them are being piqued, by the +combined merits and defects of the machine, into learning to play an +_un_mechanical instrument for the joy of feeling less mechanism +interposed between themselves and "the real thing." + +Machinery has already done as much for the true spirit of music as the +"safe and sane" movement has done for the true spirit of the Fourth of +July. Both have shifted the emphasis from brute noise and fireworks to +more spiritual considerations. The piano-player has done a great deal +to cheapen the glamour of mere technical display on the part of the +virtuosi and to redeem us from the thralldom of the school of Liszt. +Our admiration for musical gymnastics and tight-rope balancing is now +leaking away so fast through the perforations of the paper rolls that +the kind of display-piece known as the concerto is going out of +fashion. The only sort of concerto destined to keep our favor is, I +imagine, that of the Schumann or Brahms type, which depends for its +effect not at all on display, but on sound musicianship alone. The +virtuoso is destined soon to leave the circus business and bid a long +farewell to his late colleagues, the sword-swallower, the trapeze +artist, the strong man, the fat lady, the contortionist, and the +gentleman who conducts the shell-and-pea game. For presently the only +thing that will be able to entice people to concerts will be the soul +of music. Its body will be a perfectly commonplace affair. + +Many a good musician fears, I know, that machine-made music will not +stop with annihilating vulgar display, but will do to death all +professional music as well. This fear is groundless. Mechanical +instruments will no more drive the good pianist or violinist or +'cellist out of his profession than the public library, as many once +feared, will drive the bookseller out of business. For the library, +after persuading people to read, has taught them how much pleasure may +be had from owning a book, with the privilege of marking it and +scribbling one's own ideas on the margins, and not having to rush it +back to headquarters at inopportune moments and pay to a stern young +woman a fine of eight cents. Likewise people are eventually led to +realize that the joy of passively absorbing the product of phonograph +or electric piano contrasts with the higher joy of listening +creatively to music which the hearer helps to make, in the same way +that borrowing a book of Browning contrasts with owning a book of +Browning. I believe that, just as the libraries are yearly educating +hosts of book-buyers, so mechanical music is cooeperating with +evolution to swell the noble army of those who support concerts and +give private musicales. + +Of course there is no denying that the existence of music-making +machinery has a certain relaxing effect on some of the less talented +followers of the muse of strumming, scraping, screeching, and +blatting. This is because the soul of music is not in them. And in +striving to reproduce its body, they perceive how hopeless it is to +compete with the physical perfection of the manufactured product. In +like manner, the invention of canned meats doubtless discouraged many +minor cooks from further struggles with their craft. But these +losses, I, for one, cannot bring myself to mourn. + +What seems a sounder complaint is that the phonograph, because it +reproduces with equal readiness music and the spoken word, may become +an effective instrument of satire in the hands of the clever +philistine. Let me illustrate. To the Jones collection of records, +shortly after "Tannhaeuser" began to win its way, there was added a +reactionary "comic" record entitled "Maggie Clancy's New Piano." In +the record Maggie begins playing "Tannhaeuser" very creditably on her +new instrument. Presently the voice of old Clancy is heard from +another room calling, "Maggie!" The music goes on. There is a +_crescendo_ series of calls. The piano stops. + +"Yes, Father?" + +"Maggie, is the new pianny broke?" + +"No, Father; I was merely playing Wagner." + +Old Clancy meditates a moment; then, with a gentleness of touch that +might turn a New York music critic green with envy, he replies: "Oh, +I thought ye wuz shovelin' coal in the parlor stove." + +Records like these have power to retard and roughen the otherwise +smooth course of a family's musical evolution; but they are usually +unable to arrest it. In general I think that such satires may fortify +the elder generation in its conservative mistrust of classical music. +But if they are only heard often enough by the young, I believe that +the sympathies of the latter will end in chiming with the taste of the +enlightened Maggie rather than with that of her father. + +Until recently a graver charge against the phonograph has been that it +was so much better adapted for reproducing song than pure instrumental +music that it was tending to identify the art of music in the minds of +most men with song alone. This tendency was dangerous. For song is not +all of music, nor even its most important part. The voice is naturally +more limited in range, technic, and variety of color than many +another instrument. And it is artificially handicapped by the rather +absurd custom which forces the singer to drag in poetry (much to the +latter's disadvantage), and therewith distract his own attention and +that of his audience from the music. + +The fact remains that one art at a time is none too easy for even the +most perfect medium of expression to cope with. To make a somewhat +less than perfect instrument like the human voice, cope always with +two simultaneously is an indication that the young art of music has +not yet emerged from its teens. This is one reason why most song is as +yet so intrinsically unmusical. Its reach is, as a rule, forced to +exceed its grasp. Also the accident of having a fine voice usually +determines a singer's career, though a perfect vocal organ does not +necessarily imply a musical nature. The best voices, in fact, often +belong, by some contrariety of fate, to the worst musicians. For these +and other reasons, there is less of the true spirit of music to be +heard from vocal cords than from the cords and reeds and brazen tubes +of piano, organ, string quartet, and orchestra. Thus, when the +phonograph threatened to identify song with music in general, it +threatened to give the art a setback and make the singer the +arch-enemy of the wider musical culture. Fortunately the phonograph +now gives promise of averting this peril by bringing up its +reproduction of absolute music near to its vocal standard. + +Another charge against most machine-made music is its unhuman +accuracy. The phonograph companies seldom give out a record which is +not practically perfect in technic and intonation. As for the +mechanical piano, there is no escape from the certainty of just what +notes are coming next--that is, if little Johnnie has not been editing +the paper record with his father's leather-punch. Therefore one grows +after a while to long for a few of those deviations from mathematical +precision which imply human frailty and lovableness. One reason why +the future is veiled from us is that it is so painful to be certain +that one's every prediction is coming true. + +A worse trouble with the phonograph is that it seems to leave out of +account that essential part of every true musical performance, the +creative listener. A great many phonograph records sound as though the +recorder had been performing to an audience no more spiritually +resonant than the four walls of a factory. I think that the makers of +another kind of mechanical instrument must have realized this +oversight on the part of the phonograph manufacturer. I mean the sort +of electric piano which faithfully reproduces every _nuance_ of the +master pianists. Many of the records of this marvelous instrument +sound as though the recording-room of the factory had been "papered" +with creative listeners who cooeperated mightily with the master on the +stage. Would that the phonographers might take the hint! + +But no matter how effectively the creative listener originally +cooeperates with the maker of this kind of record, the electric piano +does not appeal as strongly to the creative listener in his home as +does the less perfect but more impressionable piano-player, which +responds like a cycle to pedal and brake. For the records of the +phonograph and of the electric piano, once they are made, are made. +Thereafter they are as insensible to influence as the laws of the +Medes and Persians. They do not admit the audience to an active, +influential part in the performance. But such a part in the +performance is exactly what the true listener demands as his +democratic right. And rather than be balked of it, he turns to the +less sophisticated mechanism of the piano-player. This, at least, +responds to his control. + +Undeniably, though, even the warmest enthusiasts for the piano-player +come in time to realize that their machine has distinct limitations; +that it is better suited to certain pieces than to others. They find +that music may be performed on it with the more triumphant success +the less human it is and the nearer it comes to the soullessness of an +arabesque. The best operator, by pumping or pulling stops or switching +levers, cannot entirely succeed in imbuing it with the breath of life. +The disquieting fact remains that the more a certain piece demands to +be filled with soul, the thinner and more ghost-like it comes forth. +The less intimately human the music, the more satisfactorily it +emerges. For example, the performer is stirred by the "Tannhaeuser +March," as rendered by himself, with its flourish of trumpets and its +general hurrah-boys. But he is unmoved by the apostrophe to the +"Evening Star" from the same opera. For this, in passing through the +piano-player, is almost reduced to a frigid astronomical basis. The +singer is no longer Scotti or Bispham, but Herschel or Laplace. The +operator may pump and switch until he breaks his heart--but if he has +any real musical instinct, he will surely grow to feel a sense of lack +in this sort of music. So for the present, while confidently awaiting +the invention of an improved piano-player, which shall give equally +free expression to every mood and tense of the human spirit--the +operator learns to avoid the very soulful things as much as is +practicable. + +At this stage of his development he usually begins to crave that +supreme kind of music which demands a perfect balance of the +intellectual, the sensuous, and the emotional. So he goes more often +to concerts where such music is given. Saturated with it, he returns +to his piano-player and plays the concert all over again. And his +imagination is now so full of the emotional side of what he has just +heard and is re-hearing, that he easily discounts the obvious +shortcomings of the mechanical instrument. This is an excellent way of +getting the most from music. One should not, as many do, take it from +the piano-player before the concert and then go with its somewhat +stereotyped accents so fixed in the mind as to obscure the heart of +the performance. Rather, in preparation, let the score be silently +glanced through. Leave wide the doors of the soul for the precious +spiritual part of the music to enter in and take possession. After +this happens, use mechanical music to renew your memories of the +concert, just as you would use a catalogue illustrated with etchings +in black and white, to renew your memory of an exhibition of +paintings. + + * * * * * + +The supreme mission of mechanical music is its direct educational +mission. By this I mean something more than its educational mission to +the many thousands of grown men and women whose latent interest in +music it is suddenly awakening. I have in mind the girls and boys of +the rising generation. If people can only hear enough good music when +they are young, without having it forcibly fed to them, they are +almost sure to care for it when they come to years of discretion. The +reason why America is not more musical is that we men and women of +to-day did not yesterday, as children, hear enough good music. Our +parents probably could not afford it. It was then a luxury, implying +expensive concert tickets or an elaborate musical training for someone +in the family. + +The invention of mechanical instruments ended this state of affairs +forever by suddenly making the best music as inexpensive as the worst. +There exists no longer any financial reason why most children should +not grow up in an atmosphere of the best music. And I believe that so +soon as parents learn how to educate their children through the +phonograph or the mechanical piano, the world will realize with a +start that the invention of these things is doing more for musical +culture than the invention of printing did for literary culture. + +We must bear in mind, however, that the invention of mechanical +instruments has come far earlier in the history of music than the +invention of printing came in the history of literature. Music is the +youngest of the fine arts. It is in somewhat the same stage of +development to-day that literature was in the time of Homer. It is in +the age of oral--and aural--tradition. Most people still take in music +through their ears alone. For all that the invention of note-printing +means to them as enjoyers of music, they might almost as well be +living aeons before Gutenberg. Musically speaking, they belong to the +Homeric age. + +Now the entrance of mechanical music upon the scene is making men +depend on their ears more than ever. It is intensifying and speeding +up this age of oral tradition. But in so doing, I believe that it is +bound to shorten this age also, on the principle that the faster you +go the sooner you arrive. Thus, machinery is hastening us toward the +time when the person of ordinary culture will no more depend on his +ears alone for the enjoyment of music than he now depends on his ears +alone for the enjoyment of Shakespeare. + +Thanks to machine-made music, the day is coming the sooner when we +shall behold, as neighbors in the ordinary bookcase, such pairs of +counterparts as Milton and Bach, Beethoven and Shakespeare, Loeffler +and Maeterlinck, Byron and Tschaikowsky, Mendelssohn and Longfellow, +Nietzsche and Richard Strauss. Browning will stand up cheek by jowl +with his one true affinity, Brahms. And the owner will sit by the +quiet hearth reading to himself with equal fluency and joy from +Schubert and Keats. + + + + +X + +MASTERS BY PROXY + + _It is only in a surrounding of personalities that + personalities can as such make themselves seen and heard._ + +HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN. + + +Between many of my readers and the joyful heart there seems to stand +but a single obstacle--their lack of creativeness. They feel that they +could live and die happy if only they might become responsible for the +creation of something which would remain to bless mankind after they +are gone. But as it is, how can they have the joyful heart when they +are continually being tortured by regret because God did not make +masters of them? + +One is sad because he is not a master of poetry. He never sees A, his +golden-tongued friend, without a pang very like the envy of a +childless man for a happy father. But he has no suspicion that he is +partly responsible for A's poetic excellence. Another thinks her life +a mistake because the Master of all good workmen did not make her a +sculptor. Yet all the while she is lavishing unawares upon her brother +or son or husband the very stuff that art is made of. Others are +inconsolable because no fairy wand at their birth destined them for +men of original action, for discoverers in science, pianists, +statesmen, or actors; for painters, philosophers, inventors, or +architects of temples or of religions. + +Now my task in this last chapter is a more delightful one than if I +were the usual solicitor of fiction, come to inform the +poor-but-honest newsboy that he is a royal duke. It is my privilege to +comfort many of the comfortless by revealing to them how and why they +are--or may be--masters of an art as indispensable as the arts which +they now regard so wistfully. I mean the art of master-making--the art +of being a master by proxy. + +To be specific, let us single out one of the arts and see what it +means to master it by proxy. Suppose we consider the simple case of +executive music. In a book called "The Musical Amateur" I have tried +to prove (more fully than is here possible) that the reproduction of +music is a social act. It needs two: one to perform, one to +appreciate. Both are almost equally essential to a good performance. +The man who appreciates a musical phrase unconsciously imitates it +with almost imperceptible contractions of throat or lips. These +contractions represent an incipient singing or whistling. Motions +similar to these, and probably more fully developed, are made at the +same time by his mind and his spirit. The whole man actually feels his +way, physically and psychically, into the heart of the music. He is +turned into a sentient sounding-board which adds its own contribution +of emotion to the music and sends it back by wireless telegraphy to +the performer. When a violinist and a listener of the right sort meet +for musical purposes, this is what happens. The violinist happens to +be in the mood for playing. This means that he has feelings which +demand expression. These his bow releases. The music strikes the +listener, sets him in vibration as if he were a sounding-board, and +rouses in him feelings similar to those of the violinist. Enriched by +this new contribution, the emotional complex resounds back to the +violinist, intensifying his original "feeling-state." In its +heightened form it then recoils back to the appreciator, "and so on, +back and forth, growing in stimulating power at each recoil. The whole +process is something like a hot 'rally' in tennis, with the opponents +closing in on each other and the ball shuttling across the net faster +with every stroke as the point gains in excitement and pleasure. +'Social resonance' might be a good way of describing the thing." This, +briefly told, is what passes between the player of music and his +creative listener. + +In application this principle does not by any means stop with +performing or composing music or with the fine arts. It goes on to +embrace more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in the +fiddler's or in any other artist's philosophy. Perhaps it is not too +much to say that no great passion or action has ever had itself +adequately expressed without the cooeperation of this social resonance, +without the help of at least one of those modest, unrecognized +partners of genius, the social resonators, the masters by proxy. + +Thanks, dear master-makers unawares! The gratitude of the few who +understand you is no less sincere because you do not yet realize your +own thankworthiness. Our children shall rise up and call you blessed. +For in your quiet way, you have helped to create the world's +creators--the preachers, prophets, captains, artists, discoverers, and +seers of the ages. To these, you, unrecognized and unawares, have been +providing the very sinews of peace, vision, war, beauty, originality, +and insight. + +What made the game of art so brilliant in the age of Pericles? It was +not star playing by individuals. It was steady, consistent team-work +by the many. Almost every one of the Athenians who were not masters +were masters by proxy. In "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century" +Chamberlain holds that Greek culture derived its incomparable charm +from "a peculiar harmony of greatness"; and that "if our poets are not +in every respect equal to the greatest poets of Athens, that is not +the fault of their talent, but of those who surround them." Only +imagine the joyful ease of being a poet in the Periclean atmosphere! +It must have been as exhilarating as coasting down into the Yosemite +Valley with John Muir on an avalanche of snow. + +But even in that enlightened age the master received all the credit +for every achievement, and his creative appreciator none at all. And +so it has been ever since that particular amoeba which was destined +for manhood had a purse made up for him and was helped upon the train +of evolution by his less fortunate and more self-effacing friends who +were destined to remain amoebae; because the master by proxy is such +a retiring, unspectacular sort of person that he has never caught the +popular imagination or found any one to sing his praises. But if he +should ever resent this neglect and go on strike, we should realize +that without him progress is impossible. For the real lords of +creation are not always the apparent lords. We should bear in mind +that the most important part of many a throne is not the red velvet +seat, the back of cloth of gold, or the onyx arms that so sumptuously +accommodate the awe and majesty of acknowledged kings. Neither is it +the seed-pearl canopy that intercepts a too searching light from +majesty's complexion. It is a certain little filigreed hole in the +throne-back which falls conveniently close to the sovereign's ear when +he leans back between the periods of the wise, beauteous, and +thrilling address to his subjects. + +For doubled up in a dark, close box behind the chair of state is a +humble, drab individual who, from time to time, applies his mouth to +the wrong side of the filigreed hole and whispers things. If he were +visible at all, he would look like the absurd prompter under the hood +at the opera. He is not a famous person. Most people are so ignorant +of his very existence that he might be pardoned for being an agnostic +about it himself. The few others know little and care less. Only two +or three of the royal family are aware of his name and real function. +They refer to him as M. Power-Behind-the-Throne, Master-by-Proxy of +State. + +There is one sign by which masters by proxy may be detected wherever +met. They are people whose presence is instantly invigorating. Before +you can make out the color of their eyes you begin to feel that you +are greater than you know. It is as if they wore diffused about them +auras so extensive and powerful that entering these auras was +equivalent to giving your soul electric massage. You do not have to +touch the hem of their garments nor even see them. The auras penetrate +a brick wall as a razor penetrates Swiss cheese. And if you are +fortunate enough to be on the other side of the partition, you become +aware with a thrill that "virtue," in the beautiful, Biblical sense of +the word, has gone out of somebody and into you. + +If ever I return to live in a city apartment (which may the gods +forfend!) I shall this time select the apartment with almost sole +reference to what comes through the walls. I shall enter one of those +typical New York piles which O. Henry described as "paved with Parian +marble in the entrance-hall, and cobblestones above the first floor," +and my inquiry will be focused on things far other than Parian marble +and cobblestones. I shall walk about the rooms and up and down the +bowling-alleys of halls trying to make myself as sensitive to +impressions as are the arms of the divining-rod man during his solemn +parade with the wand of witch-hazel. And when I feel "virtue" from the +next apartment streaming through the partition, there will I instantly +give battle to the agent and take up my abode. And this though it be +up six flights of cobblestones, without elevator, without closet-room, +with a paranoiac for janitor, and radiators whose musical performance +all the day long would make a Cleveland boiler factory pale with envy. +For none of these things would begin to offset the privilege of living +beside a red-letter wall whose influence should be as benignly +constructive as Richard Washburn Child's "Blue Wall" was malignly +destructive. + +To-day I should undoubtedly be much more of a person if I had once had +the pleasure of living a wall away from Richard Watson Gilder. He was +a true master by proxy. For he was a vastly more creative person than +his published writings will ever accredit him with being. Not only +with his pen, but also with his whole self he went about doing good. +"Virtue" fairly streamed from him all the time. Those bowed shoulders +and deep-set, kindly eyes would emerge from the inner sanctum of the +"Century" office. In three short sentences he would reject the story +which had cost you two years of labor and travail. But all the time +the fatal words were getting themselves uttered, so much "virtue" was +passing from him into you that you would turn from his presence +exhilarated, uplifted, and while treading higher levels for the next +week, would produce a check-bearing tale. The check, however, would +not bring you a tithe of the "virtue" that the great editor's personal +rebuff had brought. + +But more than to any editor, writers look to their readers for +support, especially to their unknown correspondents--postal and +psychic. Leonard Merrick has so finely expressed the attitude of many +writers that I cannot forbear giving his words to his "public": + + I have thought of you so often and wanted to win a smile + from you; you don't realize how I have longed to meet + you--to listen to you, to have you lift the veil that hides + your mind from me. Sometimes in a crowd I have fancied I + caught a glimpse of you; I can't explain--the poise of the + head, a look in the eyes, there was something that hinted it + was You. And in a whirlwind of an instant it almost seemed + that you would recognize me; but you said no word--you + passed, a secret from me still. To yourself where you are + sitting you are just a charming woman with "a local + habitation and a name"; but to me you are not Miss or Madam, + not M. or N.--you are a Power, and I have sought you by a + name you have not heard--you are my Public. And O my Lady, I + am speaking to you! I feel your presence in my senses, + though you are far away and I can't hear your answer.... It + is as if I had touched your hand across the page. + +There are probably more masters by proxy to be found among the world's +mothers than in any other class. The profession of motherhood is such +a creative one, and demands so constant an outgo of unselfish +sympathy, that a mother's technic as silent partner is usually kept in +a highly efficient state. And occasionally a mother of a genius +deserves as much credit for him spiritually as physically. Think of +Frau Goethe, for example. + +Many a genius attains a commanding position largely through the happy +chance of meeting many powerful masters by proxy and through his happy +facility for taking and using whatever creativeness these have to +offer. Genius has been short-sightedly defined as "an infinite +capacity for taking pains." Galton more truthfully holds that the +triune factors of genius are industry, enthusiasm, and ability. Now if +we were to insist, as so many do, on making a definition out of a +single one of these factors to the neglect of the others, we should +come perhaps nearer the mark by saying that genius is an infinite +capacity for taking others' pains. But all such definings are absurd. +For the genius absorbs and alchemizes not only the industry of his +silent partners, but also their ability and enthusiasm. Their +enthusiasm is fortunately contained in a receptacle as generous as +Philemon's famous pitcher. And the harder the genius tries to pour it +empty, the more the sparkling liquid bubbles up inside. The +transaction is like "the quality of mercy"-- + + "It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." + +The ability to receive as well as give this sort of help varies widely +with the individual. Some geniuses of large psychic power are able +instantly to seize out of any crowd whatever creativeness there is in +it. These persons are spiritual giants. Their strength is as the +strength of ten because their grasp is sure. They are such stuff as +Shakespeares are made of. + +Others are not psychically gifted. They can absorb creativeness only +from their nearest and dearest, in the most favoring environment, and +only after the current has been seriously depleted by wastage in +transmission. But these are the two extremes. They are as rare as +extremes usually are. + +In general I believe that genius, though normally capable of drawing +creativeness from a number of different sources, has as a rule +depended largely on the collaboration of one chief master by proxy. +This idea gazes wide-eyed down a fascinating vista of speculation. +Who, for instance, was Lincoln's silent partner? the power behind the +throne of Charlemagne? Buddha's better self? Who were the secret +commanders of Grant, Wellington, and Caesar? Who was Moliere's hidden +prompter? the conductor of the orchestra called Beethoven? the psychic +comrade of Columbus? + +I do not know. For history has never commemorated, as such, the +masters by proxy with honor due, or indeed with any honor or +remembrance at all. It will take centuries to explore the past with +the sympathetic eye and the understanding heart in order to discover +what great tombs we have most flagrantly neglected. + +Already we can single out a few of them. The time is coming when +music-lovers will never make a pilgrimage to the resting-place of +Wagner without making another to the grave of Mathilde Wesendonk, +whose "virtue" breathed into "Tristan and Isolde" the breath of life. +We shall not much longer neglect the tomb of Charles Darwin's father, +who, by making the evolutionist financially independent, gave his +services to the world. Nor shall we disregard the memory of that other +Charles-Darwin-by-proxy--his wife. For her tireless comradeship and +devotion and freely lavished vitality were an indispensable reservoir +of strength to the great invalid. Without it the world would never +have had the "Origin of Species" or the "Descent of Man." + +Other instances throng to mind. I have small doubt that Charles Eliot +Norton was the silent partner of Carlyle, Ruskin, and Lowell; Ste. +Clare of Francis of Assisi; Joachim and Billroth of Brahms, and +Dorothy Wordsworth of William. By a pleasant coincidence, I had no +sooner noted down the last of these names than I came upon this +sentence in Sarah Orne Jewett's Letters: "How much that we call +Wordsworth himself was Dorothy to begin with." And soon after, I found +these words in a letter which Brahms sent Joachim with the score of +his second "Serenade": "Care for the piece a little, dear friend; it +is very much yours and sounds of you. Whence comes it, anyway, that +music sounds so friendly, if it is not the doing of the one or two +people whom one loves as I love you?" The impressionable Charles Lamb +must have had many such partners besides his sister Mary. Hazlitt +wrote: "He is one of those of whom it may be said, 'Tell me your +company, and I'll tell you your manners.' He is the creature of +sympathy, and makes good whatever opinion you seem to entertain of +him." + +Perhaps the most creative master by proxy I have ever known was the +wife of one of our ex-Presidents. To call upon her was to experience +the elevation and mental unlimbering of three or four glasses of +champagne, with none of that liquid's less desirable after-effects. I +should not wonder if her eminent husband's success were not due as +much to her creativeness as to his own. + +It sometimes happens that the most potent masters in their own right +are also the most potent masters by proxy. They grind out more power +than they can consume in their own particular mill-of-the-gods. I am +inclined to think that Sir Humphry Davy was one of these. He was the +discoverer of chlorine and laughing-gas, and the inventor of the +miner's safety lamp. He was also the _deus ex machina_ who rescued +Faraday from the bookbinder's bench, made him the companion of his +travels, and incidentally poured out the overplus of his own creative +energy upon the youth who has recently been called "perhaps the most +remarkable discoverer of the nineteenth century." Schiller was another +of these. "In more senses than one your sympathy is fruitful," wrote +Goethe to him during the composition of "Faust." + +Indeed, the greatest Master known to history was first and foremost a +master by proxy. It was He who declared that we all are "members one +of another." Writing nothing Himself, He inspired others to write +thousands of immortal books. He was unskilled as painter, or sculptor, +or architect; yet the greatest canvases, marbles, and cathedrals since +He trod the earth have sprung directly from his influence. He was no +musician. + + "His song was only living aloud." + +But that silent song was the direct inspiration of much of the +sublimest music of the centuries to come. And so we might go on and on +about this Master of all vicarious masters. + +Yet it is a strange and touching thing to note that even his exuberant +creativeness sometimes needed the refreshment of silent partners. When +He was at last to perform a great action in his own right He looked +about for support and found a master by proxy in Mary, the sister of +the practical Martha. But when He turned for help in uttermost need +to his best-beloved disciples He found them only negative, destructive +influences. This accounts for the anguish of his reproach: "Could ye +not watch with me one hour?" + +Having never been properly recognized as such, the world's masters by +proxy have never yet been suitably rewarded. Now the world is +convinced that its acknowledged masters deserve more of a feast at +life's surprise party than they can bring along for themselves in +their own baskets. So the world bows them to the places of honor at +the banquet board. True, the invitation sometimes comes so late that +the master has long since devoured everything in his basket and is +dead of starvation. But that makes not the slightest difference to +humanity, which will take no refusal, and props the cynically amused +skeleton up at the board next the toastmaster. My point is, however, +that humanity is often forehanded enough with its invitations to give +the masters a charming time of it before they, too, into the dust +descend, _sans_ wine, _sans_ song, etc. But I do not know that it has +ever yet consciously bidden a master by proxy--as such--to the feast. +And I contend that if a man's deserts are to be measured at all by his +creativeness, then the great masters by proxy deserve seats well up +above the salt. + +For is it any less praiseworthy to make a master than to make a +masterpiece? I grant that the masterpiece is the more sudden and +dramatic in appearing and can be made immediate use of, whereas the +master is slowly formed, and even then turns out unsatisfactory in +many ways. He is apt to be that well-known and inconvenient sort of +person who, when he comes in out of the rain to dress for his wedding, +abstractedly prepares to retire instead, and then, still more +abstractedly, puts his umbrella to bed and stands himself in the +corner. All the same, it is no less divine to create a master by slow, +laborious methods than to snatch a masterpiece apparently out of +nothing-at-all. In the eye of the evolutionist, man is not of any the +less value because he was made by painful degrees instead of having +been produced, a perfect gentleman, out of the void somewhat as the +magician brings forth from the empty saucepan an omelette, containing +a live pigeon with the loaned wedding-ring in its beak. + +The master-makers have long been expending their share of the power. +It is high time they were enjoying their share of the glory. What an +unconscionable leveling up and down there will presently be when it +dawns upon humanity what a large though inglorious share it has been +having in the spiritually creative work of the world! In that day the +seats of the mighty individualists of science, industry, politics, and +discovery; of religion and its ancient foe ecclesiasticism; of +economy, the arts and philosophy, will all be taken down a peg by the +same knowledge that shall exalt "them of low degree." + +I can imagine how angrily ruffled the sallow shade of Arthur +Schopenhauer will become at the dawn of this spiritual Commune. When +the first full notes of the soul's "Marseillaise" burst upon his +irritable eardrums, I can hear above them his savage snarl. I can see +his malignant expression as he is forced to divide his unearned +increment of fame with some of those _Mitmenschen_ whom he, like a bad +Samaritan, loved to lash with his tongue before pouring in oil of +vitriol and the sour wine of sadness. And how like red-ragged +turkey-cocks Lord Byron and Nietzsche and Napoleon will puff out when +required to stand and deliver some of their precious credit! + +There will be compensations, though, to the genius who, safely dead, +feels himself suddenly despoiled of a fullness of fame which he had +counted on enjoying in _saecula saeculorum_. When he comes to balance +things up, perhaps he will not, after all, find the net loss so +serious. Though he lose some credit for his successes, he will also +lose some discredit for his failures. Humanity will recognize that +while the good angels of genius are the masters by proxy, the bad +angels of genius exert an influence as negative and destructive as the +influence of the others is positive and constructive. + +How jolly it will be, for all but the bad angels, when we can assign +to them such failures as Browning's "The Inn Album"; Davy's contention +that iodine was not an element, and Luther's savage hounding of the +nobles upon the wretched peasants who had risen in revolt under his +own inspiration. But enough of the bad angels! Let us inter them with +this epitaph: "They did their worst; devils could do no more." + +Turn we to the bright side of the situation. How delighted Keats will +be when at last the world develops a little sense of proportion, and +after first neglecting and then over-praising him, finally proposes to +give poor old Severn his due as a master by proxy. Imagine Sir William +Herschel's pleasure when his beloved sister Caroline begins to +receive her full deserts. And Tschaikowsky will slough his morbidness +and improvise a Slavic Hallelujah Chorus when his unseen patroness +comes into her own. It is true that the world has already given her +memory two fingers and a perfunctory "thank ye." This was for putting +her purse at Tschaikowsky's disposal, thus making it possible for him +to write a few immortal compositions instead of teaching mortals the +piano in a maddening conservatory. But now, glory! hallelujah! the +world is soon going to render her honor long overdue for the spiritual +support which so ably reinforced the financial. + +And Sir Thomas More, that early socialist--imagine his elation! For he +will regard our desire to transfer some of his own credit to the man +in the pre-Elizabethan street as a sure sign that we are steadily +approaching the golden gates of his Utopia. For good Sir Thomas knows +that our view of heroes and hero-worship has always been too little +democratic. We have been over-inclined, with the aristocratic +Carlyle, to see all history as a procession of a few transcendent +masters surrounded, preceded, and followed by enormous herds of abject +and quite insignificant slaves. Between these slaves and the masters, +there is, in the old view, about as much similarity as exists in the +child's imagination between the overwhelming dose of castor oil and +the single pluperfect chocolate drop whereby the dose is supposed to +be made endurable. Already the idea is beginning to glimmer that +heroic stuff is far more evenly distributed throughout the throng than +we had supposed. + +It is, of course, very meet and very right and our bounden duty to +admire the world's standard, official heroes. But it is wrong to +revere them to the exclusion of folk less showy but perhaps no less +essential. It is almost as wrong as it would be for the judges at the +horse-show to put the dog-cart before the horse and then focus their +admiring glances so exclusively upon the vehicle that they forgot the +very existence of its patient and unself-conscious propeller. + +It is especially fitting that we should awake to the worth of the +master by proxy just now, when the movement for the socialization of +the world, after so many ineffectual centuries, is beginning to engage +the serious attention of mankind. Thus far, one of the chief +reactionary arguments against all men being free has been that men are +so shockingly unequal. And the reactionaries have called us to witness +the gulf that yawns, for example, between the god-like individualist, +Ysaye, and the worm-like little factory girl down there in the +audience balanced on the edge of the seat and listening to the +violin--her rapt soul sitting in her eyes. Now, however, we know that, +but for the wireless tribute of creativeness that flashes up to the +monarch of tone from that "rapt soul" and others as humble and as +rapt--the king of fiddlers would then and there be obliged to lay down +his horsehair scepter and abdicate. + +We have reached a stage of social evolution where it is high time that +one foolish old fallacy should share the fate of the now partially +discredited belief that "genius will out" in spite of man or devil. +This fallacy is the supposition that man's creativeness is to be +measured solely by its visible, audible, or tangible results. +Browning's old Rabbi made a shrewd commentary on this question when he +declared: + + "Not on the vulgar mass + Called 'work,' must sentence pass, + Things done that took the eye and had the price.... + But all the world's coarse thumb + And finger failed to plumb.... + Thoughts hardly to be packed + Into a narrow act, + Fancies that broke through language and escaped: + All I could never be, + All men ignored in me, + This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped." + +Yes, we are being slowly socialized, even to our way of regarding +genius; and this has been until now the last unchallenged stronghold +of individualism. We perceive that even there individualism must no +longer be allowed to have it all its own way. After a century we are +beginning to realize that the truth was in our first socially minded +English poet when he sang: + + "Nothing in the world is single, + All things by a law divine + In one another's being mingle." + +To-day we have in library, museum, gallery, and cathedral tangible +records of the creativeness of the world's masters. Soon I think we +are to possess--thanks to Edison and the cinematographers--intangible +records--or at least suggestions--of the modest creativeness of our +masters by proxy. Some day every son with this inspiring sort of +mother will have as complete means as science and his purse affords, +of perpetuating her voice, her changing look, her walk, her tender +smile. Thus he may keep at least a gleam of her essential creativeness +always at hand for help in the hour of need. + +I would give almost anything if I could have in a storage battery +beside me now some of the electric current that was forever flowing +out of my own mother, or out of Richard Watson Gilder, or out of Hayd +Sampson, a glorious old "inglorious Milton" of a master by proxy whom +I once found toiling in a small livery-stable in Minnesota. My faith +is firm that some such miracle will one day be performed. And in our +irreverent, Yankee way we may perhaps call the captured product of the +master by proxy--"canned virtue." In that event the twenty-first +centurion will no more think of setting out on a difficult task or for +a God-forsaken environment without a supply of "canned virtue" than of +starting for one of the poles equipped with only a pocketful of +pemmican. + +There is a grievous amount of latent master-making talent spoiling +to-day for want of development. Many an one feels creative energy +crying aloud within himself for vicarious spiritual expression. He +would be a master by proxy, yet is at a loss how to learn. Him I +would recommend to try learning the easiest form of the art. Let him +resolve to become a creative listener to music. Once he is able to +influence reproducers of art like pianists and singers, he can then +begin groping by analogy toward the more difficult art of influencing +directly the world's creators. But even if he finds himself quite +lacking in creativeness, he can still be a silent partner of genius if +he will relax purse-strings, or cause them to be relaxed, for the +founding of creative fellowships. + +I do not know if ever yet in the history of the planet the mighty +force which resides in the masters by proxy has been systematically +used. I am sure it has never been systematically conserved, and that +it is one of the least understood and least developed of earth's +natural resources. One of our next long steps forward should be along +this line of the conservation of "virtue." The last physical frontier +has practically been passed. Now let us turn to the undiscovered +continents of soul which have so long been awaiting their Columbuses +and Daniel Boones, their country-life commissions and conferences of +governors. + +When the hundredth part of you possible masters by proxy shall grow +aware of your possibilities, and take your light from under the +bushel, and use it to reinforce the flickering flame of talent at your +elbow, or to illumine the path of some unfortunate and stumbling +genius, or to heighten the brilliance of the consummate master--our +civilization will take a mighty step towards God. + +Try it, my masters! + +THE END + + * * * * * + + +By Robert Haven Schauffler + +THE JOYFUL HEART. +SCUM O' THE EARTH AND OTHER POEMS. +THE MUSICAL AMATEUR. + + * * * * * + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + + * * * * * + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Joyful Heart, by Robert Haven Schauffler + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOYFUL HEART *** + +***** This file should be named 19696.txt or 19696.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/9/19696/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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