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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/36085-8.txt b/36085-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..49688fa --- /dev/null +++ b/36085-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7606 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Turns about Town, by Robert Cortes Holliday + +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: Turns about Town + +Author: Robert Cortes Holliday + +Release Date: May 11, 2011 [EBook #36085] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURNS ABOUT TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +TURNS ABOUT TOWN + +ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY + + +By ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY + +TURNS ABOUT TOWN + +MEN AND BOOKS AND CITIES + +BROOME STREET STRAWS + +WALKING-STICK PAPERS + +PEEPS AT PEOPLE + +BOOTH TARKINGTON + +THE MEMOIR TO: + JOYCE KILMER: POEMS + ESSAYS AND LETTERS + + + + +TURNS ABOUT +TOWN + +BY + +ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY + +[Illustration: colophon] + +NEW YORK + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + +_Copyright, 1921, +By George H. Doran Company_ + +_Printed in the United States of America_ + + + + + CORRESPONDENCE + CONCERNING + THE + DEDICATION + OF THIS BOOK + TO JOHN BUNKER, ESQRE + + _The Players, + 16 Gramercy Park, + New York City, + June 10, 1921._ + + DEAR JOHN: + + I am, with your permission, dedicating to you a new book of + mine--that it, on condition that you help me read the proofs. The + book is to be called "Turns About Town." It will be published + sometime this autumn. + + _Ever yours,_ + BOB. + +_To: John Bunker, Esqre_ + + * * * * * + + _New York, + 521 West 148th Street, + June 12, 1921._ + + DEAR BOB: + + _You can't intimidate me by any such threat. On the contrary, I + think I shall be secretly (and tremendously) pleased. As for the + proofs, all I have to say is (in the words of the stage villain), + "Produce your proofs!"_ + + _Always, dear Bob, + Sincerely yours,_ + JOHN. + +_To: Robert Cortes Holliday, Esqre_ + + + + +FOREWORD + + +More than half of these pieces were syndicated in a number of American +newspapers by The Central Press Association of New York. Several others +of them originally appeared in _The Bookman_. "Literary Lives" has been +amplified since it was written for the New York _Times_ as a review of +the "Dictionary of National Biography," Second Supplement, Volumes II +and III. "Only She Was There" and "Former Tenant of His Room" are +reprinted from the New York _Evening Post_. "The Sexless Camera" was +contributed to a magazine called _The International_. "I Know an Editor" +was written at the invitation of a gentleman whose name I cannot recall, +and whether or not he ever used it in whatever publication it was with +which he was connected I do not know. + +I thank all these friends of mine for permitting me to here reprint +these articles. + +R. C. H. + +New York, 1921. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + +FOREWORD vii + +I THE HOTEL GUEST 13 + +II A HUMORIST MISFITS AT A MURDER TRIAL 28 + +III QUEER THING, 'BOUT UNDERTAKERS' SHOPS 36 + +IV THE HAIRCUT THAT WENT TO MY HEAD 46 + +V SEEING MR. CHESTERTON 55 + +VI WHEN IS A GREAT CITY A SMALL VILLAGE? 72 + +VII THE UNUSUALNESS OF PARISIAN PHILADELPHIA 81 + +VIII OUR LAST SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT AS A FINE ART 90 + +IX WRITING IN ROOMS 99 + +X TAKING THE AIR IN SAN FRANCISCO 115 + +XI BIDDING MR. CHESTERTON GOOD-BYE 124 + +XII NO SYSTEM AT ALL TO THE HUMAN SYSTEM 141 + +XIII SEEING THE "SITUATIONS WANTED" SCENE 151 + +XIV LITERARY LIVES 162 + +XV SO VERY THEATRICAL 173 + +XVI OUR STEEPLEJACK OF THE SEVEN ARTS 182 + +XVII FORMER TENANT OF HIS ROOM 196 + +XVIII ONLY SHE WAS THERE 205 + +XIX A HUMORIST'S NOTE-BOOK 216 + +XX INCLUDING STUDIES OF TRAFFIC "COPS" 228 + +XXI THREE WORDS ABOUT LITERATURE 236 + +XXII RECOLLECTIONS OF LANDLADIES 242 + +XXIII AN IDIOSYNCRASY 256 + +XXIV THE SEXLESS CAMERA 271 + +XXV I KNOW AN EDITOR 276 + +XXVI A DIP INTO THE UNDERWORLD 281 + +XXVII NOSING 'ROUND WASHINGTON 290 + +XXVIII FAME: A STORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 328 + + + + +TURNS ABOUT TOWN + + + + +TURNS ABOUT TOWN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE HOTEL GUEST + + +Some people just go to a hotel (sometimes referred to as "an hotel") and +stay awhile and go away again. And think nothing about the matter. + +Of course, some may complain more or less at the place about the +"service." Or swank round outside about the address, saying carelessly: +"Oh! yes: at the Blackstone, you know." Or again, if it's a rather +inexpensive place, remark to friends: "Isn't it a funny hole! But the +cuisine is excellent. You'd be surprised! That's why I stop there. And +then it's much more homey, too, than those garish places." + +Now I myself am a fan for hotels. + +If I was a rich man I'd do like an aristocratic and restless young man I +know, who used to go to one New York hotel about twelve at night (after +the evening's entertainment) and leave a call for ten in the morning, +when he would get up and drive to another hotel, check in, eat lunch and +dinner there, and move on to a third New York hotel that night. A +cheerful way he had of adding variety to his life. + +He was a highly agreeable youth, this chap. Always "wore" a +silver-headed cane. I'm sorry to have to say that he is now in jail. +Yep! You see, he had many attractive qualities, but dependability was +not a feature of his equipment. However, his is a resilient nature, and, +fortunately, he is an epicure by temperament. I was rather distressed, +myself, when I heard that he was in jail; and other of his friends that +I met also were decidedly disturbed about him. One day one of them got a +letter from him (it was in France, you know, that he was then in jail), +a bubbling, delightful letter (just like the youth), in which he +declared with much gusto that the jail he was in had the best menu of +any jail in France. + +But about hotels. Oh, yes! + +I always like those huge, brown-paper laundry bags they have hanging up, +pressed beautifully flat, in the rooms, closets or bathrooms of hotels. +You can't roll up your laundry all in one wad and thrust it into one of +these bags, because this would tear the bag. The way to do is to put in, +for instance, first your collars, then, say, your sox, follow perhaps +with your shirts, and so on. In hotels of the very first water, you have +observed, a neat little pocket is attached to the outside of the bag, +into which you have the fun of pinning your laundry slip, all +elaborately made out. + +Next thing, of course, is to get your laundry started on its way. And +here come up a view of the nice nuances of hotels. You gotta watch your +Ps and Qs in these matters or you're likely to get a black-eye at your +hotel. All right in a modest sort of place just to holler down the +telephone for a boy. Then you say to boy, waving hand toward objects: +"Laundry to go down, suit to be pressed, hat to be ironed, shoes to be +polished, letters to be mailed," and so forth. Boy gathers up +miscellaneous collection of articles and proceeds upon these divers +assignments. Presto! Nothing further to detain you. + +But suppose you have gone in for a little more class in the matter of +your hotel--Statler, or something like that. Then you find much more of +a ritual to life. To accomplish your existence requires thought, a clear +head--and time. You pay the penalty of the dignity of pomp and +circumstance. No large, off-hand, free and easy manner about sending up +a boy. The "operator" knows nothing of boys. In the matter of your +laundry you may request her to connect you with the "bell captain," +through whose agency (but not otherwise) a boy may be procured. One +message. In the matter of your suit you may request to be connected with +the "valet service." Message two. And so on. + +Then you sit you down and await the procession. Or, if you prefer, +contemplate the spectacle of life by looking out at the window. + +You fee Buttons. Lapse of time. + +Boots (as Dickens calls him) arrives--what probably here is a +porter--for shoes. Then you have an excellent opportunity (which may not +occur again during the day) for a slight period of philosophical +meditation, or to whistle a tune, before the valet appears. + +In such places as I am describing it is not etiquette at all (though it +may seem to you the simplest way of doing the thing) to call a bellboy +to get down your bag. The porter does that--and through the correct +channel, that is by way of the freight elevator. And, say, something +goes wrong with your ice-water pipe. You are not to outrage hotel +decency here. What is necessary for you to procure is a waiter. Waiters +attend to your inner wants. + +I like best the character of valet when he is English (either so by +birth, or this by self-cultivation); wears a skirt coat, immaculately +pressed, and a "buttonhole"; advances into the room in the attitude of a +bow, and comes to a pause in the pose of one listening with deep and +profoundly respectful attention to the haughty utterance of a stage +earl. Though, indeed, there is an element of disquiet in your being thus +elevated to the Peerage if, as with me, the suit you turn over to this +unexceptionable servitor is of Hirt, Snuffler and Muss manufacture, and +growing a trifle frail in the seat. + +The same thing is true of bath-rooms. I don't, of course, mean that +bath-rooms perform the valet act. But that the more aristocratic in +hotels you get the more likely you are, so to say, to get into hot water +in bath-rooms. Like this: + +If you get into a bathtub which is not quite the last word in bathtubs, +that is a bathtub which has legs and spigots to turn on the water, you +know where you are at all the while. You turn on the hot water in the +amount desired. It comes out of the hot water spout. As desired you turn +on the cold water. Out of the cold water spout comes it. + +But, as you know, the last word in bathtubs is not simple and democratic +like that. It is built onto the floor and has a clock-like dial on the +wall. Dial marked at different points: "Cold," "Medium," "Hot," "Off." +Turn little handle to regulate temperature and flow of water. All out of +same pipe. Yes--but--dial untruthful--very. "Off" scalds you; "Medium" +freezes you. Bad time trying to take last word in baths. + +"Tub or shower?" Maybe you say "shower." And draw one of those +police-court cells. Except the door, no opening in the little, square, +completely cement room but the small hole in the center of the floor +through which the water runs away. But that's not the way to look at it. +These little catacomb-like chambers are ęsthetic in their ascetic +character. You may entertain yourself by fancying that you are St. +Jerome, or somebody like that. In here nothing that it will hurt can +get wet, and you can have a fine time making the whole room a +merry-go-round of splashes. One disturbing thought may occur to you. If +the door should stick you might not be found until the hotel got worried +about your bill, when perhaps it would be too late. + +Still, I think the chummiest bath-rooms are those with a bay-window; +very reprehensible those which have no hooks on which to hang your +pajamas and razor strop. + +Then there are those hotels so far-seeing into the possibilities of evil +chance and so solicitous of your equanimity that they provide your pin +cushion with one suspender button. I suppose the thought is to impress +you with the idea that nothing for your comfort, even down to the +smallest detail, is forgotten. Still, though I do not know that such an +untoward incident ever happened, it is within the range of human +possibility that a man might be shorn of two suspender buttons at once. +If, further, the hotel management were co-ordinated with the gentlemen's +underwear business a safety pin would be served along with the suspender +button--in view of the singular fact that, until your wife has taken a +reef in them, all nether garments are much too great in girth for any +figure at all approximating normal. + +Working, however, as it does, with human material no hotel can get away +with perfection. For, as Dr. Johnson observed, "a fallible being will +fail somewhere." It was in San Francisco recently that three days were +required for me to recover a suit sent in the morning to be pressed by +that afternoon. This mischance was occasioned by three circumstances. To +wit: goblins (presumably) made away with the ticket attached to it; the +hotel tailor fell indisposed with (I hope) leprosy; and his assistant +had a slight mental infirmity, in other words he was seven times an +idiot. + +Reverse English in Los Angeles a few days later. When one night I found +neatly hung on the coat frame in my closet a suit of excellent material, +of fashionable design, and seemingly of virgin character. I reported the +matter to the third assistant manager. One criticism only I have to make +of that suit. It was too confoundedly tight. + +Then, of course, even at the best places (I almost think particularly in +the best places) you are likely any time to find under your door in the +morning a telephone message stamped "Rush," directing you to call +so-and-so "as soon as possible"--and dated 5:17-1/2 two days earlier. +Or, on coming in you are handed by the clerk a memorandum which states +that Mr. Cohan telephoned. Such matters, you reflect, are retrogressive. +If you are unacquainted with any gentleman of the name of Mr. Cohan, so +it may very well be that the guest here who is a friend of Mr. Cohan +received notice that _your_ friend Mr. Sloan telephoned. And there you +are! + +My friend Harry Heartydrop (who, I declare! looks rosier even than +before the middle of January, 1920) has adopted a hotel life altogether +of late. He explains to me that the advantage of this is the new +side-line activity of numerous compassionate bell captains, who, it +seems--but that would be telling. + +One of the pleasantest things, I think, about hotels is the "night maid +service" furnished at fashionable places. When you come in you find your +light burning and so do not break your shins, and your bed is "turned +down" for you. Very softening to the spirit, this. In a kind of a sort +of a hazy way one's thoughts turn back to the maternal solicitude which +used to "tuck" one "in." + +Good night! + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A HUMORIST MISFITS AT A MURDER TRIAL + + +Are you in on the great Crime Wave, brother? Almost everybody is, I +guess, in one way or another. What's your particular line? Murderer, +bandit, burglar, mortally wounded innocent bystander, juror, witness, or +victim? The police are in on it, too; every once in awhile one of them +gets blackjacked, or something like that. + +I had the flu bad enough, when that was the big thing going; but somehow +so far I myself have escaped being caught in the Crime Wave. This gives +me the great advantage over most people of being a detached spectator of +the rollicking game. + +I have a friend, though, who was caught up just a few days ago. He has +been telling me all about it. Murder case. + +This fellow is a sort of author. He had served a time or two as a juror +in the Supreme Court of New York County. In that building down by the +City Hall. But he says those cases bored him terribly. They were +chicken-feed sort of rows, generally concerned with the question of how +many dollars and fractions thereof X had occasioned the loss of to Z by +reason of his failure to deliver such and such a quantity of (say) +beeswax before the drop in the market of 39.7-1/4 cents, as called for +by telephone agreement, possibly. The "Court" (a nice, pink and grey old +fellow) would go to sleep, with his mouth open, during the drone of the +legal argument, and be awakened automatically (apparently by some change +in atmospheric conditions) at the moment required for him to begin his +charge to the jury. Occasionally, he would come semi-to for an instant +before this, and indistinctly utter the words, "Objection sustained." + +My friend's chief impression of these proceedings is his recollection of +one phenomenon which he observed. Not long after the opening of the +presentation of X's side of the case he saw very clearly that Z hadn't a +leg to stand on. It was ridiculous that he had the face to come into +court with an attempt to question the truth of facts which were as +apparent to the naked eye as the Woolworth Building. My friend felt it +needless to pay any further attention to the foolish formalities of the +argument. If he had not had an uneasy feeling that he might get pinched +for this, he would have gone to sleep, like the Judge. + +But those were dull days in the jury business. + +A little later my friend gets some sort of a ticket instructing him to +call and talk things over with a gentleman having the university degree +of Commissioner of Jurors. This gentleman asks my friend if he has ever +been arrested on a criminal charge, if he is opposed to capital +punishment, and if he has any prejudice against Episcopalians. My friend +is a man of liberal mind, and replies that he would just as soon hang an +Episcopalian as anybody else. "You're on," said the gentleman, reaching +for a blotter; and signed him up. My friend didn't know exactly for +what. But the gentleman said everything was all right, they might not +call on my friend for a long time, and then perhaps it would be a short +case. + +Sometime back was all this. My friend had almost forgotten about his +acquaintance with the Commissioner. Then all of a sudden the gong sounds +and the great Crime Wave is on. Detectives dash madly about with +shotguns. A jeweller is shot every day after lunch and a subway +ticket-seller is robbed directly after every train starts. My friend +hurries home early because everybody is fined who is caught on any paved +street after dark, and there in his letter-box is the summons from his +old friend the Commissioner, who apparently has borne him in mind all +this while. + +On the document is printed by a printing-press, "Jack Hammond _vs._ The +People of the State of New York." And on it is written with a pen my +friend's name, before the printed words "Special Juror." It very +urgently invites my friend to appear at ten o'clock four days distant at +the Criminal Courts Building and there "await further order of the +Court." + +You get off the subway at Brooklyn Bridge, you know, and go, past the +Municipal Building, up Centre Street. A district around behind the +"lanes" (as they say of steamship travel) of general traffic, and one +infrequently traversed by my friend. He was much interested in the +spectacle hereabout. Buildings labelled Public Health on this hand, +buildings labelled Public Records on that. Then you come to that prison +as gruesome in its name as the Tower of London is romantic in its +connotation--the Tombs. The structure itself, a cluster of rather +slender wings, rises from behind its dark walls with an element of +grace, in contrast to that chill, squat, mouldering pile which begot and +bequeathed the historic name. Ugh! though, those barred windows, row +upon row, give a fellow such qualms as do the ugly symbols of our +mortality. Even though you ain't done nothin', make you feel sorta faint +like inside! + +There in the south wall is a little door, like a rabbit burrow, with a +little group about it, and quite a small bustle going on. Standing in +this bit of a doorway, as though she had something to do in the way of +belonging there, is a queer, oval body who looks much as though she +might be what is called an "apple woman." Marked "Visitors' Entrance," +this door. What is it all the people on this side of the street are +pausing to look at over there? + +A cab is drawn up. From this lightly steps (or flashes) a dizzy dream. +"Floppy" hat, scant skirt awhirl, pink-hued stockings gleaming to the +height of the full curve behind the knee, tall satin pump-heels dancing +the wearer on her toes--she swirls through the dark doorway. "They all +have their wimmin," remarks a blousy-looking loiterer to my friend. + +At the north, three stories up, the prison connects with the courts +building by that fabled structure the "bridge of sighs." + +Lively scene before the main entrance to this edifice on Centre Street. +Streams of figures hurrying up the broad front steps--on their way to a +busy day at the height of the crime season. Taxis flying up and +discharging chattering groups as at a theatre. Open pops a taxi door, +out leap three. A couple of very hard-looking young men, of that +sawed-off, stocky stature frequently observed in this type of very +hard-looking young man. Elegantly dressed, these; between them one of +"Oh!-you-beautiful-doll" type. Rapidly they make their way up the steps, +as though very well acquainted with the place. + +Regular jam inside. My friend learned from an attendant that his +particular destination was two flights up. Great crush wedging into the +elevator. Elevator man calls out merrily to an acquaintance he observes +outside his door: "It's a great life if you don't weaken!" + +Threads his way, my friend, around the balcony, so to say, upstairs. +Centre of building open from ground floor to roof. Effect: spacious, +beautiful, ornamented in the richness of a house of grand opera. Finds +the right door. Card on the wall nearby. Several persons (tough-looking +youths in caps and soft collars) reading it. It lists previous day's +proceedings in this court room. Says: So-and-so; Murder; Indicted (or +something like that). Then the names of attorneys for the defense given. +Second line: So-and-so; Murder; etc. Third line: So-and-so; Murder. +Fourth line: So-and-so; Grand Larceny. Next line: So-an-so; Rape. Next: +Murder. And so on. Sure, my friend thinks, I've got to the real shop +this time. He has a few moments yet, and so he strolls over to a door at +the opposite side of the building. 'Nother card there. Same sort of +thing: murder, murder, grand larceny, homicide, murder, murder. (If you +don't believe it, go down there and look at those cards.) "Holy cat!" +says my friend to himself, "comparatively little of this crime stuff +gets into the papers, after all, don't it? I never heard of any of these +cases." + +Enters court room. Takes a seat. Room soon filled. Now in my friend's +experience as a petit juror he had found himself among a rather +grotesque company of very small characters, frequently somewhat seedy in +outward effect. Here he was much struck by the decidedly first-rate +quality in appearance of practically every man in the room. Also, +before, he had observed with a good deal of annoyance that a court of +law could consume about twenty-nine times the time in accomplishing a +very simple matter that would be devoted to a thing of similar +consequence in any practical business office. Here in this flourishing +mill for dealing with capital crime the clerk of the court (or whatever +you call him) began to call the roll of jurors present fifteen minutes +before the hour set for opening of court. And so did affairs proceed +with well-oiled despatch. + +"Oyez-mumble-jumble-jabber-jabber-yah-meow-wow-jumble-jabber-jumble" (or +whatever the devil it is), sang out the attendant who cries out that. +Everybody at once gets to his feet. In comes his corpulent Honor, +swinging along briskly, his gown flowing out behind, and mounts to his +wooden-canopied throne. A large, glossy, rather handsome face, neatly +cropped dark moustache, eye-glasses swinging from a broad black ribbon. +General effect what might be called that of a heavy-weight "club man," +looks as if he might be quite a hearty fellow when out with "the boys." + +Door opens at back of room. Sound of marching steps. Then are seen +coming along through a zoo-like cage round two sides of the room three +figures, burly civilian-clothed one in the middle, uniformed officer +fore and aft. They line up this side of a rail fencing the jurors off +from an area before the Judge. Burly figure is very well dressed. Stands +solidly on his feet, eyes trained directly on the Judge. Holds a dark +soft hat in his hands which he clasps behind his back. What from a +position somewhat to the rear can be seen of the side of his face +reveals a heavy scar, the result evidently of a knife slash across one +cheek. The Judge puts his palms together and addresses this person. "You +are charged with murder," he begins. He says it rather gently, in a +somewhat chiding manner, as though he had said, "Bad fellow, bad +fellow." Just then, "For the defendant!" calls out an attendant, and +another figure hurries forward. + +The defendant's attorneys have not appeared, it seems. Their case is not +quite prepared. A postponement is asked. "Why is it not prepared?" asks +the Judge. The defendant speaks out. Declares his attorney has not been +paid. Judge's reply is that the attorney provided for him is an able +man, who will see that all his rights are observed. Grants postponement +until the next morning, positively no further. Officer by his side +plucks defendant's coat tail, and starts him off back through the cage. +As he goes he is heard to say that his attorney will not be there in the +morning either. + +And as he turns, my friend gets, with a shock, a full-face view of him. +He had never expected anybody off the melodramatic stage to _look_ so +much like a murderer. Scarey, that face, a countenance almost majestic +in its ruthlessness and force: gangster, gunman, typically personified. + +Jurors excused until ten-thirty next day. As they move toward the door, +two attractively dressed young women arise from the rear. "Who are the +ladies?" asks one. "Friends of the defendant," says another. + +Next day, game called sharp on the stroke of the clock. Following +preliminaries of the day before, attendant spins that little roulette +wheel sort of an affair. Looks at slip thus drawn. "John Cole," he +cries. Mr. Cole passes round behind jury box, reappears in far corner at +left of Judge. "Rigmarole-rigmarole-solemnly swear, rigmarole," chaunts +attendant there, thrusting very dilapidated Bible before him. Mr. Cole +takes what later will be the witness chair. + +Assistant district attorney arises and explains the case to him. The +charge is murder in the first degree. The prosecution must rely largely +on the testimony of an accomplice. + +Defendant sits in whispered consultation with his attorney, his arm +almost around him. As prosecutor seats himself, attorney for the defense +gets up to put Mr. Cole through his paces. A fat, oily-looking man, with +(it is evident) a browbeating manner in reserve. + +Has Mr. Cole, or anyone "near and dear" to him, recently met with any +"accident" at the hands of robbers? No. He will not, then, have a +revengeful feeling toward any person charged with crime? Not at all. +Would he give the same weight to the "story" of a "self-confessed thief +and murderer" that he would to the testimony of a "man of probity"? +Probably not. Now, doubtless, Mr. Cole is a reader of newspapers. He +has, of course, seen this "literature" (with a sneer), this "newspaper +hysteria" about a "c-r-i-m-e wave" (tongue in cheek). Well, can Mr. Cole +go into the jury box and look at this case detached from the +"atmosphere" now "being created by the newspapers"? Finally, is Mr. Cole +acquainted with anyone connected with the police department? + +Mr. Cole, for some reason, strikes out. + +Third man accepted. He comes around from behind it to enter the jury +box. At the gateway, while defendant stands and faces him, some more +rigmarole-mumble-jumble business. + +Suddenly my friend is called. His business? asks district attorney. A +writer, he replies. Defendant and his attorney exchange strange glances. +Undoubtedly there is something low and suspicious about a fellow with +such a business. Attorney for the defense comes forward hurriedly. Soon +takes my friend in hand. He at once adopts the sarcastic. My friend's +work must require unusual "observation." He must be "gifted" with "great +powers of de-duct-shun" (said out of one corner of his mouth). Of +course, he has too a "fine imagination." By the way, what is the nature +of his writing? Has he written any novels? + +No, my friend says, he is a humorous writer. "A what?" exclaims the +lawyer, his mouth remaining open. Then, "Like Don Mark_ee_?" "Somewhat," +says my friend. Lawyer visibly pales. Withdrawing toward counsel table, +looks back at the accused, who vigorously shakes his head. + +"Excused by per-emptory challenge," utters lawyer, dropping into his +chair. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +QUEER THING, 'BOUT UNDERTAKERS' SHOPS + + +Queer thing, that, about undertakers' shops! I don't remember to have +been struck by undertakers' shops in San Francisco. Maybe they have none +there--because, as you'll see, it's a queer thing about them. + +Now in Indianapolis undertaking is a very fashionable affair. People +there, apparently, want "class" in the matter of being finally disposed +of. They believe, evidently, with the author of the popular little idyl, +"Urn Burial," that "Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous +in the tomb." + +The most aristocratic street in that city is named North Meridian +Street. A street, until a short time ago, entirely of stately lawns and +patrician homes--mansions. Of late, a little business, shops of the most +distinguished character, has been creeping up this street from +down-town. Notably, de luxe motor car salesrooms, studios of highly +ęsthetic photographers, and particularly palatial undertaking +establishments. They are, these last, wondrous halls, which surely none +could enter but those who (in life) had been rich in treasure. Features +of the city are they--"sights." + +But here's the riddle: + +Strolling about New York, from river to river, uptown and down, one +might readily fancy that here only the poor pass out of the world. Or +that if the rich and fashionable ever die their bodies are mysteriously +spirited away to destinations unknown; or are secretly preserved +(presumably by some taxidermal process) in their homes. + +Why? Well, where on Fifth Avenue is an undertaker's? True, a man I know +declares there is a single one there. I am unable to find it. Where on +any fine street of the metropolis? Why, yes; as a rare phenomenon. You +do know, of course, that enormous place on upper Broadway. Sign says +branches in Paris, London, Berlin, Petrograd. + +Viewed through the great windows interior presents somewhat the effect +of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In foreground large harp, equally +huge Chinese vase--probably of the Tang Wang period, on great marble +pedestal enormous bronze of a mounted Diana repelling with spear attack +of ferocious animal resembling tiger. Appropriateness of this sculpture +somewhat puzzling. On wall, somewhat further within, immense tapestry. +One door labelled "Delivery Entrance." All of this, of course, is +magnificence as much as even the most covetous would crave. + +But in New York this august undertaking hall is an anachronism. Here, +for some reason mysterious, it is in shabby neighborhoods that the +"parlors" of undertakers abound. You may find them sprinkled all about +the lower East Side. Frequent on Hudson Street, and, say, on Varick. +Quaint and curious places, these. Very human in their appeal. Tiny +places, most of them. + +One such cozy crib I know on Greenwich Avenue. Has a stained glass +screen in the window, suggesting a good deal the style of window +ornamentation popular with that American institution lately +deceased--the saloon. The social spirit rife in small undertaking shops, +at least in some of them, is pleasant to observe. Business there not +being pressing, and life moving in these inns of death in a leisurely +and quiet current, neighborly amenities appear to be much cultivated. + +This place of which I speak has, particularly in the evenings, much the +air of a club, where choice spirits of the locality foregather to +discuss politics, it may be, and the more engrossing forms of sport, +such as boxing. And perhaps relish a little game at cards. I often pass +this place at night and feel a warmth of spirit at the hum of jovial +social contact within. + +I like, too, the way the undertakers' shops of the humble and obscure +carry on cheek by jowl with the familiar, homely, friendly things of +life. This gives Death a neighborly sort of air. On my walks in that +quarter I always give a friendly glance to the windows of a "Cremation +Ass'n" on Eighth Avenue, on one side of it a delicatessen shop, on the +other a "loan office," in the basement below a plumber. + +Attractive, too, is it to consider how founders of tidy undertaking +houses have become personages and are held in revered esteem. For they +are not, it would seem, like unto those who have established just +ordinary businesses. This I will show you: + +At a corner of Twenty-third Street, over a telegraph office, is an +establishment of some caste. Window legend reads: +"Undertakers--Cremations--Night and Day--Interments in all Cemeteries." +The last phrase reminds me of the way my old friend James Huneker used +to date his letters to me from Brooklyn. They began, "Flatbush by the +C--emeteries." But that's not the point. It's a pity the alert English +writer who recently visited us and discovered a statue of General Grant +in Grant Park, overlooking the Blackstone (where nobody had ever seen +one before), and that the huge bust of Washington Irving in Bryant Park, +behind the New York Public Library, was an effigy of Father George +Washington--it's a rotten shame E. V. Lucas missed this corner while +here. + +Because when you go round this corner you are to look up just above the +level of your head. (Though I'm afraid you neglect to do this.) There on +a ledge is a grand sight. It's a bust of God. Fact! Anyhow, looks just +like pictures of God William Blake used to make. Old gentleman. Noble +brow. Patriarchal beard, flowing out in a pattern of rhythmical +waves--most realistically mildewed by time and weather.... But, no; +inquiry reveals that it's a likeness of the founder of this "old +established" undertaking concern. + +Then there's that place a short step down Eighth Avenue. It declares on +its sign that it is the "original" house bearing the name of the +Reverend gentleman who conducts it. When you look through the glass in +the door you view just within, displayed on an ornamental easel, a +life-size crayon portrait, enlarged from a photograph, of a +distinguished-looking person wearing brown Dundreary whiskers and a top +hat. One corner of the portrait is gracefully draped in an American +flag. + +Yes; you'd be surprised how strong undertakers are on patriotism. Hard +by here, next door to a dentist advertising "painless extraction," you +find a firm of "Funeral Directors" where conspicuous among such +ornaments as tall, bronze lamps with big shades, a spittoon, a little +model of a casket and an urn, is a large bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln. +A plate says: "No Charge for Rooms or Chapels for Funerals." And above +stairs is seen a row of somewhat ecclesiastical stained-glass windows. +Though we are given to understand by an advertisement that the +atmosphere of these chapels is "non-sectarian." + +Then over on Third Avenue (where there are lots and lots of undertakers) +is a place. Always sitting just within the doorway, very silent, a +stout, very solemn individual wearing a large, black derby hat and big, +round, green-lens spectacles. Above him on the wall a framed lithograph +in colors of George Washington--beside it a thermometer. In the window a +rubber-plant. Rubber-plants varying in size from infant to elephant are +in the windows of all undertakers. The symbolism of this decoration I +know not. Beside the plant an infant's white casket, proclaimed by a +poster which leans against it to be composed of "purity metal." In some +places the casket, perhaps not of purity metal, is protected by being +enclosed in a glass case. The name of the proprietor of this shop, as +given on his sign, ends in "skey." Set in the door-frame is the usual +"Night Bell." And, as always in undertakers' shops, the card of a +"notary public" is displayed. Next door "Family Shoes" are featured. + +Only yesterday afternoon I was looking in at the window of an undertaker +on Second Avenue, one I had just found. Along the curb before the door +a string of rather frayed and wobbly-looking "hacks," with a rusty-black +hearse at the head. Horses to these vehicles drowsy in disposition, +moth-eaten in effect as to pelt, and in the visibility of their +anatomical structure suggesting that they might have been drawn by +Albert Dürer in some particularly melancholy mood. + +In groups along the edge of the sidewalk, conversing in subdued tones, +the Dickensesque drivers of this caravan. Tall and gaunt, some; short +and stout, others. Skirt coat on one, "sack" coat on another. Alike in +this: frayed and rusty and weather-beaten, all. And hard, very hard of +countenance. Each topped by a very tall, and quite cylindrical hat of +mussed, shoddy-black, plush texture. Hangovers, so to say, these +figures, from New York's hansom-cab days, or the time in London of the +"four-wheeler." + +No, not altogether. There was something piquant--Villonesque, or +jovial--Rabelaisian, about the pickpockets of that tribe. These solemn +mummers strike a ghoulish note. But at the same time, out here in the +sane and cheerful sunlight, they don't look real. Create an odd +impression. Strikes you as about as queer, this bunch, as if a lot of +actors from a melodrama should turn up in the street with their makeup +on and gravely pretend to belong to real life. + +"Perhaps," I thought, "there is a funeral, or something, going on +inside, and I should not be gaping in at this window." + +Out of doorway pops little, rotund man, oily countenance. "Are you +looking for anybody?" he asks. + +"Here," I said inwardly, "is where I get moved on." No, I told him, I +was just observing his window. + +"Ah!" he cried, immensely flattered. He waved his hand back toward a +couple of little, marble crosses with hearts carved in relief on the +base. "You don't often see that, do you? Do you, now? They're sixty +years old. Made out of a single piece!" + +But the saddest thing about undertakers' shops is to go by where was one +long familiar to you and find it gone. There was a splendid little place +which it was a great consolation to me to admire. That building is now +given over to an enterprise called "The Goody Shop." Its lofty dignity +and deep eloquence are gone! It looks like a department store. It is +labelled, with the blare of a brass band, "The Home of Pussy Willow +Chocolates." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HAIR CUT THAT WENT TO MY HEAD + + +I did not expect anything in particular when I went in. Though, indeed, +it is a very famous place. That is, the hotel is--the Brevoort. + +The name itself, Brevoort, is very rich in romantic Knickerbocker +associations. Probably you know all about that. Or, possibly, you don't +know--or have forgotten. Well, you do know how Broadway curves around +there at Tenth Street. That ought to recall Hendrick Brevoort to you. +His farm was all about this neighborhood. Caused this kink, he did, so +it is said. + +This valorous descendant of the old burgher defied the commissioners to +destroy his homestead, which lay in the proposed path of Broadway. Or to +cut down a favorite tree which blocked the intended course of Eleventh +Street. Stood at his threshold with a blunderbuss in his trembling old +hands (so the story has it), when the workmen arrived to carry out their +instructions to demolish the house--and carried his point so +effectively that Broadway was deflected from its course, while Eleventh +Street between Broadway and Fourth Avenue was never completed. Grace +Church, which now stands at about where valiant Henry stood that day, +was built by a descendant of his, the architect also of St. Patrick's +Cathedral. + +I like to think of these matters sometimes when I enter the cool cream +beauty of this ancient frame hostelry. + +Also of another Henry Brevoort, a descendant of the original proprietor +of the farm in New Netherland, who built the substantial old double +house at the corner of Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. Fine iron +balconies, pillared door, within a small green enclosure, and a walled +garden to one side: all preserved. + +Here was held (in 1840) the first masked ball given in New York. An +affair of picturesque celebrity, on account of the occasion it furnished +a famous beauty of the day, Miss Mathilda Barclay, daughter of Anthony +Barclay, the British consul, to elope in fancy dress, domino and mask +with a certain young Burgwyne of South Carolina, of whom her parents had +unamiable views. She went as Lalla Rookh and he as Feramorz, and in +this disguise they slipped away from the ball, at four in the morning, +and were married. That, it seems to me, is the way for a man who does +not enjoy solemn ceremonies to be happy while getting married. + +Across the way, at the corner of Eighth Street, the mellow white hotel +maintains the distinguished name, and touches "the Avenue" with a very +aromatic French flavor. Famous for its cuisine, largely patronized by +the transient French population of the city, a habitual port of call of +many painters and writers, the scene of the annual Illustrators' Ball, +and so on. + +I like within the frequent spectacle of gentlemen of magnificent bulk +and huge black beards, in general effect impressively suggesting the +probability of their all being Academicians. I like the fact (or the +hypothesis) that all the waiters are Looeys and Sharses and Gastongs. I +like the little marble-top tables with wire spindle legs. I like the +lady patrons (Oh! immensely) who are frequently very chic (and with +exquisite ankles). I like the young gentlemen customers, who (many of +them) look exactly as though their faces were modelled in wax, and who +wear the sort of delicate moustaches that are advertised in _Vanity +Fair_. + +But even more I like the quaintness of the scene without doors. There +along the curb, you recall, stand (in summer beneath the pleasant +greenery of drooping trees), awaiting hire, a succession of those +delightful, open, low-swung, horse-drawn vehicles, victorias, which were +the fashionable thing at the period named by Mrs. Wharton "The Age of +Innocence." The romantically leisurely drivers of these unbelievably +leisurely craft are perfectly turned out to be, so to say, in the +picture. They affect coachmen's coats (piquantly tempered by age) with +large silver buttons and, in mild weather, top hats constructed of +straw, painted black. In some instances these coachmen are +"colored"--which is a very pleasant thing, too, I think. + +This hotel, naturally, has figured in a number of pieces of fiction. In +Samuel Merwin's novel "The Trufflers" it is the Parisian, where +Greenwich Village, when in funds, dines, lunches, breakfasts in the +little rooms which you enter from the Avenue, directly under the wide +front steps, or from the side street through the bar, and where Upper +West Side, when seeking the quaintly foreign dissociated from squalor, +goes up the steps into the airy eating rooms with full length hinged +windows to dine. And where (in this book) the young lady whose blooming +presence in the barber shop in the basement invites you to manicure +attentions gives rise to some very dramatic occurrences. The place, this +shop, of Marius (as called in the story), "the one barber in New York +who does not ask 'Wet or dry.'" + +Now I had plumb forgotten about this barber's celebrity in fiction when +the other day I entered this shop. And I was struck with embarrassment +by the immediate attentions of so very distinguished a figure as that +which sprang forward to assist me out of my coat. I thought surely this +gentleman must be some kind of an Ambassador, who had perhaps mistaken +me for the President. A slimmish man, obviously very French. Amazingly, +overwhelmingly polite. Fine, a very fine beard. Long. Swept his chest. +Pointed. Auburn. Wavy. Silken. Shot delicately with grey. Beautifully +kept. Responded gently to the breeze--waving softly to and fro. A most +beautiful beard--oh, my! And a glorious crown of hair! It rose from the +line of its parting in a billowing wave, then fell with a luxuriant and +graceful sweep to his ear. Only when he had tucked me in the chair could +I realize that this must be the head barber. I had never before had the +honor of being served by, or even of having seen himself, the proprietor +here. + +Then I mentioned Mr. Merwin's book. He took from a drawer several copies +of _The Saturday Evening Post_, in which periodical the story had +appeared serially, proudly to exhibit them to me. So it was we fell to +chatting of his place. He had been here some sixteen or eighteen years. +Before he had opened his shop this room had been several tiny rooms; +Cleveland Moffett had for a time occupied them as a residence, and had +here written his first book. My friend gayly produced a copy of an old +magazine article by Mr. Moffett in which mention was given the shop. + + * * * * * + +Shaved, I was straightened up to have my hair trimmed. And, being for a +moment free to look about. I spied a card on the wall. It said: + + SILK HATS IRONED + 25_¢_ + COUP-DE-FER-AU CHAPEAU + +But, my goodness! That was not all. No, indeed! + +_This very man who was cutting my hair_ had cut the hair of General +Joffre--when he had his hair here in the United States. At "Mr. Frick's +house," where they were guests, he had attended the distinguished party +on its mission here. He would go in the morning, stay until they had +gone forth for the day; return in the afternoon, and spruce them up for +their evening out. + +And what did they say, these great men of might? + +Well, Joffre didn't say much. They were always out late--hurry out +again. He shaved some of them "almost in the bath." That fellow, the +Blue Devil,--one leg--cane--but back and forth from his bath quick like +anybody. He was the most talkative: + +"I could not but laugh at what he told me. I asked, 'Do you speak +English?' 'No,' he said, 'but I ought to.' 'How is that?' I asked. +'Because,' he said, 'I'm half American.' 'Oh!' I said, 'your father then +was American and your mother French?' 'No,' he said. 'Ah!' I say, 'then +your mother was American and your father was French.' Do you +understand? I say that to him. 'No,' he say; 'no.' 'What then?' I ask. +'Why,' he say, 'I have one leg in France and one leg in America.' I +could not but laugh. Do you understand?" + +When the visitors had departed Mr. Frick asked my friend for his bill. +"Oh, no!" he said; "he would take nothing but the great honor for his +little services." + +My hair cut was finished. As I paid him (there being in this case, I +felt, no such great honor for his little services), he showed me a +drawing on the wall of a poodle he had one time owned. It had died. Very +sad. He was very fond of dogs. Of bred dogs, that is. He bred them +himself. He handed me his card as a professional dog fancier. It read: + + CHINK A TU KENNELS + CHOW CHOWS, PEKINGESES, POMERANIANS, ALL COLORS + FROM PRICE WINNING STOCK + MINIATURE SPECIMENS + AT STUD. PEKINGESE, WONDERFUL SON OF WENTY + OF HYDEGREE. FEE REASONABLE. + AT STUD. LORD CHOLMONDELEY III SON OF CHAMPION + LORD CHOLMONDELEY II. + TOY DOGS BOARDED + MME. HENRI GRECHEN + +Yes, that morning he had done "some manicure work" for his dogs. She +looked up, the manicurist (milk-white blonde, black velvet gown), and +said, "Do you use the clippers?" + +He: "Yes, of course. But not powder and polish. Quick, they want. Not +hold hands for hour--conversation about best show in town." + +He bowed, very low, as I crossed his threshold. I turned and bowed, very +low, to him. A man of many parts and a barber illustrious in his +profession. It was some time before my head cooled off. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SEEING MR. CHESTERTON + + +Somewhat later in this article I am going to present an "interview" (or +something like that) with Gilbert K. Chesterton. At least I hope I am +going to present it. Yesterday it looked as though I might have to get +up my interview without having seen Mr. Chesterton. Though today the +situation appears somewhat brighter. "Seeing" Mr. Chesterton (on his +visit over here, at any rate) seems to be a complicated matter. + +As anything which gives some view of the workings of the Chestertonian +machinery ought to be of interest to all who can lay claim to the happy +state of mind of being Chestertonites, I'll begin by telling the +proceedings so far in this affair. Then as matters progress to supply me +with more material (if they do progress) I'll continue. + +I one time wrote an article in which I told with what surprising ease I +saw Mr. Chesterton several years ago in England. Without acquaintances +in England, some sort of a fit of impudence seized me. I wrote Mr. +Chesterton a letter, communicating to him the intelligence that I had +arrived in London, that it was my belief that he was one of the noblest +and most interesting monuments in England; and I asked him if he +supposed that he could be "viewed" by me, at some street corner, say, at +a time appointed, as he rumbled past in his triumphal car. Mrs. +Chesterton replied directly in a note that her husband wished to thank +me for my letter and to say that he would be pleased if I cared to come +down to spend an afternoon with him at Beaconsfield. Mr. Chesterton, I +later recollected, had no means readily at hand of ascertaining whether +or not I was an American pickpocket; but from the deference of his +manner I was led to suspect that he vaguely supposed I was perhaps the +owner of the New York _Times_, or somebody like that. + +This escapade of my visit to Overroads I suppose it was that put into +the head of the editor of _The Bookman_ the notion that I was a person +with ready access to Mr. Chesterton. So I was served with a hurry-up +assignment to see him and to deliver an article about my seeing him for +the March number of the magazine before that issue, then largely in the +hands of the printers, got off the press. Thus my adventures, the +termination of which are at present considerably up in the air, began. + +I at once wrote to Mr. Chesterton at the hotel where at the moment he +was in Boston. At the same time I wrote to Lee Keedick ("Manager of the +World's Most Celebrated Lecturers") at his office in New York. I had +picked up the impression that a lecture manager of this caliber owned +outright the time of a visiting celebrity whom he promoted, and that you +couldn't even telephone the celebrity without the manager's permission. +I didn't know that you couldn't telephone him anyway. Or that you +couldn't telephone the manager either. + +Mr. Keedick very promptly replied that he would be very glad to do +everything that he could to bring about the interview. Or at least I +received a very courteous letter to this effect which bore a signature +which I took to be that of Mr. Keedick. + +Mr. Chesterton was not to be back in New York until after a couple of +days. On the day set for his return to town I attempted to communicate +with Mr. Keedick by telephone. I am (I fear) a bit slow at the etiquette +of telephones, and I so far provoked a young woman at the other end of +the wire as to cause her to demand rather sharply, "Who are you?" This +matter adjusted amicably, Mr. Keedick it developed was so utterly remote +from attainment that I am not altogether sure such a person exists. +However, another gentleman responded cordially enough. Still, it seemed +to me (upon reflection) that in a matter of this urgent nature I had +been at fault in having failed to obtain more definiteness in the matter +of an appointment. So I went round to the manager's office. Very affably +received. Presented to a gentleman fetched for that purpose from another +room, where he had been closeted with someone else. Mr. Widdecombe, this +gentleman's name. Introduced as Mr. Chesterton's secretary. A pronounced +Englishman in effect. Said very politely indeed, several times, that he +was "delighted." Mr. Chesterton, however, was going away tomorrow. Would +return two days hence. Made, Mr. Widdecombe, very careful memorandum of +my address. + +In due course of time thought I'd better look up Mr. Widdecombe +again--his memorandum might have got mislaid. Telephoned lecture bureau. +Satisfied young lady of honorable intentions. Explained matters all over +again to owner of agreeable masculine voice. Received assurance that Mr. +Widdecombe would be reminded at once of pressing state of affairs. +Disturbed by uneventful flight of time, called in at lecture bureau once +more. Learned that Mr. Widdecombe had not yet turned up. They, however, +would try to get him on the wire at the Biltmore for me. Yes, he was +there, but the fourth floor desk of the hotel said he had just gone into +Mr. Chesterton's room, and so (as, apparently, everyone ought to know) +could not be communicated with just now. He would call up shortly. +Lecture people suggested that I go round to the hotel. If Mr. Widdecombe +called in the meantime they'd tell him I was on my way over. + +Thought I recognized the gentleman stepping out of the elevator at the +fourth floor. I did not know whether or not it was at all what you did +to lay hold of an Englishman in so abrupt a fashion, but concluded this +would have to be done. Mr. Widdecombe was all courtesy. The point, +however, was that "Mr. Chesterton had had an hour of it this morning. +Had had an hour of it." This afternoon he was getting off some work for +London. Then tomorrow, of course, would be his lecture. My matter _did_ +seem to be urgent. But what could "we" do? Mr. Chesterton was a +"beautiful man." He had been so hospitable to the gentlemen of the +press. But if we should go in to him now he would say, "Dear me! Dear +me!" I readily saw, of course, that this would be an awful thing, +still.... + +Mr. Widdecombe was somewhat inclined to think that we "could do" this: +Suppose I should come to the Times Square Theatre the next afternoon, at +about a quarter to five, call for him at the stage entrance. Yes, he +thought we could arrange it that way. I could talk to Mr. Chesterton in +the taxi on the way back to the hotel. Perhaps detain him for a few +moments afterward. Mr. Widdecombe smiled very pleasantly indeed at the +idea of so happy a solution of our difficulties. And I myself was rather +taken by the notion of interviewing Mr. Chesterton in a cab. The fancy +occurred to me that this was perhaps after all the most fitting place +in the whole world in which to interview Mr. Chesterton. + +So everything seems to be all right. + + * * * * * + +New complications! (This is the following day.) In the morning mail a +letter from Mrs. Chesterton, saying so sorry not to have answered my +letter before, but it had been almost impossible to deal with the +correspondence that had reached them since they arrived in America. Her +husband asked her to say he would very much like to see me. And could I +call at the hotel round about twelve o'clock on Sunday morning? No +difficulty about meeting Mr. Chesterton in the kindness of that. But +Sunday might be quite too late for the purpose of my article. So I'll go +to the theatre anyway, and I'll certainly accept all Chesterton +invitations. + + * * * * * + +A colored dignitary in a uniform sumptuously befrogged with gold lace +who commanded the portal directed me to the stage entrance. I passed +into a dark and apparently deserted passage and paused to consider my +next step. Before me was a tall, brightly lighted aperture, and coming +through this I caught the sound, gently rising and falling, of a rather +dulcet voice. A slight pause in the flow of individual utterance, and +directly following upon this a soft wave as of the intimate mirth of an +audience wafted about what was evidently the auditorium beyond. Just +then a figure duskily defined itself before me and addressed me in a +gruff whisper. I was directed to proceed around the passage extending +ahead, to Room Three. I should have passed behind a tall screen (I +recognized later), but inadvertently I passed before it, and suddenly +found myself the target of thousands upon thousands of eyes--and the +unmistakable back of Mr. Chesterton looming in the brilliance directly +before me. + +Regaining the passage, I found a door labelled A 3. Receiving no +response to my knock, I opened it; and peered into a lighted cubby-hole +about one-third the size of a very small hall bed-room. The only object +of any conspicuousness presented to me was a huge, dark garment hanging +from a hook in the wall. It seemed to be--ah! yes; it was a voluminous +overcoat with a queer cape attached. So; I was in the right shop all +right. + +I thought I ought to look around and try to find somebody. I wandered +into what I suppose are the "wings" of the theatre. Anyway, I had an +excellent view, from one side, of the stage and of a portion of one +gallery. The only person quite near me was a fireman, who paid no +attention whatever to me, but continued to gaze out steadily at Mr. +Chesterton, with an expression of countenance which (as well as I could +decipher it) registered fascinated incomprehension. I attempted to lean +against what I supposed was a wall, but to my great fright the whole +structure nearly tumbled over as I barely touched it. Perceiving a chair +the other side of the fireman, I passed before him, sat down, and gave +myself over to contemplation of the spectacle. + +My first impression, I think, was that Mr. Chesterton was speaking in so +conversational a key that I should have expected to hear cries of +"Louder!" coming from all over the house. But from the lighted +expressions of the faces far away in the corner of the gallery visible +to me he was apparently being followed perfectly. I did not then know +that at his first public appearance in New York he had referred to his +lecturing voice as the original mouse that came from the mountain. Nor +had I then seen Francis Hackett's comment upon it that: "It wasn't, of +course, a bellow. Neither was it a squeak." Mr. Hackett adds that it is +"the ordinary good lecture-hall voice." I do not feel that this quite +describes my own impression of it the other afternoon. Rather, perhaps, +I should put the matter in this way. My recollection of the conversation +I had with him in 1914 at Beaconsfield is that there was a much more +ruddy quality to his voice then than the other day, and more, much more, +in the turn of his talk a racy note of the burly world. + +Perhaps he feels that before a "representative" American audience one +should be altogether what used to be called "genteel." At any rate, I +certainly heard the other day the voice of a modest, very friendly, +cultivated, nimble-minded gentleman, speaking with the nicety of +precision more frequently observed among English people than among +Americans. There was in it even a trace of a tone as though it were most +at home within university walls. Though, indeed, I am glad to say, Mr. +Chesterton did not abstain from erudite, amused, and amusing allusions +to the society most at home in "pubs." And I cannot but suspect that +perhaps he would have been found a shade more amusing even than he was +if ... but, no matter. + +One gentleman who has written a piece about his impressions of Mr. +Chesterton's lectures here felt that his audience didn't have quite as +much of a good time as the members of it expected to have. I heard only +a brief, concluding portion of one lecture. The portion of the audience +which came most closely before my observation were those seated at the +well filled press table, which stood directly between the speaker and +me. These naļve beings gave every evidence of getting, to speak +temperately, their money's worth. + +Though Mr. Chesterton turned the pages of notes as he spoke, he could +not be said to have read his lecture. On the other hand, it was clear +that he did not appreciably depart from a carefully prepared +disquisition. + +The tumbled mane which tops him off seemed more massive even than +before. It did not, though, appear quite so tumbled. I think there had +been an effort (since 1914) to brush it quite nicely. Certainly it is +ever so much greyer. I think in my earlier article I said something like +this: "Mr. Chesterton has so remarkably red a face that his smallish +moustache seems lightish in color against it." While Mr. Chesterton's +face today could not be described as pale, it looks more like a face and +less like a glowing full moon. The moustache is darker against it; less +bristling than before, more straggly. + +A couple of our recent commentators upon Mr. Chesterton have taken a +fling at the matter of his not being as huge as, it seems to them, he +has been made out to be. I remember that when I saw him before I was +even startled to find him more monstrous than even he had appeared in +his pictures. He appears to take part a good deal in pageants in +England; and recent photographs of him as Falstaff, or Tony Weller, or +Mr. Pickwick, or somebody like that, have not altogether squared up with +my recollection of him. True, he has not quite the bulk he had before; +but it is a captious critic, I should say, who would not consider him +sufficiently elephantine for all ordinary purposes. + +He was saying (much to the delight of the house) when I became one of +the audience, that he would "not regard this as the time or the occasion +for him to comment upon the lid on liquor." A bit later in the course of +his answer to the question he had propounded, "Shall We Abolish the +Inevitable," he got an especially good hand when he remarked: "People +nowadays do not like statements having authority--but they will accept +any statement without authority." He concluded his denunciation of the +idea of fatalism with the declaration: "Whatever man is, he is not in +one sense a part of nature." "He has committed crimes, Crimes," he +repeated--with gusto in the use of the word,--"and performed heroisms +which no animal ever tried to do. Let us hold ourselves free from the +boundary of the material order of things, for so shall we have a chance +in the future to do things far too historic for prophecy." + +I darted back toward Room Three, ran into Mr. Widdecombe, we wheeled, +and saw the mountain approaching. Whereas before, this off-stage place +had been deserted, now the scene was populous--with the figures of +agitated young women. Mr. Widdecombe, however, with much valiance +secured Mr. Chesterton. "Yes, yes," he said, and (remarkable remark!), +"I had the pleasure of meeting you in England." He glanced about rather +nervously at the dancing figures seeking to obtain him, and led the way +for me into the dressing room. Mr. Widdecombe pulled the door to from +without. + +I am far from being as large as Mr. Chesterton, but the two of us +closeted in that compartment was an absurdity. Mr. Chesterton eclipsed a +chair, and beamed upon me with an expression of Cheeryble-like +brightness. Upon his arrival in New York he had declared to the press +that he would not write a book of his impressions of the United States. +I asked him if, after being here a week or so, he had changed his mind +as to this determination. "Not definitely," he said, "not definitely. +But, of course, one could never tell what one might do." He might write +a book about us, then? Yes, he might. Did he think it at all likely that +he would take up residence over here? A very joyous smile: "One's own +country is best," he said. Rumors had several times been afloat that he +had entered the Roman Catholic Church. Would he say whether there was +any likelihood of his doing this? He was an Anglican Catholic, he +replied. Not a Roman Catholic--yet. That was not to say that he might +not be--if the English Church should become more Protestant. What was +his next book to be? Had he any project in mind of going to Turkey, or +Mexico, or some such place? No; the only books he was working on at +present were a new volume of short stories and a book (smiling again +widely) on eugenics. He knew Mr. Lucas, of course? "Yes, fine fellow." +Did he know Frank Swinnerton? No. What was.... But the door was popped +open. Several persons were waiting for him, among them Mrs. Chesterton. +I helped him into the cape-coat. Stood behind the door so that when it +was opened he could get out. "You know Mr. Holliday," he said to Mrs. +Chesterton. "Thank you, so much," he said to me. And was whisked away. + + * * * * * + +Sunday at the hotel. He was late in arriving. I thought it would be +pleasanter to wait a bit out in front. Expected he would drive up soon +in a taxi. Then I saw him coming around the corner, walking, rolling +slowly from side to side like a great ship, Mrs. Chesterton with him--a +little lady whose stature suggested the idea of a yacht gracefully +cruising alongside the huge craft. I wonder if, nowadays when most +writers seem to try to look like something else, Mr. Chesterton knows +how overwhelmingly like a great literary figure he looks. + +When we were seated, I asked if he had any dope on his "New Jerusalem" +book. He began to tell me how surprised he had been to find Jerusalem as +it is. But the substance of this you may find in the book. He expressed +sympathy with the idea of Zionism. Remarked that he "might become a +Zionist if it could be accomplished in Zion." All that he could find to +tell me about his "New Jerusalem" was that it had been "written on the +spot." Seemed very disinclined to talk about his own books. Said his +feeling in general about each one of them was that he "hoped something +would happen to it before anybody saw it." + +His surprise at Jerusalem suggested to me the question, Had he been +surprised at the United States--what he had seen of it? But he dodged +giving any "view" of us. His only comment was on the "multitudinous +wooden houses." + +Had he met many American authors? The one most recently met, a day or so +ago in Northampton, though he had met him before in England, was a +gentleman he liked very much. He was so thin Mr. Chesterton thought the +two of them "should go around together." His name? Gerald Stanley Lee. + +But there is not a particle more of time that I can spend on this +article. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHEN IS A GREAT CITY A SMALL VILLAGE? + + +How many times you have noticed it! Regular phenomenon. Suddenly, within +a few hours, the whole nature of the great city is changed--your city +and mine, New York or Chicago, or Boston or Buffalo or Philadelphia. + +Though nobody seems to say much about it afterward. Just sort of take +the thing for granted. + +It is just like Armistice Night, every once in awhile. Total strangers +suddenly begin to call each other "Neighbor." Voices everywhere become +jollier. Numerous passersby begin to whistle and sing. People go with a +skip and a jump. Catcalls are heard. Groups may be seen all around going +arm in arm, and here and there with arms about necks. Anybody speaks to +you merrily. Merrily you speak to anybody. All eyes shine. Roses are in +every cheek. Hurry is abandoned. Small boys run wild. Nobody now objects +to their stealing a ride. It is fun to see their swinging legs dangling +over the tail of every wagon. Sour human nature is purged. Good humor +reigns. Hurrah! + +I mean on the night of a big snow. + +This year it looked for long as though we were going to be done out of +this truly Dickensean festival. Seemed like we were going to be like +those unfortunate people in Southern California, who never have any +winter to cheer them up. How tired they must get of their wives and +neighbors, with it bland summer all the time. Perhaps that is the reason +there is such a promiscuous domestic life out there. + +Young Will Shakespeare had the dope. He piped the weather for jollity +and pep. "When blood is nipp'd"--"a merry note!" + +You remember how it was this time: Spring all winter--and spring fever, +too, a good many of us had all the while. (My doctor said it was +"malaria" with me.) We were congratulating ourselves that we were going +to "get by" without any "blizzards" at all this year. We became "softy." +We guarded ourselves with our umbrellas against the shower. We became +prudent. And what is it Stevenson says of that? "So soon as prudence has +begun to grow up in the brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first +expression in a paralysis of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink +spiritually; he develops a fancy for parlors with a regulated +temperature, and takes his morality on the principle of thin shoes and +tepid milk." + +Then one night there came a tinkle in the temperature as of sleigh +bells. And the town, the world sank into a soft blanket of white. Were +you out then? Ah! you should have been. You were not, I hope, in a +parlor with a regulated temperature. + +Well, anyhow, everybody else was out. The cross streets of the big city +had "all to oncet" taken on the air of a small town "sociable." Shadowy +multitudes seemed to sprout up out of the ground. The sidewalks, +especially those usually so deserted at this hour, now ahum with dark +busy bowing figures, rang and clanged gayly with the sound of scoop and +shovel. In the democratic, jovial, village-like spirit of the occasion, +many of the workers (those more staid and portly ones) removed their +coats. Every here and there an areaway held, in a holiday effect, a +cluster of bare-headed maid-servants--the "gallery" of the shovellers, +whose presence tended to make of the task of clearing the sidewalk a +night-hour lark. + +Voices in the street, as you know, and laughter there, is never so +musical as above snow-stilled pavements. Then, too, cheery echoes are +abroad among the recesses between the houses, in the courts and down the +ways where packages are delivered. The shovellers good-naturedly banter +one another and pass a cordial jest with those who travel by. And every +here and there the rich contralto of negro mirth is heard. + +I do not know that the city's parks are not a finer spectacle under snow +than in the summer--their dark glistening branches laden ą la Christmas +card, and, after dark, their festoons of lamps more twinkling and more +yellow than at any other time. + +Along Broadway what a whirl! The street like an arena, hordes of +gladiators in doughty combat with the onslaught of the storm, snow-carts +banging and backing about (horses seem to stomp and snort and rear more +in a snowstorm than at any other time), new ridiculously miniature +"caterpillar tractors" performing like toy tanks at war, traffic in a +hilarious tangle, street cars crawling along looking more than ever +before like prodigious cat-eyed bugs. Here with a terrific buzz comes +one all dark furiously thrashing the snow from side to side by means of +revolving brooms beneath. The crowds an animated silhouette against the +whitened air. One wants to hop and shout one feels so much alive. + +Lots of funny things happen. A taxicab there has got stuck in a drift. +It whirs in a passion. Wallows forward. Runs its nose up a little +hillock of hard crusted snow. Stops. Makes a fine hubbub. Slides back, +stilled, exhausted. Tries again. Same thing repeated. A pounding is +heard on the inside of the door. Chauffeur reaches back his hand to turn +handle of door. Something is wrong. He climbs down. Pulls at door. +Nothing doing. Door has apparently been sprung somehow. Taxi is now +observed to be a bit listed to one side. Pounding, louder than before, +again heard from inside. Conductor from nearby car comes to side of +chauffeur. Also policeman. All lay hold of each other and pull with +united effort at taxi door. Door flies open. Closely knit group of +chauffeur, conductor and policeman nearly tumbles backward into snow. +From cab door descends tall, elegant figure in evening clothes and top +hat. Followed by even more elegant figure of slender lady in opera +cloak. For some reason she appears to be very angry, and shakes her fist +at her three humble liberators. The couple seek some path, from the +trampled oasis where they stand, through the drifts to the sidewalk. +There is none. Her dazzling skirt she has caught high from the mess +about her feet. Perhaps a yard of pale yellow silken hose is revealed +above her satin pumps. Finally in desperation the two plunge forward, +taking gigantic steps, sinking knee-deep at every onward move, +tottering, swaying and at length fairly scrambling toward the haven of +the curb. The dozens along the sidewalk who have been held spellbound by +what they have found to be so delicious a comedy turn to one another +with delighted smiles--and move along again on their way. + +It is things like this always happening all about which make snow-storm +nights in the city such a hippodrome affair, and all the world akin. + +Over on the Avenue busses are busily pushing plows hitched on before. +There one has got stalled in a drift. It whirs and buzzes and backs and +starts and whirs and buzzes over and over again. No use, it seems. +Still, draped along the curb, the spectators stand, unmindful of the +gale, as absorbed as if at a Yale-Princeton game. +Buzzzzzzzzz--Whirrrrrrrrrrr--and away. She's off! A feeble cheer goes +up. And everybody starts onward again in better humor with himself for +having seen so entertaining a show. + +It snowed the night through. + +In the morning banks of snow breast-high through the side streets. +Through a narrow aisle down the middle of the roadway trucks cars and +wagons slowly go in single file. Moving thus all in a single line they +have something the effect of a circus parade--elephants and lion cages +and so on. + +And lions remind me. It is always well to look at public statues and +outdoor pieces of sculpture the morning after a heavy snow. You are +likely to find them very comical apparitions. The celebrated literary +lions before the New York Public Library, for instance, wore throughout +the day after the first big snow of this winter ridiculous tall caps +pulled down very rakishly over their eyes. + +Streaming from the direction of the railroad station were coming the +swarms of our commuter friends, the legs of many of them hoisting along +those prodigious "arctics" which are all the vogue nowadays. Isn't it +curious? There was a time when if you were obliged to wear glasses you +got them as nearly invisible as possible. If you were a man you felt +there was something shameful about having "weak" eyes. If a woman, you +"just knew" that glasses made you look "horrid." And when you wore +overshoes you got them as inconspicuous as possible. Now you affect +shell spectacles that can be seen a block away, and having huge lenses. +Now there is nothing smarter, apparently, than for a young woman with a +trim foot to come into town swaddled in floppers which fit her slim +ankles like a bucket. + +Men are still shovelling and scraping away at the streets, a motley +army. What is it so many persons are pausing to smile at, others +hurrying on but with grinning faces turned back? It is at a gentleman +shoveller. Here recruited somehow among this gang of husky laborers is a +slim eccentric figure in a--yes, a frock coat, a derby hat, kid gloves, +and very tight trousers ... a quaint picture of the shabby genteel. +Walking very briskly back and forth, very upright in carriage, the small +of his back curved inward, he pushes his scraper before him holding it +by the very tip of the long handle--and as well as can be observed +doesn't scrape anything at all. His fellow workers regard him with surly +disgust and roughly bump into him at every opportunity. What story is +there, in that absurd, pathetic scene, what O. Henry tale of mischance +in a great city? + +A wagon on a side street has got its wheels ground into the snow bank at +the side of the narrow cleared way. Such accidents are all about, and +everywhere men may be seen leaving their own affairs to give a helping +hand to a fellow being in sore straits. The visitation of a great snow +storm strikingly unites the bonds of the brotherhood of man. + +Stalled for interminable periods in suburban trains and in traffic jams +hurried men give themselves up cheerfully to the philosophic virtue of +patience. + +Vagabonds sent on errands two miles away return after three hours with +tales of the awful slowness of trolley cars. And on days of great snow +storms meet with Christian forgiveness. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE UNUSUALNESS OF PARISIAN PHILADELPHIA + + +I discovered the other day that Philadelphia is a very great deal nearer +to Paris than New York is. + +How do I figure out that? + +Plain enough. It's because New York women, buds and matrons, thinking +they are got up (or as the English say, "turned out") smart as anything, +are parading around in fashions today altogether passée. + +You know the New York scene. And how for some considerable time now its +most--well, most apparent feature has been a--er, a hosiery display ... +unparalleled off the gay stage of musical comedy. Very, so to speak, +exhilarating that once was--the glistening spectacle of, moving all +about, those symmetrically tapering lines of pink and rose and orange +and pearl and taupe and heather tan and heather green and purple wool +and sheen of black and gloss of mottled snake and--and all that. + +But, I am afraid, the eye over-long accustomed to the great Metropolitan +movie thriller of the fashionable streets had become somewhat dulled. + +The Parisienne knew about the peculiar character of the eye, and that it +ceases to see with any emotional response at all that which remains +within its range of vision for any extended length of time. So she +(roguish witch!) alertly changed the picture. + +I picked up by chance, during my two-hour run on the train, a copy of +one of our most dashing fashion journals. It was the "Forecast of Spring +Fashions" number. I opened it, at random, at the headline: "The Short +Skirt Has Had Its Day in Paris." Below was a jolly photograph (of a +stunning lady at the latest races at Auteuil) illustrating "the new +skirt length." Visible beneath the hem--a trim foot, and a bit of tidy +ankle. + +Who was the fellow (with a gifted eye for the lasses) who spoke with +such delight of the tiny feet that "like little mice run in and out"? +And there was that other poet (what was his name? I declare! my +literature is getting awful rusty), who sang with such relish the charm +of feminine drapery "concealing yet revealing." Anyhow, you know what +I'm getting at. + +I closed the magazine and forgot about the matter--until shortly after I +had come out of the Broad Street Station. + +The modish scene I apprehended was, to an eye accustomed steadily for +some time to the natty abbreviations of Fifth Avenue, a refreshing, a +charming spectacle. I seemed suddenly to have left my "orchestra seat." +And to have returned again to a view of, so to put it, ladies in private +life. + +Though, indeed, occasionally in the distance I caught a flashing glimpse +of, according to Paris decree, the obsolete skirt length. + +Come to think of it, isn't this so, too: that there are in Philadelphia +more rose-cheeked damsels of hearty figure and athletic-heel swing than +you usually come across in other cities? + +At any rate, there are quite a number of very unusual things about +"Phila," as I believe intimate friends of the city affectionately call +the place. Things which it may be you have not noticed lately--perhaps +because you haven't been there recently, or maybe because you live +there, and so see them every day. + +One of the unusual things about Philadelphia is that so many ladies and +"gem'men" who do light housekeeping on and around Manhattan Island (in +other words "New Yorkers") apparently find it easier frequently to get +to Chicago, or Palm Beach, or London, or Santa Barbara than to journey +to Philadelphia. I suppose the reason for this state of mind is the same +as the cause of my sometimes feeling that it would be about as simple +for me to undertake a trip from the Grand Central to Buffalo as to get +from Times Square down to Fulton Street for a luncheon appointment. A +place which is only half an hour, or two hours away, is a place, you +think, that you can run down to any time. And--well, just at the moment +with everything so pressing and all that. To become keyed up about +taking a "real" trip is another matter. + +And when I myself do get there I always feel that it is an unusual thing +that I have allowed so long a time to lapse since I came before. Because +it is so unusually pleasant and restful a ride that it makes me sore to +think what an unusually deuce of a thing I am put to every night going +home in the rush hour to Dyckman Street on the subway. + +It is an unusual thing (or, at least, so it seems to me) that in +Philadelphia cards in windows advertising rooms to let should be (as +they are) labelled "Vacancies." + +It is an unusual thing that here so many undertakers' shops should be +conducted in what appear to be private residences. It is an unusual +thing that there should be so many ways of paying your fare on the +street cars--in some you pay when you get on, in others when you get +off. It is an unusual thing that in Philadelphia there are more +different kinds of street lamps than (I suspect) there are in any other +city in the world. There are powerful arc lamps, high on tall poles, +cold white in their light. There are lower down, particularly pleasant +in the twinkle of their numbers in Washington Square, gas lamps glowing +a mellow yellow through their mantles. Various other kinds of lamps, +too. But the ones I like best are those squat fellows throughout +Independence Square. Octagonal iron-bound boxes of glass, small at the +base, wide at the top, with a kind of ecclesiastical derby hat of iron +as a lid. They somehow suggest to me the lamps which I fancy before Will +Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. + +Here golden Diana with her bow does not poise high on her slender +Spanish tower. But from far above the "Public Buildings" Brother Penn +looks down on more banks, United States Mints, trust companies, firms +dealing in securities, places handling investments, and such-like +business concerns than (one has a feeling) can be found in any other +city in Christendom. There are too, I should guess, in Philadelphia +about as many different styles and periods of architecture as in any +other municipality between the two great seas: Georgian, Colonial, +bay-window, London brick row, ramshackle frame, modern mansion, +skyscraper, etc., etc., etc. And certainly I don't know where one could +go to count more different kinds of porches. Nor where one could find so +many such pleasant oddities of today as hitching-blocks, doorway +foot-scrapers, and those old friends of our childhood the front yard +stone storks. + +And where, Oh, where! (not even in London) can one find so many alleys +to the square inch? Many of them, lanes of but a few blocks in length, +highly respectable, even aristocratic, quarters of the town. Such as +Camac Street, tucked away between Thirteenth and Twelfth Streets, one +block of it either side of Locust, and the home or haunt of those of +artistic persuasion. Here the famous Franklin Inn Club, the charming +Poor Richard Club, and divers other clubs of kindred spirit. Unusual +this quaint street of art in this: in fixing it up for its present +purpose its quaintness and its "artiness" have not been overdone. Far, +far finer in effect than New York's over eccentric alley of painters, +Washington Mews, its original loveliness has simply been restored. It is +as jolly to look upon as London's artist nook, Cheyne Row. Perhaps even +jollier. + +Now another unusual thing about Philadelphia is that Philadelphians +standing within three blocks of the place can't tell you where South +Carlisle Street is. Professional Philadelphians, such as policemen, +firemen, postmen, street car men, can't do it. In the attempt they +contradict each other, and quarrel among themselves. For the benefit of +both Philadelphians and visitors to the city I will set down here +exactly the location of South Carlisle Street. West of Broad, south of +Pine, it runs one block from Pine to Lombard Street. After a jump, where +there isn't any of it, north of Market Street there is more of it. + +But what the dickens is South Carlisle Street, and why should anybody +care where it is? Well, though it isn't in the books on Historic Shrines +of America it is a street you "hadn't ought to" miss. It's about twelve +feet (or something like that) from wall to wall. The doorways seem to be +about three feet wide. There, in South Carlisle Street, Philadelphia's +mahogany doors, fan-lights above, white pillars before, marble steps +below, her immaculate red brick, her freshly painted wooden shutters, +her gleaming brass knockers are in their most exquisite perfection. + +A wealthy and cultivated gentleman or two "took up" the street a year or +so ago, decided to make their homes there, and it has become quite +"class." Same idea, more or less, that Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt has +concerning the "exodus" of her set from Fifth Avenue to unheard-of +Sutton Place over among the tall yellow chimneys by New York's East +River. + +Considering the great wealth in Philadelphia and its environs, +particularly those patrician environs lying toward Harrisburg, it is, I +think, unusual that you never see on the streets there a Pekingese or a +Pomeranian attended by a personage in livery. + +Unusual, too, that in a city of the first class along the eastern +seaboard so few canes are "worn." + +And, by the way, that's an unusual railroad service from Philadelphia to +New York. Conductor calls out: "Train for Newark and New York. Newark +first stop." Train slides a few feet--halts at West Philadelphia. Spins +along a bit again, and pulls up at North Philadelphia. Stops later along +the way at Trenton, Newark, and Manhattan Junction. I really do not see, +putting a wreck out of the calculation, where else it could stop. + +I took from a boy in the Pennsylvania station a copy of one of New +York's most popular evening papers. It came apart in the middle. +Straightening it out, I caught a headline on the "Talks to Women" page. +It read "Short Skirts Remain." Below a cut of a beaming lass attired, +the caption said, in "frock of navy blue ruffled taffeta with short +sleeves and 'shorter' skirt." + +When I came out onto the street the temperature (in skirts) seemed to +have risen since my departure a couple of days before. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OUR LAST SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT AS A FINE ART + + +I have just witnessed a revelation. At least, it was a revelation to me. +I'm keen on telling you all about it. + +One of my earlier articles in this series had to do with the +establishment here and there in a great city of those gentlemen engaged +in the estimable business of packing you up for keeps--that is the +"parlors" of various sorts of "undertakers." I had been much struck by +the vast number of cozy little places catering, so to say, to the poor +and humble who have forever (as Stevenson puts it) "parted company with +their aches and ecstasies." And I had wondered at how very few places +there were in evidence on the streets to take care of the "remains" of, +in a manner of speaking, the first-cabin passengers in life, those who +have travelled through their days in a fashion de luxe. The +establishments of this type which now and then I did see were very +palatial indeed--and didn't look at all as though they would +countenance the corpse of just an ordinary person such as you and me. + +Also, all the undertaking establishments visible to me in my goings and +comings about town were quite obviously undertaking establishments. They +displayed within and without the air, the accoutrements, the +paraphernalia traditionally associated with one's last social engagement +on earth, his funeral. They varied only in this: some were rich and +haughty in general effect, others simple and perhaps dingy in +appearance. But each and all of them looked as much like an undertaking +shop as a barber shop looks like a barber shop. You could not possibly +have mistaken any one of them for a Turkish bath establishment, or a +Carnegie library, or an office for steamship tickets. + +As I say, I wrote that article telling all this and that about what +anybody may see any day as he goes about on his rounds through the thick +of the city. But when the article appeared--originally--it soon +developed that I was not abreast of undertaking matters at all. I had +not in the least kept track of the remarkable advances which have to +date been made in the art of being buried--and a very fine art, in the +advanced phases of the affair, it certainly has become. I did not even +know the present-day, the correct, name for what I, in so old-fashioned +a condition of mind, called an "undertaker's." No. + +That word, "undertaker," has long, long ago been discarded by the élite +of the profession. What a queer word as a business title it was, anyway! +How did it originally ever come to be used in its mortuary relation? No +one in the business that I have asked has been able to tell me. And why +in the dim past when names were being given to trades did not this word, +undertaker, seem to be equally descriptive of the career of physician or +attorney? Indeed, does not he that sets himself the highly hazardous +task of saving a living fellow being from disease or the gallows +undertake to do more than he who merely performs the quiet office of +laying us away? + +And then, oddly enough for its tragic associations, the word acquired in +our minds something of a ludicrous turn. It was reminiscent of Dickens, +of hired professional "mourners," and that sort of thing. At mention of +the word, a picture popped into our mind of a grotesquely angular being, +of sallow, elongated features and lugubrious manner, garbed in a rusty +frock coat and "stove pipe" hat, who put together before him the tips of +black-gloved fingers and spoke with a hollow sound. We would say to our +friends when they were feeling blue: "What's the matter with you? You +act like an undertaker." + +Well, as doubtless you have noticed, the term "funeral director" more or +less recently pretty well superseded the word undertaker among +progressive concerns. It is a phrase much more in the modern spirit, +like "domestic science" for (what used to be) "household work," +"modiste" for "dressmaker," "maid" for "hired-girl," "psychic" for +"fortune teller," "publicity engineer" for "press agent," and so on. And +it has a good, business-like, efficient sound. + +Still (I discovered) to be buried by a funeral director is not the very +latest, the most fashionable thing. The really smart way nowadays of +bidding good-bye to the world is to go to the establishment of a +"mortician." + +Yes; that's what the gentleman said in his very cordial letter: would I +care to look over a "real mortician's establishment in New York City?" I +replied that nothing could give me greater pleasure. So at the time +appointed a couple of days later his car came round for me. + +When I told people of the visit I was about to make, they all laughed, +very heartily. Now that brings to one's attention a curious thing: why +should they laugh? Honestly, between you and me, think hard and tell me +what really there is funny about going to see a burial establishment? + +Paradoxical indeed is the attitude of mind of practically everyone +toward this subject of being ushered out of life. Sundry totally +contradictory emotions are aroused in the very same person by slightly +different aspects of the same subject. If you remark that you are going +to spend the afternoon at the undertaker's that is awfully amusing. At +the same time, is not nearly everyone down in his heart a bit scared of +undertakers' shops? Uncomfortable, gruesome places, would not most of us +feel, to have next door? + +At any rate, as we glided along I was told by the gentleman who had come +to fetch me that the feeling was very general that the presence of a +funeral director's establishment depreciated the value of property in +the immediate neighborhood. Though, he asserted, this popular idea +frequently had not at all been borne out in fact. + +It developed (from his lively conversation) that nothing so much annoys +a funeral director, or a mortician, as for a visitor to pull old gags +which he thinks are smart--such, for instance, as the remark: "I see +your business is pretty dead." I gathered that this jocular pleasantry +was the stock joke of all near-wits who visited undertakers--I mean +morticians. + +No; there is another thing which annoys these gentlemen (morticians) +even more than such punk puns as that. They deeply resent, I discovered, +any disrespectful allusion to their silent clients, such as calling them +"stiffs," or something like that. How would you, they ask, like to have +someone of yours--someone who but yesterday returned your heart's clasp, +now dumb and cold--made game of by such ribaldry? Certainly, I cannot +say that I should like it. + +Another paradoxical contradiction! Tell me (if you can) what strange +spring of his being prompts a man to think it big and bold and hearty of +him to speak with such cynical contemptuousness of a fellow man returned +to rigid clay. + +We had arrived at our destination, I was told. But I saw nothing, but +what was (seemingly) a rather handsome private residence, set in a +pleasant lawn. Though I did discern by the door a modest plate which +read (as I recall the name) "Wentworth Brothers," nothing more. +Wentworth Brothers might have been, for all the exterior evidence to the +contrary, architects, or teachers of dancing and the piano, or breeders +of pedigreed dogs, or dealers in antiques, or physical instructors, or +almost anything you please. + +This I soon learned was the fundamental principle of the sensitive art +of the mortician--to scrap all the old stage properties of the bugaboo +type of undertaker. + +We passed into a charming hall, light and cheerful, furnished in +excellent taste, altogether domestic in effect. A number of bright +looking people, apparently attached to the premises, were lightly moving +about. I had somewhat the sensation of having come to a most agreeable +afternoon tea. + +I was presented to my host, as cheerful, wholesome and cordial a young +chap as anyone would care anywhere to see. The senior, he, of the +brothers. I had been a little depressed that morning, having a bad cold +and being fretted by a number of gloomy things, but as we proceeded +through the house my spirits picked up decidedly. I experienced a +feeling of mental and physical well-being, so attractive was everything +about. + +A dainty reception room opened off the hall at the front. My impression +was of a nice amount of charming Colonial furniture. Altogether such a +room as you might see in an illustration in the magazine _House and +Garden_. Secluded back of this rooms having a brisk atmosphere and +serving as offices. Peopled by very trim and efficient looking young +people. + +We descended to the "stock room," a most sanitary looking place of +cement floor, ceiling and walls, where was a large store of caskets of +many varieties. Behind this a spick and span embalming room which +(except for the two tables) somewhat suggested an admirable creamery. +Here I discovered that to the mind of the mortician towels belong to the +Dark Ages. The up-to-date way of drying hands is by holding them before +a blast of air turned on from a pipe. + +We ascended to the third floor. Here were the chapels, rooms which might +have been designed to accommodate fashionable audiences attending +literary lectures. In connection with them a tiny "minister's study," +not unlike the sanctum of a university professor. Also here small hotel +suites, each with bath attached, available for the bereaved from out of +town. Here, too, snug quarters for wakes. And a spacious chamber wherein +friends may sit for a little last visit with the departed. The dominant +article of furniture in this room an Empire lounge such as we see +supporting the figure of Madame Récamier in the famous portrait by +David. A consummate refinement was shown me on this floor: telephones, +concealed behind panels in the wall, with no bells to jangle over-tried +nerves, but with a tiny red electric globe on the wall to light as the +signal. + +The top floor a dormitory for male employees, having much the effect of +rooms for boys at college, gay soft cushions, pipes and mandolins +scattered about. + +I lingered for a smoke and a chat with my host on the ground floor in an +oak panelled room like the library of a gentleman's club before leaving. + +I came away with (I very much fear) an idea that I should like to go +back tomorrow and see some one of my friends so agreeably buried from +that place. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +WRITING IN ROOMS + + +I remember that I was somewhat surprised when E. V. Lucas expressed +surprise that I was writing in my room at the hotel where we both +happened to be at the same time for several days last summer. He +declared with an expression of sharp distaste that he could not write in +hotel rooms. But said he had no difficulty in writing on trains. That +rather got me, because I can't write at all on trains. And possibly +because I was a bit peeved at the easy way in which he spoke of doing +that exceedingly difficult thing, writing on trains, I asserted in reply +that anybody ought to be able to write in _any kind_ of a room. But I do +know, what every writer knows, that the particular room one may be in +can make a good deal of difference in the way one is able to write. + +Of course, it does appear to be true that there are writers of a kind +that can write anywhere in any circumstances, apparently with equal +facility and their customary standard of merit, whatever that may be. I +suppose war correspondents must be like that, and reporters for daily +newspapers. We know that a good many war books were announced as having +been written in dugouts, trenches, pill-boxes, tanks, submarines, +hospitals, airplanes and so on. In the matter of some of them I should +not undertake to dispute that they had even been written in asylums. + +I have known, and known well, men of that type of mind which seemed to +be so completely under control that at will it could be turned on or +off, so to say, like the stream from a water faucet. My friend Joyce +Kilmer had such a head. It has been told how some of his most moving +poems--for one instance "The White Ships and the Red"--were the result +of hurried newspaper assignments: how he could leave a poem in the +middle of its composition, go out and lunch heartily for two hours, +return and finish the writing of it; how early in his career he would +walk up and down a room of his home in suburban New Jersey at two in the +morning and dictate (without a pause) to his wife while carrying a +shrilly crying child in his arms; how one of the best of his "Sunday +stories" was dictated directly after having been taken to a hospital +with three ribs fractured by being hit by his commutation train--and how +much more. A young man with a brain in perfect practical working +condition. But even he was not free from the mysterious tricks of +creative writing. For we know that after a daily round sustained for a +number of years of high productivity, when he went into the war, which +inspired countless others to _begin_ writing, he suddenly ceased to +write, practically altogether. + +Poets and trains being up, brings to my mind my friend the Reverend +Edward F. Garesché, S. J., a source of amusement to many of his friends +because of his method of composition. He travels continually. Frequently +he will excuse himself from a group with whom he is talking, go to his +own seat, request the porter to bring him a card table, get out his +travelling typewriter, rattle off several poems, return to his party and +resume conversation at about where he had left off. Some of his poems +are very good; some (I'm sorry to have to say) are--not so good. + +And so round we come again to the matter of writing in rooms. We know +how Booth Tarkington writes: in what he calls a "work spree," in a room +upstairs at home, a pile of freshly sharpened pencils ready to his +hand--and that, doubtless, he wouldn't be able to write anything in an +office if he were to be hanged for not doing it. (Probably never goes to +an office.) Meredith Nicholson, on the other hand, declares that the +only way it is possible for him to write is to go regularly at nine +o'clock every morning to an office he has downtown; where he tells +anyone who may ask over the telephone that he'll be there until five in +the afternoon. + +There are persons who like to have others around them, moving about, +while they write. And people there are who find it necessary to lock +themselves up, and can have no one else in the room. Though in some +cases such persons would not mind the bang of a bass-drum just the other +side of the door. I know a man who had an office in lower Manhattan +where for a considerable period just outside his open window a steam +riveter was at work. Terrific it was, the way the noise of this machine +smashed the air into tiny particles like a shower of broken glass. +Callers who found this man contentedly writing would hold their ears and +look at him with their hair on end from amazement. A man of highly +nervous organism, too; one who would be very upset if his typewriter had +a pale ribbon, or be spoiled for the day if he couldn't find the right +pen--worn over just to his liking at the point. But, after the first day +or so, Mr. Soaping (name of the gentleman I'm telling you about) I know +didn't hear the riveter at all. + +Then those exist, Royal Cortissoz is one, who, dictating all they do, +can have in the room while they work only their secretary. Frequently is +it the case, too, that none but the amanuensis to whom they have been +long accustomed will do. A stranger throws 'em completely off. A +novelist I know, the writer of a very good style, who becomes very much +fussed up, and is practically destroyed, when he suspects a secretary of +giving critical attention to the manner of his prose. An embarrassing +thing about most stenographers, I have found, is that they are greatly +grieved if you say "'em" for "them," or anything like that. Or else they +won't let you do such things at all, and edit everything pleasant back +into perfectly good copy-book English. Some of them won't even let you +split an infinitive. + +Who was it, Voltaire, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, somebody, who could +write only when elaborately got up in his satins and ruffles? It is what +not long ago was called a bromidium to say that humorists are sad +people. I'd probably be thought humorous if I should call myself any +particular flier as a humorist, but this I know: wherever in my writing +I may have approached being amusing that generally was written when I +was considerably depressed. Forenoon is the best time for some to write; +late at night for others. "Ben Hur," I seem to recall, was penned +beneath a noble tree. At any rate, we frequently see pictures of +novelists, particularly in England, at work in their gardens. The most +familiar photographs, etchings, medallions and so on of Mark Twain and +of Robert Louis Stevenson at work are those of them writing in bed. Now +I can't (as some so take their breakfast) eat in bed; and I'm quite sure +I should never be able comfortably to write anything there. I do not +tell you how it is with me because I regard it as of deep interest to +you to hear how it is with me, but merely to aid me in assembling a +collection of facts concerning the freakishness of writing, and to +suggest to you how very different it may be with _you_. + +And I couldn't write under a tree. One writer, perhaps, writes more +easily in the winter than in the summer, or it is the other way round. +The mind of one, it may be, is stimulated by the companionship of an +open fire, and that of another (for aught I know) by the companionship +of an ice-box. Personally, I think that it is well in writing for the +weather to be cool enough to have the windows down; and that night is +the best time, for the reason that your mind (or, at least, my mind) is +more gathered together within the circle of light at your desk. + +Frequently, however (as you know), after sitting for hours with your +mind plumb stalled, it is not until shortly before your bed time that +that eccentric engine, your brain, gets buzzed up. Then, probably, you +can't call the thing off if you want to. I will tell you a story: + +A man there is, of some renown as a writer, who started a new book early +last spring. For some considerable time he had been much discouraged +about his writing. Hadn't been able to make it go. Could only lift +heavily and painfully one stilted sentence after another. Used to take +up now and then one or another of his early books and look into it. +Marvelled how it was that he ever could have written such clever stuff. +Like Swift when late in life he re-read "Gulliver," so did this man +exclaim: "What a genius I had at that time!" He felt that the fire had +gone out; his inner life seemed to have completely died; he was a hollow +shell; could now neither receive nor impart anything worth half a +jews-harp. When, one day, he heard rosy, young Hugh Walpole say of +himself that of course what he had written was merely a beginning to +what he felt he might do, this man looked at rosy, young Hugh Walpole +with a deeply gloomy and very jealous eye. + +But, lo! as I say, this man started this new book. It began as a series +of articles for which he was to be paid--that was _why_ it was begun at +all. Now see! With him it was as Professor George Edward Woodberry says +of Poe in his admirable "Life"--for a time his genius had "slept." With +the start of the new book he awoke. It began to run right out of the +ends of his fingers. Took (that book) hold of him completely. He +couldn't leave it. Go to bed, have to get up and go at it again. Try to +go out for a round of exercise. After a block or so from his quarters, +walk slower and slower. Miserable. Tortured. Turn back. Immediately +happy again. Soon be back at work. Anybody who entangled him with an +invitation anywhere enraged him beyond measure. + +New book finished. Everything fine. Got another commission. Easy enough +job. Set to at it. Empty vessel again! In despair. He'd make all sorts +of excuses to himself to leave his place early in the morning to +postpone beginning work. He'd go anywhere, with anybody, to keep as long +as possible from facing that task again. Couldn't give any sensible +explanation of his prolonged delay to the publishers. Kept putting them +off again and again, with one cripple-legged excuse after another, in +the hope that he'd come round. Matter became a disgrace. + +Still queerer cases than that I know. Fellow who shared an apartment +with me one time. When according to the accepted law of nature his mind +should have been in a very bad way, then always was he at his best. +After leading a regular, wholesome life for a period his mind would +become dull, stale and unprofitable. When, following a very different +sort of period, he should in all reason have awakened with a splitting +head, a swollen eye and a shaking hand, he would get up at about dawn +one morning in rattling fine spirits, his mind as clear as a bell, and +with an impassioned desire to work. Could, then, write like a streak. +But doesn't William James touch upon such a matter as this somewhere? + +And Stevenson, how wrong he got the thing! What is it he tells us as to +the years of apprenticeship to writing: + + It is only after years of such gymnastic that one can sit down at + last, legions of words swarming to his call, dozens of turns of + phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice, and he himself + knowing what he wants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man's + ability) able to do it. + +Only last night it was I was talking to Jesse Lynch Williams. He said +nothing of "legions of words swarming to his call," nary a mention of +"dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice." +Instead, he asked if I found that writing came easier as time went on. +No, he said, it seemed to him that writing became harder and harder the +longer one wrote. That he had torn up everything he had done for a long +while. + +Always the paradox! Again, there are men who write with astonishing +ease, or at least with astonishing rapidity, and write well. Not so long +ago I began a novel in collaboration with a writer known and admired +from coast to coast, a frequent contributor to _The Bookman_, and one of +the best. We were to do this thing turn and turn about, a chapter by me, +then a chapter by him, and so on. For something like ten days I toiled +over chapter one. I labored and I groaned. When it was finished I was +spent. I handed him the manuscript; he stuffed it into his overcoat +pocket and went whistling away. Returned within a few days and handed me +a wad of copy covering, I think, three chapters. Again I toiled in the +sweat of my brow. Gave him another chapter. When, after a couple of +weeks or something like that, he returned and I had read what he had +done I discovered that he had got people married that I hadn't known +were yet born. The collaboration busted up. + +My excellent friend does not like me to tell this story, because he +thinks it represents me as the conscientious artist and him as the +shallow scribbler. Well, that was not so; his chapters were far better +than mine. Nevertheless, his name I shall not give; I'll merely say +that it has very much the sound of a name borne by one of the +Elizabethan dramatists. + +Then there is that sort of human head-piece which can only write when it +absolutely has to. I allude to the magical instrument of coercion known +as a "copy date." I know people, dozens of them, who having a month and +a half ahead of them in which to do an article can't possibly get +started on it until it is almost too late for them to get it in on time +to go to press--when a mad frenzy seizes them, their indolence vanishes +like mist before the rising sun, their minds open like a flower, and all +is well. + +And the "galley slaves," those poor devils who for years have lived +under the whip of copy day every day. How they dream of the "real" +things they might do, given time. If (they think) the Lord would only +subsidize them! Now and then the Devil takes one of them and does this +very thing. The happy man gets some sort of a sinecure. All he has to do +is to go write. And (in all probability) that's all there is to that +story. He is like those things Riley tells about who "swaller +theirselves." He gets nothing written. + +What do you write with? And why do you write with whatever it is you +write with instead of with something else? Why did Mr. Howells (in all +the writing of his which I have seen) use a script-letter typewriter +instead of a Roman-letter machine? Why does Mr. Le Gallienne do so much +of his copy (if not all of it) by hand? Why is it that Mr. Huneker could +never either dictate or learn to run a typewriter? How is it possible +for those Englishmen--Swinnerton and Bennett, for instance--to put forth +in a few months whole novels in the monkish hand of an illuminated +missal? (I have seen the original manuscript of "The Old Wives' Tale," +every page like a copper-plate engraving, and hardly a correction +throughout.) And why is that it seems to me most natural to write some +things with a pen, others with a pencil, most things on a typewriter, +and yet again mix the use of all three implements in one composition? I +cannot tell you. + +Some authors, if they are going to write about a slum, have to go and +live in a slum while they are writing about a slum. Other authors, if +they are going to write about life in an Ohio town, go to Italy to write +about life in an Ohio town. In his excellent book "On the Trail of +Stevenson" Clayton Hamilton says: + + Throughout his lifelong wanderings, Stevenson rarely or never + attempted to describe a place so long as he was in it. For his + selection of descriptive detail he relied always on the + subconscious artistry of memory. He trusted his own mind to forget + the non-essential; and he seized upon whatever he remembered as, by + that token, the most essential features of a scene--the features, + therefore, that cried out to be selected as the focal points of the + picture to be suggested to the mind's eye of his readers. + +The author of the thirteen volumes known as "The Chronicles of +Barsetshire," a detailed picture of the English clergy of his time, had +never associated with bishops, deans, and arch-deacons; he built them up +(to use his own expression) out of his "moral consciousness." + +But round to rooms again. Often has it been told how Anthony Trollope +worked. How he accomplished so much--thirty-odd novels besides as many +tales--by a method he recommended to all who wish to pursue successfully +the literary career. In the drawing room of the Athenęum Club, in a +railway carriage, or on the ocean, wherever he might be he seated +himself for three hours as a limit, with his watch before him; and +regularly as it marked the quarter hour he turned off two hundred and +fifty words, undisturbed by any distraction about him. We know that the +unlettered man of genius, John Bunyan, wrote his immortal allegory "The +Pilgrim's Progress" in Bedford jail. And there is being advertised now a +book recently written in an American prison. And much writing has been +done in garrets. Then here's our old friend George Moore. Again and +again he has told of exactly the places it was necessary for him to live +in while he wrote certain books. I open at random "Ave"; and I find +this: + + I descended the hillside towards the loveliest prospect that ever + greeted mortal eyes.... And I walked thinking if there were one + among my friends who would restore Mount Venus sufficiently for the + summer months, long enough for me to write my book. + +Now, to be quite frank with you, I didn't intend to write this paper at +all. You may remember that when I set out I was merely in disagreement +with Mr. Lucas concerning the matter of writing in a hotel room. One +thing (as it will) led to another; and the upshot has been all this +pother. However, there are, I hope, no bones broken--and that's saying a +good deal for any kind of a discussion in these unsettled times. + +What I am coming to is (the fashionable thing to come to nowadays) the +psychic. A fellow I know was much puzzled. He recently got back to 16 +Gramercy Park from a trip around the world. I saw him there having some +toast and a pot of tea. He told me these interesting circumstances. He +would be at a superbly appointed hotel in some city. Beautiful suite of +rooms. Commodious bath-room with lovely bay-window. Everything to make +for perfect mental and physical well-being. Impotent to write there. +Later runs into some terrible dump of a lodging house. Horrible din of +low noises all about. One dirty window looks out on scene of squalor. So +cold at night has to put chair on bed and sit there to be nearer gas +jet. Gets on wonderfully with writing. Strikes another place, handsomest +of all; writes pretty well. Comes to most fearful place yet; can't write +at all. + +Couldn't make head nor tail of the matter, this fellow. Discussed the +thing with many people. Finally found young woman who gave convincing +explanation. It's like this: Undoubtedly you are, in any room, affected +by something of the spirit which lingers there of former occupants. +Maybe they were persons, whatever their station in life, sympathetic to +your spirit--maybe not. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +TAKING THE AIR IN SAN FRANCISCO + + +A few days ago, in the warm and brilliant winter sunlight there, I was +strolling along the Embarcadero. Now all my life I have been very fond +of roving the streets.... + +And that confession reminds me: + +I one time heard a minister (a clergyman of considerable force of +eloquence) preach a sermon against streets. His idea seemed to be that +streets were not good for one--that they were very bad places. He +admonished mothers to keep their children "off the streets." He regarded +it as very reprehensible in a wife for her to "gad the streets." The +footpad (he said) plied the street at night, while the righteous were at +home in bed. What so sad as "a child of the streets"? If we wished to +describe a worthless canine we called it a "street dog." The outcast has +his home in the streets. The drunkard makes his bed in the street. It +was painful (I gathered) for a civilized being to hear the "language of +the street." And so on. + +But I very much fear that the eloquence of this gentleman was greater +than his Christianity. If we are to love our neighbors as we do +ourselves, we will find him in greatest variety in the streets. If we +are to give away our cloak, the beneficiary, I should think, would be a +citizen much accustomed to the streets. And, as far as I can make out, +there is more rejoicing in heaven over the arrival of a sister who has +"walked the streets" than attends the reception of a nun. + +Certainly I admit that roaming the streets (like everything else) can +doubtless be overdone. Nevertheless, to most people, people of ordinary +ways of life (like myself), I highly recommend the practice, as a most +healthful exercise, as a pleasant course of profitable education, as a +source of endless amusement, and as a Christian virtue. The trouble, I +think, with most of us is not that we see too much of the streets but +that we do not see as well as we might the streets we happen to be on. +We do not read as we run. + +So I would write an article In Praise of Streets. + +As I was saying (when that minister switched me off), I was strolling +along the Embarcadero. Among all the different sorts of streets there +are none I think more beguiling than those which lie along the water +front of a town or a city. The water-front streets of all seaport +cities, of course, partake very much of the same character. Particularly +in the picturesque aspect of the shop windows. + +Here along the rim of San Francisco Bay you pass the sparkling pier +buildings (now and then of Spanish mission architecture) of the Toyo +Kisen Kaisha Oriental S. S. Co., of the American Hawaiian S. S. Co., the +Kosmos Line, and the Pacific-Alaska Navigation Co., among others. While +on New York's West Street you see the structures of the White Star Line, +the Cunard Line, the Red Star Line, erected in masonry of a sort of +mammoth and glorified garage architecture, funnels and masts peeping +over the top; and further down the frame sheds of the Morgan Line, the +Clyde Steam Ship Company, Savannah Line, Lackawanna Rail Road, Hoboken +Ferry, and so on. But the tastes of the sailor man as a shopper appear +to be very much the same whether he is along the London docks, on West +Street, by Boston piers or here on the Embarcadero. In this the West +and the East do meet. + +The ęsthetic taste of the water front inclines, very decidedly, to the +ornate. As (presumably) a present to a lady and a decoration for the +home the favorite object seems to be a heavy china plate. A romantic +landscape, or a moonlight scene, or perhaps a still life study of portly +roses is "hand painted" in very thick pigment on its face. Its rim is +plaited in effect, like the edge of a fancy pie, and through numerous +openings in this rim is run a heavy ribbon by which to hang it on the +wall. + +Next in prominence in the window displays of water-front bazaars is the +set of bleary-colored glass ware (upper edges bound in gold) which I +take to be designed for the purpose of serving punch, or perhaps +lemonade--a large bowl of warty surface, with a number of cups to match +hanging from hooks at its brim. + +The water front obviously is strong for the amenities, the arts and the +refinements of life. Bottles of perfume (with huge bows of ribbon at +their necks) are in great abundance in its shop windows; as also are +packets of boudoir soap (Dawn Lilac seems to be the favorite), toilet +powders, silk initial handkerchiefs, opera glasses, ladies' garters of +very fluffy design, feminine combs ornamented with birds in gilt, +exceedingly high stand-up collars for gentlemen, banjos, guitars, +mandolins, accordions (of a great variety of sizes), harmonicas, playing +cards, dice and poker chips. + +As for the rest of the display, it is a multifarious collection: rubber +hip-boots, hair clippers, money belts, brogans, bandana handkerchiefs, +binoculars, tobacco pouches, spools of thread, pitch-black plug tobacco, +hand searchlights, heavy underwear, woolen sox, razor strops, tin +watches, shaving brushes, elaborately carved pipes, trays of heavy +rings, and here and there some quaint curiosity, such as a little model +of a sailing ship in a bottle which it could not have entered through +the mouth, or some such oddity as that. + +One old friend of mine on West Street I missed on the Embarcadero. And +that is (very battered and worn are the specimens of him which remain as +the last of his noble race) the cigar-store wooden Indian. + +And (I much regret) neither on the Embarcadero nor on any other water +front in America do we have the rich costume ball effects that you find +about the docks of London. There (as you remember) about the East India +and the West India docks may be observed tall, dark visaged figures in +loosely flowing robes and brilliant turbans solemnly pushing along high +laden trucks and, high above on the decks of ships, hauling away at +ropes. + +But on the shore side of the San Francisco water front, my fancy was +much taken by the salt sea savor of the signs of the houses of +entertainment--signs reminiscent of the jovial days of briny romance, +echoed in the chantey in "Treasure Island," which has as its refrain: + + Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum. + +I passed, among others, the Marine Café, the Navy Café, the Admiral +Café, the Harbor Bar, and the Ferry Café. + +I did not turn up Market Street, but went on around the nose of the +peninsula, which is the foundation of San Francisco. I passed a +three-masted ship, the _Lizzie Vance_, lying by her wharf, with men +aloft in her rigging. Then I clambered up endless relays of rickety +wooden stairs mounting Telegraph Hill. On either side of the ladder-like +steps, ramshackle cabins bedecked with lines of fluttering "wash." Like +the celebrated editor of _Puck_, H. C. Bunner, I might say that in my +travels I've missed many a cathedral but I never missed a slum. + +I went along through the Latin Quarter, slid down the steep slope of +Kearny Street, and found myself wandering into that quaint little park, +Portsmouth Square, where R. L. S. in his most stressful days lounged in +the sun and listened to the tales of the vagabonds of the Seven Seas. +Somewhat bigger than tiny Gramercy Park, hardly as large as little +Madison Square, this park. In the center of the bit of rolling lawn, +before a towering screen of rustling trees, the graceful little stone +ship, buoyant on its curling stone wave, rides atop its tall stone +pedestal graved "To Remember Robert Louis Stevenson," and on the face of +which is cut that most fragrant of creeds, which (as everyone knows) +begins: "To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little and to spend a +little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence" +... + +Behind the bench on which I rested was the establishment, so proclaimed +the legend printed on its front, of Wing Sun, Funeral Director. For, as +you know, Portsmouth Square is embraced on one side by prosperous +Chinatown, and on the other by the Italian quarter of San Francisco. And +the races, Latin and Oriental, mingle in the little park to take the +air. + +What here is still more colorful and picturesque, frequently there is a +striking and amusing mixture of races in the costume of an individual +figure. A Manchu lady, it may be, of waxen, enigmatic features, draped +in flowing black silken trousers, hobbles along on high-heeled, +pearl-colored American shoes. And there a slim reed of an Oriental +maiden, with a complexion like a California orange, whisks by in the +smartest of tailored suits--without a hat, her gleaming black hair done +in Chinese fashion, long ornamented rods thrust through it, a vivid +pendant of bright blossoms at one side of the head. + +Sitting there, I thought of the nature of public parks and what pleasant +places they are. + +Splendid thing, elaborate park "systems," whereby you may go for miles +through a grimy city, and move among groves and meadows and bosky dells, +with inspiriting glimpses of mirror-like ponds and flashing streams all +the way. And of course I enjoy the great parks of a great city. + +But more appealing to me than the gorgeous spectacle of Hyde Park, or +Van Cortlandt, or Fairmont, or Jackson, or Forest Park are the little +places tucked here and there in the seething caldron of the town. These +are a lovely department of the streets--they are the little parlors of +the streets. Here calls are made, and infants sun themselves--they have, +these parklets, their social and their domestic life, under the +democratic heavens. + +Now soon is a time to watch with joy these plots of open space in the +city's rushing life. Spring is more winsome on Boston Common and at +Union Square than in the country. A tuft of green shoots seen against +canyon walls of steel and stone--one must be in the city to savor the +tenderness of spring. + +And when summer comes and (in our eastern climate) all the town swelters +under a blanket of gritty dust and heavy heat, then one comes upon one +of these small areas of greenery with the refreshment of spirit with +which at the meal hour one greets the appearance of a nice, cool, green +salad. + +I arose from my seat in Portsmouth Square and wandered off for the rest +of the day through the Streets. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +BIDDING MR. CHESTERTON GOOD-BYE + + +The note, which came altogether as a surprise, read: "My husband +suggests that if you have nothing better to do perhaps you would look in +upon us on Wednesday evening at about eight-thirty." Mrs. Chesterton +further said, in giving the address, that they had a little apartment +lent to them for the last week of their stay here. She had asked Mr. +Woollcott to come, too, and Gerald Stanley Lee.... "We can only promise +you smokes and talk." + +I wondered, as I hurried for the 'bus, whether I'd have time to get my +shoes polished. It was precisely the hour appointed when I reached what +I took to be the door. The hall-man declared that he had "gone out." I +insisted that the hall-man telephone up. "No answer," he said, after a +bit, and hung up. Now what do you think of that! Well, I'd take a walk +and return a little later. + +As I was rounding the corner coming back I saw an agile, rotund figure, +with a gleam of white shirt-front in the half darkness, mounting the +dusky steps instead of descending into the lighted areaway. Looked kinda +like Mr. Woollcott. If so, the gentleman was going wrong, so I called to +him. + +"He has not come back," the hall-man asserted, but assented to our +demands to ring up again. No response. "It was about an hour ago he went +out," he replied to our question. Standing there, Mr. Woollcott and I +contrived several theories. One was that Mr. Chesterton had intended to +return by now but had lost track of the time. Another was that possibly +Mrs. Chesterton had invited us on her own hook and had overlooked +notifying Mr. Chesterton of the matter. "Has a third gentleman been +here?" we asked, meaning Mr. Lee. No. We went for a stroll. + +It was nine o'clock. And Mr. Woollcott's manner indicated that he was +inclined to take some sort of revenge on the hall-man. Was he, the +hall-man, certain that he had everything straight? "Sure," he nodded; +"it's Mr. Cushman's apartment." Mr. Cushman's apartment! Had we, then, +been blundering in the wrong place all this time! "Mr. Chesterton!" +roared Mr. Woollcott. Yes, yes; he understood that ... the gentleman had +come in yesterday. That was right according to the note I had had from +Mrs. Chesterton; so we demanded that the man make another effort at the +telephone. Ah!... he heard something. "It's all right," he mumbled; +"they are there." + +As we got out of the car Mr. Chesterton was cramming the tiny hall. He +was in an attitude which I took to be that of a bow, but I later +discovered, as he shuffled back and forth about the apartment, that he +walks that way all the time now when in the privacy of his own quarters. +Mrs. Chesterton greeted us as we entered the room, Mr. Chesterton +trailing in behind us and continuing a welcoming murmur which had +somewhat the sound of a playful brook. Mrs. Chesterton ensconced herself +behind a tea table. Mr. Chesterton lumbered about with cigars. He +disclaimed the great easy chair by the electric table lamp in which it +was unmistakable that he had been sitting, but was prevailed upon to +return to it. + +In apology for the lateness of our arrival we mentioned our difficulties +in discovering that he was in. Mr. Chesterton seemed bewildered by the +circumstance. He shook his head and (evidently referring to the +hall-man) said he was not able to understand "that foreigner" at all. +"That foreigner?" we smiled at the Englishman. I think it most likely +that the explanation of his not having heard our earlier rings was that +he was not familiar with the system of bells in the apartment. They had +not been out, he declared; oh, yes! they had been out, too, a good while +ago, to get something to eat. "We are camping here," he said, "in a +rather Bohemian fashion." Didn't they enjoy that as a change from life +in fashionable hotels? Oh, yes! Very much. + +They wondered if Mr. Lee were not coming. Yes; he had assured me that he +was, when I had seen him that afternoon at the club. In fact, we had +discussed what we would wear, and had agreed on dinner jackets. Mr. +Chesterton was wearing a braid-bound cutaway coat of felt-like material +(very much wrinkled in the skirt) and dark striped trousers of stiffish +quality, but not recently pressed. His bat-wing collar had a sharp +crease extending outward at one side as though it were broken. Though it +was a very warm night for early spring--a hot night, indeed--he wore +uncommonly heavy woolen sox, which were very much "coming down" about +his ankles. His comically small English eye-glasses, with a straight rod +joining them across the top, were perpetually coming off his nose. On +one finger he wore a rather large ring. I noticed that for so large a +man his hands were somewhat small, and were delicately made. At one side +of him were three ashtrays (one of them a huge brass bowl well filled +with tobacco ash) and at the other side of him one tray. + +Well, what sort of a time had he been having? How far west had he got? +He had been as far as (I think) Omaha. "Halfway across," he said. He had +been much mystified by a curious character he had run into there: a +strange being whose waistcoat and coat front were covered by symbolic +emblems, crescents, full moons and stars. This person had accosted him +in the street saying, "And so you are a lecturer." The man had then +informed him that he also was a lecturer. He lectured, he said, on +astronomy. "Indeed, in my country," Mr. Chesterton had said, "it is not +the custom for astronomers to display on their person devices symbolic +of the science in which they are engaged." Next, the man had opened his +coat and exhibited the badge of a sheriff, or some sort of officer of +the peace. Mr. Chesterton had been astounded to discover the functions +of a man of science, a lecturer and a policeman united in one and the +same person. It was quite evident that this (as I assume he was) +harmless lunatic had made a most decided impression upon Mr. +Chesterton's mind; he took the eccentric individual with much +seriousness, apparently as some kind of a type; indeed, I feared that we +would never get him switched off from talking about him; and I have no +doubt that, in the course of time, this ridiculous astronomer will +appear as a bizarre character in some fantastic tale, a personage +perhaps related to Father Brown, or something like that. + +Mr. Chesterton observed that he had enjoyed the opportunity of seeing +various grades of American life, that he had been in the homes of very +humble people as well as in houses of persons of wealth and social and +intellectual position. In a former article I noted how Mr. Chesterton +had been greatly startled to find (what he then called) "wooden houses" +in this country, and such multitudes of them. He now returned to this +phenomenon. What was his one outstanding impression of the United +States? Well, he remarked that he had said it before, but he continued +to be chiefly struck by the vast number of "frame houses" here. + +Mr. Lee arrived. A gentleman who looks very much as though you were +looking at his reflection in one of those trick mirrors (such as they +have at Coney Island) which humorously attenuate and elongate the +figures before them. Or, again, perhaps more justly still, a gentleman +who looks as though Daumier had drawn him as an illustration for "Don +Quixote." In his evening clothes (to put it still another way), a +gentleman who looks much like a very lengthened shadow dancing on a +wall. Mr. Whistler would have made something very striking indeed out of +Mr. Lee in a dinner coat, something beautifully strange. I do not know +that I have ever seen anything finer, in its own exceedingly peculiar +way, than Mr. Lee, thus attired, with a cup of tea in his hand. + +"Do you like wine?" Mr. Woollcott asked Mr. Chesterton, and told him of +a restaurant nearby where this could be obtained. Our prohibition, Mr. +Chesterton said, did not bother him so much as might be thought, as for +reasons having to do with his health he was (as you or I would say) +"off the stuff" at present. + +One of us, Mr. Woollcott I think, commented upon the sweep of Mr. +Chesterton's fame in the United States. The opinion was advanced that +the evening of the day he landed his arrival was known in every literate +home in New York. Mr. Chesterton was inclined to think that his +"notoriety" in large measure came from his "appearance," his +"avoirdupois." Knowledge of him had spread through the notion that he +was a "popular curiosity." It was contended that his writing had been +well-known over here ten years before his pictures became familiar to +us. (Though, of course, I myself do think that the pictorial quality of +his corporeal being has been very effective publicity for him.) + +Then there was another thing which Mr. Chesterton thought might to a +considerable degree account for his American celebrity. That was this +"tag" of "paradox." People loved "easy handles" like that, and they went +a long way. Somehow or other we let this point pass, or it got lost in +the shuffle, and the discussion turned to the question of whether there +was an American writer living whose arrival in England would command +anything like the general attention occasioned by Mr. Chesterton's +entrance into the United States. We could not think of anyone. + +Mark Twain, of course; yes. O. Henry, doubtless, too. And, indeed, in +the matter of years O. Henry might very well be living now. Mr. +Chesterton quite agreed as to the English welcome of Mark Twain or of O. +Henry. Tom Sawyer and Huck, he said musingly, certainly were +"universal." Then, ponderingly, he observed that English and American +literature seemed to be getting farther and farther apart, or more and +more distinct each from the other. That is, he remembered that when he +was a boy his father and his uncles simply spoke of a new book having +come out whether it had been written in England or in the United States. +As in the case of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table": when it +appeared it was enjoyed and talked about by everybody in England; but +not spoken of there as a new American book: it was a new book, that's +all. Now, however, with Englishmen impressed by the "Spoon River +Anthology," "and rightly so," or by "Main Street," "it would not be that +way." + +He had much liking for O. Henry. But he had begun by not liking him. He +had been puzzled by the "queer commercial deals" on which so many of the +stories turned--"buying towns, selling rivers." He had, even now, to +re-read much of the slang to get the meaning. And so we talked awhile of +slang. + +"You have an expression here," said Mr. Chesterton, shaking his head as +though that were something very remarkable indeed, "_a bad actor_" Much +mirth from Woollcott, Lee and Holliday. "Now in England," Mr. Chesterton +continued, "we mean by that one who has mistaken his vocation as to the +stage. But I discovered that here it has nothing to do with the +theatrical profession." Then, it developed, some reporter in the West +had referred to him as "a regular guy." At first Mr. Chesterton had been +for going after the fellow with a stick.... Certainly a topsy-turvy +land, the United States, where you can't tell opprobrium from flattering +compliment. + +Then one of us told Mr. Chesterton a story of a prize line of American +slang. He (the teller of the story) had got a letter in which a friend +of his had been spoken of in a highly eulogistic fashion. Thinking this +opinion of him would please his friend this man showed the letter to +him. The gentleman so much praised in it read the letter and remarked: +"Well, whenever I get the hand I always see the red light." Mr. +Chesterton looked dazed. "You'll have to translate that to me," he said. +It was explained to him that the meaning of this was that whenever this +person heard applause of himself he always scented danger. "Oh, oh! I +see!" crowed Mr. Chesterton, "the hand, the hand," and he began clapping +his hands in illustration of the figure with much glee. + +"Glee," yes. And "crowed," also. They are the words, some of the words, +to describe Mr. Chesterton's sounds. His utterance was rapid, melodious. +The modulations of his softly flowing voice had curiously somewhat the +effect of a very cheerful music-box. His easy and very natural command +of a great multitude of words was striking. And yet there was something +decidedly boyish about the effect of his talk. I think the cause of this +was, for one thing, the rather gurgling enjoyment with which he spoke, +and for another thing, in his impulsive concern for the point of his +idea he frequently did not trouble to begin nor end sentences. He just +let 'er go. But the fundamental source of this boyishness of spirit I +think was this: I do not believe I have ever seen a man who had borne +the brunt of life for some forty-five years and still retained such +complete, abounding, unaffected and infectious good humor as Mr. +Chesterton. + +"As I believe I have said somewhere before," Mr. Chesterton was saying, +"it seems to me that the best known character in literature is Sherlock +Holmes." Mr. Woollcott was inclined to consider Svengali. Dear me! +Svengali may have been in the running at one time, but it strikes me +that today he has pretty much gone by the board, somewhat to mix the +figure. + +As to detective stories: "They are essentially domestic," declares Mr. +Chesterton. "Intimate, all in the household, or ought to be. The +children's nurse should murder the Bishop. These things where the +Foreign Office becomes involved and" (chuckling) "Indian rajahs and +military forces come in are never right. They are too big. The detective +story is a fireside story." + +Had Mr. Chesterton been much to the theatre while here? No; the only +thing he had seen was "The Bat." Something like anguish on the face of +the dramatic critic of the New York _Times_. Why, he, Mr. Chesterton, +had liked "The Bat," a good deal. Speaking of plays, the American +presentation of "Magic" came into the conversation. It was remarked that +the extremely mystical character of the setting rather crushed the +mysticism of the play itself. The idea was advanced that a very simple, +matter-of-fact, even bleak setting, would have been the thing to act as +an effective foil to this play. Mr. Chesterton seemed to be not the +slightest interested in stage-settings. And he knew next to nothing at +all about the career of "Magic." He wasn't even sure whether or not he +held any proprietary rights in the play. There was, he said as though +fumbling around in his mind, something involved about the matter. Friend +of his wanted a play. Necessary to finish it in a hurry. He didn't +really know, answering a question to this purpose, whether or not he +received any royalties from it. + +Mrs. Chesterton again handed about some fudge. The collection of +ash-trays and bowls surrounding Mr. Chesterton had become jovially +freighted with tobacco ash and cigar ends. He smoked his cigars in an +economical fashion, down as far as they could comfortably be held. + +There was one thing (the talk had turned to his lecturing) Mr. +Chesterton "wished you wouldn't do in this country, or that we didn't do +in England, either." That was for the gentleman who "introduced" a +lecturer to refer to his "message." In his own case, for instance, how +ridiculously was this term misapplied. The word "message" conveyed +something "quite the opposite of personality." Or, that is, before its +popular corruption it had meant something very different. It meant that +something was carried. One with a message was a messenger, a vessel, an +envelope. It was hard to think of a figure who could rightly be said to +have a message. The Old Testament prophets, Mohammed, perhaps. Whitman, +now certainly you couldn't say that Whitman had a message. + +A ring; and Mr. Cushman came in. Youthfully cropped grey hair. A +gentleman who looked like a habitual first-nighter. + +Yes, Mr. Chesterton was telling us, it was a curious thing. He had +always heard that Americans worshipped machines. A machine everywhere +here, and a machine brought to an amazing state of mechanical +perfection, was the elevator, as we called it. When he had first got +into an American elevator he had been arrested by the fact that the men +entering it took off their hats and stood silently with bared heads as +it ascended. It is so, he had said to himself, they are at worship, at +prayer, this is some religious rite, mystic ceremony, the elevator is +their temple. + +Had he been in our subway? was asked. No; he had been down in a station +one time, but he had not ridden on one of the trains. I wish now that I +had thought to cut into the rapid battledore and shuttlecock of the +conversation to learn why he had not been. Was he scared of 'em? + +What were the things which Mr. Chesterton particularly liked in the +United States? Well, for one thing, he very much liked the "elevated." +He thought it was grand up in the air that way. + +And what had be especially _disliked_? Mr. Lee apparently had knowledge +of a memorandum book kept by Mrs. Chesterton, known to their ultimate +little circle as her "Book of Likes and Dislikes." She was, with some +difficulty, prevailed upon to read from this--which she did very +guardedly, clutching the book very firmly before her. Among the things +put down in it as not liked were ice cream, ice water, "American boots" +(by which was meant women's high-heeled shoes), and interviewers, +reporters and camera men. Things especially liked included parlor-car +seats. Mr. Chesterton: "I don't dislike it, now. I've got the evil habit +of ice water." + +"Lift," it was generally agreed, was a happier word than "elevator." +Mrs. Chesterton thought that the scientific, technical, correct, or +whatever you call them, words for things always took all the feeling of +life out of them. "Aviator," for example, had no color at all. But how +fine in the spirit of the thing was the popular term "flying-man," or +"fly-man"! + +The conversation had got momentarily divided into groups. Mr. Chesterton +was heard saying to Mr. Woollcott, "The time I mean was when Yeats was +young--when mysticism was jazz." + +Just how he got started in on them I do not recall. He began with +Belloc's most entertaining and highly vivacious ballad which has the +refrain, "And Mrs. James will entertain the king"; a kind of a piece +among friends, which unfortunately is not in any book. He recited with a +kind of joyous unction, nodding his head forward and back from side to +side, thus keeping time to the music of the verse, punctuating the close +of each stanza with bubble of chuckles. On and on and on and on he went +through goodness knows how many bits of rollicking literary fooling. + +It was half past eleven. I saw Mr. Chesterton, when someone else was +speaking, yawn slightly now and then. The four callers arose to go. Some +one of us asked Mr. Chesterton if he expected to be back in America +soon. Through a wreath of smiles he replied that he was not getting a +return ticket on the boat. + +The two of them were framed in their doorway as we got into the +"foreigner's" car. Mrs. Chesterton called to us that she hoped to see us +all in England, "singly or together." As the car dropped from their +floor both were beaming a merry, friendly farewell. + +Suddenly it struck me that they were very like a pair of children--they +were so happy, so natural, so innocent of guile, and obviously so fond +of one another. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +NO SYSTEM AT ALL TO THE HUMAN SYSTEM + + +I think I'll tell you about myself. Maybe it's the same way with you. +Anyhow, it's a mighty queer thing. And we ought to try to get some light +on the matter--why there is, apparently, no reason or logic at all about +our systems. + +You see, I go along a pretty fair amount of the time feeling all right; +nothing wrong with my system; nothing, at any rate, that I can notice. +Everybody says: "How well you're looking! Great color, you've got." And +so on. + +Then, maybe, I see in the paper that there is an epidemic scheduled to +devastate the city pretty soon. This news lays hold of me right off. The +paper goes on to say that it behooves all citizens to take thought to +fortify their systems against the ravages of this terrible disease which +is rapidly approaching. + +Or I read, say, that Thrift Week was such an enormous success (for +everybody else) that a campaign is under way to inaugurate a Health +Week, which (I read) will greatly reduce the mortality in the community. +The way to reduce my own mortality (I read with considerable attention) +is for me to Stop, Look and Listen in the matter of my health. And To Do +It Now! I don't like those profane words, like mortality. They disturb +me. And occasionally get me into no end of trouble--as you'll see. + +Or, perhaps, I notice around in cars and places an unusual number of +advertisements instructing you what firm to consult in order to +"safeguard the interests of your heirs." A died (one of these cards may +say) and left his estate to B, his widow, naming C as executor. C died +suddenly shortly afterward. B (the widow) met E, with oil lands in +Hawaii--and so on. The advertisement winds up: Are you A? + +Not yet; I'm not! But I'd better watch out. I know this is a good +advertisement because it gets into my mind the way it does. + +Or, again, perhaps there are just a number of little things that I come +across. A gentleman one day tells me at luncheon, we'll say, that he +can't drink tea because it gives him uric acid so bad. Good gracious! +And I (maybe) subject to uric acid! + +An octogenarian (we'll suppose) is interviewed. He attributes his +longevity to abstemiousness in the use of inexpensive cigarettes. (I at +once put mine out.) + +A chemist (very likely) gets a lot of publicity by declaring that you +are to Look Before You Leap in the matter of drinking water. (And but +the night before I drank from the spout in the kitchen!) And so on. +Well, things such as these set one to thinking. + +I say to myself when I get that way (to thinking, I mean) a stitch in +time saves nine; there's no loss so bad as the loss of your health, +because if you have that you can obtain aught else; a word to the wise +is sufficient; make hay while the sun shines; little drops of water wear +away the stone; take heed for the morrow while it is yet May; be not +like unto the foolish virgin who spilt the beans. And many other things +of this kind, which (doubtless in wise measure) are both good and true. + +Well, in short, I determine to "build up," to get myself in thoroughly +"good shape." + +I swear off smoking. I put away the home brew. I do not eat fresh +bread. I procure myself overshoes against the rain. I rise with the +lark. I (religiously eating an apple first) go to bed betimes. I walk so +many miles a day--also skip a rope. I shun all delicacies of the table. +I take those horrid extra cold baths, for the circulation. I do "deep +breathing." I "relax" for twelve minutes each day. I shun the +death-dealing demon "worry." I "fix my mind on cheerful thoughts." I +"take up a hobby," philately, or something like that. I eat the skins of +potatoes. I watch the thermometer at the office, and monkey continually +with the steam radiator. Everything like that. + +When you undertake a thing (even if it's only shelling peas) be thorough +in it, that's my motto. I don't, indeed, in this regimen get much work +done, but it's better to be slow and sure. + +Well, what happens? + +When I set out to build up this is what happens to me: First thing, +maybe, I get pimples. No; no maybe about it. I sure get pimples. Then, +very likely, I get a carbuncle. (I have just asked my assistant how you +spell that word. She inquires if I mean the gem, or--or the other. I +have told her I mean the other.) + +Next, very probably, I "contract" (as they say) a cough. This cough +"develops" into a cold.... You have (I trust) had that sort of cold +which hangs on for months. Nothing recommended is of any help to you. +You become resigned (more or less) to the idea--just as a man who has +lost a leg (or his mind) must resolve to do the best he can with the +rest of his life without his leg (or his mind), so must you adapt +yourself to the stern condition imposed by Fate of always having a cold. +That's the kind of a cold I mean that I get. (Only worse!) + +My cold branches out into several little side lines, such as acute +neuralgia and inflammatory rheumatism. Stiff joints impede my agility in +getting down the hill to my morning train to the city. I slip on the ice +and break my glasses. + +Not having my glasses causes me at the office to greet Mr. Sloover as +Mr. Rundle, and this sort of error breathes a chill upon the nice +nuances of business. + +Or in my personal correspondence (if I were that kind of a person) I +might put my letter for Penelope into the envelope for Pauline. This, +when I had discovered the calamity, would doubtless perturb my thoughts. +My thoughts being perturbed, I might walk out of the restaurant without +my change of three dollars and eighty cents. Thoroughly upset by now, I +walk under a ladder. Realizing that I have done this, my nervousness is +the occasion of my dropping my watch. Enough! I recognize that there is +no use in my going back to the office that afternoon. I telephone in +that I have gone home to bed with my cold. + +On coming out of the cigar store where the telephone booth is, I see +Christopher Morley, Don Marquis and Franklin P. Adams walking down the +street arm in arm. (I can see very little without my glasses, but well +enough to recognize such a spectacle as that.) Something, I say, must be +on. And I cheer up considerably. Some cheering up certainly is just what +I need. I overhaul the company. And I ask it (the company) where it is +bound. It says: "For 'Mecca.' Come along." Don hands me a pocket flask +(largely empty), Chris presents me with a large green cigar, and Frank +gives me a match. It is agreed that we roll a little pool for a few +hours while waiting for the cab. + +Well, you see, I've been led to abandon the idea of building up my +health--but I don't care, one may as well die happy. + +I have a great time at that show. (My cold is immensely better.) I fix +on one eye-glass so as to see something desirable. And I cut up a lot. + +But--when we turn to leave I discover the president of my company going +out just ahead of me. Well, I suppose I'll have to take what is coming +to me tomorrow. + +That one good meal, anyhow (after the pool), has strengthened my spirit +immensely. I plan to have a regular, genuine breakfast in the morning. +The kind I used to enjoy before I started in to get myself in fine +shape. A breakfast of sliced pineapple, eggs, steak, fried potatoes, +cottage-cheese, hot rolls, and two pots of good strong coffee. A pipe +afterward. + +When I get out to the house I find that my uncle (from whom I had been +estranged for years) has died, and left me his fine, ninety carat, forty +jewel, repeater watch. + +I wake up bursting with joyous life. The girl tells me that those +especially handsome glasses I lost last New Year's Eve have been found. +Down at the station the station-master comes out to greet me. He says +so many people have slipped on our hill that next week the railroad is +going to install a free coach service. I see by the morning paper that +the horse I took a twelve to one shot on in the Buenos Aires derby came +out the length of the stretch to the good. On the train into town I +smoke a couple of packages of cigarettes--as I become a bit bothered +about the situation at the office. + +A girder, or something, had fallen across the track. The train is held +up. For a couple of hours it stands there. I become more than decidedly +nervous. Now this is awful bad doings. Everything had been coming so +right again. It seems as if there is no reward in this world for +anything. Here for a whole month or so I had been subjecting myself to +the most rigorous and unpleasant kind of discipline solely in order to +make myself more efficient in my work, and so more valuable to the +house. Nothing else. Then by an accident I am kept away from the office +one afternoon, and this has to go and happen just to keep me away +probably the whole of the forenoon. Everything will, of course, be +misunderstood and misinterpreted. Instead of getting just credit for +what I've done, I'll probably get bounced. If anyone wants to have the +moral of this story pointed out to him: it is that there is not much use +in trying, you can see that. + +When I do get to the office my secretary is in quite a flurry. She tells +me that Mr. Equity, the president, has been inquiring for me. In +fact--she hesitates--wants me to step in to see him as soon as I arrive. + +So, there you are! + +Mr. Equity (a most unusual thing in any circumstances) shakes my hand +with great cordiality. He smiles, not benignantly but rather +deferentially. Says that he has recognized for some little time that I +have not had a salary commensurate with my services. Times, however, are +not of the best. Would I be willing to continue with the firm at--a +pause--well, double my present salary? Everything, he adds, would be +made as pleasant for me as possible. + +His secretary whispers to me in an outer office: "He has been so +flustered. He was scared you weren't ever coming back." + +I discussed this matter of the strange workings of the human system with +a friend of mine outside the office. "Ah!" he said, "you didn't +persevere long enough in looking after yourself. If you had kept it up +for a year instead of only a month, you'd be a well man today. And," he +added seriously, "a successful man, too." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SEEING THE "SITUATIONS WANTED" SCENE + + +"What a lot of things they put in the papers!" Hilaire Belloc observes +somewhere in one of his essays. Indeed, it is so! + +I fear, however, that one of the features "they" put in the papers does +not have anything like as popular a reading as it deserves to have. +Those of the governing class, personages who employ people, probably +consult fragments of this department of the newspaper now and then. But, +it may fairly be claimed, nobody reads, with the delicious pleasure and +the abundant profit he might read, that part of the paper fullest of all +of, so to say, meat and gravy. + +The story it tells is probably the deepest grounding in life to be found +in print. There as it stands in today's paper Shakespeare (I fancy) +could not have written it, nor Balzac, nor Dickens, nor Arnold Bennett, +nor O. Henry, nor Sinclair Lewis. This newspaper feature is called +"Situations Wanted." It might just as accurately be called "The Human +Scene," or "The Heart of the World," or "The Cry of the Soul." Its tale +is of what all men are seeking (and have ever sought), each in his own +degree, and after his fashion--bread, a place in the sun, a level higher +than that of today. + +Let us, briefly, survey this Page of Life. + +The most conspicuous figure in the vast and motley throng is the Bold +and Confident Man. He that knows his superior worth and does not propose +to hide his light, he that has the spirit to attack the conqueror. His +method is to fling a large and arresting headline across his "ad." "I AM +THE MAN YOU WANT!" he begins. Or, "PAR-EXCELLENCE," he announces in big +type. Or, "Mr. Busy Manufacturer," he says in good sized "caps"; in +smaller letters asks: "Are you in need of _a competent manager_?" If Mr. +B. M. is in such need, it is squarely put up to him: he "will do well to +address X." To the employer who hesitates this vital opportunity is +lost. The ad says: "Write now--_Right Now!_" Undoubtedly this is the +horse to put your money on; the hero to marry your daughter to. He will +not want. + +Our bold, aggressive friend frequently writes, barring a bit of +"bounce," an admirable, clean-cut account of himself. He has, he +declares, acted for some of the leading concerns in the country; he has +never yet failed to give satisfaction; every employer he ever had will +testify to his ability and character. He invites the closest +investigation of his record, and he is open for any engagement where +faithful work, absolute integrity and devotion to his employer's +interests will be productive of "a fair living salary." It is, indeed, +difficult to avoid the impression that this man "has the goods." + +Akin to him in his method of a bill-board-like headline is another, of +whom one is not so sure. He does not so much command attention as seek +to beguile it. His particular "lay" is the Ingenious. Here is one +example of his style: + + AN ADVERTISING ADVENTURER + + offers 16 years' experience + + (scarred by a few notable defeats and a thorough knowledge edge of + what NOT to do) to a manufacturer, for whom he will SAVE more than + his wages; a bad man, who does not drink, never was out of work, is + married and proud of it; age 32; would rather work than eat. + Address: Alert. + +Then there is the Challenge Not to Be Denied. Here is a sample: +"_Accountant_.--Are you one of the progressive firms? If you are, you +want----" etc. Frequently one comes across the Facetious Advertiser. He +runs some such headline as this: "_Editor for Rent._" Or perhaps he +says: "'_Secretarial Services' For Sale._" In contrast to him is the +advertiser with the Tremulous Appeal. He may begin: "_Who Wants My +Services?_" And go on to say: "I am hard worker and steady, and willing +to go anywhere. Salary about $12 a week." Or perhaps he says: +"_Privilege_ of meeting man who can utilize my services." Or maybe it is +thus: "$15 per Week and an Opportunity." Such a very human ad as this is +likely to continue somewhat like this: + + Can you use a young man of twenty-one--one of really serious + purpose? I have had enough business experience and training to know + that to be of help I must do well whatever I am given to do. Of + course I am looking for a future--but I know that it does not + matter so much what I do as how I do it. Therefore, I believe any + reputable business holds a future. I am from Kansas, in New York on + my own resources and so must have $15 per week to start. I have a + high school education, and have read a great deal, and have + attended Business School. + +Next is the Poignant ad. The purest example of this which in my studies +I have discovered is headed: "_Who Will Talk With Me?_" A step beyond +this we come upon the Altogether Pitiful. I mean like the one I here +copy out: + + WILL you please find or give office employment to an educated, with + physical defect, young man; just a chance to work two weeks without + salary desired? + +Akin to the poignant situation-wanted advertisement is the Urgent: +"_Advertising Writer_, college man (Princeton), urgently needs +situation." Or: "_Proofreader_, educated young man, requires position +_immediately_." It is, such is the inference, defective philanthropy in +an employer to delay. A touching figure, too (because he does not +suspect that he is a touching figure), is the Cheery and Hopeful. We +have him here: "_Ambitious_ young American (28) desires position; will +try anything; moderate salary to start." + +A wily fellow is the Ingratiating advertiser. Sometimes he is a "Spanish +young man" who offers to work altogether without salary as Spanish +correspondent in some export house "where he could practice English." +Occasionally he is a "copy writer" who, wishing a position with an +agency or mercantile firm, is "willing to demonstrate ability for two +weeks before drawing salary." Now and then a still more positive +character baits the hook with the offer of gratis services. In this +morning's paper a stenographer releases the seductive declaration that +"one trial will demonstrate my value to you." + +A rōle played on the stage of the "Situations Wanted" page which I have +always much admired is that of the Highly Dignified. The Bold and +Confident Man, the Ingenious, the Tremulous, the Poignant, the Hopeful, +the Ingratiating--the voices of all these figures touch one with a sense +of the harsh clash of life, its trickiness, its vicissitudes, its pathos +and its tragedy. But "_A Gentleman_ of 50," who, "having a considerable +private income, desires dignified occupation; salary unimportant," +revives the poetic idea that (at any rate, now and then) God's in His +heaven and all's right with the world. The highly dignified advertiser +certainly is a very enviable character. It must be very nice to be able +to say, as in this advertisement before us: "_Light Occupation of an +Important Nature_ is sought by middle-aged gentleman capable of assuming +control and conducting any normal business enterprise." + +A very colorful feature of the "Situations Wanted" page is the +interesting qualifications frequently set forth. Glancing at the paper +in hand I find a young man of twenty-five who seeks a "permanent +position" with a publisher recommending himself as being "affable." Also +here is a "refined gentleman" who desires a "compatible" position and +lists among his accomplishments skill in the art of "tasty drawing." A +"keen discreet American" looking for a job with a "corporation" mentions +his "suave manners." A butler unemployed regards himself as "very nice." +A college graduate of twenty-eight who wants to "begin at the bottom" +asserts that he is a "fluent talker." A "young man with literary +ability" flings out the intimation that he "desires position where it +will be of some use." A dressmaker states that in her calling she is +"perfect." A clerk is "very smart at figures." A nurse puts forward her +asset as a "plain writer." You are pleased to discover that so many +people have a "pleasing personality." And that among stenographers there +are so many who may be described (they say) as an "attractive young +girl." Here is one who introduces herself as both "prepossessing" and +"brainy." A "woman of education" who seeks occupation at "anything +useful if there is friendliness" gives as her leading characteristic a +"sense of humor." Now and then the recommendations offered somewhat +mystify me, as in the advertisement of the lady, "age 29, fine +personality (widow of P. M. of F. and A. M.)." Then there is that great +company who have but one merit to display. They may be represented in +the "Female" column by the "_Respectable_ young woman" who "wishes day's +work." And in the "Male" column by the "_Sober_ man" who (simply) +"desires position." Sometimes here it is difficult to determine the +degree of sobriety maintained, as in the frequent advertisement of the +chauffeur who discreetly states that he is "temperate." + +In case you should write down your idea of your own "appearance," what +would you say? I confess that such a problem would puzzle me. It does +not puzzle some. "Situation Wanted" ads record that there are numerous +young men of "exceptional appearance." Though occasionally we come upon +a young man of almost painful conscientiousness who feels that he should +not go further than to say that he is of "fair appearance." + +The queer dissimilarity of human aspirations echoes through the +"Situations Wanted" page. Here is a "_Gentleman_, excellent education +and personality, linguist," who wants a position as a companion, or +"courier, &c." A "_Highly_ educated French lady would gladly take a +child for walks every day from 10 to 12." A "_Lady_, 27, of literary +bent desires position as companion around the world." It is remarkable, +the number of persons there are in the world of "literary" tendency. +Remarkable, too, how many people with an inclination to travel. Here is +a "_Cornell Graduate_" who has, apparently, no aversion whatever to +spending the winter in "a warm climate." There are "_Two_ young men, +partners," who "wish to join an expedition, any destination." But there +are home-keeping souls, too. A "_Cultured_ elderly man, neat," craves +"household duties." And so on. + +What a rich variety of characters throng the populous scene of the +"Situations Wanted" page! Here, in today's paper, following the +advertisement of a "sculptor" comes that of a "former policeman." A +"_Physician_, practicing twenty years in Paris, speaking English, +French, Spanish, German, Italian, seeking situation," is cheek by jowl +with a "_Plumber_, good all round man." A young man who has "put 9 years +at sea as steward" nonchalantly asks "What have you?" A "_Former +College Professor_, 30, seeks field of occupation in advertising." And a +"_Cavalry_ man, excellent record, wishes position at anything." A +"_Cultured Visiting Governess_ of good family, social position, trains +ladies, English, grammar, literature, elegant correspondence, art of +conversation, current events, social etiquette." A remarkable +"gentleman" presents himself as "qualified to do most anything." And a +"Christian, age 38," wishes a position as "manager of a laundry." + +A strategic device frequently employed by the humble is that of getting +someone whose position has weight to present them. For instance, "Rev. +Dr. Moffett recommends a colored man for janitor of a loft building." +And numerous are the gentlemen who, laying up their cars, are interested +in placing their chauffeurs elsewhere. + +"_Boy_" is perhaps the word which dominates the page. Most boys, +apparently, are not particular in their choice of a calling. They are +"willing to do anything." Now and then one declares that he is a "good +fighter," or something like that. Here is one who demands a "position +where mental ability will be necessary." Here is another who is very +specific, thus: "15-1/2 years old, 5 feet 8-1/4 inches tall." + +Sometimes one meets a very extraordinary character in these columns. The +other day no less a distinguished person than this put in an ad: + + I am compelled, through severe strain, to discontinue my work + (involving the mental faculties) with which I have puzzled the + scientific world for several years, and which has netted me a + weekly income of over $200; I have no other source for a livelihood + and consequently appeal to the business world for an opportunity to + grow up in a new endeavor. WHY NOT MEET ME AND TALK IT OVER? + +A genuinely touching ad, sensible and obviously quite sincere, in which +you hear the appealing voice of a fellow being in trouble, but an ad +which I fear is rather futile, is one like this: + + Am 43 years old; defective hearing prevents continuation of + salesman's career; I want situation where this impairment does not + prevent satisfactory discharge of required duties. + +A great, and a grave, lesson may be learned from the "Situations Wanted" +page. And that is to be found mainly in the section where the first word +of each advertisement is simply "MAN." Men there are in it of every age. +I mean in considering the plight of the world one should ponder that +great army whose business is "anything." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +LITERARY LIVES + + +"My God!" exclaimed the old lady in the railway carriage to Mr. Le +Gallienne, "Tennyson is dead!" + +Have not many of us as we have turned the daily papers these last +several years frequently experienced the sensations of this dear old +lady? Whistler, Swinburne, Meredith, Henry James, Howells. They are +dead. Walt Whitman (wasn't it?), when he heard that Carlyle was dead, +went out, and looked up at the stars, and said he didn't believe it. + +We have been stirred to these emotional reflections by chancing to come +early this afternoon in the Main Reading Room of the New York Public +Library upon what would commonly be called a well-known book of +reference. We had no intention of doing more than peer into it. Night +found us there--the book still open before us. + +The excellent Solomon Eagle (otherwise known as J. C. Squire), in one of +his delightfully gossipy, though erudite, papers contributed to _The New +Statesman_ of London (collected, many of them, into a volume, bearing +the title "Books in General"), remarks of works of reference that they +"are extremely useful; but they resemble Virgil's Hell in that they are +easy things to get into and very difficult to escape from." He +continues: + + Take the Encyclopędia. I imagine that my experience with it is + universal. I have only to dip my toe into this tempting morass and + down I am sucked, limbs, trunk and all, to remain embedded until + sleep or a visitor comes to haul me out. A man will read things in + the Encyclopędia that he would never dream of looking at + elsewhere--things in which normally he does not take the faintest + interest.... + + "Who's Who" takes me in the same way. Ordinarily I have no + particular thirst for it. I should not dream of carrying it about + in my waistcoat pocket for perusal on the Underground Railway. But + once I have allowed myself to open it, I am a slave to it for + hours. This has just happened to me with the new volume, upon which + I have wasted a valuable afternoon. I began by looking up a man's + address; I then read the compressed life-story of the gentleman + next above him (a major-general), wondering, somewhat idly, whether + they read of each other's performances and whether either of them + resented the possession by the other of a similar, and unusual, + surname. Then I was in the thick of it. + +Even so. But an afternoon spent in reading, straight along, the work of +reference we have in mind could not be called wasted. Indeed, quite the +contrary; such an afternoon could be nothing less than one of those +spiritual experiences which suddenly give a measure of growth to the +soul. + +The work which we came upon, in the circumstances indicated, was "The +Dictionary of National Biography"; and the volumes which, by chance, we +took down were Volumes II. and III. of the Second Supplement of the +Dictionary. They contain, these volumes, memoirs of 1,135 noteworthy +English persons dying between January 22, 1901, and December 31, 1911. +The alphabet extends from John Faed, artist, to George, Lord Young, +Scottish Judge. The contributors number 357; the list of these names is +a roll of the most distinguished, in all departments, in the English +Nation of our day. This publication, we should say, is the most +interesting to English-speaking people, as in all probability it is the +most important, generally, issued within at any rate the year of its +publication. And though we cannot rid ourselves of a melancholy feeling +in contemplating this survey of the great stream of brilliant life +ended, we feel there is more good reading for the money in these pages +than in any other book one is likely to come across at random. + +The toll these ten years have taken! The chronicle is here of some born +to greatness, like Queen Victoria; of those, like Cecil Rhodes, who have +achieved it. And the stories are told of some whom the world's fame +found but within the last hour, then dead: John Millington Synge +(contributed by John Masefield), and Francis Thompson (by Everard +Meynell). + +The proportion of biographies of men of letters predominates in +considerable measure. Science follows in the list, then art. The least +but one, sport, is the law. Among the names of women, forty-six in +number, are Florence Nightingale, Kate Greenaway, Charlotte Mary Yonge, +and Mrs. Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes). + +Three illustrious lives entered the twentieth century in England as full +of years as of honors. Meredith, Whistler, and Swinburne were born in +the Spring of the nineteenth century, in 1828, 1834, and 1837 +respectively, and the bloom of their days was with the giants, now +legends, of the Victorian reign. The Kings in the history of art and +letters have been--have they not?--gallant men. We suspect that it takes +a gallant man to be a King in these callings. Of these three--two +wished to be soldiers--the most gallant spirit was the great-grandson of +a rather grand tailor. + +He won what men can and he bore what men must, is some ancient line. + +The most extensive article in these volumes is the "Meredith," by Thomas +Seccombe. It is the richest. Twelve pages is its compass. As a biography +we are disposed to rank it with--let's see?---Froude's "Carlyle" (4 +vols. 8vo.). Perhaps, on the whole, it is better. To go into any detail +in our notice of the appearance of these books, and maintain any +perspective, would carry us to a vast length. The bibliographer is +deeply impressed with the character of Meredith, as a man, throughout +his life, of noble aspect. His critical verdict reduced to one word is: +"Thoroughly tonic in quality, his writings are [as Lamb said of +Shakespeare] essentially manly." This is one of the pictures which most +brightly sticks in our head: + + On the terrace in front of the chalet, whence he descended to + meals, he was often to be heard carrying on dialogues with his + characters, and singing with unrestrained voice. Whimsical and + sometimes Rabelaisian fabrications accompanied the process of + quickening the blood by a spin [a favorite word with him] over + Surrey hills. Then he wrote his master works, ... and welcomed his + friends, often reading aloud to them in magnificent recitative, + unpublished prose or verse. + +If there is anything upon which an article could be "based" not included +in Mr. Seccombe's list of sources, it's a queer thing. + +The "Swinburne" is furnished by Edmund Gosse, whose adequate equipment +for the task includes "personal recollections extending over more than +forty years." Passages of his portrait of the radiant poet are the most +colorful in these volumes of the Dictionary. By way of critical +discussion the writer says: "It is a very remarkable circumstance, which +must be omitted in no outline of his intellectual life, that his +opinions, on politics, on literature, on art, on life itself, were +formed in boyhood, and that though he expanded he scarcely advanced in +any single direction after he was twenty. If growth had continued as it +began, he must have been the prodigy of the world. Even his art was at +its height when he was five and twenty." The Whistler article is by Sir +Walter Armstrong (who writes also on Holman Hunt) and is, one feels, the +most judicial summary that has appeared on the most controversial +subject, one can readily recall, of the epoch closed. A very clear +statement of a principle of the art of painting is this: "For years his +work bore much the same relation to Japanese art as all fine painting +does to nature. He took from Japanese ideals the beauties he admired, +and re-created them as expressions of his own personality." + +There is one delightful anecdote, in E. V. Lucas's sketch of Phil May. +His Punch editor, Sir Francis Burnand, tells a story to the effect that +on being asked at a club for a loan of fifty pounds, May produced all he +had--half that amount--and then abstained from the club for some time +for fear of meeting the borrower, because he felt that "he still owed +him twenty-five pounds." + +Sensible persons will read with satisfaction the just article by T. F. +Henderson on that fine figure Henley, "one of the main supports," said +Meredith, "of good literature in our time." Many good folks will like to +look up Leslie Stephen, the first editor of this Dictionary, "who +enjoyed the affectionate admiration of his most enlightened +contemporaries." The article is by the present editor, Sir Sidney Lee. +Ęsthetically minded persons may read about William Sharpe. Among the +painters are Watts (biographer, Sir Sidney Colvin) and Orchardson. The +"Seymour Haden" is furnished by A. M. Hind. Memoirs of Sir Henry Irving, +Sir Theodore Martin, and Herbert Spencer come in this supplement. And so +on. A piece of American history is related here, too, in the account of +Edward Lawrence Godkin, founder of _The Nation_. + +A subject of emotional literary controversy at the present moment is +treated by Thomas Seccombe in his article on George Gissing. The general +qualities of the Dictionary may be clearly observed in this notice. When +the first volume of this second supplement--A to Evans--was issued not +long ago rumors reached us of some agitation occasioned in England by +the unepitaphical character of the memoirs of Edward VII. Well, +discrimination was not made against a King. The frankness of this high +tribunal in its calm recital of facts is striking. + +After some steady reading of the great Dictionary we wonder if printed +forms had been sent to the contributors, upon which they composed, in +answer to the questions there, their articles: the order of progress of +all the memoirs is, in effect, so uniform. Each says at (it appeared) +about the same point: His appearance was this. Each seems to conclude +with a list of the portraits. + +And this idea recalled to us a story. A foreigner entering our country's +gates, upon being asked to fill out papers setting forth his +nationality, age, color, and so on, wrote beside the query, +"Business?"--"Rotten." In this intelligent interpretation of the +question, the "business" of many whose lives are recorded in honor here +was "rotten" for many a long year. + +The story of literature has not ceased to be a sorry story; still, as +was said on a time, comparable to the annals of Newgate. A tale it +continues, in a large measure, of outcast experience, of destitution, +"seeking a few pence by selling matches or newspapers," or development +through suffering, of hospital sojourns, of contemplated suicide, of +unfortunate "amorous propensities," of "ill-considered" marriage, of +that immemorial "besetting weakness," of "a curious inability to do the +sane, secure thing in the ordinary affairs of life," of "ordering his +life with extreme carelessness in financial matters," of the weariness +of reward for work of high character long deferred, of charitable +legacies "from a great-aunt." + +Mr. Wells speaks somewhere of the amazing persistency of the instinct +for self-expression. Where it exists, one reflects in musing on these +biographies, you can't kill it with a club. + +Very imposing we felt the literary style of this Dictionary to be. It +treats of a man much as if he were a word, say, in the Century +Dictionary. This is the sort of biographical writing, we said, that a +man with whiskers can read. It does sound something like a court +calendar. Its tone is omniscient, indeed. But the Recording Angel here +does not drop a tear upon the oath of any Uncle Toby and blot it out +forever. No. He says, of one we tremble to name, "his language was often +beyond the reach of apology." Fine is the dignity with which sordid +things are related. "The return journey he was under the necessity of +performing on foot." Almost grotesque is the neglect of the caressing +touch of sentiment. "His own wish was to be a jockey." The treatment of +the theme of love is entertaining. "At the age of nineteen he married." + +August is the passivity in the presence of the Reaper who mows the +golden grain. Without poetry, oh, Death, where is thy sting! In these +volumes, of none is it sighed: At twilight his spirit fled. Had he but +lived ...! It is: He died December 14, 1908. He left no issue. A fair +portrait of him by Charles Ricketts is in the possession of Mr. Edmund +Gosse. + +We arose after several hours' reading with a sense of having perused for +a space two recent volumes of the Book of Judgment. We were full of +emotion. We felt the mystery of the destiny of man. How admirable he is +and how pitiful! Throbbing, we went forth into the throbbing city. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +SO VERY THEATRICAL + + +There is a young woman I thought of taking there for luncheon the other +day, but when I called for her it did not seem to me that she had used +her lip-stick that morning--and so we went somewhere else. + +She is pretty good-looking and was dressed not at all unfashionably. She +would have done all right at the Waldorf, or at the Vanderbilt, or +Biltmore, or Ritz-Carlton, or Ambassador. Indeed, I don't know but that +at some such place as that I should have been rather proud of her. + +But, you see, for the place I had in mind her skirt was a little too +long--it came almost halfway to her ankles. Her bosom was quite covered. +She moves with fair grace, but without striking sinuousness. And I +suddenly recollected that she does not smoke much. + +No; I saved myself just in time; I should have been chagrined, +embarrassed, most decidedly uncomfortable; she would have been +conspicuous. I should probably have lost caste with the waiters, too; +and not again have been able to get a table after the plush rope had +been thrown across the entrance to the dining-room; which, so keen is +competition for places there, is shortly before one o'clock. + +If you know where this place is, why, of course, all right. But nobody +has any business to go shouting all over the housetops exactly where it +is. People who aren't just naturally by temperament a part of the +picture oughtn't to know how to find it. Though it is a perfectly good +bet that bunches of them would like to know. + +But that's just the way so many of these havens of the elect get ruined. +A lot of curious "visitors" go piling in right along; the scene soon +loses all its authenticity; and shortly becomes bogus altogether. Why, I +can remember when artists--painters and writers--lived in Greenwich +Village. There, in those days.... But all that was years ago. + +This much only will I tell you about the location of the most +_distingué_ place there is in which to have luncheon. The centre of the +inhabited world is, of course, Longacre Square, that widened curving +stretch of Broadway looking north several blocks from the narrow stern +of the gracefully towering Times Building, rising from its site of a bit +of an island surrounded by four surging currents of traffic. A few miles +away (from Longacre Square) the provinces begin. But there, the most +gleaming spot on this our globe under the canopy of the purple night, is +the quintessence, the apex of human life.... I am here speaking, of +course, in the spirit of those of that nomad race whose hopes for gold +and fame lie through the "stage entrance"--I mean the ladies and +gentlemen of the theatre. + +To the east just off Longacre Square along the crosstown streets is a +medley of offices of divers theatrical and screen journals, chop-houses, +and innumerable band-box hotels whose names doubtless only a district +messenger boy could recite in any number. The particular one for which +we are headed is famous enough to those familiar with fame of this +character. Here the "Uncle Jack" of the American stage, Mr. Drew, for +some time made his residence. It is always the stopping place in New +York of perhaps the finest of our novelists, Joseph Hergesheimer. That +mystical Indian gentleman, Mr. Rabindranath Tagore, has found it a not +unworthy tent on his western pilgrimages. And so on. + +You cannot be long in its rich little lobby without overhearing struck +the high note of its distinctive clientele. "Where do you open?" asks +someone of someone else. And the answer is not unlikely to be: "At +Stamford. When do you close?" In the subdued light bare satin arms and +enspiriting lengths of colorful stocking flash from the deep chairs +where feminine forms are waiting. A graceful hand opens a telephone +booth to expel a smoking cigarette. + +Here enters Walter Prichard Eaton, come down from his Berkshire farm for +the height of the theatrical season. A tall, leisurely, very New +Englandish, smooth-shaven young man, now coming decidedly grey just over +the ears. Entering the dining-room we come plump against our old friend +Meredith Nicholson lunching with a bevy of friends. A youthful fifty +perhaps now, the author of one of the best sellers of any day, "The +House of a Thousand Candles." Clean-shaven, with a physiognomy +suggesting that of a Roman senator. What has brought him just now from +Indiana? Well, he is revolving in his mind the idea of writing a new +play, as soon, he adds, as he "can find the right ink." Hasn't been +able to get hold of any that just suited him. + +But much more important to his mind, apparently, than this play is +another mission in which he has become involved. He is going to have +himself "mapped," that is, have his horoscope cast. Yes, by one of the +ladies of his party, who, it appears, is eminent as a professor of this +science, now rapidly coming into a period of great vogue. When he has +supplied her with the data concerning his birth she will reveal to him +the course of his career through 1922. + +On a number of the tables are cards marked "Reserved." Around two sides +of the room upholstered seats running the length of the wall seat +couples in greater intimacy of tźte-ą-tźte side by side before their +little tables. Most of the young women present--but could you really +call many of them young women?... Their most striking feature, after the +dizziness of their beauty, and the ravishing audacity of their clothes, +is the bewitching tenderness of their years. More than several of these +dainty, artfully rose-cheeked smokers look to be hardly past seventeen. +Their foppishly dressed male companions frequently are in effect far +from anything like such youth; and in a number of cases are much more +likely to remind you of Bacchus than of Apollo. + +Two of these misses nearby are discussing with one another their +"doorman." "Isn't he," exclaims one, "the very dearest old doorman you +have ever seen in all of your whole life!" Yes, it would seem that, +peering down the long vista of the past, from out of their experience of +hundreds of theatres, neither of these buds of womanhood could recall +any doorman so "dear" as their present one. + +The dominant group in the room is a gay and populous party about a large +round table in the centre. And undoubtedly the dominant figure of this +party is, you recognize, Alexander Woollcott, dramatic critic of the New +York _Times_, invariably at this same table at this same hour, a very +spirited, a very round plump young man, very dapper to the end of every +hair in his trim little black moustache. Next to him who is that? Why, +goodness me! if it isn't Edna Ferber, who, though I doubt not she would +not want to be counted in the fledgling class of some of our soubrette +friends here, indeed does seem to be getting younger all the while. + +Joining this party now is an odd and rather humorous looking figure, +tall, amusingly stooping and amusingly ample of girth for a character of +such apparently early manhood, an intensely black crop of hair and a +very blackish streak of moustache, soft collar, unpressed clothes. Sits +down, hooping himself over his plate with a suggestion of considerable +shyness. Gives you an impression, perhaps by the brightness of his eyes, +of Puckish mirth playing within his mind. Heywood Broun. + +At the table on our right we perceive a very popular lady known to us, +Miss Margaret Widdemer, or, as she now is, Mrs. Robert Haven Schauffler. +Her general air breathing the simplicity of a milkmaid amid this scene. +Under her mammoth floppy hat reminding you of an early summer rose. She +is discussing with a spectacled person who looks as if he might have +something to do with book publishing whether her next book should be a +light romance on the order of her "Wishing-Ring Man" and "Rose Garden +Husband" or she should come into the new movement of serious "Main +Street" kind of realism. + +And there, on our left, certainly is a publisher, Mr. Liveright of the +firm of Boni and Liveright. Young fellow, thirty-five perhaps. Maybe he +is talking about some of his striking successes, such as "Potterism" and +"From Mayfair to Moscow." With him Ludwig Lewisohn, literary and +dramatic critic. + +Back of us we detect young Burton Rascoe, former literary editor of the +Chicago Tribune, newly arrived in New York as managing editor of +_McCall's Magazine_, and to whom (by the way) the suppressed novel +"Jurgen" was dedicated. You wouldn't think anybody would be so frowning +as to want to suppress Mr. Rascoe. He looks as if he might be twin +brother to any dewy bud here. + +Who is that he is with? Theodore Maynard, I declare. Young English poet, +critic and novelist. And the other side of him is a gentleman, Oliver +Saylor by name, who at the height of the revolution went to Russia to +study the Russian drama, and engrossed in ęsthetics lived for a time in +quarters midway between the contending military forces. Beyond we see a +young lady recently come on from Ted Shawn's song and dance studio in +Los Angeles. + +And yonder you see a young man who is just as dear and sweet as he can +be. He served his country during the war by knitting a sweater and a +"helmet" for a poet he knew in the army in France. He, this dainty +youth, looks pretty much lip-sticked himself. In order not to sin +against daintiness this young person has a habit of powdering his nose. +A coarse friend of his forbade his doing this, and the next time he met +him neatly powdered rebuked him for it. Whereupon the young man replied: +"Oh! You wouldn't (would you?) let a little powder come between +friends." + +And, finally, here most happily we are ourselves. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +OUR STEEPLEJACK OF THE SEVEN ARTS + + +There is a rather frisky looking apartment house there now, a pastry +shop and tea room occupying the ground floor--behind it, the other side +of a venerable brick wall, a tiny, ancient burying ground. But in days +of yester-year here stood a tavern of renown, the Old Grape Vine, which +on this site, Sixth Avenue at Eleventh Street, had given cheer since +Sixth Avenue was little more than a country road. A sagging, soiled +white, two-story frame structure, with great iron grill lamps before the +door. Within, the main room was somewhat reminiscent of London's Olde +Cheshire Cheese. + +The proprietor was a canny Scot, one MacClellan. ("Old Mac"! Whither has +he gone?) I was coming along by there the other day, and I asked a man +with whom I chanced to walk if he remembered the Old Grape Vine. "Ah! +yes;" he said; "they had mutton pies there." They did. And excellent +ale, also, served in battered pewter mugs. "They" had here, too (some +fifteen years ago), excellent society beneath the dingy light. Roaring, +roistering George Luks (as he was then) very much to the fore. At the +rickety mahogany table where Frans-Halsian George held forth frequently +was to be found the painter William J. Glackens and his brother "Lew," +humorous draughtsman for _Puck_. Ernest Lawson sometimes came in. A Mr. +Zinzig, a very pleasant soul and an excellent pianist and teacher of the +piano, often was of the company. A Mr. FitzGerald, art critic in those +days of the _Sun_, sometimes "sat in." And a delightful old cock, Mr. +Stephenson, art critic then of the _Evening Post_. Among the most +devoted habitués of the place was an old-school United States army +officer turned writer of military stories. (When the proceedings had +progressed to a certain stage of mellowness it was his habit to go home +and return directly arrayed in his uniform.) There was, too, a queer +figure of a derelict journalist associated with _Town Topics_. There was +an inoffensive gentleman of leisure whose distinction was that he was +brother to a famous Shakespearean scholar. (As the hour grew late he +would begin to whistle softly to himself through his teeth.) There was a +rotund being of much reading who perpetually smoked a very old pipe and +who was editor of a tobacco journal. There was a man of the sea who +continually told stories of Japan. (After eleven he was somewhat given +to singing.) There was an illustrator for a tu'penny magazine, who (so +as to seem to be a large staff) signed a variety of names to his work. +From the land of R. L. S., he. One time while in a doze (somewhere else) +he was robbed. His comment upon his misfortune became a classic line. It +was: "By heaven! As long as whiskey is sold to lose ten dollars is +enough to drive a Scot mad!" (This was long before anybody had ever +heard of the now illustrious Mr. Volstead.) And many more there were. +Ah, me! ah, me! How the picture has changed! + +Well, the point of all this (if it have any point) is that it was in the +Old Grape Vine (of tender memory) that I first saw James Gibbons +Huneker. I think that, in his promenades as an impressionist, he was +there but seldom. Though we know that high among the Seven Arts he rated +the fine art of drinking Pilsner. The old places of Martin's and +Lüchow's (headquarters on a time for the musical cognoscenti) were ports +of call on his rounds; and he moved freely, I believe, among the places +of refreshment along the foreign quarter of lower Fourth Avenue. At the +Grape Vine, I understand, he was an especial friend of Luks, and +probably of Glackens and Lawson. And, though he was a very famous man, +he seemed to like the motley company. + +Ten or twelve years ago I was earning a living more honestly than +perhaps I have been making one since. I was a clerk in a book store--the +retail department, it happened, of the house which publishes Mr. +Huneker's books. And there, from my position "on the floor," I +frequently saw him moving in and out. Moving rather slowly, with the +dignity of bulk. A distinguished figure, quietly but quite neatly +dressed, very erect in carriage, head held well back, supporting his +portliness with that physical pride of portly men, a physiognomy of +Rodinesque modelling--his cane a trim touch to the ensemble. He was, I +distinctly remember, held decidedly in regard by the retail staff +because he was (what, by a long shot, a good many "authors" were not) +exceedingly affable in manner to us clerks. + +The moment I have particularly in mind was when Samuel Butler's volume +"The Way of All Flesh" first appeared in an American edition. We all +know all about Butler now. But, looking back, it certainly is +astonishing how innocent most all of us then were of any knowledge of +the great author of "Erewhon." Even so searching a student of literature +as W. C. Brownell was practically unacquainted with Butler. He was +taking home a copy of "The Way of All Flesh" to read. Mr. Huneker was +standing by. In some comment on the book he remarked that Butler had +been a painter. "A painter!" exclaimed Mr. Brownell, in a manner as +though wondering how it came about he knew so little of the man. "But +this," said Mr. Huneker, referring to the novel, "is not his best stuff. +That is in his note-books." Brownell: "And where are they?" Huneker: "In +the British Museum." Mr. Brownell made a fluttering gesture (as though +to express that he "gave up") toward Mr. Huneker: "He knows everything!" +he ejaculated. + +We should, of course, be surprised now that anybody _did not_ know that +Butler had been a painter. When, just a short time ago, W. Somerset +Maugham adapted for the purposes of his sensational novel "The Moon and +Sixpence" the character and career of Paul Gauguin, it was in the pages +of Huneker that many first looked for, and found, intelligence +concerning the master of the Pont Aven school of painting. Well, Gauguin +is now an old story. And Ibsen, Tolstoy, Wagner, Richard Strauss, +Rimbaud, De Gourmont, Nietzsche, Meredith, Henry James, William James, +Bergson, Barrčs, Anatole France, Flaubert, Lemaītre, Huysmans, +Maeterlinck, Baudelaire, Stirner, Strindberg, Faguet, Shaw, Wilde, +George Moore, Yeats, Synge, Schnitzler, Wederkind, Lafargue, Rodin, +Cézane, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, George Luks, that wondrous "flock of +Unicorns"--they all are old stories, too ... now. But it was our +Steeplejack, James Huneker, who was our pioneer watcher of the skies. +And what in the large sweep of his vision of the whole field of the +world's beauty he saw, he reported with infinite gusto. "Gusto," as H. +L. Mencken in the Huneker article of his "Book of Prefaces" says, +"unquenchable, contagious, inflammatory." + +The extent of the personal contact which Mr. Huneker enjoyed and +maintained with the first-rate literary men of the world was amazing. +While I was with the book shop I speak of, "presentation copies" of each +new book of his, to be sent out "with the compliments of the author," +were piled up for forwarding literally several feet high. They went to +all the great in letters, in every country, that you could think of. +Anatole France, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, George Brandes, Edmund +Gosse, George Moore--people like that. + +Vast was the incoming stream of books to him, presentation copies, +review copies, "publicity" copies; so great a flood that it was +necessary for him periodically to call in an old book man to clear his +shelves by carting away a wagon-load or two of--genuine treasure. A +catalogue I one time saw of such volumes "from the library of James +Huneker" was sufficient in riches to have been the catalogue of the +entire stock of a very fair shop dealing in "association" volumes, first +editions, and so forth. And a survey of the books themselves made it +quite apparent that a reader who has read every word that Huneker ever +printed (and that would be a person who had read a good deal) may yet +(very likely) be a reader who has not read some of the best of Huneker. +I refer to "Jimmie's" humorous, pungent marginalia. + +Mr. Huneker's close friends have taken occasion since his death to speak +warmly of his kindness toward obscure, struggling talent. There was a +side to him, akin to this, which I have not seen commented upon. +Huneker's fame as a critic had been for years accepted throughout +Europe. When his "New Cosmopolis" was published (a book I did not myself +think so highly of) Joyce Kilmer, then newly come to journalism, +reviewed it for the New York _Times_, very eulogistically. Mr. Huneker +went to the trouble of looking up Kilmer to thank him very simply for +his praise. + +Mr. Huneker was a loyal and disinterested servant of good literature +wherever he found it, and his happily was the power to be an ambassador +to success. So short a time as about four years ago very few people had +heard of William McFee. "Aliens," his first book, had met with no +appreciable success. The manuscript of "Casuals of the Sea" (or the +English "sheets" of the book, I do not recall which) came into the hands +of a publishing house at Garden City. A member of the editorial staff of +this house at this time was Christopher Morley. And I happened at the +moment to have a job as sort of handy man at editorial chores around the +premises. Morley immediately became a great "fan" for the book. +Undoubtedly a fine book, and it was accepted, but (there was a question) +could it be "put across"? It was very long, not of obviously popular +character, and the author's name commanded no attention at all. + +The first "advance" copy of the book sent out went (at Morley's +direction) to Mr. Huneker. He was then writing regularly critical +articles for something like a half dozen publications. "Casuals of the +Sea" (such things did not turn up every day) was a "find" for his +enthusiasm, He "pulled" two columns of brilliant Hunekerean firecrackers +about it in the New York _Sun_; wrote another article of length on the +book for the New York _Times_; gave the volume a couple of paragraphs of +mention in his department on the Seven Arts at that time running in +_Puck_, and perhaps mentioned the book elsewhere also. With the weight +of such fervor and authority "Casuals" was most auspiciously launched. +It could not now, by any chance, be passed by. + +I do not, of course, mean to imply that there was anything artificial or +"manufactured" about the "vogue" of "Casuals." First, Mr. Huneker was +not a reviewer but a critic, if not thoroughly a great one, certainly a +very real one; and about the last man going who could be got to "push" +anything he did not whole-heartedly believe was fine. And secondly, +"Casuals" had "the goods." + +Through my connection with the matter of "Casuals" I suppose it was that +a correspondence came about between Mr. Huneker and me. And in all my +days I have never seen so energetic a correspondent. It seems to me that +I got a letter from him about every other morning. I dropped out of the +publishing business and went to Indiana for a time. I let him know when +I got there, my motive in this being mainly to notify him that I _was_ +out of the publishing business and so was no longer in a position to +give any business attention to letters relating to books. But letters +from him continued to reach me with the same regularity. While, I +hardly need say, I enjoyed this correspondence enormously, I was +decidedly embarrassed by it, as I could not but keenly feel that I was +taking up his time to no purpose. Still, of course, I felt that I should +answer each letter of his without an impolite delay, and no sooner did +he get my reply than he answered back again. Gradually, however, we got +the thing slowed down. + +His letters were prodigal of witty things. I am afraid I have not kept +them; if so I do not know where they are--I move about a good deal. One +neat play of words I remember. I do not know whether or not he himself +ever used it elsewhere. I did use it in a book, giving due credit to Mr. +Huneker. I had told him that I was going in for writing on my own. His +comment was: "He that lives by the pen shall perish by the pen." Some of +his letters, I recall, were signed, "Jim, the Penman." + +And it was no simple trick to read them. He used a pale ink. The +handwriting was small, curious, and to me almost illegible. Why +compositors did not mob him I do not know. He wrote everything by hand; +never would learn to use a typewriter, and declared that he could not +acquire the faculty of dictation. + +This leads me to the story of one of the articles he contributed to _The +Bookman_. When, upon my return to New York, I became (for a time) editor +of this magazine I pursued him for contributions. Yes, later on he would +send us something, but always it was later on, later on. I had about +given up hope of ever getting anything from him when a bulky wad of +closely-written "copy" on yellow paper arrived. Expecting that it would +take me a couple of days to decipher the manuscript, I joyously +acknowledged receipt of it at once, without a thought of questioning the +nature of the article. When I tried to read the article, after I had +held the first page sidewise, next upside down, then examined it in a +mirror, I "passed the buck" and sent the copy straight on to the +printers. If printers had read him before printers ought to be able to +do so again. I advertised the article to appear in the next number of +the magazine. When I got the article back in galley proofs--I got a +jolt. It wasn't "_Bookman_ stuff" at all, all about a couple of "old +rounders," as Mr. Huneker called them, taking a stroll. + +I do not think that Mr. Huneker has as yet since his death, to the time +these rambling remarks are being written, received anything like +adequate recognition in the press. The "obituary" articles in the +newspapers have carried the air that he was hardly more than an +excellent "newspaper man"--somewhat older, but something like (dare I +say?) Heywood Broun or Alexander Woollcott. Ah! no; James Huneker was a +critic and an artist, and a figure, too, in our national life. Though he +was all his days until almost his last breath a hard-working journalist +with an immediate "copy date" before him. And though he most naturally +thought of himself, with common-sense pride in his calling, as a +journalist. I remember his one time speaking of Arnold Bennett as "a +hard-working journalist as well as a novel writer." Indicating his great +esteem for the character of journalist. And he used to speak, too, with +fraternal pride and affection in inflection, of young men who had +written good books, as being among "our men," meaning associated with +the same paper as himself. + +At the remarkable funeral service held in the new Town Hall in New York +high and touching honor was done his memory by the stage and the musical +profession, but literature seemed to be officially represented by the +person of Richard Le Gallienne alone, and painting and sculpture not at +all. The articles by Mr. Huneker's colleagues among music critics have +seemed very largely to claim him as quite their own. True, no doubt, his +most penetrating writing was done in the field of musical criticism. +But, also, Huneker was an evangel who belongs to the Seven Arts. + +One thing should be added. It is a sad thing, but it is of the nature of +life. A good editorial in _The New Republic_ began: "James Huneker named +one of his best books 'The Pathos of Distance.' In a single day his own +figure is invested with the memorial gentleness there described." No, +not altogether in a single day. He had already begun, and more than +begun, to recede into the pathos of distance. His _flair_ was for the +championship and interpretation of the "new" men. And, for the most +part, his new men had become old men. His stoutest admirer must admit +that Mr. Huneker's work was "dated." + +But where (and this is sadder still) is his like today? + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +FORMER TENANT OF HIS ROOM + + +There are certain things which must be done, to yield their best, when +one is young. For one thing, there is only one time in life to run away +to sea. If you did not run away to sea when you were a lad, it is too +late now for you to get any sport out of it. 'Tis something the same +with living in a garret or in a hall bedroom. If you did not read +"Robinson Crusoe" when you were a boy there is no use for you to read it +now; you will not understand it. There are some other things you can +enjoy when you are old--grandchildren, for instance. But the time to +come up to a great city is when one is young. The time to walk up +Broadway at night, and feel a gusto about it, and Fifth Avenue by day, +is when one is young. That is an enchanted time, when it is a fine +dashing thing to be doing, to live at a second-rate boarding house; when +discouragement is adventure; when it is worth while even to be poor; +when one makes life-long friends at sight; when young love is sipped; +when courage is ever stout in one's breast; when one's illusions are +virgin yet; and all's right with the world. At that season one can swell +with a rich personal pride in "Shanley's" and, almost at the same time, +eat one's own theatre supper in a "Dairy Lunch" room, where every +customer is his own waiter as well, and where his table is the broadened +arm of his chair against the wall. + +Richard Day, student at the law, munched his egg sandwich (egg sandwich +was the favorite dish at the "Dairy Lunches" until eggs got so high) and +drank his coffee from a cup that remarkably resembled in shape a shaving +mug and was decorated in similar fashion. The blocks of sugar (two for +Richard) for this stimulating beverage (made out of chicory) were taken +by the customer with his fingers from a heaping-full sort of great +punch-bowl mounted on a pedestal in the middle of the room. It was drawn +from a nickel-plated engine with glass tubes by a young man in a white +coat like a barber's, who served it, with crullers, piece of pie, or +sandwich, across a kind of little bar at the rear end of the long room. + +Day scorned the packed, parading trolley cars, and swung vigorously up +the street. Far up the thoroughfare an enormous electric sign (in its +size suggesting that it had been somehow brought back by Gulliver from +the country of Brobdingnag and mounted here upon a sturdy little +building for awful exhibition) its gigantic illuminated letters spelling +"Arthur Pendennis Ten Cent Cigar," lighted the mist for blocks +approaching it, and marked the north boundary of the dominion for +revelry. The sidewalks were much quieter now. One of those birds of the +urban night deftly wheeled his vehicle alongside our pedestrian and +pulled his clattering quadruped violently back upon its haunches until +it slid along the slippery pavement. "Cab, sir? Cab?" Then he whisked +away again. It was not long before Richard had entered into the district +of slumbering residences, and not much longer until he ran up the steps +before his own door, or, speaking more literally, his own landlady's +door. It is not much to mount three pairs of stairs in the brave days +when one is twenty-one, and Day was in the little room, where, rich only +in the glory of his rising sun, in his youth, he weathered it so long. + +This apartment was the width of the dark hall, which was face to face +with it, about fourteen feet long, and furnished in tune, so to speak. +An uncommonly small, old-fashioned, wooden bedstead, a bantam-size +"dresser," a washstand its shorter brother, a small table or "stand," +and two half-grown chairs, mature before their season, were the +principal articles of furniture. The room was heated by an oil stove +that had passed the age of vanity in one's appearance; it was lighted at +night by a gas-jet, without a globe; by day through a single window, +which occupied between a half and a third of the wall space of the front +end of the room, and which balanced in decorative effect with the door +at the other end. A row of books was arranged along the dresser top +against the lower part of the small looking-glass. Two pictures (the +property of Day), one of Lincoln and one of Roosevelt squinting in the +sunlight (this is a land where every young man may hope to be +President), were tacked on the walls. In company with these were a +combination calendar and fire-insurance advertisement and a card +displaying a lithographed upper part and idealistic legs of a blithe +young woman wearing, stuck on, a short, bright skirt made of sandpaper +and streaked with match-scratches, who in fancy letters was ingeniously +labelled "A Striking Girl." These bits of applied art were properties of +Mrs. Knoll's establishment. + +Day's dresser had several small drawers and a little square door. He had +one day discovered adhering to the back of this door a hardened piece of +chewing gum, and from this he had deduced that a former tenant of the +room had been a woman, presumably a young one (for surely there is an +age after which one knows better). He sometimes speculated on the +subject of the former tenant, and he was of three minds about her +vocation. Sometimes he thought she had been a school-teacher, sometimes +he thought an art student, and again a clerk in a store. He +reconstructed her as having had red hair and having been a bit frowsy. +But whatever she had been she had slept on a mighty hard little bed, and +he felt something like a tenderness for her on that account. + +When he had got home from the theatre, Richard sat on the edge of his +bed (it seemed always somehow the most natural place in the room to +sit), and smoked his pipe. One Christmas Day he and his bosom friend had +gone together and bought pipes exactly alike, then each had given his +to the other. Years later Day was compelled to give up smoking, and he +was never exactly the same again. But when he was young the gods blessed +him. He smoked his pipe out, then he slowly pulled off his shoes. That +is, he pulled off one shoe and sat abstractedly a considerable while +with it in his hand. He had many thoughts, mainly associated with an +unknown young lady he had seen that evening at the theatre. He wished he +had had on a different style of collar--and he would have had if his +laundryman had kept his word. However, he thought rather sadly what +booted it to him now. Then he roused himself, slowly undressed, put on +his pajamas (his mother had made them for him), turned off his light, +pulled up his window curtain (so the morning light would waken him), and +got into bed. + +Richard fell into a great many adventures in his night's sleep. He +fought bandits, with never any cartridges in his gun; he travelled +across plains that appeared to be constructed on the principle of a +treadmill; he visited sundry peculiar places and did divers queer things +with solemnity and without surprise. After a while it seemed to him +that he was somewhere talking with, or rather to, the former tenant of +his room. But the former tenant did not have red hair; her hair was the +loveliest brown; nor was she the least bit frowzy; she was the very +opposite extreme to that. Nor clerk nor teacher nor student was she. She +was a bright princess. Her complexion had rather more of the rose than +of the lily. Her pure and eloquent blood spoke in her cheeks. She and +the lady he had seen at the theatre were one and the same person. He +could not make out exactly how he came to know she was the former +tenant, but that seemed to be considered so very well understood he felt +ashamed to speak about it. + +He was saying to her some of the cleverest things he had ever heard. He +surprised himself as he listened to himself; and he was much elated; for +if ever he wished to speak well, now was the time. Now Day was really a +very clever fellow, as well as a comely one (this is only a story of his +youth, but in after life he became a distinguished man), and, like all +very clever fellows, he was never perfectly happy except when his +talents were recognized and appreciated. Here in his dream he had come +into his own. It was a night to be marked with a white stone. One of the +things that particularly impressed him in this dream was his impression +that it was not a dream. + +In the morning it was always colder in Day's room than at night, and +always it seemed somehow lonesomer. It was bare then, and not cozy. To +come directly from such an especially comfortable dream into the cold, +grey dawn, and find one's window opaque with frost and one's breath like +steam in the air, requires a little time for one to adjust oneself to +the transition. Richard lay a little time generating courage to get up. +He did not immediately shake off his dream entirely; but crumbs of it +stuck to his mind, like the last of a fine cake on the face. But it was +as if his cake had turned cold in the mouth. He squirmed in bed with +embarrassment when he reviewed those clever things, on which he had so +plumed himself, that he had said to the former tenant. They were so very +poor and flat that he tried to stop his mind against the recollection of +them. And even the former tenant herself, as she faded now more into the +night, and he came more out into the morning, was like Cinderella as +she fled from the hall back to her kitchen. But Richard caught up the +crystal slipper that remained to him and in his bosom bore it forth into +the day. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +ONLY SHE WAS THERE + + +Directly in the intense emphasis of white light from an arc lamp +overhead, and standing about midway in the long, dark, thickly-packed +line of people waiting, was a young man decidedly above the middle +stature, in a long outer coat. He was broad in the shoulders, formed in +excellent proportion, apparently in about the first or second and +twentieth year of his age. His forehead was intelligent, his nose +exceptionally good, his mouth rather big and lips full, his chin round +and with a cleft in the centre. His hair, chestnut, moderately cropped, +discovered, what of it was visible below his hat, a decided inclination +to curl. He was redolent of health and the unmined masculine vigor +pertaining to his time of life. As the earliest ancestor of this kind of +historical writing would have said, "He was one of the handsomest young +fellows that hath ever been seen"; in short, he was not unlike one +Jones, Christian-named Tom. This young man was Richard Day, student of +the law, and he had come from his silent "furnished room" to refresh +himself, at a minimum cost, at the dramatic presentation of an immortal +story of love. + +On the occasions when the entertainment to be is of a superior order, +the price of admission is doubled or trebled, and the patrons of the +theatre gallery are of an exceptional character. They comprise school +teachers in abundance, miscellaneous students, matinée girls driven high +by the prohibitory prices below, young clerks, and a sprinkling from the +usual ranks of the gallery-god, the better sort of them, however, the +more wealthy and more aspiring. The original line containing Richard Day +had assembled an hour or so before time, to be on the spot at the +opening of the doors at a commendable production of "Romeo and Juliet." + +There came a sudden jolting, like the coupling of railroad cars, then a +denser packing of the line, a being pushed off one's balance and being +pressed back into it again, and slowly, jerkily, the crowd began to move +forward; then swept toward the entrance. The doors had been opened. As +the throng began to move, a woman's voice rose near Day ejaculating +breathlessly, "Oh! Oh!" Simultaneously a shrill cry arose, "Oh, there's +a sick lady here! a sick lady! Oh, please! Oh, please! Won't you make +room for a sick lady!" Day with all his force made what room he could, +conceiving that the thing desired was to get the stricken lady out in +the open as quickly as possible. A little peaked woman in a light coat +took instant advantage of the slight breach then opened, impetuously to +advance herself in the line. When the momentary gap had closed again, +piteously the crying was resumed, and it continued at intervals almost +the entire distance to the box-office, though it was in a slightly +different neighborhood and observably proceeded from exactly the point +of vantage gained by the little peaked woman; who, it might be inferred, +was a dual personality, comprising in the same lady both a sick lady and +another who was her good Samaritan and assumed the care of her. + +Nothing railed the crowd into a straight line on one side, though on the +other a wall held them so. The impatient crowding forward from the rear +convexed the outer edge of the line of people, much against the will of +those persons who found themselves being swept out of the direct way +and felt the main current surging past them. What was yet more agitating +to these was that ahead of them an iron railing did begin, at the foot +of some steps, fencing in a narrow approach to the ticket office. If +they should be swept past the mouth of this lane on the outside, their +chance of admittance was hopeless. Day stemmed the swerving current +himself by the strength of his body and by a kind of determined exercise +of his will. But he felt directly behind him someone less strong losing +hold with every step of advance; then suddenly this despairing someone, +realizing herself pushed quite to one side, with a little scream, caught +at his crooked arm; which he instantly, involuntarily clapped firmly +against him, hooking on in this manner and towing safely and rapidly +along someone frailer than himself. When they had come to the rail he +saw that he would get in by so narrow a margin himself that, himself +inside, he would then but tow her along outside, which of course would +be a less than useless thing for her. So he backed water, so to speak, +with all his might, bracing himself against the end of the rail, until +he had got a little space before him, around into which he drew her +whom he thought robbed of her place by the frantic selfishness of the +crowd. + +But in doing this, it seemed he had inadvertently held back for a moment +the little peaked woman, who was at his inside elbow. She, finding +herself delayed for a brief period almost at the goal in her desperate +bargain-counter sort of rush for the ticket-window, blew out into a +spitting cat kind of impotent fury. "Ain't you got no semblance of +decency! you great big brute!" she screamed in his ear. "Ain't you got +no ideas of gentlemanliness at all! If I was a man I'd teach you some +shame, tramplin' on a woman, a poor weak woman! a woman!" She fairly +writhed with scorn at this depravity. Day attempted to humble himself to +her, for her pacification; but another woman's getting in ahead of her +at that instant drove her almost mad, and her frenzy interfering for the +moment with her articulation she could only glare at him with an +expression suggesting some kind of feline hydrophobia. When her breath +returned more to her command she continued to revile him as they went +along. Although Day had done nothing to merit shame, he squirmed +inwardly with something not unlike that feeling, and he blessed the +general commotion which drowned a vixen's voice. He felt ashamed, too, +to be where he was, though he had not thought of it that way before; he +should not have brought himself into a crowd more than half of women. + +His reflections became rather abstract and levelled themselves somewhat +against the feminine temperament in general. He felt the littleness of +it (so he saw it), the peevishness of it; its inability to take +punishment good-naturedly; its incapacity for being a "good loser"; its +lack of the philosophic character which accepts humorously discomforts +and injustice, real as well as imagined; its lack of broadness of view; +its selfish lack of the sense of fair play; its +not-being-square-and-above-board way; its sneakiness, its deceitfulness; +the contemptible devices that it will resort to, assuming them to be its +natural weapons against a superior strength, both physical and of the +understanding. He knew that in a crowd of men if anyone of them had had +the despicable disposition of this woman his dread of the hearty, +boisterous ridicule of his fellow brutes which would inevitably have +followed his meanness would have forced him to stifle his temptation in +silence. He knew that there is no place where one may better learn to +appreciate what may be called the good-natured easy-goingness of the +male animal generally than in an uncomfortable crowd of men. He thanked +heaven he was of the superior sex. When a young man thanks heaven that +he is of the superior sex it may not be uninteresting to observe in what +manner he conducts himself subsequently. + +As fast as the crowd was served with tickets it ran up the multiplied +flights of stairs, moved in single file past the ticket-chopper, then on +to come out, high up, into the vast bowl of the theatre. Here from one's +seat the impression of the weird, ship-at-sea like effect of the curves +of the galleries, balconies, and tiers of boxes, sweeping back from the +light in front, dropping away from the vaulted ceiling; the impression +of being high up close under a great roof and far from the stage; the +impression of the myriads of vague elusive faces in the half-lit, thick, +scintillating atmosphere of the hot, crowded place; the impression of +the playhouse scheme of decoration, red walls and tinsel in the dusk, +cream color and tinsel bas-relief in the highly artificial yellow light, +casting purplest shadows, and the heroic mural paintings in blue and +yellow and green, the sense of the infinite moving particles of the +throng; the sense of its all facing one way, of the low hum of it, and +of its respiration--all this is stuff that puts one in the mood for a +play. The keen actualities fade and become the shadows; sense of one's +own life and vanity and disappointment slips away; one is to enjoy a +transmigration of soul for a brief time. "Now for the play!" thought +Richard. + +A man was climbing up the steps of the aisle, some distance away, +flinging an inadequate number of fluttering programs into the crowd. +None fell in Day's neighborhood, to the indignant consternation of all +there. A chorus of exclamatory sighs went up from a feminine flock just +settled at his right, all faces following the disappointing program +distributor. A stocky young man at Day's left hand arose, and clambering +out between the parallel two rows of seats, occupants getting on their +feet to allow him passage, started after the disappearing man of +programs. + +A full-throated feminine voice burst almost in Day's right ear: "Oh, +please tell him to get one for us!" Day lunged after the stocky young +man, reaching for his coat-tails, and cried out, "Hey there! Hey! +Fellow! Hold on!" until it was quite hopeless to continue. The sea of +people closed in between him and his quest; the stocky young man, his +ears plugged with the multitude of voices, shook himself free from the +narow, clogged passage, and was gone. Day turned to the owner of the +feminine voice, "He will bring a lot, I think; if not I'll get you +some," he said. And he caught an elusive impression of cheeks precisely +the color of cheeks that had just been smartly slapped, suggesting the +idea that if one should press one's finger against them one's finger +would leave streaks there when taken away; and he caught an impression +of eyes that were like deep, brimming pools reflecting lights; and an +impression of a cloud of dusky brown-like hair which reminded him of a +host of rich autumn leaves. She of these cheeks and eyes and this hair +was, apparently, in a party with two companions, whose peering faces +showed indistinctly beyond her. In one significance of the word, she +might have been called a girl, or she was a young woman, a miss, a lass, +a young lady, as you please; as were they her companions. Merry +school-girl spirits lingered in them all, supplemented by the grace and +dawning dignity of young womanhood. She was at that sweet nosegay +period when young ladies are just, as it is sometimes said, finishing +their education. Her age was that enchanted time, holiest of the female +seasons, which hangs between mature girlhood and full womanhood. Day +felt a suspicion, though without perceptible foundation, that this was +the very person he had towed along outside. + +The stocky young man returned presently, showing an uncommonly blunt +face and with the programs, which proved sufficient in number. There was +an interval in which to read them; then the huge place fell suddenly +much darker, except directly to the fore, which burst into great light; +the immense curtain majestically ascended, and the time was that of the +quarrels of the houses of Capulet and Montague in the sixteenth century. +Richard Day passed out of his body sitting upright on the seat and lived +in this incarnation of the master dramatist. + +But unwittingly he had inhaled a liquor, that was even then feeding his +blood; he was even then continuing to inhale it; it crept in at the +pores of his right side; it was stealing its sweet breath about his +brain. This liquor was the magnetism of a powerful pleasant young +feminine presence near to him--too near. Too near for a clean-cut young +man, in his second and twentieth year, redolent of health, with +moderately cropped chestnut hair inclined to curl, intelligent forehead, +good nose, rather big mouth, full lips, and round chin with a cleft in +the centre--too near for him even to remain in the hands of the master +dramatist. A warm glow suffused him. His intellectual perception of the +illuminated, noble spectacle before him in a frame of night numbed in +his brain and he was conscious only of the rich sensation that +circulated through him. Metaphorically, senses and emotions lolled on +rich colored divans, spread with thick rugs, in the tropical atmosphere +of his head. The magically spoken lines of Shakespeare became as so much +unfelt, unrecognized, distant sounding jargon. What he had come to be +thrilled by, as the dark, breathless audience like a sea about him was +thrilled, was in a moment nothing to him. And yet he had not touched +her, nor again spoken with her, nor glanced at her. + +Only she was there! + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A HUMORIST'S NOTE-BOOK + + +I admit that (though, indeed, I can claim a very fair collection of +authors as acquaintances) I share the popular interest in the +idiosyncratic nature of the literary profession. I am as curious as to +the occult workings of the minds of authors, the esoteric process by +which subtle insinuations of inspiration are translated into works of +literary art, as though I had never seen an author--off a platform. I +would read the riddle of genius. I am fascinated by its impenetrable +mysteries. I would explore the recesses of the creative head. + +Therefore, in the presence of the treasure of such incalculable value +which is before me, I experience tense intellectual excitement. In the +thought of its possession by myself I find the uttermost felicity. What +it is is this: it is _a humorous writer's note-book_. + +I must tell you the wonderful story--how this came into my hands, and +how, romantically enough, it is, so to say, by the bequest of the author +himself, your own possession. The strange circumstances are as follows: + +Something like a week ago I received through the post at my place of +residence an oblong package. It was similar in shape to an ordinary +brick; not so heavy, and somewhat larger. I had ordered nothing from a +shop, and so, as the parcel was plainly addressed to myself, I concluded +that it must contain a present. As I am very fond of presents, I was, +with much eagerness, about to open the package, when I suddenly +recollected the newspaper reports of the recent dastardly Bolshevist +bomb plots; the sending through the mails, by some apparently organized +agency, to prominent persons in all parts of the country these +skillfully disguised engines of death and destruction. They were +outwardly, I recalled, innocent looking parcels, which when opened blew +housemaids to bits, demolished dwellings and, in some instances, +accomplished the murder of the personage who had incurred the enmity of +the criminals. + +I bounded some considerable distance away from the object before me. +Though, after a moment, I did, indeed, reflect that I was not what +would probably be regarded as an eminent citizen, and had never felt a +sense of power in the government of my country, I could not dissolve a +decided distaste toward my undoing this mysterious parcel. Also I did +not enjoy seeing it remain there on my table. And, further, I had no +inclination to carry it from the room. + +In this dilemma it occurred to me to summon the janitor of the apartment +house where I reside. When I had explained to him that, because of my +having a sore thumb (which made it painful for me to handle things), I +wished him to open this package for me--, when I had explained this to +him, he told me that he was very much occupied at the moment mending the +boiler downstairs, and that he must hasten to this occupation, otherwise +the lower floors would shortly be flooded. And he withdrew without +further ceremony. + +I sat down to consider the situation. I realized that it was a +bothersome moral responsibility--placing the lives of others (even if +janitors) in jeopardy. But something must be done; and done +soon--perhaps there was a time fuse in this thing. A thought came to me +(the buzzer of our dumb-waiter sounded at the moment); I decided to go +further down the scale in the value of human life to be risked. So I +communicated down the shaft to our iceman (one Jack) that I desired his +presence in the apartment. Well, the upshot of the matter is that Jack +showed no hesitation whatever about coolly putting the package in a pail +of water and afterward undoing it. + +The parcel proved to be an ordinary cigar-box (labelled outside, in the +decorative fashion of cigar-box labels, "Angels of Commerce"); within +was a letter resting upon a note-book, and beneath that the manuscripts +of two short stories. The submersion of the box would have (most +disastrously) obliterated, or gone near to obliterating, the message of +the letter and the writing in the note-book and the manuscript, had not +(happily) these things been packed tightly into the box by surrounding +waste paper. + +The letter was from Taffy Topaz, known to us all--a humorist if there +ever was one. I cannot say that I had been on intimate terms with Mr. +Topaz; indeed (to admit the truth) all my acquaintance with authors is +slight. I admire authors so much that it is the joy of my life to be +acceptable to them in any degree. I put myself in their way at every +opportunity. I regard it as a great privilege (as, certainly, it is) to +spend freely of my income in entertaining them at meals. And in this way +and that it is that I have attained the honor of hobnobbing with a +number of writers, when they are not otherwise engaged. + +As I say, I had not been on intimate terms with Mr. Topaz; and so I was +no little surprised (and, I admit, no little flattered) at this decided +attention (whatever it might mean) to me. The letter was not (oh, not at +all!) a humorous letter. It was a very solemn letter. It said that Mr. +Topaz was just about to go to the war. I was, naturally, puzzled at +this: the war is (theoretically) over. I hunted round and found a piece +of the wrapping paper which had enclosed the box. On it was the postmark +(the paper had dried somewhat); and the stamp bore the date of October +1, 1917. I was still more puzzled as to where the box could have been +all this while. Then, I recollected the heroic labors of the post-office +in maintaining any kind of a schedule of delivery during the war. My +poor friend's box had been goodness knows where all this time! + +The letter stated (as I have said) that Mr. Topaz was about to go to +the war--as a newspaper correspondent. It said (oh, it almost made one +weep, so solemn was it!) that he might never return from "over there." +In case he did not come back (the letter continued), he (Mr. Topaz) +wished me to undertake the charge of placing the enclosed manuscripts +with some magazine or magazines; the money got from them, though it was +inadequate he knew (so he said), he prayed that I would accept as +payment for the advances which I had made him from time to time. (Alas! +my poor friend, what were those miserable loans compared to the wealth +of his society! How I remember that proud day when he called me, so +pal-like, a "poor fish"!) But this is not a time to indulge one's grief; +I must press on with my story. + +The remainder of his literary effects, he said (meaning, of course, the +note-book), he desired me (as he knew I had some connection with a +certain magazine) to present to the editor of that journal. Little more +remains to be said here of Mr. Topaz (my friend). He was not called upon +to lay down his life for his country (or his paper); after the armistice +he went valiantly into Germany; and there (as the papers have reported) +he contracted a marriage; and is little likely again to be seen in these +parts. + +The first page of the note-book contains these entries. It is headed + + JOTTINGS + +"Good name for a small orphan--Tommy Crandle. + +"Fat person--shrugged his stomach. + +"Name for a spendthrift--Charles Spending. + +"Aphorism--Fear makes cowards of us all. + +"Billy Sparks--Fine name for a lawyer. + +"Nice name for a landlady--Mrs. Baggs. + +"Humorous Christian name for a fat boy--Moscow. + +"Name for a clerk--Mr. Fife. + +"Good name for someone to cry out on a dark night--Peter Clue! Peter +Clue! + +"Good name for a sporting character--Bob Paddock. + +"Aphorism--A fool and his foot are soon in it. + +"Good name for a tea room in Greenwich Village--The Bad Egg. + +"Epigrammatic remark--Though somewhat down in the mouth he kept a stiff +upper lip." + + * * * * * + +Then follows this on umbrellas, evidently the opening of an unwritten +essay: + + And, like umbrellas, with their feathers + Shield you in all sorts of weathers. + + MICHAEL DRAYTON. + +"Among all the ingenious engines which man has contrived for his +ornament and protection none, certainly, is more richly idiosyncratic +than the umbrella. Literary genius has always instinctively recognized +this; and doubtless the esoteric fact has been vaguely felt even by the +unthinking; but it is a profound truth which, I fear, has had but slight +popular appreciation. + +"The use of this historic and peculiarly eloquent article of personal +property, the umbrella, illustrates pictorially a proverbial allusion to +the manifestation of intelligence: it shows that a man has 'sense enough +to go in out of the rain.' It reveals not only the profundity of his +judgment but the extraordinary play of his cleverness, as it exhibits +him as the only animal who after crawling into his hole, figuratively +speaking, pulls his hole in after him, or, in other words, carries his +roof with him. Further than this, in the idea of carrying an umbrella +you find the secret of man's striking success in the world: the +intrepidity of his spirit in his tenacious pursuit of his own affairs +defies both the black cloud's downpour and the sun's hot eye." + + * * * * * + +There is this, headed + + HUMOR + +"There was once a man who was nearly dead from a disease. One day while +taking the air a friend cried to him encouragingly, 'Well, I see that +you're up and about again.' 'Yes,' replied the sick man good-naturedly, +'I'm able to walk the length of the block now.' This notion was so +irresistible that both the quick and the dying burst into laughter." + + * * * * * + +Among the longer entries in this note-book is the following remarkable +psychological study, having as its title + + TEMPERAMENT + +"That morning Kendle had seen himself famous. As he worked he began to +feel good in his brain and in his heart and in his stomach. He felt +virile, elated, full of power, and strangely happy. The joy of creating +a thing of art was upon him. Thrills ran down his spine and into his +legs. As he looked at his work he admired it. He knew that this was good +art. He felt that here was genius. He saw himself in a delectable +picture, an idol applauded of the multitude, and loved by it. For he +believed that the multitude was born, and ate and slept, and squabbled +among itself, and acquired property, and begot offspring, but to await +the arrival of genius. And the only genius he knew was genius in +eccentric painting. The only genius worth while that is, for there is a +genius that invents labor-saving machines, telephones, X-rays, and so +forth; but nobody loves that genius. It occurred to him that he was a +very lovable man, with all his faults (his faults were the lovable ones +of genius), and he would soon have achieved a distinction that would +make any woman proud of him. He determined to renew his addresses +to----. + +"Somehow in the evening his intoxication had died down. He felt very +sad. His work lay before him with so little eccentricity to it that he +was ashamed. His sense of power had quite departed. And now he dismally +felt that he would never amount to anything. He was a failure. An idle, +wicked, disgraceful fellow, no good in the world, and not worth any +woman's attention. His heart felt sick when he thought this. He was very +miserable. He despised himself. So he sighed. It would have been better, +he thought, if he had apprenticed himself to the plumber's trade in his +boyhood. He would in that case have grown up happy and contented, +remained at home and done his duty, respected by his neighbors and +himself, though only a plumber. A plumber is a good honest man that pays +his debts. + +"At home! Why was he not there, anyway? What good was he doing away from +there? There was his mother, in her declining years. Was his place not +by her side? He would never desert his mother, he thought. And Sis! +there was Sis. He would never desert Sis. How good they had been to him! +How they believed in him! (he squirmed) how they believed in him still. +He imagined them showing his most sensible pictures around to the +neighbors. 'My son is an artist,' he heard his mother say. His flesh +crawled. How mad he had been! How contemptible he was! Still a man was +not hopeless who had a soul for such feelings as he had now. He would +reform. He would henceforth eschew the company of such as Walker. He +enumerated his vices and renounced them one by one. He began life over +again. He would bask in the simple domestic pleasures of his mother in +her declining years, and Sis. He would get up very early every morning +and go to his humble toil before it was quite light. He felt himself +walking along in the chill of dawn--the street lamps still lit. He would +work hard all day. He would always tell the truth. Every Saturday night +he would come home tired out, with fifteen dollars in his pocket. This +he would throw into his mother's lap. 'Here, mother,' he would say in a +fine manly voice, 'here are fifteen dollars.' His mother would put her +apron to her eyes, and look at him through tears of pride and joy. He +would wear old clothes and be very honest and upright looking, the sort +of young man that Russell Sage would have approved, that Sis might +dress. He would not mind the sneers and gibes of the world, for he would +be _right_. + +"He looked defiantly around the room for a few sneers and gibes." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +INCLUDING STUDIES OF TRAFFIC "COPS" + + +The other day it was such a pleasant April day I thought I'd take the +afternoon off. It was such a very pleasant day that I didn't want to go +anywhere in particular. Do you ever feel that way? I mean like you just +wanted to be by yourself and sit down and think awhile. + +Later on, you have an idea, you'll come back into things much refreshed. +But the thought of answering these letters now, or of doing this or +doing that, kind of lets you down inside your stomach. Your brain seems +to have dropped down somewhere behind your ears. If that fellow across +the office comes over to pull another of his bright ideas on you you +think you'll probably scream, or brain him, or something. He's getting +terrible, anyhow. + +You have any number of excellent friends, and (ordinarily) you are quite +fond of them. Perhaps you will go to see one of them. There's Ed, you've +been wanting for you don't know how long to go round and see him. Never +seemed to have time. But no; you don't want to see Ed--today. Same way +with all the others, as you go over the list of them in your mind. +Couldn't bear to see any of 'em--not this afternoon. For one thing, +they're all so selfish.... So interested in their own affairs. + +As I was straightening up my desk an idea came to me about jobs. Seems +to me that when I have a job I'm all the while worrying about how to +break out of it. I think: Well, I'm tied up here until the first of the +year; but I'll sure shake it after that; too cramped and limited. And +then when I am out of a job I immediately begin to worry about how to +get another one. That's Life, I guess. + +I turned uptown and floated along with the current of the Avenue throng. +It was a glittering April throng. The newest stockings were out. I had +not seen them before. The newest stockings (you will have noted) are so +very, very thin and the pores (so to say) in them are so large that they +give the ladies who wear them the agreeable effect of being bare-legged. + +At Thirty-fourth Street the traffic policeman on post at our side of +this corner, by an outward gesture of his arms pressed back the +sidewalk stream for a couple of moments of cross-town vehicular traffic. +He stood within a few inches of the front row of the largely feminine +crush. Whenever an impatient pedestrian broke through the line he had +formed and attempted to dart across the street he emitted a peculiar +little whistle followed by the admonishment, "Hold on, lady!" or "Hey +there, mister!" Thus having returned the derelict to cover, he would +smile very intimately, with a kind of sly cuteness, at the more handsome +young women directly before him--who invariably tittered back at him. +And thus, frequently, a little conversation was started. + +Now as a vigilant historian of the social scene this matter of the +gallant relations of traffic policemen to perambulating ladies of +somewhat fashionable, even patrician aspect, I find highly interesting. +It is a subject which does not seem to have been much examined into. + +Why, exactly, should flowers of débutante-Bryn-Mawr appearance look with +something like tenderness at policemen? Seems to me I have read now and +then in the papers strikingly romantic stories wherein a mounted +policeman in the park (formerly a cowboy) saved the life of an +equestrienne heiress on a runaway mount, and was rewarded the next day +(or something like that) with her hand. Such a story my mind always +gladly accepts as one of the dramatic instances where life artistically +imitates the movies. Crossing Thirty-fourth Street, however, seems to me +another matter. + +And what system of selection operates in the Department whereby this +officer or that is chosen from among all his brethren for the +paradisaical job of being beau of a fashionable crossing? And would you +not think that a more uniform judgment would be exercised in the +election of men to such Brummellian duties? Adonises in the traffic +force I have, indeed, seen (there is one at Forty-second Street), but +this chap of whom I have just been speaking (the whimsical whistler) +certainly was not one of them. He was what is called "pie-faced." +Hunched up his shoulders like an owl. Yet his ogling of loveliness in +new spring attire was completely successful, was in no instance that I +observed resented, was received with arch merriment. Indeed, his heavy, +pink-tea attentions were obviously regarded as quite flattering by the +fair recipients! As he let the tide break to cross the street it was +plain, from bright glances backward, that he had fluttered little hearts +which would smile upon him again. And so, in such a Romeo-like manner, +does this bulky sentimentalist, armed with concealed weapons, have +dalliance with the passing days. What you 'spose it is about him gives +him his fascination in flashing eyes haughty to the rest of the +masculine world--his bright buttons, or what? + +Yes; these curious and romantic little relationships between traffic +cops on social duty, so to say, and their dainty admirers are not (in +some instances at least) so transient as to be merely the exchange of +roguish words and soft glances of the moment. There is that really +august being of matinee-idol figure at--well, let us say at Forty-second +Street. Sir Walter Raleigh could not with more courtliness pilot his +fair freight across the Avenue. So it was the day after Christmas I saw +not one but several of his young friends blushingly put dainty packages +into his hands. + +Is there not an excellent O. Henry sort of story in this piquant city +situation? + +Well, floating like a cork upon a river I drifted along up the Avenue. I +passed a man I had not seen for several years. Yes; that certainly was +the fellow I used to know. And yet he was an altogether different being +now, too. The sort of a shock I got has perhaps also been experienced by +you. Only a short time ago, it seemed to me, this friend of mine had +been robust and ruddy, masterful and gay, in the prime of his years. I +had somehow innocently expected him always to be so. Just as I find it +very unreal to think of myself in any other way than I am now. Don't +you? As to yourself, I mean. He was quite grey. His shoulders hung +forward. His chest seemed to have fallen in on itself. His legs moved +back and forth without ever altogether straightening out. He had a +whipped look. Wrinkled clothes and dusty black derby hat, he was +conspicuous in the peacockean scene. And yet on a time he had been, I +knew, as much a conqueror of hearts as any policeman. So would it +sometime be with me--like this? + +What do you know about that! In the next block another acquaintance of +old I saw. But when I had known him he was stooped and little and thin +and dried up and cringing. He worked in a basement and did not wear a +collar, at least by day. He used to look very old. Now here he was +swinging along looking very much like Mr. Caruso, or some such personage +as that. + +How may this phenomenon be accounted for, what was the misfortune of one +of these persons and the secret of the other? I know a man who has a +theory which, at least, sounds all right. It is not buttermilk nor +monkey glands, he contends, which will keep a man young and stalwart so +much as (what he calls) an objective in life--a distant rampart to take, +a golden fleece to pursue. That is why, he declares, scientists and +artists frequently live happy and alert to such a great age: Thomas A. +Edison, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Jap chap (what's his name? Hokusai) +who at a hundred and ten or thereabout was called "the old man mad about +painting." + +Maybe it was thinking of that idea, maybe it was the fearsome thought of +that dusty derby hat of my friend's which haunted my mind, or maybe my +competitive instincts had been aroused from spring slumber by the +spectacle of my Caruso-like friend careering along, anyhow a decidedly +bugged-up feeling began to flow through me; I wavered in my loitering, I +turned, my sails (so to speak) caught the wind, and I laid my course +abruptly back to the office. I had suddenly a great itch to get at all +those letters. + +I was very glad to see that fellow across the office from me. He is a +good fellow and very helpful. I said to him, "Look here, what do you +think about this idea for getting business?" + +"Oh, my goodness!" he said; "it's altogether too fine a day to think +about work. I'd just like to go out and wander up the Avenue with +nothing on my mind but my hair." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THREE WORDS ABOUT LITERATURE + + +A friend of mine (and aside from this error a very fine friend he is, +too) not long ago published a book which he declared, in his Preface, +should be read in bed. He insisted, to such an extent was he the victim +of a remarkable and pernicious fallacy which I find here and there, that +this book could not otherwise be properly enjoyed. + +Now the difficulty about this particular book, that is the circumstance +wherein my friend has got me in a position where it is not so easy for +me to overturn him all at once, is this: one, not knowing any better, +might take the author's advice, and find pleasure reading the book in +bed, not being aware that this simply was because here was a book that +one would find pleasure in reading anywhere. But because you have got +hold of a book which it is possible to enjoy reading in the wrong way, +it naturally follows (does it not?) that you'd enjoy it much more +reading it in the right way. That, I should say, was simple and logical +enough. + +I know, I know! I'm coming to that: there are plenty of other people who +have this ridiculous reading-in-bed idea. There, for instance, is +Richard Le Gallienne. I had a letter from him awhile ago, in which he +remarked that it was his practice to do most of his reading in bed. Then +I had a letter recently from Meredith Nicholson, in which there was some +such absurd phrase as "going to bed and reading until the cock crows." +Also I one time read an essay, a very pleasant essay outside the +mistaken notion of its main theme, by Michael Monahan, which was largely +about the pleasure of reading in bed. Spoke of the delights of being +tucked in, with what satisfaction you got the light just right, and all +that. + +It must, of course, be acknowledged that all these gentlemen are, if +perverse in their method, persons of some reading. However, a fact such +as that, an accident as you might say, cannot be permitted to upset the +course of a profound argument. Why! as to that, a suspicion just occurs +to me that maybe someone could dig up Lamb, Hazlitt, Mark Twain, +Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Cowper (perhaps all of them, and more) to the +effect that it is pleasant to read in bed. Didn't Thackeray have some +nonsense about "bedside books"? _I_ haven't time to refute each of these +persons separately. It is sufficient, I take it, to roll into one point +of attack all this bed-reading heresy, from whatever quarters it comes, +and put an end to that. + +Understand me; I have no complaint against the reading in bed of persons +confined there through physical disability. The world war which brought +more people to bed for indefinite periods than any other matter since +time began thereby probably got more souls into the way of reading than +seventeen times several hundred schools ever did. All of them, however, +would find that they were much better off in the matter of reading when +they had got out of bed. What I say is that, in a manner of speaking, +there is no use in taking the air in a wheel-chair if you can take it on +horseback. Why do a thing in a halfway fashion when you can go to it +right? + +Another thing. There are people (I've seen them at it) who read on +porches. Sometimes in swings, rocking to and fro. Even in hammocks, +slung above the ground from trees. On trains, too. I have (with my own +ears) heard people say that they would "take a book" and go out into the +park, or into the woods, or out in a boat, or up on the mountain, or by +the sea, or any conceivable place except where one should go to read. + +All of these ways of reading are worse, if anything can be worse than +that, than reading in bed. Because in bed you do, at least, have your +mind sandwiched within doors. You do not feel the surge and rumble of +the world--the sound and movement of the things of which literature is +made; but any contact with which (at the moment of reading) is +destructive to the illusion which it is the province of literature to +create. + +For literature (reading it, I mean here) is, in this, like love: Richest +are the returns to that one whose passion is most complete in its +surrender. And a man lapping his frame in soft indolence, though he have +a book in his hand, is indulging in sensuous physical pleasure at least +equally with intellectual receptivity or aesthetic appreciation. No. +Reading should not be taken as an opiate. + +The way to read, then--but, a moment more; a couple of other points are +to be cleared up. There is much babble of slippers and dressing-gowns, +easy chairs and "soft lights" in connection with the comments about the +pleasures, the "delights" as I believe some people say, of reading. + +What is wanted to _know_ the relish to be got from reading is, first (of +course), an uncommon book. And by that term is meant merely one +uncommonly suited to the spirit of the reader. (The only perfect +definition, that, of a "good book.") Some people still read Stevenson. +Well, there's no great harm in that. Providing you read him (or anybody +else) as follows: + +You should read as you should die--with your boots on. You take a wooden +chair, without arms, such (this is the best) as is commonly called a +"kitchen chair." It has a good, hard seat. You sit upright in this, +crossing and recrossing your legs as they tire. Nearby you is a good, +strong light, one with a tonic effect, a light that keeps your eyes wide +open. You sit facing a dull, blank wall. No pictures or other ornaments +or decorations should be on this wall, as, in case such things are +there, and you happen to raise your eyes for an instant, in ecstasy or +in thought, your vision lights upon one of these things; and the heart +which you have given your author is, certainly in some measure, +alienated from him. Maybe, indeed, you go back to him almost at once. +But then harm has been done--you have not read with supreme abandon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +RECOLLECTIONS OF LANDLADIES + + +There is no figure in the human scene which makes so unctuous an appeal +to our relish of humanity as the landlady. When the landlady comes upon +the stage at the theatre, we all awaken to an expectation of delight in +the characteristic manifestations of her nature, and seldom are +disappointed. The genius of the greatest of authors always unfolds with +particular warmth in the presence of their landladies. A moment's +reflection will recall a procession of immortal landladies. Whether it +is that the colorful calling of landlady cultivates in one a peculiar +richness of human nature, or whether landladies are born and not +made--those with characters of especial tang and savor instinctively +adopting this occupation,--I cannot say, but the fact is indisputable +that landladies are not as other persons are. No one ever saw a humdrum +landlady. A commonplace person as a landlady is unthinkable. + +Now I think I may say that all my life, or nearly all, I have been an +eager and earnest student of landladies. I am, indeed, much more +familiar with the genus landlady than with courts and kings, or with +eminent personages generally such as supply the material for most of +those who write their recollections. Thus I am competent, I think, to +speak on a subject curiously neglected by the memorist. + +One who makes a culture of landladies comes in time to have a flair for +these racy beings, and is drawn by a happy intuition to the habitats of +those most resplendent in the qualities of their kind. Of course, one +never can tell what life will bring forth, but it seems to me that my +present landlady marks the top of my career as a connoisseur, an +amateur, of landladies. She is strikingly reminiscent of an English +landlady. And England, particularly London, is, as all the world knows, +to the devotee of landladies what Africa is to the big game +sportsman--his paradise. There the species comes to luxuriant flower, so +that to possess with the mind one or two well-developed London +landladies is never to be without food for entertainment. My present +landlady, to return, is of course a widow. While it may be, for aught I +know, that all widows are not landladies, with very few exceptions all +landladies worthy of the name are widows. Those who are not widows +outright are, as you might say, widows in a sense. That is, while their +husbands may accurately be spoken of as living, and indeed are visible, +they do not exist in the normal rōle of husband. The commercial impulses +of the bona-fide husband have died in them, generally through their +attachment to alcoholic liquor, and they become satellites, hewers of +wood and drawers of water, to the genius awakened by circumstances in +their wives. + +I one time had a landlady of this origin in Norwalk, Connecticut. She +was a woman of angular frame, with a face of flint, a tongue of vinegar, +and a heart of gold. This, I have found in my travels, is the type of +the semi-widowed landlady. I had another such an identical one in +Topeka, Kansas. The asperity, doubtless, is occasioned by biting +disillusionment in the romance of long ago, but it is external; frost on +the window; at the heart's core wells the sense of universe-embracing +maternity which makes the character of the landlady by vocation +sublime. All semi-widowed landladies have (it is their divine +inspiration) large families of half-grown sons. My landlady of Norwalk +grumbled continually; she could be heard out in the kitchen complaining +in a shrill, querulous tone that, with things as high as they were, +people would be crazy to expect meat twice a day. Yet she had at her +board the meanest, most low-down, ornery, contemptible, despicable cuss +in human form I ever knew, and the only fault I ever heard her find with +him was that he didn't eat enough. + +The erudite in landladies have, of course, cognizance of a class which +are in no degree widows. Those of this department of the race, however, +frequently are not landladies in fibre, but merely incidentally. They +are young wives who for a transient period seek to help out in the +domestic economy by taking a few lodgers who come with unexceptionable +references. As wives doubtless they are meritorious; but no monument +need be erected to them as landladies. Though I should like to see in +the principal public square of every town and city a monument designed +by an artist of ability placed to the enduring glory of the landladies +of that place. For are not landladies ancient institutions fostering +the public weal, and in their field not a whit less deserving of homage +than governors and soldiers? I would say to a nation, show me your +landladies and I will tell you your destiny. I should be remiss, +however, in my chronicle did I not note that among these partial and +ephemeral landladies occasionally are to be found pronounced landlady +potentialities. I recall a landlady I had on Montague Street, Brooklyn +Heights, whose passion for cleaning amounted to a mania. This young +person's housewifery frenzy always put me in mind of another soul who +could not rest--Hokusai, who at about a hundred and ten was spoken of as +"the old man mad about painting." + +Hovering about, tortured by a desire to begin, when I left for my +breakfast, she was still at it upon my return from my morning stroll, my +door barricaded by articles of dismembered furniture; still at it when I +came back a bit impatiently from a second walk; still at it while I read +the paper in her dining-room. And so without surcease throughout the +march of days and seasons. She unscrewed the knobs of the bed to polish +the threads thereof; she removed penpoints from penholders and made them +to shine like burnished gold. I had another landlady moved by the same +springs of feeling, on Spruce Street, Philadelphia. Later, I heard, her +husband died, and she espoused her latent career. + +There is in the galaxy of landladies quite another type, an exotic plant +in the wondrously competent sisterhood, specimens of which may be found +blooming here and there like some rare orchid. I mean the fragile, lady +landlady, the clinging vine bereft of the supporting husband oak. Such +was Mrs. Knoll, of Central Avenue, Indianapolis, a little, plump, +rounded body, exceedingly bright, pleasant, intelligent, amiable, and +helpless; all of which qualities shone from her very agreeable face and +person. In her youth no doubt she was a type of beauty, and she remained +very well preserved. "Life and vanity and disappointment had slipped +away" (in the Thackerian words) from Dr. Knoll some years before; and +his widow and only child, Miss Knoll, were left in possession of the old +family home, and nothing more. They could not bear to leave it, that +would "break their hearts," said good, ineffectual Mrs. Knoll; so it was +viewed by them, unfortunately somewhat fallaciously, in the light of a +possible support. + +The Doctor evidently was a man of books, and his widow had sought, more +and more, companionship in reading. Life--the actual world about her, +that is--, and vanity, but not disappointment, had, in a manner of +speaking, slipped from her, too. And she had turned to that great world +of shadows. "In books," she said, "I can choose my own company." She had +plighted her troth in youth to Dickens and to Thackeray, and to these +she had remained ever faithful. In a world of false books and unsafe +friends she knew that she had by the hand two true spirits. Jane Austen +she loaned me with tremulous pleasure. And she was very fond of Mr. +Howells, with whom, she said she lived a great deal; and the Kentons, +the Laphams, and the Marches, were characters better known to her "than +her next-door neighbors." But it must be confessed that the tender +perfume of Mrs. Knoll was not altogether an equivalent in the sphere of +her passive efforts to the homely vegetable odor of the authentic +landlady. + +In great cities, amid the sheen of civilization is to be found just +adjacent to smart quarters of the town the tulip in the variegated +garden of landladies--the finished, polished stone gathered from the +mine, the bird of plumage of the species; I mean, of course, the +landlady _du beau monde_, the modish landlady, or perhaps I should say, +the professional hostess, as it were. For it seems rather vulgar, a +thing repellent to the finer sensibilities, to touch this distinguished +figure of immaculate artificiality with the plebeian term of "landlady." +The personages of this type are, so to say, of the peerage of their +order. Such a Lady Drew it was whose guest I became for a time on +Madison Avenue, New York. With silvered hair like a powdered coiffure; +softly tinted with the delicate enamel of cosmetic; rich and stately of +corsage--this expensive and highly sophisticated presence presided, in +the subdued tone of the best society, over the nicely adjusted machinery +of her smart establishment by the authority of a consciousness of highly +cultivated efficiency and an aroma of unexceptionable standards. + +This consummate hostess type of landlady is, of course, one which the +passionate collector will preserve in the cabinet of his mind with +tremulous happiness in the sheer preciosity of it. I cannot but feel, +however, myself, that this type fails of complete perfection as a work +of art in this: that in every work of the first genius, it cannot be +denied, there is always a strain of coarseness. And perhaps I should +confess that my own taste in landladies, though I hope it is not +undiscriminating, leans a bit toward the popular taste, the relish of +the Rabelaisian. + +Stevenson has observed that most men of high destinies have even +high-sounding names. And anyone who has reflected at all upon the +phenomenon of landladies must have been struck by the singularly +idiosyncratic character of their names. Indeed, an infallible way to +pick out a competent landlady from an advertisement is by her name. Is +it a happy name for a landlady? Go there! As her name is, so is her +nature. I one time had a landlady on Broome Street, New York, whom the +gods named Mrs. Brew. I one time had a landlady (in Milligan Place, +Manhattan) of the name of Mrs. Boggs. One time I had a landlady just off +the East India Dock Road, London, whose name was Wigger. I shall always +cherish the memory of the landlady I had down in Surrey, Mrs. Cheeseman. +One and all, these ladies, as landladies, were without stain. + +Regarded as a bibelot, Mrs. Wigger was, I think, of the first +perfection. In her own genre, so to say, she was as finished, as +impossible of improvement, as an Elgin marble, a Grecian urn, a bit of +Chinese blue and white, a fan of old Japan, a Vermeer, a Whistler +symphony, a caricature by Max Beerbohm. She was of massive mould and +very individually shapen. Her face was very large and very red and +heavily pock-marked. In her bizarre garments, in some indefinable way +she imparted to the character of the born slattern something of the +Grand Style. Her utterance was quavered in a weird, cracked voice, which +had somewhat an effect as of the wind crying high aloft in a ship's +rigging. She slipslod about, always a bit unsteadily. Her movements and +her manner generally, I felt, made it not unreasonable to suppose that +she had in secret certain habits no longer widely approved by society. +The apple of her eye was an unkempt parrot which spent its days in +vainly attempting to ascend the embracing sides of a tin bathtub. + +Landladies, beyond all other persons, have the esoteric power of +becoming for one the geniuses of places. It would, for instance, be +quite impossible for anyone to visualize my Mrs. Cheeseman torn from, as +you might say her context. If you were asked to describe Mrs. Cheeseman +you would naturally do it in this way: You would say, "Well, I wonder +what has become of the sweetest, quaintest, fairest old inn in all +England!" And into your mind would come a rapid cinematograph picture: + +A highway winding out of Dorking, stretching its way between hills to +the sea. You round a turn and see before you long, low, glistening white +stables--the stables, evidently, of a coaching inn. And presently you +come into view of an ancient, white, stone building with a "Sussex +roof." From a tall post before the door swings the board of the "King's +Head." White ducks ride in a pond at the roadside there. Round this inn +which you are approaching is the greenest, handsomest hedge ever seen. +And along the road beyond you perceive the cottages of a wee village. + +"We know that all things work together for good to them that love God." +The romance of destiny which in its inscrutable way has been leading you +all your long life long to the bosom, if I may so put it, of Mrs. +Cheeseman, reveals its beneficence now by carefully graduated steps. At +the other side of the main bulk of the "King's Head," which it was given +you first to see, you come upon a delicious little flagged yard leading +to another arm of the house, older still, very venerable, with a high +roof low descending, a roof which tucks under its projecting wing many +oddly placed little latticed windows gayly sporting innumerable tiny +panes. Like a miniature cathedral spire, a tall, quaint chimney stands +sentinel at one corner, and several chimney-pots peep over the roof's +dark crown. + +Up this little yard, bounded on one side by a multicolored flower garden +whose fragrance bathes you in a softening vapor of perfume, you enter, +by a door which requires you to stoop, the wee taproom. Here: a +cavernous fireplace, settles are within against its sides, a gigantic +blackened crane swung across its middle, and a cubby-hole of a window at +its back. Above it is swung an ancient fowling-piece. The stone floor of +the room, like the ancient flags without, is worn into dips and hollows. +Along the window-sill of an oblong window measuring one wall is a bright +parade of potted plants. + +It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that there is something psychic +about landladies. As you look about you at the environment in which you +find yourself, you experience a premonition that you are nearing an +affinity in the landlady world. It is strange, too, that there are +places where you have never been before (in the life which you +consciously remember) that give you at once completely the feeling of +your having arrived at the home familiar to your spirit. And there +presently occurs here an event in your career predetermined (I doubt +not) ęons and ęons ago. A buxom body with the most glorious complexion +(you ween) in all England--which is to say in the world--enters the +ancient room: a lass whose rosy, honest, pedestrian face and bursting +figure are to become forever more for you the connotation of the name +"Maggie." The daughter, this, (you later learn) of your Mrs. Cheeseman. + +Soon it is all arranged, and you are having your tea--a "meat tea"--in +the sitting-room of the "King's Head," your sitting-room now. A bucolic +slavey--a person whose cheerful simpleness is like to that of the little +creatures of the field--attends you. In this commodious apartment of +yours is a great scintillation of chintz; flowers, in pots and vases, +everywhere caress the eye; and the fancy is kindled by the spectacle of +many stuffed birds in glass cases. On the heavily flowered wall hangs a +handsome specimen of the "glass" (invariably found in England) for +forecasting the weather; a "pianoforte," as piquantly old-fashioned as a +cocked hat, crosses one end wall; and venerable paintings (which time +has mellowed to the richness and the general color effect of an old plug +of tobacco), bright sporting prints, and antique oddities of furniture +to an extent that it would require a catalogue to name, all combine to +give an air of true sitting-room opulence to the chamber. + +But of landladies, and the connotations of landladies, one could write a +book of several volumes; and it being a very fair day, and a Sunday, and +the first cool breath after a very hot summer, I do not think I shall +write those volumes this afternoon; I shall go out for a bit of air and +a look at the world. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +AN IDIOSYNCRASY + + +Then there's the matter of these dedications. Several weeks ago I +received a communication. I think it was sent by Miss Katherine Lord, or +maybe it was Hamlin Garland. Anyhow, it was an invitation. The upshot of +this invitation was that the annual exhibit of the "best books of the +year" held at the National Arts Club, New York City, under the auspices +of the Joint Committee of Literary Arts was now going--or was just about +to go. Further, it was conveyed that the opening evening of the exhibit +would be devoted to a reception for the authors of the books exhibited. +Also, that on this evening speeches would be made by a number of +distinguished persons acquainted with this matter on the subject of the +idiosyncrasies of authors and editors. Further than this, this +invitation made clear beyond all manner of reasonable doubt that the +pleasure of the evening would be generally felt to be sadly incomplete +without the presence there among the speakers of myself. + +The reasons why I was (I am sorry to say) unable to rise to this +occasion were two. For one thing, I have known long and intimately a +considerable number of authors and editors. Also, I have had the honor +of having been several times to the National Arts Club. And (such is my +tact and delicacy) I could not feel that this was any fit place for me +to discuss the (as the term is) idiosyncrasies with which a decidedly +checkered career has acquainted me. Then, as to one of my own +idiosyncrasies: I am like George Moore in this which he says, that he is +"the only Irishman living or dead who cannot make a speech"--except that +I am not an Irishman. + +All of this, however, is merely picking up the threads of my thought. +What I have in my eye is an idiosyncrasy of authors which doubtless I +could have discussed with some propriety. That is, if I were able to +discuss before an audience anything at all. Though with this subject, as +many of those present were authors (who had their toes along with them) +I should have had to exercise more than a little caution, and +considerable skill in maintaining a honeyed amiability. Maybe this +theme wouldn't have done at all either. + +You see, it's this way: Many people, I believe, do not read the +introductions, prefaces, forewords (and whatever else such things are +called) to books. I always do. Perhaps this is a habit formed during a +number of years spent as a professional reviewer. If you read the +introduction, preface (or whatever it's called), to a book you can +generally pick up pretty much what the author thought he was about when +he wrote it, the points he intended to make in the work, the +circumstances in which he wrote it, and so on. This is a great time and +labor saving procedure. All you've got to do then is to read a bit in +the volume here and there to taste the style, pick up a few errors of +fact or grammar, glance at the "conclusion," where the author sums up, +to see whether or not he got anywhere--and so far as you are further put +out by having this book on your hands it might just as well never have +been written. But I am drifting. That's one reason I can't make a +speech. Never can recollect what it was I set out to say. + +Oh, yes! About these dedications. Less people than read prefaces, I +fancy, read the dedications of books. I always read 'em. I read them +when I have no intention whatever of reading the volumes which +they--well, dedicate. They are fine--dedications. Better, far better, +than old tombstones. But never judge a book by its dedication. + +I one time knew a man, of a most decidedly humorous cast of mind, who +was a great spendthrift, an A 1 wastrel. He ran through everything his +father left him (a very fair little fortune), and then when he had run +through, in advance of that gentleman's death, everything his wife was +to inherit from his father-in-law he had no means whatever. He had a +daughter. Without, it was clearly evident, the least suspicion of the +pleasant humor of this, he named her Hope. She was a small child. +And--it's absurd, I know; but 'tis so; there was not a particle of +conscious irony in it; this child's name was the one blind spot in her +father's sense of the ridiculous--her parents frequently referred to her +affectionately as "little Hope." + +So, quite so, with dedications. Whenever, or perhaps we had better say +frequently, when a man writes a particularly worthless book he lays the +deed (in his dedication of it) onto his wife, "without whose constant +devotion," etc., etc., etc., "this work would never have come into +being." Amen! Or he says that it is inscribed "To--my gentlest +friend--and severest critic--my aged Grandmother." Or maybe he accuses +his little daughter, "whose tiny hands have led me." Again he may say +benignantly: "To--my faithful friend--Murray Hill--who made possible +this volume"; or "the illumination of whose personality has lighted my +way to truth." + +Doubtless he means well, this author. And, in most cases, highly +probable it is that his magnanimous sentiments are O. K. all round. For +to the minds of what would probably be called "right-thinking" persons +is not having a book dedicated to you the equivalent, almost, of having +a career yourself? I know a very distinguished American novelist--well, +I'll tell you who he is: Booth Tarkington--who has told me this: Time +and again he has been relentlessly pursued by some person unknown to him +who, in the belief that did he once hear it he would surely use it as +material for his next book, wished to tell him the story of his life. +This life, according to the communications received by the novelist, +was in every case one of the most remarkable ever lived by man. It was, +in every case, most extraordinary in, among a variety of other singular +things, this: the abounding in it of the most amazing coincidences. And +so on, and so on, and so on. One of these romantic personages nailed the +novelist somewhere coming out of a doorway one day, and contrived to +compel him to sit down and listen to the life story. He was an old, old +man, this chap, and firmly convinced that the tale of his many days (as +simple, commonplace, dull and monotonous an existence as ever was +conceived) was unique. Now he did not want any pay for telling his +story; he had no design on any royalty to come from the great book to be +made out of it; no, not at all. All he asked--and that, he thought, was +fair enough--was that the book be dedicated to him. And so it was with +them all, all of those with the remarkable, obscure, romantic, humdrum +lives. So much for that. + +Dedications run the whole gamut of the emotions. A type of author very +tonic to the spirit is that one whose soul embraces not merely an +individual but which enfolds in its heroic sweep a nation, a people, or +some mighty idea. What, for instance, could be more vast in the +grandeur of its sweep than this--which I came upon the other day in a +modest little volume? "To the Children of Destiny." The Great War, which +has wrought so much evil and inspired so much literature, is responsible +for a flood of noble, lofty dedications. The merest snooping through a +bunch of recent war books turns up, among a multitude more, the +following: "To the Mothers of America." "To--the Loyalty and +Patriotism--of the--American People." "To the Hour--When the Troops Turn +Home." "To All the Men at the Front." + +I should not affirm, of course, that there is anything new under the +sun. And it is very probable that ever since this psychic literature +began (whenever it began) authors resident beyond the stars have, +naturally enough, dedicated their manuscripts submitted to earthly +publishers to folks back in the old home, so to say. But with the War, +which has so greatly stimulated literary activity on the other side of +life, the dedications of these (to put it so) expatriated authors have +perhaps become (in a manner of speaking) loftier in tone than ever +before. As a sample of the present state of exalted feeling of authors +of this sort I copy the following dedication from the recently published +book of a writer "gone West": "To the heroic women of the world, the +mothers, wives and sweethearts who bravely sent us forth to battle for a +great cause:--we who have crossed the Great Divide salute you." + +I wish, I do wish, I had at hand a book which I saw a number of years +ago.... As examples of persons to whom books have been dedicated may be +specified The Deity, The Virgin Mary, Royalty and Dignitaries of Church +and State, "The Reader," and the author himself. Many of the pleasantest +dedications have been to children. Besides armies and navies, countries, +states, cities and their inhabitants, books have also been dedicated to +institutions and societies, to animals, to things spiritual, and to +things inanimate. An attractive example of a dedication to Deity is +furnished by one John Leycaeter, who, in 1649, dedicated his "Civill +Warres of England, Briefly Related from his Majesties First Setting Up +his Standard, 1641, to this Present Personall Hopefull Treaty"--"To the +Honour and Glory of the Infinite, Immense, and Incomprehensible Majesty +of Jehovah, the Fountaine of all Excellencies, the Lord of Hosts, the +Giver of all Victories, and the God of Peace." He continued in a poem, +"By J. O. Ley, a small crumme of mortality." + +But about that book I saw some time ago. You, of course, remember that +prayer in "Tom Sawyer" (or somewhere else in Mark Twain) where the +great-hearted minister called upon the Lord to bless the President of +the United States, the President's Cabinet, the Senate of the United +States, the governors of each of the states, and their legislatures, the +mayors of all the cities, and all the towns, of the United States, and +the inhabitants--grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and wives, +husbands and fathers, sons and daughters, bachelors and little +children--of every hamlet, town and city of the United States, also of +all the countryside thereof. Well, this book of which I am +speaking,--this minister in the august range and compass of his prayer +had nothing on its dedication. It was published, as I recollect, by the +author; printed on very woody wood-pulp paper by a job press, and had a +coarse screen frontispiece portrait of the author, whose name has long +since left me. What it was about I do not remember. That is a little +matter. It lives in my mind, and should live in the memory of the +world, by its dedication; which, I recall, in part was: "To the Sultan +of Turkey--the Emperor of Japan--the Czar of Russia--the Emperor of +Germany--the President of France--the King of England--the President of +the United States--and to God." + +But it was in an elder day that they really knew how to write sonorous +dedications. If I should write a book (and the idea of having one to +dedicate tempts me greatly) I'd pick out some important personage, such +as Benjamin De Casseres, or Frank Crowinshield, or Charles Hanson Towne, +or somebody like that. Then I would take as the model for my dedication +that one, say, of Boswell's to Sir Joshua Reynolds. I am afraid you have +not read it lately. And so, for the joy the meeting of it again will +give you, I will copy it out. It goes as follows: + + My Dear Sir,--Every liberal motive that can actuate an Authour in + the dedication of his labours, concurs in directing me to you, as + the person to whom the following Work should be inscribed. + + If there be a pleasure in celebrating the distinguished merit of a + contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of vanity not altogether + inexcusable, in appearing fully sensible of it, where can I find + one, in complimenting whom I can with more general approbation + gratify those feelings? Your excellence not only in the Art over + which you have long presided with unrivalled fame, but also in + Philosophy and elegant Literature, is well known to the present, + and will continue to be the admiration of future ages. Your equal + and placid temper, your variety of conversation, your true + politeness, by which you are so amiable in private society, and + that enlarged hospitality which has long made your house a common + centre of union for the great and accomplished, the learned, and + the ingenious; all these qualities I can, in perfect confidence of + not being accused of flattery, ascribe to you. + + If a man may indulge an honest pride, in having it known to the + world, that he has been thought worthy of particular attention by a + person of the first eminence in the age in which he lived, whose + company has been universally courted, I am justified in availing + myself of the usual privilege of a Dedication, when I mention that + there has been a long and uninterrupted friendship between us. + + If gratitude should be acknowledged for favours received, I have + this opportunity, my dear Sir, most sincerely to thank you for the + many happy hours which I owe to your kindness,--for the cordiality + with which you have at all times been pleased to welcome me,--for + the number of valuable acquaintances to whom you have introduced + me,--for the _noctes cęnęque Deūm_, which I have enjoyed under your + roof. + + If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the subject + of it, and whose approbation, therefore, must ensure it credit and + success, the Life of Dr. Johnson is, with the greatest propriety, + dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was the intimate and beloved + friend of that great man; the friend, whom he declared to be "the + most invulnerable man he knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him, + he should find the most difficulty how to abuse." You, my dear Sir, + studied him, and knew him well: you venerated and admired him. Yet, + luminous as he was upon the whole, you perceived all the shades + which mingled in the grand composition; all the peculiarities and + slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus. Your very warm + commendation of the specimen which I gave in my "Journal of a Tour + to the Hebrides," of my being able to preserve his conversation in + an authentik and lively manner, which opinion the Publik has + confirmed, was the best encouragement for me to persevere in my + purpose of producing the whole of my stores.... + + I am, my dear Sir, + Your much obliged friend, + And faithful humble servant, + London, April 20, 1791. + JAMES BOSWELL. + + + * * * * * + +In a more modern style of composition the epistolary form of dedication +is still employed. I wish I had not (one time when I was moving) lost +that copy I had, English edition, of George Moore's book "The Lake." I +have a feeling that the dedicatory letter there, in French, was an +admirable example of its kind of thing. If you happen to have a copy of +the book, why don't you look it up? + +When poems are written as dedications an established convention is +followed. You affect at the beginning (in this formula) to be very +humble in spirit, deeply modest in your conception of your powers. You +speak, if your book is verse, of your "fragile rhyme," or (with Patmore) +you "drag a rumbling wain." Again perhaps you speak (in the words of +Burns) of your "wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble," or you call +Southwell to witness that: + + He that high growth on cedars did bestow, + Gave also lowly mushrumps leave to grow. + +And so on. At any rate, you always do this. Then you say that his (or +her) eyes for whom the book was written will change the dross to gold, +the "blind words" to "authentic song," the "mushrump" to a flower, or +some such thing. So, after all, you skillfully contrive to leave your +book to the reader on a rather high, confident note. Any other way of +writing a dedicatory poem to a book of verse (being out of the tradition +altogether) is, I take it, bad, very bad, literary etiquette. + +Numerous dedications have considerable fame. There is that enigmatical +one to "Mr. W. H.," prefixed by Thomas Thorpe, bookseller of London, to +Shakespeare's Sonnets. And Dr. Johnson's scathing definition of a patron +when Lord Chesterfield fell short of Johnson's expectations in the +amount which he contributed to the publication of the famous dictionary +men will not willingly let die. Another celebrated dedication is that of +"The Gentle Art of Making Enemies"--"To the Rare Few, who, early in +life, have rid themselves of the Friendship of the Many." Laurence +Sterne's solemn "putting up fairly to public sale" to an imaginary lord +a dedication to "Tristram Shandy" is not without merit. John Burroughs +was felicitous in his dedication of "Bird and Bough"--"To the kinglet +that sang in my evergreens in October and made me think it was May." And +a very amiable dedication prefixed to "The Bashful Earthquake," by +Oliver Herford, illustrated by the author, is this: "To the Illustrator, +in grateful acknowledgment of his amiable condescension in lending his +exquisite and delicate art to the embellishment of these poor verses, +from his sincerest admirer, The Author." Mr. Herford's latest book (at +the time of this writing), "This Giddy Globe," is dedicated so: "To +President Wilson (With all his faults he quotes me still)." + +A clever dedication, I think, is that of Christopher Morley's +"Shandygaff"--"To The Miehle Printing Press--More Sinned Against Than +Sinning." A dedication intended to be clever, and one frequently seen, +is, in effect, "To the Hesitating Purchaser." A certain appropriateness +is presented in a recent book on advertising, "Respectfully dedicated to +the men who invest millions of dollars a year in national advertising." +And some nimbleness of wit is attained in the inscription of the book +"Why Worry"--"To my long-suffering family and circle of friends, whose +patience has been tried by my efforts to eliminate worry, this book is +affectionately dedicated." As cheerful a dedication as I have come +across is that prefixed by Francis Hackett to his volume "The Invisible +Censor"; it is: "To My Wife--Signe Toksvig--whose lack of interest--in +this book has been my--constant desperation." + +Miss Annie Carroll Moore, supervisor of work with children at the New +York Public Library, tells me that the other day a small boy inquired, +"Who was the first man to write a book to another man?" I'm sure I don't +know. Perhaps this is told somewhere. A number of books and articles +concerning dedications, I have heard, are to be found in studious +places. I have never read any of them. I remember, however, reviewing +for a newspaper a number of years ago (I think it was in 1913) a book, +then just published, called "Dedications: An Anthology of the Forms Used +from the Earliest Days of Bookmaking to the Present Time." It was +compiled by Mary Elizabeth Brown. The volume made handy to the general +reader a fairly representative collection of dedications. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE SEXLESS CAMERA + + +There is no nicer point, perhaps, in the study of photography as the one +true, detached observer of mankind than here: It sees, what man has not +seen--as his own representations show, his paintings, his drawings, his +sculptures--the feminine underpinning with a quite passive, sexless eye. + +In this interesting matter there are two human conceptions. There is the +chorus girl style of leg, the expression of piquancy, which does not +perhaps appeal to the noblest emotions, but the fascination of which has +always haunted man whenever he has delineated anything in a stocking. +Then there is the chaste, nude feminine limb of the painter and the +sculptor. Both photography shows to be idealization. + +When the camera reproduces the chorus girl herself, suddenly strangely +plain and painted, there is to the observing and reflective instead of +sauciness the hollowness of sauciness. There can be few things more +awful than those silent photographs of some gay chorus, reproducing, as +they do, the spectacle with solemn critical aloofness from the spirit. +It is as though the dawn of Judgment Day had suddenly broken upon the +unspeakably wretched and tawdry scene. There is something, it would +seem, indescribably tender, affectionate, in the irony of the gods which +arranges that men should display in theatre lobbies, as an inducement to +buy tickets of admission within, these death's heads of frivolity. As if +the Comic Spirit itself were touched by the charm of the naiveté of man. + +But, indeed, twinkling in the sympathetic light upon the Broadway stage, +the professional chorus girl leg, well selected no doubt to begin with, +and shaped with all the science of art, has beguiled even the +reflective. A light intoxicant, it swirls in the veins like champagne +for the careless moment it makes. It is pleasant because it is false. + +The real leg, remarks the camera, is the amateur leg; it is depressing, +but terribly convincing. As it stands in the raw light of the cheap +photographer (and this too, too human document, the likeness of the +poor girl who has performed somewhere in curiously home-made looking +"tights," and been photographed thus afterward, is one of the stock +exhibits of that most realistic of historians, the cheap photographer) +the amateur leg decidedly lacks dash. The knee joint somehow seems to +work somewhat the wrong way. Sometimes, in circumference, this limb is +immense, sometimes the reverse. But the terribleness of it always is +that it is so human. That is, it is the leg of an animal. Subconsciously +it suggests surgery. + +Conspicuous among the postures assumed for its iconoclastic purpose by +the genius of photography is that of "art." That fetish of the great +body of the unenlightened, the dim feeling that to the enlightened +bodily nakedness in pictorial representation is something very fine, is +played upon. The "art photograph" is an ironic tour de force. If +specimens of this have ever fallen in the way of your observation, then +you have reflected upon the strange discrepancy between the female nude +as presented in painting and sculpture and in photographs. (Oh, souls of +Fragonard, Boucher, Watteau, what romantic rogues you were!) You will +have perceived, with some grim humor, that until the invention of +photography, nobody, apparently, had ever seen a nude female figure. + +Now there is Edgar Degas,--and it is a curious reflection that in +comparison with the work of this pessimist genius who has deliberately +brought cynicism to bear upon the female nude, photographs purporting +(over their sneer) to be reflections of beauty, give by far the most +distressing impression. In the painful realization that they have a kind +of truth beyond human art these abominable humbugs are a kind of art. +What (you exclaimed) was Schopenhauer's remark about the clouded +intellect of _man_ which could give the name of the "fair sex" to "that +under-sized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, knock-kneed race"? + +It may be a long "drive," but it strikes you as a thoughtful observer +that there is some biological analogy between "art photographs" and the +photographs, to be seen in travel books, of native African women. What a +philosopher the camera is! The French savant was very probably +contemplating the photograph of some member of a savage tribe when he +wrote, in "The Garden of Epicurus" (addressing modern ladies): "But +never think too highly of yourselves, my sisters; you were not, at your +first appearance in the world, perfect and fully armed. Your +grandmothers in the days of the mammoth and the giant bear did not wield +the same dominion over the prehistoric hunters and cave-men which you +possess over us. You were useful then, and necessary, but you were not +invincible. To tell the truth, in those far-off ages, and for long +afterwards, you lacked charm. In those days you were like men, and men +were like brutes. To make of you the fearful and wonderful thing you are +today--veils: the Empire, crinoline, décolleté, tube, pannier." And, the +sexless camera explains, the poetry of man. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +I KNOW AN EDITOR + + +I know a young woman--a very handsome young woman she is, too. (I have a +decided penchant for handsome young women.) But that is beside the +point. As I was about to say (when a pleasant but an extraneous idea +interrupted me): this young woman the other day took her young husband +by the hand and conducted him to the offices of a publisher. Here she +mounted him upon a chair (very much, I fancy, as though the child were +about to have his hair cut), and she said to the barber--I mean she said +to the editor, with whom she had some acquaintance--she said: "This is +my husband. He is just out of the army. I have brought him in to have +his head shingled"---- No, no! that isn't what she said; I am getting my +wires crossed. She said, "I have brought him in to get him a position +here." + +Said the editor, "What would your son, I mean your husband, like to +do?" + +"I want him," replied the young woman, "to be an editor." + +"Has he ever been an editor?" inquired the editor kindly, as he admired +the shape of the young woman's nose. + +"No," she answered, stroking his hand (the hand, that is, of her +husband), "why, no." + +"What has been his experience?" asked the editor, as the thought of all +the hard work he had to do in the next hour and a half wrestled in his +mind with his pleasure in the young woman's voice. + +"Why," she said, "before he went into the army I don't know that he had +any particular experience. He was just out of college, you see." + +"Oh!" said the editor, "I see. And why," he asked musingly, "do you want +him to be an editor?" + +"Well, I don't know exactly," answered the young woman, "I just thought +it would be rather nice to have him be an editor." + +Even so. Day after day, come into publishing houses young persons, and +indeed people of all ages, who have a hunch (and apparently nothing more +to go by) that they would like to be "an editor." Also, in every other +mail, come letters from aspirants in distant parts setting forth (what +they deem) their qualifications. + +Now and then someone makes such an application who has been an editor +before. It (editing) is probably the only business he knows, and perhaps +it is too late (or his spirit is too broken) for him to take up another. +So, disillusioned but not misguided, for him there is charity of +thought. But the fledglings are in the great majority. Their +qualifications (is it necessary to say?) usually are: a university +degree, perhaps some association with a college paper, maybe the credit +of an article (or a poem) or two published in a minor magazine issued +for the Intelligentzia, a very sincere attachment to books of superior +worth, a disdain for empyreal literature, openness to a modest salary +(to begin), and an abysmal lack of any comprehension of the business of +publishing books or magazines. Every little bit turns up one who (it +develops) wants a job on the side, as it were, merely to sustain the +real business of life, which (maybe) is taking a graduate course at +Columbia, or some such thing. And in many cases (it is obvious) the real +business of life is writing poetry, or fiction, though to this end a +job must be endured--doubtless temporarily. + +Now why anyone should want to be an editor beats me. No, I retract. 'Tis +quite plain. Ignorance, ma'am, sheer ignorance of the calamity. I know +an editor; in fact, I know six. One, indeed, is a brother of mine, +another is a cousin, a third an uncle. Before they became editors they +used to read books and magazines--for pleasure, sometimes; or again for +profit to their souls. Now they do neither. They read only +professionally. They can't read anything unless they have to, in the way +of business. Before they became editors they led intellectual lives; +spiritually they grew continually. They used to be perfectly delighted, +excited (as people should be), by hearing of books, of authors, new to +them. They were fascinated by the journey of their minds. They might +have gone on thus through their years, interested in themselves, +interesting to others, pillars of society. They might even, for all +their thoughts (then) were inspirations, have written delightful things +themselves. In fact, two of them did. But they became editors. + +Now they, subconsciously, count the words of manuscripts. They cut +articles, like cloth, to fit. They gauge the "rate" to be paid for +this, for that. They cannot take an interest in this because something +like it has just appeared somewhere else. They can't take an interest in +that because it is not like something that has just made a hit somewhere +else. Now when they have something to read they say (like Plim, Bimm, +whatever his name was, the veteran hack novelist in the early Barrie +story), "I'll begin the damn thing at eight o'clock." + +Worst of all, they have lost, totally lost, that shield against +adversity, that great joy in days of prosperity, that deep satisfaction +of life. I mean, of course, the relish of _buying_ books. Everyone knows +that to revel in the possession of a book one must covet it before one +feels one should buy it. Everyone knows that to love a book jealously +one must have made some sacrifice to obtain it. That a library which +supplies unending strength to the spirit means in all its parts, a +little here, a little there, some self-denial of other things. + +But editors, poor fish, are impotent in this high and lasting pleasure; +they have lost the power to spend their money for books. They expect +books to be given to them free by the publishers. Their money goes for +Kelley pool and cigars. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +A DIP INTO THE UNDERWORLD + + +"When I go back home," he said, "and tell them about this they won't +believe it." + +It was a pleasant April Sunday afternoon. We were sitting very +comfortably in a saloon over Third Avenue way about the middle of +Manhattan Island. Throngs of customers came and went through the front +door, whose wicket gate was seldom still. Whiskey glasses twinkled and +tinkled all along the long bar. Only here and there in the closely +packed line of patrons stood one with a tall "schooner" of beer before +him. Harry and Ed, in very soiled white jackets, led an active life. + +You see, since theoretically intoxicants were not being sold, there was +no occasion for the pretence of being closed on Sunday and confining +business to the side door and the back room. On the table between us lay +a newspaper. Its headlines proclaimed yesterday's "liquor raids," +thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of "rum" confiscated by the +city police in the progress of the campaign resulting from the recent +passage of the New York State "dry" law. + +At the bottom of the page was a little story of the conviction of a +delicatessen dealer somewhere on the outskirts of Brooklyn on whose +premises had been discovered by the authorities a small amount of wine +containing more than one-half of one per cent alcohol. + +Pete came in hurriedly. Harry and Ed glanced at him questioningly. He +nodded to them as though to say "yes," and dropped into the chair before +us. "They're comin'," he remarked. "About half a block off." Every +whiskey glass had suddenly disappeared from the bar. + +Pete, a little grey man now of about fifty who arises for the day at +about noon, has had an interesting career. Once upon a time he was a +"bell-hop" in Albany. He is a devoted patron of the silent drama and a +man of intellectual interests--making a hobby of clipping from +newspapers poems and editorials which impress him and reading them +several months later to chance acquaintances who are too drowsy to +oppose him. His connection with this establishment is light and +picturesque. His duties are chiefly social. That is, he sees home one +after another customers who require that friendly attention. He is +perpetually agreeable to the suggestion of gratuitous refreshment. He is +very cheerful and gentlemanly in the matter of accommodating his tastes +to any liquid from ten-cent beer to ninety-cent Scotch which the +purchaser is disposed to pay for. + +Here they were! The two police officers strolled in slowly, smiling. In +their blue and their gold buttons they looked very respendent against +the somewhat shabby scene. Ranged along before the bar were a number of +young men in the uniform of private soldiers. There were several +sailors. Here was a postman cheering himself on his rounds. There was a +huge fellow the nickel plate on whose cap announced that he was a piano +mover. The centre of a group, there was a very large man who looked as +though he had something darkly to do with ward politics. At one place in +the line was a very dapper little Japanese, who produced his money from +a wallet carried in his breast pocket. But mostly the motley company was +of the riff-raff order of humanity. That is another one of the curious +developments of "prohibition." Here, in all places of this character, +you may find an endless number of the sort of men who used to be +accustomed to paying as little as ten cents for a drink of very fiery +and inferior whiskey, now standing before the bar by the hour and paying +from fifty to seventy-five cents for whiskey (if you can call it that) +considerably worse. How on earth can they do it? I do not know. + +The two policemen moved the length of the room, and came to a halt at +the open end of the bar. Here they stood for a couple of moments, +observing (I felt with some amusement) Harry and Ed serving their +beakers of beer. Then, as though suddenly having a bright idea, one of +them made his way along back of the bar to the cigar case at the front +end. He stooped, opened the sliding panel at the bottom of this and +poked around inside with his club. As he came along behind the bar back +to the open end he stooped several times to peer at the shelf below. He +joined his comrade, the two of them thrust their heads into the back +room, and then moved out through the side door. + +"Well, we're safe for another hour," said Pete. "Why couldn't they find +the stuff?" I asked him. "I'll bet you couldn't find it if you'd go +behind the bar yourself," he answered. Harry and Ed had found it within +two seconds after the shadow of the law had lifted. And the room was +humming with the sound of renewed, and somewhat hectic, conviviality. +"We'll get caught pretty soon though, I guess," observed Johnnie, the +Italian "chef," who on week-days served the economical lunch of roast +beef sandwiches and "hot dogs." Harry and Ed laughed in a rather +uncomfortable way. But for the present, at least, business was too brisk +for their thoughts to be distracted more than a second or two from the +job. + +"The old man," remarked Pete, referring to the proprietor, "is on a toot +again. Been under the weather for about a week now. He always gets that +way whenever one of the new law scares comes along. Gets worried or sore +or something and that upsets him." + +Pete hadn't been very well himself for several days. Sick in bed, he +said, yesterday. He never used to be sick at all, "in the old days," he +declared, no matter how much he had taken the day before. Never had a +headache, or bad stomach, or anything like that. A little nervous, +perhaps, yes. "But it's the kind of stuff we get nowadays," he thought. +"There hasn't been time since prohibition started for the system to get +trained to react to this TNT stuff, like it was to regular liquor. Maybe +in ten years or in the next generation people's systems will have got +adjusted to this kind of poison and it'll be all right with 'em." It's +an interesting idea, I think. + +A customer was requesting Ed to "fix him up" a pint flask. No, it +couldn't be done just now, as the supply was running too low for it to +be passed out that much at a time. The disappointed customer tried to +content himself with endeavoring to absorb as much of a pint as he could +obtain through a rapidly consumed series of single drinks. And pretty +soon it was officially announced from the bar that there would be "no +more until nine o'clock in the morning." I gathered that the reserve +stock was upstairs or downstairs and that the "old man" had gone away +with the key. + +We went forth to take a walk, Pete accompanying us as a sort of +cicerone, and discoursing with much erudition of bar-rooms as we went. +"These places are getting scarce," he observed. "There don't seem to be +any, or there seems to be hardly any of the old places uptown," I +remarked. "Oh! no; not in residential neighborhoods," he replied; and I +inferred that the law was, in deference to the innocent spirit of +domesticity, keener-eyed there. "And there ain't but very few below the +dead-line downtown," Pete said. + +They have, the bars, very largely disappeared from Broadway. Have been +gone from that thoroughfare for some time. And in this thought we come +upon one of the great mockeries of the situation which has existed since +the Eighteenth Amendment went (more or less) into effect. What I mean is +this: A great many people who had no ferocious opposition to the idea of +a cocktail being drunk before a meal, or wine with it, or even a liqueur +after it, did detest the saloon. It was the institution of the common, +corner saloon, I fancy, at which the bulk of American temperance +sentiment was directed. + +The perverse operation of prohibition then was this: It ceased to be +possible (openly) to obtain any alcoholic beverage in anything like +wholesome surroundings, in a first-class restaurant or hotel or in a +gentleman's club. But in New York City, as is known to everybody who +knows anything at all about the matter, the saloons, and particularly +the lower class of saloons, have flourished as never before. + +As we crossed Broadway Pete pointed out one place which had been going +until a short time ago, an odious looking place (as I remember it) +within. It was but a short way from a club of distinguished membership. +So much had this doggery become frequented by these gentlemen that it +became jocularly known among them as the "club annex." + +Continuing on over into the West Side, here was a place, now a shop +dealing in raincoats, but formerly a "gin-mill" where throughout this +last winter there had been an extraordinary infusion of Bacardi rum, +drunk neat, as their favorite drink, by its multitudinous customers. And +there was a place, a baby carriage exhibited for sale in its window now, +which as a saloon had burned out one night not long ago; when its +proprietor accepted the catastrophe with striking cheerfulness, withdrew +his business activities to his nearby apartment and took up calling upon +old customers by appointment. Innumerable the places over which Pete +breathed a sigh, which had lately turned into tobacco stores or candy +shops. + +We turned in at a door on Sixth Avenue. A little more caution seemed to +be observed here than at the place we had just left. But Pete, of +course, would pass any scrutiny. The liquor bottle, you noted, stood +within the safe at the inner end of the bar, its door hanging ready at +any moment to be kicked to. The barman covered with his hand the little +glasses he set out until you took them, and admonished, "Get away with +it!" The drinks were eighty cents a throw, but they had the feel of +genuine good-grade rye. + +Night had fallen. We passed into the back room, where a pathetic object +was banging dismal tunes on a rattle-trap of a piano. A party of four +entered. The young women were very young and decidedly attractive. The +two couples began to circle about in a dance. Next moment came a +terrific thundering on the front of the building. "Cop wants less +noise," said the waiter to the dancers; "you'll have to quit." "Throw +that into you," he said to the seated customer he was serving, and +directly whisked away the glasses. + +"When I go back home," said my friend from the Middle West, "and tell +them about this they won't believe it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +NOSING 'ROUND WASHINGTON + + +I + +I came very near to being shot in the White House grounds the other day. +Yep! You see, my friend is a bit on the order of what the modistes call +"stylish stout." Rather more than a bit, indeed. Looks something like a +slightly youthfuller Irvin Cobb. Also wouldn't consider it decent of him +out of doors not to "wear" his stag-handled cane. Altogether, not +unlikely to be taken for a real somebody. He was fishing round in his +breast pocket for the letter his senator from "back home" had given him +to the President's secretary. Drew out what may have seemed an important +looking document. + +As we came along the path toward the executive offices there was an +up-stage looking bunch thronging about the little steps--rollicking +gamins, smartly turned out flappers, a sprinkling of rather rakish +looking young males, and (in their best black silk) a populous +representation of those highly honorable and very ample figures who have +generously mothered the young sons and daughters of the American +prairies. + +Suddenly from the side lines they popped out--a whole battery of them, +with their bug-like machines on tall stilts. The motion picture camera +men were taking no chances that anything important would escape their +fire. Evidently they couldn't quite place us, however, so we got through +the door without further incident. + +When we had entered the grounds through the gate at the far side of the +lawn my thoughtful friend had thrown away his lighted cigar, feeling +that promiscuous smoking here would be taboo from danger of fire to so +precious a national jewel as the White House. Within the anteroom to the +executive offices the scene very decidedly suggested one of those jovial +masculine gatherings termed a "smoker." The seething and motley company +of (obviously) newspaper men put one in mind of the recent arrival at a +military training camp of a nondescript batch of drafted men not yet got +into uniform. General air about the room of loafing in a corner cigar +store. + +Then, suddenly, a rising murmur and a pell-mell push toward the door. My +friend and I were swayed out upon the step, and saw at the gate directly +at the street corner of the building the movie camera men very +vigorously clearing for action. They had halted close before them a +tall, striking and very distinguished figure. You instantly recognized +him by the insignia which he wore on the slope toward his chin of his +under lip--a wisp of whisker (light straw color) such as decorated the +illustrious countenance, too, of the late James Abbott McNeil Whistler. + +He was, this gentleman, looking very sheepish, continually bowing in a +rather strained manner to the camera men and lifting his black derby hat +to them. They were scrambling about the legs of their engines and +cranking away with a rattle. "Over this way a little, Mr. Paderewski!" +yelled one. "Hold on, Mr. Paderewski, there you are!" bawled another. +Boisterous mirth about the doorway.... "That's good!" "Sure, he's only a +premier." + +Then, a deferential scattering to make way for him as he approached. +Held him up again, the camera guerrillas, on the steps. He was bowing +with an effect of increasing strain and the intensity of his +sheepishness becoming painful to contemplate. His hair a white bush +thrusting out behind. Ghostly white bow tie. His black clothes +beautifully sleek and pressed. At close up, his features blunter, less +sensitive in chiselling than appears in his photographs. The flesh of +his face striking in the degree of the pinkness and fairness of +complexion of the races of Northern Europe. + +My friend and I had not yet seen Mr. Christian. Had that morning called +upon Mr. Tumulty on a matter of business. Found he had set up shop in a +business structure called the Southern Building. Transom Legend: Law +Offices ... Joseph P. Tumulty. On entrance door: Joseph P. Tumulty, +Charles H. Baker. Outstanding feature of ante-chamber a life-size cream +plaster bust, on tall polished wood pedestal, of Woodrow Wilson. Mr. +Tumulty, stocky of stature, driving in manner, bustled forth from his +private office. Exhaled atmosphere of ruddiness. + +My friend at times (I fear) speaks with some circumlocution. Our real +business here settled, he was ambling on toward the expression of his +hope that we might possibly be able sometime, just for a moment, to see, +just get a glimpse of.... + +"The President," Mr. Tumulty cut in, with an anticipating nod. My friend +looked a bit confused as (I could see) the words "the ex-President" were +about to come from him. But, undoubtedly, both of them meant the same +gentleman. + +In the executive offices we trailed along with the newspaper men for +their daily afternoon interview with Mr. Christian, my friend bathing +himself in tobacco smoke as complacently as anyone of the party. Entered +a sort of council chamber. Long table down the middle. Conspicuous +ornament of the apartment, on a mantel, a plaster cast of a humorous +Uncle Sam in a dress coat, holding aloft an American flag, and flanked +by a turkeyfied looking eagle. + +Congregation pressed close about the table, behind which in a swivel +chair sat in a relaxed and rather pensive attitude an angular figure, +swinging leisurely looking legs which terminated in very white sox and +low-cut shoes. A rather thick thatch of greying hair, large aquiline +features, a rather melancholy cast of expression, eyes cast downward at +the table, clothes not recently pressed and which no one would be +inclined to call dapper, Mr. Christian in general effect suggested a +good deal one's impression of a somewhat dusty "reference librarian" at +the information desk of the New York Public Library being besieged by an +unusually large number of questioners. + +"Well, gentlemen," he uttered very quietly and slowly, "what have you +got on your mind?" + +"George," asked a figure with pad and pencil in hand, "what about this?" +Mr. Christian appeared to ponder the matter a good while, and the upshot +of his cogitation appeared to be that there wasn't much of anything +about it. "And what is there to that?" inquired another. Well at length +there didn't seem to be much to that either. A few items of information +were given. And the audience briefly closed. + +When we had filed out with the company from the room my friend and I +took seats in the corridor. He had given his letter to the doorman. A +couple of soldiers in uniform, a group of very spruce, robust and +cheery-looking Catholic priests, an elderly individual of very dejected +pose, and a miscellaneous assortment of humanity also were waiting. The +doorman was being continually accosted. "Just want to shake hands with +him, that's all," and "Just want to say 'How de do'," were solicitations +frequently overheard. + +The doorman beckoned to us and told us to go into an apartment which he +indicated and "take a seat." Probably my friend didn't hear that +instruction, as he marched straight up to Mr. Christian directly upon +entering the room flooded with afternoon light pouring through an +imposing row of tall and beautiful windows. Mr. Christian slowly arose +from his desk, coming gradually to his full height, and yielded a +cautious hand to my friend. He looked at the bright and somewhat +flustered countenance of my friend rather sadly, as it seemed. Though at +some sally of my friend's about the pronunciation of his name he smiled +with considerable natural human warmth. Then very gravely he stated that +with so many appointments at present to be made, and with the +multitudinous labors now upon him, and so forth and so on, it was hardly +possible that he could just now arrange for my friend to have a word +with, as he said, ... "the Senator." + +My friend was, obviously, a bit taken aback by the term, as his mind +had been careering along with visions of his seeing no less a person +than the President. But there was no doubt that both he and Mr. +Christian were referring to the same gentleman. + +I should add that my friend's self-imposed mission of shaking hands with +Mr. Harding and writing an article about his impressions of him before +the President had yet given an audience to the accredited +representatives of the press was more or less audacious. And I should +add still further that Mr. Christian seemed genuinely reluctant to +dismiss my friend without a ray of hope, and suggested that he call +again after a few days. Suggestion was at Mr. Christian's own volition. + +As we turned to leave the room we saw that the bevy of Catholic Fathers +and several other persons had also been admitted, and were all beaming +with bland cheerful confidence. + +We strolled along the driveway leading by the front entrance to the +White House. The baggy looking policeman lazily sunning himself beside +the portico recalled to my mind with amusing contrast the snappy +Redcoats who briskly pace back and forth before Buckingham Palace. + +They are superbly haughty and disdainful beings. A charmingly democratic +character, this policeman. "'At a fierce cloud over there," he observed +to us as we paused nearby. + +A splendid looking army officer together with a caped naval commander +emerged with springy step from the White House door, both carrying an +air of high elation. A sumptuous car rolled up and halted beneath the +portico roof extending over the driveway. From it a lady leaned out +extending a card. Out pranced a gleaming negro flunky to receive it with +bows of elaborate courtliness. As he turned to re-enter the White House +it struck me that I did not believe I had ever seen a happier looking +human being. Also, in his beautiful dark blue tail coat with bright +silver buttons, and delicately striped light waistcoat, he brought to my +mind (incongruously enough) the waiters at Keen's Chop House. The lady +rolled on. + +A bumptious looking character mounted to the entrance, and sent in a +card. It was evident in his bearing that he expected within a moment to +stride through the doorway. A figure in a skirt coat emerged. Bumptious +being springs upon him and begins to pump his hand up and down with +extraordinary verve, straining the while toward the doorway. Skirt coat +(his hand continuing to be pumped) deferentially edges bumptious +character outward toward descending steps. + +It had been an exceedingly hot day for early spring. Traffic policemen +had stood on their little platforms at the centre of the street +crossings under those mammoth parasols they have to shield them from the +rigors of the Washington sun. As we proceeded toward our exit from the +grounds, approaching to the White House came a diminutive and decrepit +figure muffled in an overcoat extending to his heels, bowed under a tall +top hat, a pair of mighty ear-muffs clamped over his ears. + +We had that morning visited the Capitol. My friend had been much more +interested in the guide-conducted touring parties than in the atrocious +painting of the Battle of Lake Erie, and so on, expatiated on to them. +Parties which, he said, made him feel that he was back again at the +Indiana State Fair. We had sat, in the visitors' gallery of the Senate, +in the midst of a delegation of some sort of religious sect, whose +beards had most decidedly the effect of false whiskers very insecurely +attached. Had been much struck by the extreme politeness of a new +Senator who bowed deeply to each one in turn of a row of pages he passed +before. Had responded within a few minutes to the command of "All out!" +because of executive meeting, and sympathised with the sentiments of +fellow citizens likewise ejected who went forth murmuring that they +hadn't "got much." + +We had wandered through the noble and immaculate Senate Office building, +and been much impressed by the scarcity of spittoons there, an abundance +of which articles of furniture we had since boyhood associated with all +public buildings. We had sat in the outer office of our state's senator, +and listened to one lady after another explain to his secretary in this +wise: "I just made up my mind ... I just decided to go right after it +... I just determined ... I just thought ... Otherwise, of course, I +shouldn't presume to ask it." + +In the Library of Congress we had been much interested to hear an +European gentleman of vast erudition connected with the Library declare +that "there was more intellectual life in Washington than in any other +city in America--that it was an European city, in the best sense." We +had been accosted on the street by a very portly and loud-voiced man who +introduced himself by inquiring where we were from; who confided that +his business in Washington had to do with an alcohol permit; and who +asked to be directed to Corcoran Gallery. We had run into an old actor +friend who was here playing, he said, "nut stuff"; and who observed that +Washington was "more of a boob town than ever." We had been assured by a +newspaper friend that Washington was so full of inventors and blue law +fans that if you "dropped a match anywhere a nut would step on it." + +We had been charmed by the vast number of elderly couples apparently on +a final mellow honeymoon before the fall of the curtain. At lunch had +overheard an inland matron inquire of a waitress if scollops were +"nice." Had enjoyed hot corn bread with every meal. Had been unable to +account for the appearance on the streets of so many wounded soldiers. +Had made the mistake of getting up so early that in the deep Washington +stillness of half past seven we were scared to run the water for our +baths for fear of rousing the sleeping hotel to angry tumult. Had noted +that nowhere except in London is the fashion of freshly polished shoes +so much an institution. Had speculated as to why the standard model of +the American statesman's hat should be a blend of an expression of the +personalities of W. J. Bryan, Buffalo Bill and Colonel Watterson. + +And, finally, listening in the evening to the orchestra in the corridor +of the New Willard, we discussed the large opportunities for a serious +literary work dealing with the varieties and idiosyncrasies of the +Washington hair cut. There is the Bryan type, with the hair turned +outward in a thick roll above the back of the neck, and forming a neat +hat rest. There is the roach back from a noble dome. There is the grey +curly bushy all around. There is the heavy grey wave mounting high over +one side. And--well, there seem to be an almost endless number of +styles, all more or less peculiar to the spirit of Washington, and all +of distinct distinction. + + +II + +"Who's the old bird gettin' so many pictures took?" inquired a loitering +passerby. + +A hum of much good nature was coming from the motley throng about the +steps before the executive office of the White House. "Beer and light +wine," called out someone, apparently in echo to something just said by +the queer looking character being photographed by the battery of camera +men, and a rattle of laughter went around through the group. + +"That's old Coxey," replied someone. "He's down here to get Debs out," +he added. The amiable and celebrated "General" who a number of years ago +had led his "army" on to Washington was smiling like a very wrinkled and +animated potato into the lenses of the cameras which had been moved to +within a couple of feet or so of his nose. + +My friend and I crossed the street to the State, Army and Navy building. +We had been there the other day to see a young man in the State +Department to whom he had a card. Had been much struck by his beauty. +And had wondered if handsomeness was a requisite for a statesman in this +Administration. + +Now we sought the press room. Presented our credentials to a press +association man there. Cordial chap. Said, "Stick around." Others +floated in. Pretty soon press association man heartily calls out to my +friend (whose name is Augustus), "George. Come on!" And we trail along +with about fifty others into the ante-chamber of the new Secretary of +the Navy, who at half past ten is to give his first interview to the +newspaper men. + +Funny looking corridors, by the way, in this building. Swing doors all +about, constructed of horizontal slats, and in general effect bearing a +picturesque resemblance to the doors of the old-time saloon. + +I noticed that as we went along my friend punched in one side of the +crown of his soft hat and raked it somewhat to one side of his head. He +felt, I suspected, uncomfortably neat for the society of this bonhomie +crowd of bona fide newspaper men, and did not wish to appear aloof by +being too correct in attire. + +The company passed along the corridor and into the anteroom under a +heavy head of tobacco smoke. There the press association man presented +each of the flock in turn to a chubby little fellow behind a railing, +whom I took to be secretary to the Secretary; and presently the +delegation was admitted to the inner office, a spacious apartment where +one passed first an enormous globe, then a large model of the _Old +Kearsarge_ in a glass case; and at length we ranged ourselves closely +before a mountain of a man in a somewhat saggy suit. Clean shaven, +massive features, very bald dome, widely smiling, Secretary Denby looks +just a bit (I thought) like Mr. Punch. His voice comes in a deep rumble +and he has entirely ample ears. Trousers too long. + +No; he had not seen the story in that morning's paper which was handed +to him by one of the reporters. He would not confirm this; he would not +deny that. After all, he had been "only a week in the job." And one +might so very easily be "injudicious." "Wily old boy," was one comment +as the party trailed out and made for the press telephones, discussing +among themselves "how would you interpret" this and that? + +Next, at eleven o'clock, the Secretary of State was down on the +newspaper men's schedule. We went into a kind of waiting room across the +corridor from the real offices of the Secretary. Most conspicuous +decoration a huge painting of a Bey of Tunis, the presentation of which +(the inscription said) had something to do with condolences from France +on the death of Lincoln. Also on one wall a portrait of Daniel Webster. + +Mr. Fletcher, Under Secretary of State, appeared before us. Very dapper +gentleman. Athletic in build. Fashionable clothes. Grey hair but +youthful in effect. Handsome, smooth-shaven face. Suggested an actor, or +perhaps a very gentlemanly retired pugilist. Held beautiful shell +spectacles in hand before him. Stood very straight. Had another fellow +alongside of him to supply information when himself in doubt. When asked +concerning someone who was in jail, inquired "Where is the old boy?" +Smiling cordially, seeking continually for an opportunity for some joke +or pleasantry, trying bravely to keep up a strong front, but obviously +becoming more and more uneasy under the ordeal of rapid-fire questions +about Russia, Germany, Japan and so on and so on. On being asked +concerning diplomatic appointments under consideration, bowed briskly, +replied "A great many," and escaped--almost, it might be said, fled. + +Secretary of War next on the list. Full length portraits in his offices +of Generals Pershing, Bliss and Petain. Many flags, historic ones +(presumably) in glass cases. Heavy build, Secretary Weeks, very wide +across the middle. Straggling moustache, drooping. Very direct and +business-like in manner. Entered room saying, "Well, there are a number +of things I have to tell you gentlemen." Frank and positive in his +statements and denials. Stood twisting a key-ring as he talked. Wore +neat pin in tie. When told that the War Department was supposed to have +such and such a thing under consideration, he replied, tapping himself +on the breast, "Not this part of the War Department." One questioner +sought to obtain from him a more direct reply to a question that had +been put to the Secretary of the Navy. He answered, "I know nothing +about the navy." When there was apparently nothing more that he had to +say, he concluded the audience very deftly. + +"He's a different guy, ain't he?" was one correspondent's observation as +we passed out of the room. "One of the biggest men in the government," +he added. "Gives the impression of knowing as much about that job now as +Baker did when he left." + +To the National Press Club we went for lunch. It is pleasant to see in +what esteem this club holds those two eminent journalists, Eugene Field +and Napoleon Bonaparte, whose portraits hang framed side beside on one +of its walls. Napoleon, however, is held in such very great regard as a +newspaper man that another and larger picture of him hangs in another +room. + +The newspaper army had shifted to the business office of the White +House. As we entered Secretary Weeks was departing. He pressed through +the throng of reporters clustered about him. "Nothing to say," was +apparently what he was saying. "We are referred to Warren," said one of +the men. "Looks like we really were going to see him," said another. The +President had not yet given an interview to the press men. So we took +seats among the rows of figures ranged around the walls. + +While waiting we were given an audience, so to say, by Laddie, the White +House Airedale. Curly haired breed. "How old is he?" we asked the small +colored boy whose office includes charge of him. "A year," he said. The +dog stands well, and holds his stump of a tail straight aloft, correctly +enough. But there is altogether too much black on him, we observed; +covers his breast and flanks, instead of being merely a "saddle" on his +back. "Yes, everybody says it," answered the boy. + +Secretary Hughes was seen coming down the corridor on his way out. The +newspaper men pressed forward forming a narrow line through which he +walked, very erect, smiling broadly, bowing to right and left, and +continually moving his black derby hat up and down before him. "Gets a +great reception, don't he?" said one reporter, glowing with a sort of +jovial pride at Mr. Hughes. + +"You'll have to see the boss," Mr. Hughes repeated a number of times as +he came along, and turning slightly made one last very good-natured bow +as he moved out through the door. + +"Are they all here?" called out Mr. Christian, then marshalled us +through his office and into the large, circular and very handsome office +of the President. + +While we awaited him he could be seen, through a doorway, talking, on a +porch-like structure opening out along the back of the building. He was +very leisurely in manner. I think my first outstanding impression of my +glimpse of him was that he was a very handsome man, most beautifully +dressed in a dark blue serge sack suit, very sharply pressed. + +He came in, moving slowly, stood close behind his desk, and said, +"Well, gentlemen, what is there that I can tell you?" He spoke very +quietly and deliberately. The Cabinet he said had discussed problems +relating to the "hang-over" (as he put it) of the War, in particular the +trade situation of the world. He mentioned that he did not desire to be +quoted directly. He had not been "annoyed" but he had been "distressed," +he said, by having been so quoted not long ago. The top button of his +coat was buttoned. His cuffs were stiffly starched. He inclined his head +a good part of the time to one side. Sometimes half closed his eyelids. +Then would open them very wide, and make an outward gesture with his +hands, accompanied by something like a shrug of the shoulders. Close up +I was struck by the bushiness of his eyebrows. He wore a single ring, +mounting a rather large light stone. No pin to his tie. He swung +backward and forward on his feet. Put on shell-rimmed nose glasses to +read. Sometimes pursed his lips slowly. As he talked absently rolled a +small piece of paper he had picked up from his desk into the shape of a +cigarette. His talk had a slightly oratorical roll. He was exceedingly +patient and exceedingly courteous. His general atmosphere was one of +deep kindness. In conclusion he said, "Glad to see you again." + +"That's pretty nice," was the comment of one of the newspaper men as we +emerged from his presence. + +As we moved away through the grounds my friend dilated on a somewhat +whimsical idea of his. This was to this effect. In motion picture plays +(my friend insisted) kings were always much more kingly in appearance +and manner than any modern king would be likely to be. But (he declared) +it would be very difficult for a motion picture concern to get hold of +any actor to play the part who would look so much like an American +President as President Harding. + +We stopped in to look at the east room, now again open. A character who +had evidently not been born in any of the capitols of Europe was +admiring the place vastly. He looked with especial approval at the +enormous chandeliers, those great showers, or regular storms, of glass. +"Pretty hard to beat," was his patriotic comment. + + +III + +It's a big old building, dark inside, the Washington Post Office. He +looked like some sort of a guard about the premises who was too tired +to stand up and so did his guarding sitting in a chair. My friend had +got so accustomed to inquiring our way to the office of Secretary +Hughes, and of Secretary Weeks, and so on, that he asked where we would +find Secretary Hays. + +The man looked at us very contemptuously. "The Postmaster General?" at +length he boomed. Well, he was on the fifth floor. As we stepped from +the car my friend remarked on the practice universal in Washington of +men removing their hats when in the presence of women in elevators. + +Our appointment was for ten o'clock. We had got quite used, however, to +waiting an hour or so for the gentlemen we sought to see. Several other +callers were ahead of us here, and we sat down in the outer office when +we had presented our cards to a very kind and attentive young man who +appeared to be in charge. + +Within a very few minutes, however, we were ushered round into a +secluded inner office. "The General," the young man said, "will be in in +a moment. He sees them in two different rooms at the same time." This +large room was entirely bare of painting or other decorations. + +Speaking of decorations reminds me of the striking handsomeness of the +Cabinet officers we had so far been seeing. Beginning with the President +himself (prize winner of the lot in this respect) the spectacle of this +Administration had up to this moment been a regular beauty show. + +The physiognomy of Mr. Hays, of course, strikes a somewhat different +note in the picture. Though he is not, I should say, as funny looking as +some of his pictures suggest. + +He fairly leaped into the room. Spidery figure. Calls you by your last +name without the prefix of Mister. Very, very earnest in effect. No +questions necessary to get him started. He began at once to talk. Poured +forth a steady stream of rapid utterance. Denounced the idea of labor as +a "commodity." Said: "We have a big job here. Three hundred thousand +employees. Millions of customers. I think we can do it all right, +though. But our people in the department all over the country everywhere +must be made to feel that a human spirit is behind them. It's in the +heart that the battle's won. It's because of the spirit behind them +whether our men throw a letter on the floor before a door or put it +through the door." Made a gesture with his hands illustrating putting a +letter through a door. Looked very hard at the very clean top of his +desk much of the time as he talked. Now and then looked very straight +indeed at us. Gave us a generous amount of his time. At length arose +very briskly. + +Routed us out around through some side way. Had a private elevator +concealed somewhere in a dark corner. Turned us over to the colored man +in charge of it with the request, "Won't you please take my friends +down?" + +As we were crossing the street we ran into our old friend from New York +who edits a very flourishing women's magazine. Down here, he said, to +get an article from Mrs. Harding. Had found her altogether willing to +supply him with an article, but in so much of a flutter with her new +activities that she didn't see her way to finding time soon to write it. +What, we asked, was the article to be about? Well, Mrs. Harding's idea +was to revive all the old traditions of the White House. And what were +those traditions? Mrs. Harding hadn't said beyond the custom of Easter +egg-rolling. + +We were on our way over to see Assistant Secretary of the Navy +Roosevelt. He is not in the State, Army and Navy building where Mr. +Denby is, but some ten minutes' walk away, in the long, rather fragile +looking Navy Department building constructed during the War. + +Here numerous gold-braided officers continually come and go. The +building is filled with very beautiful models of fighting ships. At one +side of Roosevelt's door is a model of the _San Diego_, at the other +side a "sample U. S. Navy Patrol Boat." + +As we gave him our cards a young man asked us if we knew "the Colonel." +An old Washington newspaper man had told us that morning, "He will go +far under his own hat." Several very large men, also waiting, were +smoking very large cigars while we waited. While all male visitors to +public offices in Washington appear to smoke continually, those in +government positions apparently do not smoke during office hours. And +government business hours there seem to be queer. The Senate goes into +session at just about lunch time. The President seems to be around in +his business office throughout the whole of the middle of the day. And +the office of the Secretary of State telephones you at six o'clock +Saturday night. + +The young man showed us in. Mr. Roosevelt arose from his desk, shook +hands very cordially, said "How do you do?" sat down again and at the +moment said nothing further. It was up to us to swing the conversation. +So my friend launched out: We had nothing to do with affairs of state, +had no design to interview him as to naval matters, simply were curious +to see if we should find him eating an apple and wearing white sox, or +what. With hearty good nature, Mr. Roosevelt replied that he was not +eating an apple because he did not have one to eat, and that he had only +once worn white sox, woolen ones, when a boy at school. + +He was very neatly dressed in a suit of quiet dark material, wore rich +dark red tie, with a stick pin to it. Curiously weather beaten looking +complexion. As he has just published a book we asked him if he intended +to carry on more or less of a literary career together with his public +life. He said, well, perhaps more or less. But he wouldn't have time for +much such work. He "practised" writing on Saturdays and Sundays, but +mainly for the purpose of attaining to clearness in expressing himself. +He insisted that the great bulk of his father's writing had been done +_before_ the full course of his political activities and _after_ he had +retired from them. + +After we had arisen to go he walked up and down the room with us, with a +somewhat arm-in-arm effect. Declared we should know a friend of his up +in Boston, because we'd "like him." Said to look in on him again any +time when in Washington. Very affable young man. + +We went out on S Street to see Wilson's new house. Handsome enough +structure, but, undetached from the building next door and fronting +directly on the sidewalk, we decided that it looked somewhat more like a +club than like a private residence. Were told later that the part of +that house to look at is the back of it, as there are wonderful gardens +there. + +One cannot fail to note in the numerous art shops where pictures of +Harding, Roosevelt, Washington, Lincoln and Cleveland are displayed in +abundance the relative absence of pictures of Wilson. + +Why do august statesmen in the lobby of the New Willard cross their legs +so that we can see that their shoes need to be half-soled? Why do so +many distinguished looking gentlemen in Washington wear their overcoats +as though they were sleeveless capes? What on earth do so many Oklahoma +looking characters do in Washington? Why is it that there the masses do +not, as in New York and Chicago and Los Angeles, stroll about at night? + +We stopped in again at the executive office of the White House. +Remarkable number of doormen there got up somewhat like policemen, so +that you repeatedly have to explain yourself all over again. Man new to +us on today. Suspiciously asked our names. Then (though what just our +names could have meant to him I cannot see) shook hands with immense +friendliness, and told us his name. + +Quite a throng waiting. Busy hum all about. Different crowd from usual. +Hardly any reporters. Old gentlemen. Stout red-faced fellows with large +black slouch hats. Several youngish women with very generous bosom +displays. Some sort of a delegation, apparently. We did not make out +just what. But the scene somewhat suggested a meeting of the Los Angeles +branch of the Ohio Society. At length the company lines up. We trail in +through with the rest. + +The President, looming in the centre of his office, shakes hands with +each caller in turn, in a manner of paternal affection. Holds your hand +very gently within his for a considerable while. Rather odd position he +takes when shaking hands. Right shoulder lifted. Looks (though I felt +that he was unconscious of this effect) somewhat like a pose that a +painter might put his model into when about to paint him shaking hands. + +He bent over us in a very fatherly fashion. Said, yes, yes, he had got +our letters while in the South. Which was quite a mistake, as we hadn't +written him any letters. But his kindly intention was quite +unmistakable. + + +IV + +Senator New's secretary, in his room on the second floor of the Senate +Office building, was opening a wooden box that had come by mail. No; he +wasn't exactly opening this box, either. He was looking at it +suspiciously and cautiously tipping it from side to side. "Feels like it +was a snake," he said fearsomely. "Soft, live-like weight in there. I +don't believe I'll open it. You see," indicating the stamps, "it's from +India, too." + +"But why would anybody be sending Senator New a snake?" inquired my +friend. + +"Goodness gracious! We get lots of things just as queer as snakes," +replied Mr. Winter. "I guess the Senator must be coming in pretty soon," +he remarked, glancing about. "So many people coming in," he added, and +continued: "It's a remarkable thing. Visitors seem to have some sort of +psychic knowledge of when the Senator will be in. Same way out in +Indianapolis, we could always tell when Tom Taggart was likely to be +back soon from French Lick--so many people (who couldn't have heard from +him) looking for him at the Denizen House." + +"Everybody," someone observed, "always comes to Washington at least once +a year." All United-Statesians, at any rate, one would say looking about +the city, probably do. And among visiting United-Statesians not +habitually seen in such profusion elsewhere one would certainly include, +Indians, Mormons, Porto-Ricans, Civil War veterans, pedagogues, +octogenarians, vegetarians, Virginians, Creoles, pastors, suffragettes, +honeymooners, aunts, portly ladies of peculiar outline, people of a very +simple past, and a remarkable number of gentlemen who still cling to +white "lawn" ties, hard boiled shirts and "Congress shoes." + +Also, of course, that vast congregation of people who "want" something +in Washington. "What are you looking for around here?" a remark commonly +overheard in the hotel lobbies. + +But there are other American cities to which "everybody" goes, too, now +or then, though the visitors are not perhaps so recognizable. Coming out +of the Capitol, passing through the grounds of the White House, what do +you frequently overhear? Frequently some such remark as this: "Haven't +you ever been in the subway? To the Bronx? When you go back you +certainly must go in it." + +And out in Los Angeles they boastfully tell you that one way in which +Los Angeles "is like New York" is this: That whereas a man may or may +not happen to go to Richmond or to Detroit, sooner or later you are +bound to see him on the streets of Los Angeles. That, as I say, is what +they tell you out there. + +But what are those aspects of Washington which are peculiar to that +city, and make it so unlike any other city in the United States? And +which in some cases make it an influence for the bad to many of its +visitors? And which in some cases it is so strange should be the aspect +of such a city? + +For one thing, the first thing which must strike any stranger to the +city is the enormous extent of the souvenir business there. It is +perhaps natural enough that this should be so, and that souvenir shops +should range themselves in an almost unbroken stretch for miles. What is +not altogether so easy to answer is why nearly all of the souvenirs +should be the kind of souvenirs they are. + +Printed portraits of the present President and of former Presidents, and +plaster busts of these personages, of course. That many of the articles +for "remembrance" should be touched with a patriotic design, of course, +too. But why today should so many millions of the "souvenir spoons" +(with the Capitol in relief on the bowl), the "hand painted" plates +(presenting a comic valentine likeness of George Washington), the +paper-weights (with a delirious lithograph of the Library of Congress +showing through), the "napkin rings," butter knives, and so on and so +on--why should such millions of these things be precisely in the style +of such articles proudly displayed in the home of my grandmother when I +was a boy in the Middle West? + +Outside of Washington, as far as I know in the world, any considerable +exhibition of wares so reminiscent of the taste of the past can only be +found along the water fronts of a city where men of ships shop. And +there, along water fronts, you always find that same idea of ornament. + +Another thing. Where in Washington are shops where real art is +sold--paintings of reputable character and rare specimens of antique +furniture? They may be there; I do not swear that they are not, but they +are remarkably difficult to find. + +Painting reminds me. The Corcoran Gallery is, of course, a justly famous +museum of art. But a minor museum, containing no Old Masters, but an +excellent collection of American painting, particularly excellent in its +representation of the period immediately preceding the present, the +period of the men called our impressionist painters. Its best canvas, I +should say, is the painting by John H. Twachtman, called (I believe) +"The Waterfall." My point is, that visitors there certainly are seeing +what they are supposed to be seeing there--art. + +What I am coming to (and I do not know why someone does not come to it +oftener) is this: That hordes of people who come to Washington will look +at with wonder as something fine anything which is shown to them. The +numerous beautiful works of architecture--to which is now added the very +noble Lincoln Memorial--they see, and probably derive something from. +But the cultural benefits of their visits to their Mecca of patriotic +interest must be weirdly distorted when they are led gaping through the +Capitol and are charged twenty-five cents apiece to be told by a guard +who knows as much about paintings as an ashman a quantity of imbecile +facts about prodigious canvases atrociously bad almost beyond belief. + +The Embarkation of the Pilgrims and Washington Resigning his Commission, +and so forth, indisputably are historic moments for the American breast +to recall with solemn emotion. And the iniquity of these paintings here +to minds uninstructed in works of art is that by reason of their appeal +to sentiments of love of country these nightmares of ugliness are put +over on the visitor as standards of beauty. + +Still speaking (after a fashion) of "art," another aspect of Washington +hits the eye. And that is the extremely moral note here. In Los Angeles +(that other nation's playground of holiday makers) perhaps even more +picture cards are displayed for sale. A very merry lot of pictures, +those out there--all of "California bathing girls" and very lightly +veiled figures, limbs rythmically flashing in "Greek dances." Such +picture cards of gaiety of course may be found in windows here and there +on some streets in New York and other cities. But after much window +gazing I fancy that anybody bent upon buying such things in Washington +would have to get them from a bootlegger or someone like that. + +And whereas, as I recall, in other centres of urban life, and especially +on the Pacific Coast, the photographers' exhibits run very largely to +feminine beauty and fashion, in photographers' windows in Washington, +you will note, masculine greatness dominates the scene. + +Speaking of photographers and such-like suggests another thing. Let us +come at the matter in this way. A good many women of culture and means, +I understand, choose to live in Washington; probably in large measure +because the city is beautifully laid out, because it is a pleasant size, +because there are no factories and subways there, and so on. We know +that numerous retired statesmen prefer to remain there. There is society +of the embassies. In consideration of all this, and in consideration +further of the comparatively large leisure there for an American city, +you would suppose that, behind the transient population, in Washington, +a highly civilized life went on. Very well. + +True, they have the third greatest reference library in the world and +the numerous scholars associated with it. But where do the people _buy_ +their books? One bookstore of fair size. Another good but quite small. A +third dealing mainly in second-hand volumes. Not one shop devoted to +sets in fine bindings, first editions, rare items and such things. +Though in Philadelphia, for instance, there is one of the finest (if not +the finest) bookshops dealing in rare books anywhere in the world. In +San Francisco numerous bookstores. Larger cities? Yes (as to that part +of it), of course. + +But it does seem queer that not a single newspaper in Washington runs +book reviews or prints any degree at all of literary comment. + +Alluding to San Francisco, that happy dale of the _bon-vivant_, how does +he who likes good living make out in Washington, unless he lives in a +club, an embassy, or at the White House? A grand public market, two +first-class hotel dining-rooms, and many fine homes. But an earnest +seeker after eating as a fine art could find tucked away none of those +chop-houses and restaurants to dine in which enlarge the soul of man. + +But, of course, perhaps you can't have everything at once. From the +visitors' gallery the spectacle of the Senate in active session is a +game more national than baseball. "There he goes!" cries one ardent +spectator, pointing to a "home player," so to say, moving down the +aisle. "That's him! Gettin' along pretty good, ain't he?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +FAME: A STORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE + + $10,000! + IN PRIZES FOR SHORT STORIES! + + _You_ have a story. We want to read it. Every human life has one + great story in it. Every man, every woman, has at least one story + to tell. + + THIS MEANS YOU! + + From your experience, from your own heart history, you can draw a + tale. You may not know that you can write. But you never know what + you can do until you try. We believe there are thousands of + unwritten little masterpieces, waiting only for the right + encouragement to be produced. Here is our offer---- + + +BENJAMIN KEYESER drew a long breath. "This means you"--there was no +doubt about that. These printed words had read his heart. He felt that +deep was answering unto deep. + +A brief résumé of his life passed through Keyes's mind. And he was +touched, as never before, by the romance of destiny. He had not +contrived to be called up to public charges or employments of dignity or +power in the world. When Ol' Necessity had tapped him on the shoulder he +had cut his scholastic pursuits short of college, and a family friend, +Dr. Nevens, had got him a fifth-rate job in a third-rate business +concern. Here it seemed extremely probable that he would spend a good +many of his days. By the continued exercise of steadiness of character, +diligence, and application, he might hope, as Dr. Nevens by way of +encouragement occasionally pointed out, to advance at the rate of a +couple of dollars or so every couple of years. Clerkdom hedged him about +as divinity doth a king. + +The city directory rated him, "B. C. Keyes, Clerk." Should he be killed +in a railway accident, chosen as a juror, or arrested for homicide, the +newspapers would report that B. C. Keyes, a clerk, of 1120 Meredith +Street,--etc. There was, he felt when he looked at it fairly, no way +out. In the "Americans of Today" magazine articles, men rise from +bootblacks to multi-millionaires, but these legends, Keyes felt numbly, +had about as much relation to his own life as the hero tales of ancient +Greece. His lot was cast in the bottom of a well. + +And yet,--Keyes had been considered a bright youngster at school; he +regarded himself as a rather bright young man now; and sometimes even +yet, in wayward, impractical moments, he saw in his mind a picture of +himself breaking away from the field (so to say) and coming rounding +into the home stretch to bear down on a grandstand wild with applause. +He bore about within him a subconscious premonition, as it were, which +apparently would not die, that something remarkable was to happen to him +sooner or later. An unpleasant circumstance was that it was getting +later now all the time. Still the estimate of his worth returned to him +by life did not rid him of the belief that he had been originally +intended by his Maker for higher things than he had found. + +When, occasionally, the gloomy contrast of his life as it was with his +career as he conceived it had been meant to be depressed him too +untowardly, a young lady whom Keyes called Louise would administer +spiritual stimulants. + +Louise was a very clever person, and she knew a superior young man when +she saw one. She did not care for your common men at all. She was +intellectual. She read everything, her friends said. She often told +Keyes that he ought to write. She knew, she declared, that he could +write better than most of the people who did write. + +This idea of writing had, now and then, occurred to Keyes himself. He +was rather fond, in his odd hours, of reading periodical fiction, which +he liked to discuss with serious people like Louise. Sometimes with the +exhilaration occasioned by the reading of a particularly good story, a +romantic impulse to express himself welled up in him, and then +evaporated. Generally in these instances he wanted to write a kind of +story he had just read. He felt the glamour of the life of adventurous +tales. He thrilled in response to the note struck in that sort of +romance best exemplified, perhaps, in one of his favorites, "The Man Who +Would Be King." Or he longed to be like O. Henry, wise with the wisdom +of the Town. But there was one sort of story which always ignited in his +mind the thought that he really did know a story of his own. This he +sometimes positively yearned to tell. This the advertisement had put its +finger upon. "Every human life has one great story in it." It was even +so. "From your own heart history ..."--Benjamin Keyes felt that emotion +which is the conception of a work of art. + + * * * * * + +He was pregnant with his idea. He rose from his bed betimes. He breathed +a strangely fragrant air. He looked at the beautiful world. He wrote. He +mentioned his little employment to no one: he felt rather ashamed of it, +in fact; but it infatuated him. He encountered some awful tough spots, +and at times he almost despaired--but he could not give up. Something +within him, which he himself was conscious he did not understand, +tortured him to go on. All day long, while at his business, his meals, +his shaving, his story turned and twisted and talked in the back of his +head. Despair alternated with exultation. At hours there came a gusto to +his work; words that he had heard or read, forgotten and never used, +came back to him from heaven knows where, and sprang to his pen at the +felicitous instance. He felt that his mind was more alert than he +remembered it to have ever been; he felt that his eyes were brighter; +his hands, his whole right arm, felt strong. He knew as he worked that +this was character, and this was sentiment, and this was humor. He was +shaken by the respiration of a heady drama. He felt that this--was +almost genius! And he was aghast that he had lived such a dull life +hitherto when this capacity had been in him. + +He possessed little theoretic knowledge of writing; his story grew +naturally, like a tree: he was intelligent, and he had a story to tell +which must be told. In the matter of technical construction he followed +in a general way, intuitively, unconsciously for the most part, without +elaborate examination, the form of a short story as he was acquainted +with it through his reading of stories. He wandered alone at night, +oblivious of anything else, thinking, thinking his story over; and he +felt good in his brain and in his heart and in his stomach. He felt +virile, elated, full of power, and strangely happy. The joy of creating +a thing of art was upon him. Thrills ran down his spine and into his +legs; he would grin to himself in the dark streets; and sometimes he +laughed aloud. Everything else he neglected. He could not even read the +newspapers; he stayed at home two days from business; he worked early +and late, and walked up and down, throbbing, meantimes. + +The story was almost finished. The story _was finished_. What would +Louise say? Would she think that he ought not to have written, ought not +to make public, so intimate a history? Then in the story he had carried +things further than they were in fact: the artistic instinct had +formally plighted the lovers' troth. He thought of submitting his +manuscript without showing it to Louise. Would it not be fine for her to +discover the story in print! But Keyes had to read that story to someone +or blow up. + + * * * * * + +His evening with Louise began awkwardly. The pleasant interchange of +being did not, as usually so happily it did with Louise, flow naturally +along. Keyes was accustomed to feel that with Louise he talked better +than before anyone else. He now and then wished that certain other +people, upon whom he felt he had not made so favorable an impression as +he deserved, could overhear him sometime with Louise. Now, curiously, +with her he felt as he had with them: he could not somehow get his real +machinery started. Three or four times he determined to embark upon the +subject in his mind, and as many times the rising fulness in his chest +and the sudden quivering of his heart daunted him. As he looked now at +Louise, sitting there before him, the dignity of her as a young woman +struck him, and it occurred to him as extraordinary that he could have +been so intimate with her. He about concluded to put off his story until +another time, at which immediately he felt much relieved. + +His gaze wandered about among the familiar objects of the little +parlor--the ordinary articles of the family furniture, the photographs +on the mantel, the hand-painted plate on the wall,--then rested upon the +framed Maxfield Parrish, which Keyes knew, with a glow of pride, to +express the superior refinement of Louise's own taste. Keyes shared +Louise's interest in art; he knew, and very much admired, the work of +Dulac, James Montgomery Flagg, N. C. Wyeth, Arthur Keller, and many +others; this was one of the fascinating bonds which united them, in +division from a frivolous, material, and unsympathetic world. He glanced +again now at the sumptuous Rackham book on the table, which it had been +such a delight to him to give her at Christmas; and the revived +discussion of ęsthetics led him fairly comfortably into the subject of +his own entrance into work in that field. His manuscript came out of +his pocket; and, straightening up on the edge of his chair, a little +nervous again in the still pause that ensued, he cleared his throat, +and, in a rather diffident voice, began to read. As he proceeded and +knew that his effort found favor, his want of confidence left him. He +fell into the swing and color of his work; and the heart of it he tasted +like fine wine as he read. In the more moving passages his voice shook a +trifle, and tears very nearly came into his eyes; it was all, he felt, +so beautiful. When he had concluded there was in Louise's eyes--as he +looked up, and saw her sitting, leaning forward with her chin on the +back of her hand, her elbow on her knee,--a strange light. It occurred +to Keyes that he did not remember ever to have seen a woman's face look +exactly that way before. Probably not. This was a light some men never +find on land or sea. It does not shine for any man more than once or +twice. They sat awhile, these two in the little parlor, and happiness +roared through their veins. Louise told Keyes that she had always known +that he "had it in him." + +Then they arose, and they were near to each other, and their hearts +were filled, and beneath the chandelier he moved his arms about her. His +lips clasped hers. It was thus as it was in the story. + +Keyes emerged from the brightly lighted doorway with Louise beaming +tenderly after him. In his blissful abstraction of mind he neglected, on +the dark porchway, to turn the corner of the house to the steps; but +walked instead, straight ahead, until the world gave way beneath him, +and he collapsed with a crash among the young vines. + +The next week Louise, who held a position in the "Nickel's Weekly" +Circulation Branch office in the Middle West, neatly typed the +manuscript on one of the firm's machines. One evening they went together +to post the story.... The ancient, imperturbable moon observed this +momentous deed. + + * * * * * + +When Keyes put that manuscript into the mail box, he _knew_ that it +would be accepted. He felt this in his bones. He felt it in the soles of +his feet and in the hair on his head. + +For several days succeeding, a sensuous complacency pervaded young +Keyes. In a rich haze he saw himself acclaimed, famous, adored. His +nature was ardent, and he had always craved the warmth of approbation; +but he had not had it, except from Louise. Now there were moments when, +in a picture in his mind, he saw an attractive figure, which he +recognized as himself somewhat altered, come jauntily along, amiably +smiling, swinging a cane. He had always secretly desired very much to +carry a cane, but he had felt uncomfortably that the humbleness of his +position in life would make this ridiculous. In his moments of ambition +he had hoped, sometimes, that walking-sticks would not go out (to put it +so) before he came in. In the background of his mental picture Keyes +recognized among the doting multitude the faces of about all of his +acquaintances, some brought for the occasion from rather remote places. + +Keyes felt a slight wrench of conscience in winking at this poetic +liberty taken with realistic probability. When a name occurred to him +the physiognomy of whose person was absent, Keyes's sense of probity was +smothered, with a slight twinge of pain, by the ardor of his +imagination; and place in the press was found for this person, very +kindly well up in front, where a good view could be had by him of the +celebrity--at this point the celebrity in the delectable vision was +observed gaily to light a cigarette. Discernible in the throng, too, +were some few whose mean and envious natures writhed, the psychologist +in Keyes perceived, at this handsome recognition of the worth of a young +man it had once been their wont to snub. + +In this balmy temper of mind Keyes got down to business one morning a +little late. The humdrum of a business life had begun to be somewhat +more irksome than hitherto to Keyes's swelling spirit. He ruminated this +morning, as he stood before his tall stool at his ledger, on the curious +ill-adjustment of a universe so arranged that one of his capacity for +finer things could remain so unsuspected of the world about him, and the +rich value of his life to some unmeaning task-work be allowed to give. A +sudden electric buzzing beneath his high desk signalled him that his +presence was desired by his chief. "What now?" he thought, a little +tremulously and a little irritably, as he went: he had been caught up on +several slips lately. He paused respectfully in the private office +doorway. Mr. Winder, from his swivel-chair, flashed up his white +moustache very straight at Keyes. "Sit down," he directed. The suavity +which was his habit was quite absent. Keyes felt the presence in the air +of a good deal of masculine firmness. + +"This," said Mr. Winder, his eye steadily on Keyes, "is a place of +business. It is not a gentleman's club. Now, I want you to take a brace. +That will do." + +As Keyes took up his pen again and began to write, "By merchandise," his +breast was full with resentment: a sense of the real integrity of his +nature welled up in him. His mind rapidly generated the divers manly +replies he wished, with an intensity amounting to pain, he had thought +of a moment before. He saw himself, now exasperatingly too late, saying +with frank honesty to Mr. Winder: + +"I realize that I have of late been a little delinquent. But (with some +eloquence) it has always been my intention to be, and I believe in the +main I have been, a faithful and conscientious employee. I shall not be +found wanting again." + +But here he was a rebuked culprit. He felt the degradation of servitude. +He experienced sharply that violent yearning so familiar to all that +are employed everywhere, to be able to go in and tell Mr. Winder to go +to the devil. And though he felt at bottom the legitimacy, in the +business ethic, of Mr. Winder's attitude, he also felt forlornly the +coldness of the business relation, the brutal authority of worldly +power, and its conception of his insignificance. And he was stung at the +moral criminality, as he felt it to be, of a situation which placed such +a man as Mr. Winder over such a nature as his own; Mr. Winder he did not +suppose had read a book within the last ten years. + +As, at that hour which sets the weary toiler free, in the gathering dusk +Keyes stood on the curb amid the hurrying throng homeward bound,--oh! +how he longed for that establishment in the eyes of men which the +success of his story would bring him. Oh, when would he hear! As he +bowled along in the crowded trolley the thought stole through him, until +it amounted almost to a conviction, that the great letter awaited him at +home now. He could hardly bear the tedium of the short journey. +Restlessly he turned his evening paper. + +In him had developed of late a great interest in authors; he peered +between the pages, a little sheepishly, at the column, "Books and Their +Makers." He read that Mr. So and So, the author of "This and That," was +a young man thirty years of age. Instantly he reflected that he himself +was but twenty-seven. This was encouraging! He had formed a habit +recently of contrasting at once any writer's age with his own. If he +learned that Mr. Galsworthy, whose books were much advertised but which +he had not read, was forty-something, he wanted to know how old he had +been when he wrote his first book. Then he counted up the number of +books between that time--comparing his age at that time with his +own--and now. He was absorbed in the literary gossip of the day. That +Myra Kelly had been a schoolteacher, that Gertrude Atherton lived in +California, that Mr. Bennett had turned thirty before he published his +first book, that such a writer was in Rome, or that some other one was +engaged on a new work said to be about the Russian Jews,--he found very +interesting. He read in his newspaper the publishers' declaration that +Maurice Hewlett's new creation recalled Don Quixote, Cyrano, d'Artagnan, +Falstaff, Bombastes Furioso, Tartarin, Gil Blas. His notions concerning +the characters of this company were somewhat vague; but he was stirred +with an ambition to create some such character, too. + +On leaving the car whom should he see but Dr. Nevens. They walked along +together. Dr. Nevens inquired about the business. A bad year, he +surmised, for trade. Trade! Keyes felt his heart thumping with the +temptation to confide the adventures of his literary life; which, +indeed, he had found exceedingly difficult to keep so much to himself. +But his position gave him clairvoyance: he divined that no sort of +ambition receives from people in general so little respect, by some +curious idiosyncrasy of the human mind, as literary aspiration. With +what coarse and withering scorn had an intimation--which had escaped +him--that he had sought to give some artistic articulation to his ideas +been met by Pimpkins the other day at the office! + +The personality of Dr. Nevens, however, suggested a more sympathetic +attitude, by reason of the dentist's cultivation. Dr. Nevens was spoken +of as a "booklover." He had a "library"--it was, he implied, his +bachelor foible--the cornerstone of which was a set of the Thistle +edition of Stevenson that he had bought by subscription from an agent. +(Keyes had thought it odd one day that Dr. Nevens had not cut the +leaves.) And "the doctor" was fond of speaking familiarly of Dickens, +and gained much admiration by his often saying that he should like--had +he time--to read through "Esmond" once every year. Here, Keyes felt, +would be spiritual succor. + +But Keyes quickly learned that he was quite in a different case from the +author of "Esmond." Dr. Nevens was kind, but pitying. + +"Only one out of hundreds, thousands," he said, "ever comes to +anything." + +It did not occur to him, Keyes thought, as within the range of remotest +possibility that he, Keyes, _might_ be one of these. Then came the +doctor's reason. + +"You do not know anything," he said paternally, "anything at all." + +Keyes realized, with some bitterness, that this world is not an +institution existing for the purpose of detecting and rewarding inner +worth. He had known enough to write his story, he guessed. With some +flare of rage, he felt that simply unsupported merit is rather frowned +upon, as tending by comparison to cast others possibly not possessing so +much of it somewhat into the shade. He had a savage thought that when +he was Dr. Nevens's age he would not be a country dentist. He saw the +intense egoism of mankind. + +Dr. Nevens was determined to show a young man who had betrayed a +consciousness of superiority of grain, his place--economically and +socially. The selfish jealousy of the world! + + * * * * * + +His letter had not come. There was only a package from Louise--a copy of +"Book Talk," containing a marked article on "Representative American +Story Tellers"; from this, after dinner, Keyes imbibed most of the +purported facts about Booth Tarkington. Then he went to bed to sleep +through the hours until the return of the postman. + +The next evening still there was no letter. Keyes's spirit was troubled. +He sought the solace of solitude in the quiet, shadowed streets. A +reaction was succeeding his rosy complacency! Doubts pierced his +dissolving confidence. Was his story so good, after all? Somehow, as he +looked back at it now, it seemed much less strong than it had before. He +felt a sort of sinking in his stomach. A sickening suspicion came to +him that, perhaps, it was absurd. Maybe it was very silly. In a +disconnected way certain remarks and passages in it came back to him now +as quite questionable. Yes, they sounded pretty maudlin. He squirmed +within with mortification as a recollection of these passages passed +through his mind. He hoped his story would never get into print. A fear +that it might nauseated him. Then he was suffused with a sensation of +how little he amounted to. He felt, with a sense of great weakness, the +precariousness of his job. A horror came over him that he might lose it. +He wished he did not know Louise, who expected things of him. He felt +how awkward it was so to fail her. In the position he had got himself +into with her, how he had laid himself open to humiliating exposure! Oh, +why had he ever sought her? He wished he did not know anybody well. He +was an ass and he would never come to anything. He felt the futility of +his life. Why could he not slink away somewhere and live out his feeble +existence unobserved? As he got into bed he felt that very easily he +could cry. + + * * * * * + + The August + FAVORITE MAGAZINE + This number contains + The Great Prize Story + by + BENJAMIN CECIL KEYES + GET IT!! + + * * * * * + +... Keyes stood before a downtown news-stand. Hurrying pedestrians +bumped into him. An irascible character or two, thus impeded, glared +back at him--what was the matter with the fellow! Did he think there was +nobody but himself in the world? + +B. C. Keyes walked home to the sound of a great orchestra reverberating +through him. He could not tolerate the thought of subduing himself to +the confinement of a car. He needed movement and air. + +It had come, his great letter, a few weeks before. At his sitting down +to dinner his mother had given him the envelope. _The Favorite +Magazine_--these words had seemed to him to be printed in the upper +left-hand corner; it had struck him that perhaps the strain on his +nerves of late had so deranged his mind that he now saw, as in a +mirage, what was not. "Benjamin C. Keyes, Esq."--so ran the address. +Keyes in his dizziness noted this point: people had not customarily +addressed him as _esquire_. Then, for the first time in his life, he +held in his hand a substantial check payable to his own name--wealth! +Courteous and laudatory typewritten words danced before his burning +eyes. + +He felt, though in a degree an hundred times intensified, as though he +had smoked so much tobacco, and drunk so much coffee, he could not +compose himself to eat, or read a paper, or go to bed, or stay where he +was; but must rush off somewhere else and talk hysterically. He got +through his meal blindly. He could not explain--just yet--to his mother: +he felt he could not control the patience necessary to begin at the +beginning and construct a coherent narrative.... He must go to Louise +who already understood the preliminary situation. + +It had occurred to Keyes on his hurried, stumbling way thither that the +whole thing was unbelievable, and that he must be quite insane. After he +had pushed the bell, an interminable time seemed to elapse before his +ring was answered. As he stood there on the porch he felt his flesh +palpitating. A terrible fear came over him that Louise might not be at +home.... Louise said, when her frenzy had somewhat abated, that she had +always known that he "had it in him." She told him there was now "a +future" before him.... Keyes had determined to go on about his business +as though nothing unusual had occurred; then when the story appeared, to +accept congratulations with retiring modesty. Before noon the next day +he had told three people; by night, seven. + +So, going over it all again, Keyes arrived at home, to learn that--"What +do you think?" His mother said "a reporter" had been at the house; an +occurrence--quite unprecedented in Mrs. Keyes's experience--which had +thrown her into considerable agitation. This public official she had +associated in her confusion with a policeman. He had, however, treated +her as a personage of great interest. He told her "there was nothing to +be ashamed of." He drew from her trembling lips some account of her +son's life, and requested a photograph. + +Next day the dean of local newspapers, vigilant in patriotism, printed +an extended article on the "state's new writer." And in an editorial +entitled "The Modern Athens" (which referred to Keyes only by +implication) the paper affirmed again that Andiena was "by general +consent the present chief centre of letters in America." It +recapitulated the names of those of her sons and daughters whose works +were on the counters of every department store in the land. It concluded +by saying: "The hope of a people is in its writers, its chosen ones of +lofty thought, its poets and prophets, who shall dream and sing for it, +who shall gather up its tendencies and formulate its ideals and voice +its spirit, proclaiming its duties and awakening its enthusiasm." Keyes +read this, as he took it to be, moving and eloquent tribute to his prize +story with feelings akin to those experienced, very probably, by Isaiah. + +Keyes received an ovation at "the office." The humility of Pimpkins's +admiration was abject. Keyes perceived the commanding quality of +ambition--when successful. Miss Wimble, the hollow-breasted cashieress, +regarded him with sheep's-eyes. Even Mr. Winder, in passing, +congratulated him upon his "stroke of luck." + +Wonders once begun, it seemed, poured. Two letters awaited him that +evening. One from the editor of _The Monocle Magazine_. _The Monocle +Magazine_, as Louis said, "think of it!" The editor of this +distinguished institution spoke of his "pleasure" in reading Mr. Keyes's +"compelling" story; he begged to request the favor of the "offer" of +some of Keyes's "other work." By way of a fraternal insinuation he +mentioned that he was a native of Andiena, himself. "Most of us are," +was his sportive comment. The "Consolidated Sunday Magazines, Inc.," +wrote with much business directness to solicit "manuscript," at +"immediate payment on acceptance at your regular rates for fiction of +the first class." + + * * * * * + +The extraordinary turn of events in Keyes's life brought him visitors as +well as letters. Dr. Nevens called, benignly smiling appreciation. His +impression appeared to be that he had not been mistaken in giving Keyes +his support. Of more constructive importance, however, was the turning +up of Mr. Tate, who had been Keyes's instructor in "English" at the +Longridge High School. A slender, pale, young man, with a bald, domed +forehead "rising in its white mass like a tower of mind," Mr. Tate was +understood to nourish a deep respect for literature. He had contributed +one or two very serious and painstaking "papers" on the English of +Chaucer (not very well understood by Keyes at the time), to "Poet-Lore"; +and had edited, with notes, several "texts"--one of "The Lady of the +Lake," with an "introduction," for school use. He reverenced, he now +made evident, the "creative gift," as he designated it; which, he +realized, had been denied him. He had come to pay homage to a vessel of +this gift, his former pupil, now illustrious. + +With the hand of destiny Mr. Tate touched a vital chord. Self-assertion; +to be no longer an unregarded atom in the mass of those born only to +labor for others; to find play for the mind and the passion which, by no +choice of his own, distinguished him from the time slave: this was now +Keyes's smouldering thought. Mr. Tate, from his conversancy with the +literary situation, reported that there never was in the history of the +world such a demand for fiction as now, and that "the publishers" +declared there was not an overproduction of good fiction. Editors, Mr. +Tate said, were eager to welcome new talent. He strongly encouraged +Keyes to adopt what he spoke of as the "literary life." In fact, he +seemed to consider that there was no alternative. And, indeed, already +in Keyes's own idea of his future he saw himself eventually settled +somewhere amid the Irvin-Cobbs, the Julian-Streets, the +Joseph-Hergesheimers, and other clever people whose society would be +congenial to him. + +For the present he cultivated his ego, as became a literary light; and +now, with Mr. Tate's assistance, he began to devote the time at his +command to preparation for his life's work, to study. Mr. Tate was +ardent to be of service; he felt that he had here connected himself with +literary history in the making. The great need for Keyes, he felt, was +education. The creative genius, Mr. Tate said, could not be implanted; +but he felt that this other he could supply. He recommended the patient +study of men and books. He thought that what Keyes needed in especial +was "technical" knowledge; so he went at that strong. Maupassant, Mr. +Tate said, was the great master of the short story. Keyes began his +evening studies in English translations of Maupassant. + +The galling yoke of his business life was becoming well-nigh unbearable. +His soul was in ferment. If only he did not have to get up to hurry +every morning down to that penitentiary, there to waste his days, he +could get something done. That sapped his vitals. And he was tortured by +a flame--to do, to read, study, create, grow, accomplish! He was +expanding against the walls of his environment. God! could he but burst +them asunder, and leap out! + +Mr. Tate had a high idea of a thing which he spoke of as "style." In +elucidation of this theme he suggested perusal of essays and treatises +by DeQuincey, Walter Pater, and Professor Raleigh, He felt also that the +"art of fiction" should be mastered by his protégé. So Keyes pitched +into examinations of this recondite subject by Sir Walter Besant, Marion +Crawford, R. L. Stevenson, and Anthony Trollope. Keyes realized that he +had _not_ realized before what a lot there was _to_ writing. Mr. Tate +purchased out of his slender means as a present, "Success in +Literature," by G. H. Lewes. He unearthed a rich collection in titles of +books the consumption of which literature would be invaluable to one in +training for the literary profession. An admirable bibliography, this +list, of the genre which was Keyes's specialty:--"The Art of Short +Story Writing," "Practical Short Story Writing," "The Art of the Short +Story," "The Short Story," "Book of the Short Story," "How to Write a +Short Story," "Writing of the Short Story," "Short Story Writing," +"Philosophy of the Short Story," "The Story-Teller's Art," "The Short +Story in English," "Selections from the World's Greatest Short Stories," +"American Short Stories," "Great English Short-Story Writers." In the +reading room of the public library Keyes followed a series of articles +in "Book Talk" on the "Craftsmanship of Writing." He advanced in +literary culture, under Mr. Tate's zealous lead, to consideration of +"the novel," its history and development. And, too, to the drama, its +law and technique. His head was filled with the theory of dénouements, +"moments," rising actions, climaxes, suspended actions, and +catastrophes. At times he had an uneasy feeling that all these things +did not much help him to think up any new stories of his own. But Mr. +Tate said "that" would "come." + + * * * * * + +And wealth and fame were even now at hand. The promoters of the great +prize contest advertising dodge had not been at fault in business +acumen; the winning story returned ample evidence of its popular appeal. +It was akin to the minds of the "peepul." _The Favorite Magazine_ was +sold during August by enterprising newsboys _on trolley cars_. That +great public whose literature is exclusively contemporaneous,--whose +world of letters is the current _Saturday Mail-Coach_, the _All-people's +Magazine_, the _Purple Book_, the _Nothing-But-Stories_, the _Modiste, +The Swift Set, Jones's--the Magazine that Entertains, Brisk Stories, +Popularity_, and the _Tip-Top_,--discussed the big features on front +porches. Keyes's story even attracted the interest of those _who seldom +read anything_. A number of letters from persons of that impulsive class +which communicates its inward feelings to authors personally unknown +were forwarded to Keyes from his publishers. A young lady resident in +St. Joe, Michigan, wrote to say that she thought the scene where the +boat upsets was the "_grandest thing_ ever written." + +Imagine a man like Keyes sitting his days away on an office stool. His +mother, however, could not "see" his resigning his position. His +"father had always" ... and so forth. Keyes foamed within. What a +thing--woman's maddening narrowness! At the office Keyes's situation +grew, in subtle ways, more and more oppressive. His position appeared to +become equivocal. Mr. Winder seemed to make a point of increasing +exactness. Keyes felt a disposition in authority to put down any +subordinate uppishness of feeling possibly occasioned by doings outside +the line of business. And he became conscious, too, of a curious +estrangement from his associates there. They, on their side, Pimpkins in +especial, seemed to feel that he felt he was too good for them. And, in +truth, he did. The mundane aims of those around him got on his nerves. +Their commonplace thoughts irritated him. They were _common_ natures. +But, with fierce secret joy, Keyes knew that an event was approaching +which promised, would command, deliverance from it all. + +Fall came. And the Favorite Publishing Company bound up the prize story +as a "gift book" for the holiday trade. Claud Clarence Chamberlain, the +well-known illustrator and creator of the famous "Picture-Hat Girl," was +commissioned to make the decorations. These were done with much dash in +highly colored crayon and popular sentiment. One was printed on the +paper jacket of the book, with the title in embossed letters. The +advertisement pronounced the work altogether "an exquisite piece of +book-making." It declared the production the "daintiest gift of the +season," and reminded "people of culture and refinement" that there was +"no present like a book." + +Indeed a hero is not without fame in his own country. The +Stanton-Merritt bookstore on Capital Street arranged a window display of +about a ton of "Will Rockwell Makes Good," with one of Mr. Chamberlain's +original illustrations, framed, in the centre. A monster advertising +banner was flung across the front of the store above the entrance and +windows. Just inside, a pyramid breast-high was built of the books, +beneath an artistic piece of work--a hanging board upon which was burned +in old English letters: "'A good book is the precious life blood of a +Master Spirit'--Milton." A lady who informed the salesman that she +thought "books" were "just fine," bought twenty copies for holiday +distribution. She inquired if there was not a discount on that number +purchased. + +Drugged with triumph, they returned together Saturday night from the +exhibition "down town"; and, in the now historic little parlor again, +Louise wept upon the shoulder of her affianced. Yes; they were formally +engaged. Keyes was not without a sensation that the situation was rather +chaotic. But destiny seemed to close in on him and bear him on. + +The reviewers got on the job. And they were there with the goods. +Statements from a few typical press notices follow. "An absorbing +story," said the Topeka _Progressive_, "throbbing with optimism." "Mr. +Keyes strikes a new note in this unusual production; vivid, +dramatic,"--San Francisco _Lookout_. "A story of vivid and compelling +interest," one critic declared. "A delightful story, rich in heart +throbs," was one good one. One reviewer said, "Here we have a real love +story, a tale of love, tender and true, delightfully narrated. There are +so many fine, tender passages in the episode of these two, who live just +for each other, that reading the little book is like breathing strong, +refreshing air." "The creator of 'Will Rockwell," said one paper, "has +here written a new idyl of America." "An inspiring picture," said +another. One very fine critique said: "Once in awhile, possibly once in +a lifetime, there arises before us a writer of fiction whose genius is +undeniable the instant it greets us." When Keyes read this, quoted in +his publisher's latest newspaper advertisement, he knew that he had +found his work in the world. And reasoning from his experience, he saw +before him a calling that would be ever a noble intoxication of the +soul, a kind that would know naught of headaches or remorse. + +But perhaps the best of all the critical dicta was this: "Written," it +declared, "with blood and tears and fire." Very impressive was the +number of times that were used such adjectives as "big," "vital," +"absorbing," "compelling," "remarkable," "insistent," and "virile." +"Optimism," it developed too, was the supreme merit of fiction. One of +the arresting terms employed was "economy of means." + +There were, it is true, a few dissenting voices from the chorus of +unrestrained praise, chiefly from certain notoriously dull, +conservative, killjoy journals. The New York _Evening Postman_ said: +"This somewhat amateurish little essay in fiction seems to be the +product of an untutored sincerity. In this, its sincerity, it is not +without a degree of vigor. We doubt, however, whether the author can +repeat the performance." And that irrepressibly ribald organ, the New +York _Beam_, could not forbear its customary jocular sport. Its smart +review of this little classic (as one bookseller already pronounced it) +began: "Hooray for 'Will'! Hooray also for 'Mabel'! They are the real +simegoozlia." + + * * * * * + +"Don't you think you could write something now, dear?" inquired Mrs. +Keyes, who did not see how scholarship pure and simple was, so to say, +to move the boat. + +This idea of writing something now had indeed occurred to Keyes; but +somehow he had not been able to think of anything in particular to +write. So he went on with his studies, at the same time keeping an eye +open for available material, characters, and plots. + +"Surely you can write something, Ben, that we could get some money for," +said Louise. A wife, after all, is only a woman, with a mind fitted to +petty things, such as groceries, family washings, clothing, and divers +household bills. It is irritating to a man of lofty mind who night and +day is racking his brain for an idea, to be prodded on in this fashion. +Keyes ground his teeth and bore it; he reflected that an author's life +is frequently a battle with mediocrity. Perhaps he was mistaken as to +where lay the mediocrity with which he battled. + +He fretted and worried and at length sat himself down to write without +an inspiration. He bethought himself of Trollope's example to literary +aspirants, and tried to grind out two hundred and fifty words every +fifteen minutes for three hours a day. He couldn't write twenty. He kept +doggedly on. He could not make his characters act or talk--the talk was +the most hopeless thing of all. He couldn't, as once he had done, cry +over them. Sometimes, in the stillness of the night with his clock +ticking before him, he almost thought that he had regained for a moment +a tithe of the power he once had; but in the morning when he reviewed +his work he admitted that he had been sadly mistaken. Now doubts haunted +his soul; even as he wrote another consciousness within not thus +employed whispered of his impotency. Fact is, Keyes had not at all the +creative gift. + +He struggled through a number of stories, some better and some worse. +When he mailed these it was with a faltering, doubting heart. Something +with a weak action away in his interior told him that they would not be +accepted. + +Keyes got thinner in flesh, more distressed in spirit, and poorer in +this world's goods as time went on. Sometimes he felt like an imposter +and was ashamed to face his wife; then he reread his press notices and a +fever to do something shook him. But a man cannot support himself and +his wife on a fever to do something. Benjamin Cecil Keyes could not +understand the thing: if he had literary genius why couldn't he write? +If he had not, how then had he written? To sit in full view of one's +wife day after day pretending to be interested in a book when the +bill-collector calls; and to be tormented all the time by a desire to do +something and not to be able to do it, or know when, if ever, one will +be able; and to be ashamed and afraid to tell one's wife this; but to be +compelled to be there, or to run away, or to hang one's self--this is a +situation more than uncomfortable. + +A thousand times Keyes decided to roll up his sleeves and do something +else--engage in any profitable employment; and a thousand times he +decided not to--just yet. A man often exists in this way until he gets +quite to the end of the string where the wolf is. + +"That was an accident, Louise," said Keyes sadly one day. "I find I +can't write." + +Keyes was mistaken again. No fine thing ever was made by accident. Keyes +managed to write that story because its theme was the most interesting +incident in his life; because it appealed to him more strongly than +anything else had in his whole experience; because he was thoroughly +familiar with the life and the people he featured in his story; because +he was absolutely sincere in his sympathies, appreciation, and emotions +here; he had no ideals set way beyond his power, no aping tendencies +after an effective style, no attention distracted by an ill-digested +knowledge of mechanical construction. The structure, and the style +simply came, probably because--and finally he managed to write that +story because--he was keyed up to it. + +A domestic woman often has a wretchedly unworshipful view of art and +fame. Keyes's confession did not kill Louise. I suppose he expected her +to go back to her parents in high dudgeon as one who had been grossly +swindled. + +"Do you care if you can't write?" she said, after a moment's silence. +"Just think how nice you are--how much nicer you were before you tried +to write! And how it has worried you!" + +Keyes got a job as a collector for a mercantile house. "My health +demands outdoor employment," he told his acquaintances. + + * * * * * + +Sometimes, alone with his lamp after the day's confounded drudgery, +Keyes got out the old magazine and reread his forgotten story. + + +THE END. + + +The following typographical errors have been corrected: +(note of etext transcriber) + +seene=>scene + +bibiographer=>bibliographer + +Bandelaire=>Baudelaire + +as you might saw her context=>as you might say her context + +inquired aonther=>inquired another + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Turns about Town, by Robert Cortes Holliday + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURNS ABOUT TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 36085-8.txt or 36085-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/8/36085/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +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: Turns about Town + +Author: Robert Cortes Holliday + +Release Date: May 11, 2011 [EBook #36085] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURNS ABOUT TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 360px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="360" height="550" alt="image of the book's cover" title="" /> +</div> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_i" id="page_i"></a></p> + +<p class="headdd"> +<span style="text-decoration:underline;">TURNS ABOUT TOWN</span><br /> +<small>ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY</small></p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii"></a></p> + +<div class="boxxx"> +<p class="c">By ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY</p> +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<p><span class="smcap">Turns About Town</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Men and Books and Cities</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Broome Street Straws</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Walking-Stick Papers</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Peeps at People</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Booth Tarkington</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Memoir To:<br /> + Joyce Kilmer: Poems<br /> + Essays and Letters</span></p> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii"></a></p> + +<h1> +TURNS ABOUT<br /> +TOWN</h1> + +<p class="cb">BY<br /> +ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY</p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p class="cb">NEW +<span class="figcenter" style="width: 50px;"> +<img src="images/colophon.png" width="50" height="51" alt="colophon" title="" /> +</span> +YORK<br /> +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> + +<p><a name="page_iv" id="page_iv"></a></p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p class="c"><i>Copyright, 1921,<br /> +By George H. Doran Company</i><br /> +<br /> +<i>Printed in the United States of America</i></p> + +<p><a name="page_v" id="page_v"></a></p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p class="c"><small>CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING<br /> +THE<br /> +DEDICATION<br /> +OF THIS BOOK</small><br /> +TO JOHN BUNKER, ESQ<sup>RE</sup></p> + +<p class="r"><i>The Players,<br /> +16 Gramercy Park,<br /> +New York City,<br /> +June 10, 1921.</i></p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Dear John:</span></p> + +<p>I am, with your permission, dedicating to you a new book of +mine—that it, on condition that you help me read the proofs. The +book is to be called "Turns About Town." It will be published +sometime this autumn.</p> + +<p class="r"><i>Ever yours,</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Bob.</span> </p> + +<p class="nind"><i>To: John Bunker, Esq<sup>re</sup></i></p> + +<hr style="width: 8%;" /> + +<p class="r"><i>New York,<br /> +521 West 148th Street,<br /> +June 12, 1921.</i></p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Dear Bob:</span></p> + +<p><i>You can't intimidate me by any such threat. On the contrary, I +think I shall be secretly (and tremendously) pleased. As for the +proofs, all I have to say is (in the words of the stage villain), +"Produce your proofs!"</i></p> + +<p class="r"><i>Always, dear Bob,<br /> +Sincerely yours,</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">John.</span> </p> + +<p class="nind"><i>To: Robert Cortes Holliday, Esq<sup>re</sup></i></p> + +<p><a name="page_vi" id="page_vi"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_vii" id="page_vii"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="FOREWORD" id="FOREWORD"></a>FOREWORD</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>ORE than half of these pieces were syndicated in a number of American +newspapers by The Central Press Association of New York. Several others +of them originally appeared in <i>The Bookman</i>. "Literary Lives" has been +amplified since it was written for the New York <i>Times</i> as a review of +the "Dictionary of National Biography," Second Supplement, Volumes II +and III. "Only She Was There" and "Former Tenant of His Room" are +reprinted from the New York <i>Evening Post</i>. "The Sexless Camera" was +contributed to a magazine called <i>The International</i>. "I Know an Editor" +was written at the invitation of a gentleman whose name I cannot recall, +and whether or not he ever used it in whatever publication it was with +which he was connected I do not know.</p> + +<p>I thank all these friends of mine for permitting me to here reprint +these articles.</p> + +<p class="r">R. C. H.</p> + +<p>New York, 1921.</p> + +<p><a name="page_viii" id="page_viii"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_ix" id="page_ix"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + +<tr><td><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td> </td><td><span class="smcap">Foreword</span> </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_vii">vii</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Hotel Guest</span> </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_013">13</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II</a></td><td><span class="smcap">A Humorist Misfits at a Murder +Trial</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_028">28</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Queer Thing, 'Bout Undertakers' +Shops</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_036">36</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Haircut that Went to My +Head</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_046">46</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Seeing Mr. Chesterton</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_055">55</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI</a></td><td><span class="smcap">When is a Great City a Small +Village?</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_072">72</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Unusualness of Parisian Philadelphia</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_081">81</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Our Last Social Engagement as a +Fine Art</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_090">90</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Writing in Rooms</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_099">99</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Taking the Air in San Francisco</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_115">115</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Bidding Mr. Chesterton Good-Bye</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_124">124</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">No System at all to the Human +System</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_141">141</a><a name="page_x" id="page_x"></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Seeing the "Situations Wanted" +Scene</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_151">151</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Literary Lives</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_162">162</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV</a></td><td><span class="smcap">So Very Theatrical</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_173">173</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Our Steeplejack of the Seven Arts</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_182">182</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Former Tenant of His Room</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_196">196</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Only She Was There</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_205">205</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX</a></td><td><span class="smcap">A Humorist's Note-Book</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_216">216</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Including Studies of Traffic +"Cops"</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_228">228</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Three Words about Literature</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_236">236</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Recollections of Landladies</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_242">242</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">An Idiosyncrasy</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_256">256</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV</a></td><td><span class="smcap">The Sexless Camera</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_271">271</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV</a></td><td><span class="smcap">I Know an Editor</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_276">276</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI</a></td><td><span class="smcap">A Dip into the Underworld</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_281">281</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Nosing 'Round Washington</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_290">290</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII</a></td><td><span class="smcap">Fame: A Story of American Literature</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_328">328</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a></p> + +<h1> +TURNS ABOUT TOWN<br /> +</h1> + +<p><a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br /><br /> +THE HOTEL GUEST</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>OME people just go to a hotel (sometimes referred to as "an hotel") and +stay awhile and go away again. And think nothing about the matter.</p> + +<p>Of course, some may complain more or less at the place about the +"service." Or swank round outside about the address, saying carelessly: +"Oh! yes: at the Blackstone, you know." Or again, if it's a rather +inexpensive place, remark to friends: "Isn't it a funny hole! But the +cuisine is excellent. You'd be surprised! That's why I stop there. And +then it's much more homey, too, than those garish places."</p> + +<p>Now I myself am a fan for hotels.</p> + +<p>If I was a rich man I'd do like an aristocratic and restless young man I +know, who used to go<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> to one New York hotel about twelve at night (after +the evening's entertainment) and leave a call for ten in the morning, +when he would get up and drive to another hotel, check in, eat lunch and +dinner there, and move on to a third New York hotel that night. A +cheerful way he had of adding variety to his life.</p> + +<p>He was a highly agreeable youth, this chap. Always "wore" a +silver-headed cane. I'm sorry to have to say that he is now in jail. +Yep! You see, he had many attractive qualities, but dependability was +not a feature of his equipment. However, his is a resilient nature, and, +fortunately, he is an epicure by temperament. I was rather distressed, +myself, when I heard that he was in jail; and other of his friends that +I met also were decidedly disturbed about him. One day one of them got a +letter from him (it was in France, you know, that he was then in jail), +a bubbling, delightful letter (just like the youth), in which he +declared with much gusto that the jail he was in had the best menu of +any jail in France.</p> + +<p>But about hotels. Oh, yes!</p> + +<p>I always like those huge, brown-paper laundry bags they have hanging up, +pressed beautifully<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> flat, in the rooms, closets or bathrooms of hotels. +You can't roll up your laundry all in one wad and thrust it into one of +these bags, because this would tear the bag. The way to do is to put in, +for instance, first your collars, then, say, your sox, follow perhaps +with your shirts, and so on. In hotels of the very first water, you have +observed, a neat little pocket is attached to the outside of the bag, +into which you have the fun of pinning your laundry slip, all +elaborately made out.</p> + +<p>Next thing, of course, is to get your laundry started on its way. And +here come up a view of the nice nuances of hotels. You gotta watch your +Ps and Qs in these matters or you're likely to get a black-eye at your +hotel. All right in a modest sort of place just to holler down the +telephone for a boy. Then you say to boy, waving hand toward objects: +"Laundry to go down, suit to be pressed, hat to be ironed, shoes to be +polished, letters to be mailed," and so forth. Boy gathers up +miscellaneous collection of articles and proceeds upon these divers +assignments. Presto! Nothing further to detain you.</p> + +<p>But suppose you have gone in for a little more class in the matter of +your hotel—Statler, or<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> something like that. Then you find much more of +a ritual to life. To accomplish your existence requires thought, a clear +head—and time. You pay the penalty of the dignity of pomp and +circumstance. No large, off-hand, free and easy manner about sending up +a boy. The "operator" knows nothing of boys. In the matter of your +laundry you may request her to connect you with the "bell captain," +through whose agency (but not otherwise) a boy may be procured. One +message. In the matter of your suit you may request to be connected with +the "valet service." Message two. And so on.</p> + +<p>Then you sit you down and await the procession. Or, if you prefer, +contemplate the spectacle of life by looking out at the window.</p> + +<p>You fee Buttons. Lapse of time.</p> + +<p>Boots (as Dickens calls him) arrives—what probably here is a +porter—for shoes. Then you have an excellent opportunity (which may not +occur again during the day) for a slight period of philosophical +meditation, or to whistle a tune, before the valet appears.</p> + +<p>In such places as I am describing it is not etiquette at all (though it +may seem to you the simplest way of doing the thing) to call a bellboy<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> +to get down your bag. The porter does that—and through the correct +channel, that is by way of the freight elevator. And, say, something +goes wrong with your ice-water pipe. You are not to outrage hotel +decency here. What is necessary for you to procure is a waiter. Waiters +attend to your inner wants.</p> + +<p>I like best the character of valet when he is English (either so by +birth, or this by self-cultivation); wears a skirt coat, immaculately +pressed, and a "buttonhole"; advances into the room in the attitude of a +bow, and comes to a pause in the pose of one listening with deep and +profoundly respectful attention to the haughty utterance of a stage +earl. Though, indeed, there is an element of disquiet in your being thus +elevated to the Peerage if, as with me, the suit you turn over to this +unexceptionable servitor is of Hirt, Snuffler and Muss manufacture, and +growing a trifle frail in the seat.</p> + +<p>The same thing is true of bath-rooms. I don't, of course, mean that +bath-rooms perform the valet act. But that the more aristocratic in +hotels you get the more likely you are, so to say, to get into hot water +in bath-rooms. Like this:</p> + +<p>If you get into a bathtub which is not quite the<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> last word in bathtubs, +that is a bathtub which has legs and spigots to turn on the water, you +know where you are at all the while. You turn on the hot water in the +amount desired. It comes out of the hot water spout. As desired you turn +on the cold water. Out of the cold water spout comes it.</p> + +<p>But, as you know, the last word in bathtubs is not simple and democratic +like that. It is built onto the floor and has a clock-like dial on the +wall. Dial marked at different points: "Cold," "Medium," "Hot," "Off." +Turn little handle to regulate temperature and flow of water. All out of +same pipe. Yes—but—dial untruthful—very. "Off" scalds you; "Medium" +freezes you. Bad time trying to take last word in baths.</p> + +<p>"Tub or shower?" Maybe you say "shower." And draw one of those +police-court cells. Except the door, no opening in the little, square, +completely cement room but the small hole in the center of the floor +through which the water runs away. But that's not the way to look at it. +These little catacomb-like chambers are ęsthetic in their ascetic +character. You may entertain yourself by fancying that you are St. +Jerome, or somebody like that. In here nothing that it<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> will hurt can +get wet, and you can have a fine time making the whole room a +merry-go-round of splashes. One disturbing thought may occur to you. If +the door should stick you might not be found until the hotel got worried +about your bill, when perhaps it would be too late.</p> + +<p>Still, I think the chummiest bath-rooms are those with a bay-window; +very reprehensible those which have no hooks on which to hang your +pajamas and razor strop.</p> + +<p>Then there are those hotels so far-seeing into the possibilities of evil +chance and so solicitous of your equanimity that they provide your pin +cushion with one suspender button. I suppose the thought is to impress +you with the idea that nothing for your comfort, even down to the +smallest detail, is forgotten. Still, though I do not know that such an +untoward incident ever happened, it is within the range of human +possibility that a man might be shorn of two suspender buttons at once. +If, further, the hotel management were co-ordinated with the gentlemen's +underwear business a safety pin would be served along with the suspender +button—in view of the singular fact that, until your wife has taken a +reef in them, all nether garments are<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> much too great in girth for any +figure at all approximating normal.</p> + +<p>Working, however, as it does, with human material no hotel can get away +with perfection. For, as Dr. Johnson observed, "a fallible being will +fail somewhere." It was in San Francisco recently that three days were +required for me to recover a suit sent in the morning to be pressed by +that afternoon. This mischance was occasioned by three circumstances. To +wit: goblins (presumably) made away with the ticket attached to it; the +hotel tailor fell indisposed with (I hope) leprosy; and his assistant +had a slight mental infirmity, in other words he was seven times an +idiot.</p> + +<p>Reverse English in Los Angeles a few days later. When one night I found +neatly hung on the coat frame in my closet a suit of excellent material, +of fashionable design, and seemingly of virgin character. I reported the +matter to the third assistant manager. One criticism only I have to make +of that suit. It was too confoundedly tight.</p> + +<p>Then, of course, even at the best places (I almost think particularly in +the best places) you<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> are likely any time to find under your door in the +morning a telephone message stamped "Rush," directing you to call +so-and-so "as soon as possible"—and dated 5:17½ two days earlier. +Or, on coming in you are handed by the clerk a memorandum which states +that Mr. Cohan telephoned. Such matters, you reflect, are retrogressive. +If you are unacquainted with any gentleman of the name of Mr. Cohan, so +it may very well be that the guest here who is a friend of Mr. Cohan +received notice that <i>your</i> friend Mr. Sloan telephoned. And there you +are!</p> + +<p>My friend Harry Heartydrop (who, I declare! looks rosier even than +before the middle of January, 1920) has adopted a hotel life altogether +of late. He explains to me that the advantage of this is the new +side-line activity of numerous compassionate bell captains, who, it +seems—but that would be telling.</p> + +<p>One of the pleasantest things, I think, about hotels is the "night maid +service" furnished at fashionable places. When you come in you find your +light burning and so do not break your shins, and your bed is "turned +down" for you. Very softening to the spirit, this. In a kind of a<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> sort +of a hazy way one's thoughts turn back to the maternal solicitude which +used to "tuck" one "in."</p> + +<p>Good night!<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br /><br /> +A HUMORIST MISFITS AT A MURDER TRIAL</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>RE you in on the great Crime Wave, brother? Almost everybody is, I +guess, in one way or another. What's your particular line? Murderer, +bandit, burglar, mortally wounded innocent bystander, juror, witness, or +victim? The police are in on it, too; every once in awhile one of them +gets blackjacked, or something like that.</p> + +<p>I had the flu bad enough, when that was the big thing going; but somehow +so far I myself have escaped being caught in the Crime Wave. This gives +me the great advantage over most people of being a detached spectator of +the rollicking game.</p> + +<p>I have a friend, though, who was caught up just a few days ago. He has +been telling me all about it. Murder case.</p> + +<p>This fellow is a sort of author. He had served a time or two as a juror +in the Supreme Court<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> of New York County. In that building down by the +City Hall. But he says those cases bored him terribly. They were +chicken-feed sort of rows, generally concerned with the question of how +many dollars and fractions thereof X had occasioned the loss of to Z by +reason of his failure to deliver such and such a quantity of (say) +beeswax before the drop in the market of 39.7¼ cents, as called for +by telephone agreement, possibly. The "Court" (a nice, pink and grey old +fellow) would go to sleep, with his mouth open, during the drone of the +legal argument, and be awakened automatically (apparently by some change +in atmospheric conditions) at the moment required for him to begin his +charge to the jury. Occasionally, he would come semi-to for an instant +before this, and indistinctly utter the words, "Objection sustained."</p> + +<p>My friend's chief impression of these proceedings is his recollection of +one phenomenon which he observed. Not long after the opening of the +presentation of X's side of the case he saw very clearly that Z hadn't a +leg to stand on. It was ridiculous that he had the face to come into +court with an attempt to question the truth of facts which were as +apparent to the naked eye<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> as the Woolworth Building. My friend felt it +needless to pay any further attention to the foolish formalities of the +argument. If he had not had an uneasy feeling that he might get pinched +for this, he would have gone to sleep, like the Judge.</p> + +<p>But those were dull days in the jury business.</p> + +<p>A little later my friend gets some sort of a ticket instructing him to +call and talk things over with a gentleman having the university degree +of Commissioner of Jurors. This gentleman asks my friend if he has ever +been arrested on a criminal charge, if he is opposed to capital +punishment, and if he has any prejudice against Episcopalians. My friend +is a man of liberal mind, and replies that he would just as soon hang an +Episcopalian as anybody else. "You're on," said the gentleman, reaching +for a blotter; and signed him up. My friend didn't know exactly for +what. But the gentleman said everything was all right, they might not +call on my friend for a long time, and then perhaps it would be a short +case.</p> + +<p>Sometime back was all this. My friend had almost forgotten about his +acquaintance with the Commissioner. Then all of a sudden the gong sounds +and the great Crime Wave is on. Detectives<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> dash madly about with +shotguns. A jeweller is shot every day after lunch and a subway +ticket-seller is robbed directly after every train starts. My friend +hurries home early because everybody is fined who is caught on any paved +street after dark, and there in his letter-box is the summons from his +old friend the Commissioner, who apparently has borne him in mind all +this while.</p> + +<p>On the document is printed by a printing-press, "Jack Hammond <i>vs.</i> The +People of the State of New York." And on it is written with a pen my +friend's name, before the printed words "Special Juror." It very +urgently invites my friend to appear at ten o'clock four days distant at +the Criminal Courts Building and there "await further order of the +Court."</p> + +<p>You get off the subway at Brooklyn Bridge, you know, and go, past the +Municipal Building, up Centre Street. A district around behind the +"lanes" (as they say of steamship travel) of general traffic, and one +infrequently traversed by my friend. He was much interested in the +spectacle hereabout. Buildings labelled Public Health on this hand, +buildings labelled Public Records on that. Then you come to that prison<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> +as gruesome in its name as the Tower of London is romantic in its +connotation—the Tombs. The structure itself, a cluster of rather +slender wings, rises from behind its dark walls with an element of +grace, in contrast to that chill, squat, mouldering pile which begot and +bequeathed the historic name. Ugh! though, those barred windows, row +upon row, give a fellow such qualms as do the ugly symbols of our +mortality. Even though you ain't done nothin', make you feel sorta faint +like inside!</p> + +<p>There in the south wall is a little door, like a rabbit burrow, with a +little group about it, and quite a small bustle going on. Standing in +this bit of a doorway, as though she had something to do in the way of +belonging there, is a queer, oval body who looks much as though she +might be what is called an "apple woman." Marked "Visitors' Entrance," +this door. What is it all the people on this side of the street are +pausing to look at over there?</p> + +<p>A cab is drawn up. From this lightly steps (or flashes) a dizzy dream. +"Floppy" hat, scant skirt awhirl, pink-hued stockings gleaming to the +height of the full curve behind the knee, tall satin pump-heels dancing +the wearer on her toes<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a>—she swirls through the dark doorway. "They all +have their wimmin," remarks a blousy-looking loiterer to my friend.</p> + +<p>At the north, three stories up, the prison connects with the courts +building by that fabled structure the "bridge of sighs."</p> + +<p>Lively scene before the main entrance to this edifice on Centre Street. +Streams of figures hurrying up the broad front steps—on their way to a +busy day at the height of the crime season. Taxis flying up and +discharging chattering groups as at a theatre. Open pops a taxi door, +out leap three. A couple of very hard-looking young men, of that +sawed-off, stocky stature frequently observed in this type of very +hard-looking young man. Elegantly dressed, these; between them one of +"Oh!-you-beautiful-doll" type. Rapidly they make their way up the steps, +as though very well acquainted with the place.</p> + +<p>Regular jam inside. My friend learned from an attendant that his +particular destination was two flights up. Great crush wedging into the +elevator. Elevator man calls out merrily to an acquaintance he observes +outside his door: "It's a great life if you don't weaken!"</p> + +<p>Threads his way, my friend, around the balcony,<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> so to say, upstairs. +Centre of building open from ground floor to roof. Effect: spacious, +beautiful, ornamented in the richness of a house of grand opera. Finds +the right door. Card on the wall nearby. Several persons (tough-looking +youths in caps and soft collars) reading it. It lists previous day's +proceedings in this court room. Says: So-and-so; Murder; Indicted (or +something like that). Then the names of attorneys for the defense given. +Second line: So-and-so; Murder; etc. Third line: So-and-so; Murder. +Fourth line: So-and-so; Grand Larceny. Next line: So-an-so; Rape. Next: +Murder. And so on. Sure, my friend thinks, I've got to the real shop +this time. He has a few moments yet, and so he strolls over to a door at +the opposite side of the building. 'Nother card there. Same sort of +thing: murder, murder, grand larceny, homicide, murder, murder. (If you +don't believe it, go down there and look at those cards.) "Holy cat!" +says my friend to himself, "comparatively little of this crime stuff +gets into the papers, after all, don't it? I never heard of any of these +cases."</p> + +<p>Enters court room. Takes a seat. Room <a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a>soon filled. Now in my friend's +experience as a petit juror he had found himself among a rather +grotesque company of very small characters, frequently somewhat seedy in +outward effect. Here he was much struck by the decidedly first-rate +quality in appearance of practically every man in the room. Also, +before, he had observed with a good deal of annoyance that a court of +law could consume about twenty-nine times the time in accomplishing a +very simple matter that would be devoted to a thing of similar +consequence in any practical business office. Here in this flourishing +mill for dealing with capital crime the clerk of the court (or whatever +you call him) began to call the roll of jurors present fifteen minutes +before the hour set for opening of court. And so did affairs proceed +with well-oiled despatch.</p> + +<p>"Oyez-mumble-jumble-jabber-jabber-yah-meow-wow-jumble-jabber-jumble" (or +whatever the devil it is), sang out the attendant who cries out that. +Everybody at once gets to his feet. In comes his corpulent Honor, +swinging along briskly, his gown flowing out behind, and mounts to his +wooden-canopied throne. A large, glossy, rather handsome face, neatly +cropped dark moustache, eye-glasses swinging<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> from a broad black ribbon. +General effect what might be called that of a heavy-weight "club man," +looks as if he might be quite a hearty fellow when out with "the boys."</p> + +<p>Door opens at back of room. Sound of marching steps. Then are seen +coming along through a zoo-like cage round two sides of the room three +figures, burly civilian-clothed one in the middle, uniformed officer +fore and aft. They line up this side of a rail fencing the jurors off +from an area before the Judge. Burly figure is very well dressed. Stands +solidly on his feet, eyes trained directly on the Judge. Holds a dark +soft hat in his hands which he clasps behind his back. What from a +position somewhat to the rear can be seen of the side of his face +reveals a heavy scar, the result evidently of a knife slash across one +cheek. The Judge puts his palms together and addresses this person. "You +are charged with murder," he begins. He says it rather gently, in a +somewhat chiding manner, as though he had said, "Bad fellow, bad +fellow." Just then, "For the defendant!" calls out an attendant, and +another figure hurries forward.</p> + +<p>The defendant's attorneys have not appeared, it seems. Their case is not +quite prepared. A<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> postponement is asked. "Why is it not prepared?" asks +the Judge. The defendant speaks out. Declares his attorney has not been +paid. Judge's reply is that the attorney provided for him is an able +man, who will see that all his rights are observed. Grants postponement +until the next morning, positively no further. Officer by his side +plucks defendant's coat tail, and starts him off back through the cage. +As he goes he is heard to say that his attorney will not be there in the +morning either.</p> + +<p>And as he turns, my friend gets, with a shock, a full-face view of him. +He had never expected anybody off the melodramatic stage to <i>look</i> so +much like a murderer. Scarey, that face, a countenance almost majestic +in its ruthlessness and force: gangster, gunman, typically personified.</p> + +<p>Jurors excused until ten-thirty next day. As they move toward the door, +two attractively dressed young women arise from the rear. "Who are the +ladies?" asks one. "Friends of the defendant," says another.</p> + +<p>Next day, game called sharp on the stroke of the clock. Following +preliminaries of the day before, attendant spins that little roulette +wheel<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> sort of an affair. Looks at slip thus drawn. "John Cole," he +cries. Mr. Cole passes round behind jury box, reappears in far corner at +left of Judge. "Rigmarole-rigmarole-solemnly swear, rigmarole," chaunts +attendant there, thrusting very dilapidated Bible before him. Mr. Cole +takes what later will be the witness chair.</p> + +<p>Assistant district attorney arises and explains the case to him. The +charge is murder in the first degree. The prosecution must rely largely +on the testimony of an accomplice.</p> + +<p>Defendant sits in whispered consultation with his attorney, his arm +almost around him. As prosecutor seats himself, attorney for the defense +gets up to put Mr. Cole through his paces. A fat, oily-looking man, with +(it is evident) a browbeating manner in reserve.</p> + +<p>Has Mr. Cole, or anyone "near and dear" to him, recently met with any +"accident" at the hands of robbers? No. He will not, then, have a +revengeful feeling toward any person charged with crime? Not at all. +Would he give the same weight to the "story" of a "self-confessed thief +and murderer" that he would to the testimony of a "man of probity"? +Probably not. Now, doubtless, Mr. Cole is a reader of newspapers.<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> He +has, of course, seen this "literature" (with a sneer), this "newspaper +hysteria" about a "c-r-i-m-e wave" (tongue in cheek). Well, can Mr. Cole +go into the jury box and look at this case detached from the +"atmosphere" now "being created by the newspapers"? Finally, is Mr. Cole +acquainted with anyone connected with the police department?</p> + +<p>Mr. Cole, for some reason, strikes out.</p> + +<p>Third man accepted. He comes around from behind it to enter the jury +box. At the gateway, while defendant stands and faces him, some more +rigmarole-mumble-jumble business.</p> + +<p>Suddenly my friend is called. His business? asks district attorney. A +writer, he replies. Defendant and his attorney exchange strange glances. +Undoubtedly there is something low and suspicious about a fellow with +such a business. Attorney for the defense comes forward hurriedly. Soon +takes my friend in hand. He at once adopts the sarcastic. My friend's +work must require unusual "observation." He must be "gifted" with "great +powers of de-duct-shun" (said out of one corner of his mouth). Of +course, he has too a "fine imagination." By the<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> way, what is the nature +of his writing? Has he written any novels?</p> + +<p>No, my friend says, he is a humorous writer. "A what?" exclaims the +lawyer, his mouth remaining open. Then, "Like Don Mark<i>ee</i>?" "Somewhat," +says my friend. Lawyer visibly pales. Withdrawing toward counsel table, +looks back at the accused, who vigorously shakes his head.</p> + +<p>"Excused by per-emptory challenge," utters lawyer, dropping into his +chair.<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br /><br /> +QUEER THING, 'BOUT UNDERTAKERS' SHOPS</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">Q</span>UEER thing, that, about undertakers' shops! I don't remember to have +been struck by undertakers' shops in San Francisco. Maybe they have none +there—because, as you'll see, it's a queer thing about them.</p> + +<p>Now in Indianapolis undertaking is a very fashionable affair. People +there, apparently, want "class" in the matter of being finally disposed +of. They believe, evidently, with the author of the popular little idyl, +"Urn Burial," that "Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous +in the tomb."</p> + +<p>The most aristocratic street in that city is named North Meridian +Street. A street, until a short time ago, entirely of stately lawns and +patrician homes—mansions. Of late, a little business, shops of the most +distinguished character, has been creeping up this street from +down-town. Notably, de luxe motor car salesrooms,<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> studios of highly +ęsthetic photographers, and particularly palatial undertaking +establishments. They are, these last, wondrous halls, which surely none +could enter but those who (in life) had been rich in treasure. Features +of the city are they—"sights."</p> + +<p>But here's the riddle:</p> + +<p>Strolling about New York, from river to river, uptown and down, one +might readily fancy that here only the poor pass out of the world. Or +that if the rich and fashionable ever die their bodies are mysteriously +spirited away to destinations unknown; or are secretly preserved +(presumably by some taxidermal process) in their homes.</p> + +<p>Why? Well, where on Fifth Avenue is an undertaker's? True, a man I know +declares there is a single one there. I am unable to find it. Where on +any fine street of the metropolis? Why, yes; as a rare phenomenon. You +do know, of course, that enormous place on upper Broadway. Sign says +branches in Paris, London, Berlin, Petrograd.</p> + +<p>Viewed through the great windows interior presents somewhat the effect +of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In foreground large harp,<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a> equally +huge Chinese vase—probably of the Tang Wang period, on great marble +pedestal enormous bronze of a mounted Diana repelling with spear attack +of ferocious animal resembling tiger. Appropriateness of this sculpture +somewhat puzzling. On wall, somewhat further within, immense tapestry. +One door labelled "Delivery Entrance." All of this, of course, is +magnificence as much as even the most covetous would crave.</p> + +<p>But in New York this august undertaking hall is an anachronism. Here, +for some reason mysterious, it is in shabby neighborhoods that the +"parlors" of undertakers abound. You may find them sprinkled all about +the lower East Side. Frequent on Hudson Street, and, say, on Varick. +Quaint and curious places, these. Very human in their appeal. Tiny +places, most of them.</p> + +<p>One such cozy crib I know on Greenwich Avenue. Has a stained glass +screen in the window, suggesting a good deal the style of window +ornamentation popular with that American institution lately +deceased—the saloon. The social spirit rife in small undertaking shops, +at least in some of them, is pleasant to observe. Business there not +being pressing, and life moving in<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> these inns of death in a leisurely +and quiet current, neighborly amenities appear to be much cultivated.</p> + +<p>This place of which I speak has, particularly in the evenings, much the +air of a club, where choice spirits of the locality foregather to +discuss politics, it may be, and the more engrossing forms of sport, +such as boxing. And perhaps relish a little game at cards. I often pass +this place at night and feel a warmth of spirit at the hum of jovial +social contact within.</p> + +<p>I like, too, the way the undertakers' shops of the humble and obscure +carry on cheek by jowl with the familiar, homely, friendly things of +life. This gives Death a neighborly sort of air. On my walks in that +quarter I always give a friendly glance to the windows of a "Cremation +Ass'n" on Eighth Avenue, on one side of it a delicatessen shop, on the +other a "loan office," in the basement below a plumber.</p> + +<p>Attractive, too, is it to consider how founders of tidy undertaking +houses have become personages and are held in revered esteem. For they +are not, it would seem, like unto those who have established just +ordinary businesses. This I will show you:<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a></p> + +<p>At a corner of Twenty-third Street, over a telegraph office, is an +establishment of some caste. Window legend reads: +"Undertakers—Cremations—Night and Day—Interments in all Cemeteries." +The last phrase reminds me of the way my old friend James Huneker used +to date his letters to me from Brooklyn. They began, "Flatbush by the +C—emeteries." But that's not the point. It's a pity the alert English +writer who recently visited us and discovered a statue of General Grant +in Grant Park, overlooking the Blackstone (where nobody had ever seen +one before), and that the huge bust of Washington Irving in Bryant Park, +behind the New York Public Library, was an effigy of Father George +Washington—it's a rotten shame E. V. Lucas missed this corner while +here.</p> + +<p>Because when you go round this corner you are to look up just above the +level of your head. (Though I'm afraid you neglect to do this.) There on +a ledge is a grand sight. It's a bust of God. Fact! Anyhow, looks just +like pictures of God William Blake used to make. Old gentleman. Noble +brow. Patriarchal beard, flowing out in a pattern of rhythmical +waves—most realistically mildewed by time and weather....<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> But, no; +inquiry reveals that it's a likeness of the founder of this "old +established" undertaking concern.</p> + +<p>Then there's that place a short step down Eighth Avenue. It declares on +its sign that it is the "original" house bearing the name of the +Reverend gentleman who conducts it. When you look through the glass in +the door you view just within, displayed on an ornamental easel, a +life-size crayon portrait, enlarged from a photograph, of a +distinguished-looking person wearing brown Dundreary whiskers and a top +hat. One corner of the portrait is gracefully draped in an American +flag.</p> + +<p>Yes; you'd be surprised how strong undertakers are on patriotism. Hard +by here, next door to a dentist advertising "painless extraction," you +find a firm of "Funeral Directors" where conspicuous among such +ornaments as tall, bronze lamps with big shades, a spittoon, a little +model of a casket and an urn, is a large bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln. +A plate says: "No Charge for Rooms or Chapels for Funerals." And above +stairs is seen a row of somewhat ecclesiastical stained-glass windows. +Though we are<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> given to understand by an advertisement that the +atmosphere of these chapels is "non-sectarian."</p> + +<p>Then over on Third Avenue (where there are lots and lots of undertakers) +is a place. Always sitting just within the doorway, very silent, a +stout, very solemn individual wearing a large, black derby hat and big, +round, green-lens spectacles. Above him on the wall a framed lithograph +in colors of George Washington—beside it a thermometer. In the window a +rubber-plant. Rubber-plants varying in size from infant to elephant are +in the windows of all undertakers. The symbolism of this decoration I +know not. Beside the plant an infant's white casket, proclaimed by a +poster which leans against it to be composed of "purity metal." In some +places the casket, perhaps not of purity metal, is protected by being +enclosed in a glass case. The name of the proprietor of this shop, as +given on his sign, ends in "skey." Set in the door-frame is the usual +"Night Bell." And, as always in undertakers' shops, the card of a +"notary public" is displayed. Next door "Family Shoes" are featured.</p> + +<p>Only yesterday afternoon I was looking in at the window of an undertaker +on Second Avenue,<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> one I had just found. Along the curb before the door +a string of rather frayed and wobbly-looking "hacks," with a rusty-black +hearse at the head. Horses to these vehicles drowsy in disposition, +moth-eaten in effect as to pelt, and in the visibility of their +anatomical structure suggesting that they might have been drawn by +Albert Dürer in some particularly melancholy mood.</p> + +<p>In groups along the edge of the sidewalk, conversing in subdued tones, +the Dickensesque drivers of this caravan. Tall and gaunt, some; short +and stout, others. Skirt coat on one, "sack" coat on another. Alike in +this: frayed and rusty and weather-beaten, all. And hard, very hard of +countenance. Each topped by a very tall, and quite cylindrical hat of +mussed, shoddy-black, plush texture. Hangovers, so to say, these +figures, from New York's hansom-cab days, or the time in London of the +"four-wheeler."</p> + +<p>No, not altogether. There was something piquant—Villonesque, or +jovial—Rabelaisian, about the pickpockets of that tribe. These solemn +mummers strike a ghoulish note. But at the same time, out here in the +sane and cheerful sunlight,<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> they don't look real. Create an odd +impression. Strikes you as about as queer, this bunch, as if a lot of +actors from a melodrama should turn up in the street with their makeup +on and gravely pretend to belong to real life.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," I thought, "there is a funeral, or something, going on +inside, and I should not be gaping in at this window."</p> + +<p>Out of doorway pops little, rotund man, oily countenance. "Are you +looking for anybody?" he asks.</p> + +<p>"Here," I said inwardly, "is where I get moved on." No, I told him, I +was just observing his window.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he cried, immensely flattered. He waved his hand back toward a +couple of little, marble crosses with hearts carved in relief on the +base. "You don't often see that, do you? Do you, now? They're sixty +years old. Made out of a single piece!"</p> + +<p>But the saddest thing about undertakers' shops is to go by where was one +long familiar to you and find it gone. There was a splendid little place +which it was a great consolation to me to admire. That building is now +given over to an enterprise called "The Goody Shop." Its lofty<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> dignity +and deep eloquence are gone! It looks like a department store. It is +labelled, with the blare of a brass band, "The Home of Pussy Willow +Chocolates."<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br /><br /> +THE HAIR CUT THAT WENT TO MY HEAD</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> did not expect anything in particular when I went in. Though, indeed, +it is a very famous place. That is, the hotel is—the Brevoort.</p> + +<p>The name itself, Brevoort, is very rich in romantic Knickerbocker +associations. Probably you know all about that. Or, possibly, you don't +know—or have forgotten. Well, you do know how Broadway curves around +there at Tenth Street. That ought to recall Hendrick Brevoort to you. +His farm was all about this neighborhood. Caused this kink, he did, so +it is said.</p> + +<p>This valorous descendant of the old burgher defied the commissioners to +destroy his homestead, which lay in the proposed path of Broadway. Or to +cut down a favorite tree which blocked the intended course of Eleventh +Street. Stood at his threshold with a blunderbuss in his trembling old +hands (so the story has it), when the workmen arrived to carry out their +instructions<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a> to demolish the house—and carried his point so +effectively that Broadway was deflected from its course, while Eleventh +Street between Broadway and Fourth Avenue was never completed. Grace +Church, which now stands at about where valiant Henry stood that day, +was built by a descendant of his, the architect also of St. Patrick's +Cathedral.</p> + +<p>I like to think of these matters sometimes when I enter the cool cream +beauty of this ancient frame hostelry.</p> + +<p>Also of another Henry Brevoort, a descendant of the original proprietor +of the farm in New Netherland, who built the substantial old double +house at the corner of Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. Fine iron +balconies, pillared door, within a small green enclosure, and a walled +garden to one side: all preserved.</p> + +<p>Here was held (in 1840) the first masked ball given in New York. An +affair of picturesque celebrity, on account of the occasion it furnished +a famous beauty of the day, Miss Mathilda Barclay, daughter of Anthony +Barclay, the British consul, to elope in fancy dress, domino and mask +with a certain young Burgwyne of South Carolina, of whom her parents had +unamiable views.<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> She went as Lalla Rookh and he as Feramorz, and in +this disguise they slipped away from the ball, at four in the morning, +and were married. That, it seems to me, is the way for a man who does +not enjoy solemn ceremonies to be happy while getting married.</p> + +<p>Across the way, at the corner of Eighth Street, the mellow white hotel +maintains the distinguished name, and touches "the Avenue" with a very +aromatic French flavor. Famous for its cuisine, largely patronized by +the transient French population of the city, a habitual port of call of +many painters and writers, the scene of the annual Illustrators' Ball, +and so on.</p> + +<p>I like within the frequent spectacle of gentlemen of magnificent bulk +and huge black beards, in general effect impressively suggesting the +probability of their all being Academicians. I like the fact (or the +hypothesis) that all the waiters are Looeys and Sharses and Gastongs. I +like the little marble-top tables with wire spindle legs. I like the +lady patrons (Oh! immensely) who are frequently very chic (and with +exquisite ankles). I like the young gentlemen customers, who (many of +them) look exactly as though their faces were modelled in wax, and who<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> +wear the sort of delicate moustaches that are advertised in <i>Vanity +Fair</i>.</p> + +<p>But even more I like the quaintness of the scene without doors. There +along the curb, you recall, stand (in summer beneath the pleasant +greenery of drooping trees), awaiting hire, a succession of those +delightful, open, low-swung, horse-drawn vehicles, victorias, which were +the fashionable thing at the period named by Mrs. Wharton "The Age of +Innocence." The romantically leisurely drivers of these unbelievably +leisurely craft are perfectly turned out to be, so to say, in the +picture. They affect coachmen's coats (piquantly tempered by age) with +large silver buttons and, in mild weather, top hats constructed of +straw, painted black. In some instances these coachmen are +"colored"—which is a very pleasant thing, too, I think.</p> + +<p>This hotel, naturally, has figured in a number of pieces of fiction. In +Samuel Merwin's novel "The Trufflers" it is the Parisian, where +Greenwich Village, when in funds, dines, lunches, breakfasts in the +little rooms which you enter from the Avenue, directly under the wide +front steps, or from the side street through the bar, and where Upper +West Side, when seeking the<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> quaintly foreign dissociated from squalor, +goes up the steps into the airy eating rooms with full length hinged +windows to dine. And where (in this book) the young lady whose blooming +presence in the barber shop in the basement invites you to manicure +attentions gives rise to some very dramatic occurrences. The place, this +shop, of Marius (as called in the story), "the one barber in New York +who does not ask 'Wet or dry.'"</p> + +<p>Now I had plumb forgotten about this barber's celebrity in fiction when +the other day I entered this shop. And I was struck with embarrassment +by the immediate attentions of so very distinguished a figure as that +which sprang forward to assist me out of my coat. I thought surely this +gentleman must be some kind of an Ambassador, who had perhaps mistaken +me for the President. A slimmish man, obviously very French. Amazingly, +overwhelmingly polite. Fine, a very fine beard. Long. Swept his chest. +Pointed. Auburn. Wavy. Silken. Shot delicately with grey. Beautifully +kept. Responded gently to the breeze—waving softly to and fro. A most +beautiful beard—oh, my! And a glorious crown of hair! It rose from the +line of its parting in a billowing wave, then fell with a luxuriant and<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> +graceful sweep to his ear. Only when he had tucked me in the chair could +I realize that this must be the head barber. I had never before had the +honor of being served by, or even of having seen himself, the proprietor +here.</p> + +<p>Then I mentioned Mr. Merwin's book. He took from a drawer several copies +of <i>The Saturday Evening Post</i>, in which periodical the story had +appeared serially, proudly to exhibit them to me. So it was we fell to +chatting of his place. He had been here some sixteen or eighteen years. +Before he had opened his shop this room had been several tiny rooms; +Cleveland Moffett had for a time occupied them as a residence, and had +here written his first book. My friend gayly produced a copy of an old +magazine article by Mr. Moffett in which mention was given the shop.</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>Shaved, I was straightened up to have my hair trimmed. And, being for a +moment free to look about. I spied a card on the wall. It said:</p> + +<div class="boxx"> +<p class="c">S<small>ILK</small> H<small>ATS</small> I<small>RONED</small><br /> +25<i>¢</i><br /> +C<small>OUP</small>-D<small>E-FER-AU</small> C<small>HAPEAU</small></p> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a></p> + +<p>But, my goodness! That was not all. No, indeed!</p> + +<p><i>This very man who was cutting my hair</i> had cut the hair of General +Joffre—when he had his hair here in the United States. At "Mr. Frick's +house," where they were guests, he had attended the distinguished party +on its mission here. He would go in the morning, stay until they had +gone forth for the day; return in the afternoon, and spruce them up for +their evening out.</p> + +<p>And what did they say, these great men of might?</p> + +<p>Well, Joffre didn't say much. They were always out late—hurry out +again. He shaved some of them "almost in the bath." That fellow, the +Blue Devil,—one leg—cane—but back and forth from his bath quick like +anybody. He was the most talkative:</p> + +<p>"I could not but laugh at what he told me. I asked, 'Do you speak +English?' 'No,' he said, 'but I ought to.' 'How is that?' I asked. +'Because,' he said, 'I'm half American.' 'Oh!' I said, 'your father then +was American and your mother French?' 'No,' he said. 'Ah!' I say, 'then +your mother was American and your father<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> was French.' Do you +understand? I say that to him. 'No,' he say; 'no.' 'What then?' I ask. +'Why,' he say, 'I have one leg in France and one leg in America.' I +could not but laugh. Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>When the visitors had departed Mr. Frick asked my friend for his bill. +"Oh, no!" he said; "he would take nothing but the great honor for his +little services."</p> + +<p>My hair cut was finished. As I paid him (there being in this case, I +felt, no such great honor for his little services), he showed me a +drawing on the wall of a poodle he had one time owned. It had died. Very +sad. He was very fond of dogs. Of bred dogs, that is. He bred them +himself. He handed me his card as a professional dog fancier. It read:</p> + +<div class="boxxx"> +<p class="c">CHINK A TU KENNELS<br /> +<small>C<small>HOW</small> C<small>HOWS</small>, P<small>EKINGESES</small>, P<small>OMERANIANS</small>, A<small>LL</small> C<small>OLORS</small><br /> +F<small>ROM</small> P<small>RICE</small> W<small>INNING</small> S<small>TOCK</small><br /> +M<small>INIATURE</small> S<small>PECIMENS</small><br /> +A<small>T</small> S<small>TUD</small>. P<small>EKINGESE</small>, W<small>ONDERFUL</small> S<small>ON OF</small> W<small>ENTY</small><br /> +O<small>F</small> H<small>YDEGREE</small>. F<small>EE</small> R<small>EASONABLE</small>.<br /> +A<small>T</small> S<small>TUD</small>. L<small>ORD</small> C<small>HOLMONDELEY</small> I<small>II</small> S<small>ON OF</small> C<small>HAMPION</small><br /> +L<small>ORD</small> C<small>HOLMONDELEY</small> I<small>I</small>.<br /> +T<small>OY</small> D<small>OGS</small> B<small>OARDED</small></small><br /> +MME. HENRI GRECHEN</p> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a></p> + +<p>Yes, that morning he had done "some manicure work" for his dogs. She +looked up, the manicurist (milk-white blonde, black velvet gown), and +said, "Do you use the clippers?"</p> + +<p>He: "Yes, of course. But not powder and polish. Quick, they want. Not +hold hands for hour—conversation about best show in town."</p> + +<p>He bowed, very low, as I crossed his threshold. I turned and bowed, very +low, to him. A man of many parts and a barber illustrious in his +profession. It was some time before my head cooled off.<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<br /><br /> +SEEING MR. CHESTERTON</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>OMEWHAT later in this article I am going to present an "interview" (or +something like that) with Gilbert K. Chesterton. At least I hope I am +going to present it. Yesterday it looked as though I might have to get +up my interview without having seen Mr. Chesterton. Though today the +situation appears somewhat brighter. "Seeing" Mr. Chesterton (on his +visit over here, at any rate) seems to be a complicated matter.</p> + +<p>As anything which gives some view of the workings of the Chestertonian +machinery ought to be of interest to all who can lay claim to the happy +state of mind of being Chestertonites, I'll begin by telling the +proceedings so far in this affair. Then as matters progress to supply me +with more material (if they do progress) I'll continue.</p> + +<p>I one time wrote an article in which I told with what surprising ease I +saw Mr. Chesterton<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> several years ago in England. Without acquaintances +in England, some sort of a fit of impudence seized me. I wrote Mr. +Chesterton a letter, communicating to him the intelligence that I had +arrived in London, that it was my belief that he was one of the noblest +and most interesting monuments in England; and I asked him if he +supposed that he could be "viewed" by me, at some street corner, say, at +a time appointed, as he rumbled past in his triumphal car. Mrs. +Chesterton replied directly in a note that her husband wished to thank +me for my letter and to say that he would be pleased if I cared to come +down to spend an afternoon with him at Beaconsfield. Mr. Chesterton, I +later recollected, had no means readily at hand of ascertaining whether +or not I was an American pickpocket; but from the deference of his +manner I was led to suspect that he vaguely supposed I was perhaps the +owner of the New York <i>Times</i>, or somebody like that.</p> + +<p>This escapade of my visit to Overroads I suppose it was that put into +the head of the editor of <i>The Bookman</i> the notion that I was a person +with ready access to Mr. Chesterton. So I was served with a hurry-up +assignment to see him<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> and to deliver an article about my seeing him for +the March number of the magazine before that issue, then largely in the +hands of the printers, got off the press. Thus my adventures, the +termination of which are at present considerably up in the air, began.</p> + +<p>I at once wrote to Mr. Chesterton at the hotel where at the moment he +was in Boston. At the same time I wrote to Lee Keedick ("Manager of the +World's Most Celebrated Lecturers") at his office in New York. I had +picked up the impression that a lecture manager of this caliber owned +outright the time of a visiting celebrity whom he promoted, and that you +couldn't even telephone the celebrity without the manager's permission. +I didn't know that you couldn't telephone him anyway. Or that you +couldn't telephone the manager either.</p> + +<p>Mr. Keedick very promptly replied that he would be very glad to do +everything that he could to bring about the interview. Or at least I +received a very courteous letter to this effect which bore a signature +which I took to be that of Mr. Keedick.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chesterton was not to be back in New York until after a couple of +days. On the day<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a> set for his return to town I attempted to communicate +with Mr. Keedick by telephone. I am (I fear) a bit slow at the etiquette +of telephones, and I so far provoked a young woman at the other end of +the wire as to cause her to demand rather sharply, "Who are you?" This +matter adjusted amicably, Mr. Keedick it developed was so utterly remote +from attainment that I am not altogether sure such a person exists. +However, another gentleman responded cordially enough. Still, it seemed +to me (upon reflection) that in a matter of this urgent nature I had +been at fault in having failed to obtain more definiteness in the matter +of an appointment. So I went round to the manager's office. Very affably +received. Presented to a gentleman fetched for that purpose from another +room, where he had been closeted with someone else. Mr. Widdecombe, this +gentleman's name. Introduced as Mr. Chesterton's secretary. A pronounced +Englishman in effect. Said very politely indeed, several times, that he +was "delighted." Mr. Chesterton, however, was going away tomorrow. Would +return two days hence. Made, Mr. Widdecombe, very careful memorandum of +my address.<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a></p> + +<p>In due course of time thought I'd better look up Mr. Widdecombe +again—his memorandum might have got mislaid. Telephoned lecture bureau. +Satisfied young lady of honorable intentions. Explained matters all over +again to owner of agreeable masculine voice. Received assurance that Mr. +Widdecombe would be reminded at once of pressing state of affairs. +Disturbed by uneventful flight of time, called in at lecture bureau once +more. Learned that Mr. Widdecombe had not yet turned up. They, however, +would try to get him on the wire at the Biltmore for me. Yes, he was +there, but the fourth floor desk of the hotel said he had just gone into +Mr. Chesterton's room, and so (as, apparently, everyone ought to know) +could not be communicated with just now. He would call up shortly. +Lecture people suggested that I go round to the hotel. If Mr. Widdecombe +called in the meantime they'd tell him I was on my way over.</p> + +<p>Thought I recognized the gentleman stepping out of the elevator at the +fourth floor. I did not know whether or not it was at all what you did +to lay hold of an Englishman in so abrupt a fashion, but concluded this +would have to be done. Mr. Widdecombe was all courtesy. The<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> point, +however, was that "Mr. Chesterton had had an hour of it this morning. +Had had an hour of it." This afternoon he was getting off some work for +London. Then tomorrow, of course, would be his lecture. My matter <i>did</i> +seem to be urgent. But what could "we" do? Mr. Chesterton was a +"beautiful man." He had been so hospitable to the gentlemen of the +press. But if we should go in to him now he would say, "Dear me! Dear +me!" I readily saw, of course, that this would be an awful thing, +still....</p> + +<p>Mr. Widdecombe was somewhat inclined to think that we "could do" this: +Suppose I should come to the Times Square Theatre the next afternoon, at +about a quarter to five, call for him at the stage entrance. Yes, he +thought we could arrange it that way. I could talk to Mr. Chesterton in +the taxi on the way back to the hotel. Perhaps detain him for a few +moments afterward. Mr. Widdecombe smiled very pleasantly indeed at the +idea of so happy a solution of our difficulties. And I myself was rather +taken by the notion of interviewing Mr. Chesterton in a cab. The fancy +occurred to me that this was perhaps after all the most fitting place +in<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> the whole world in which to interview Mr. Chesterton.</p> + +<p>So everything seems to be all right.</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>New complications! (This is the following day.) In the morning mail a +letter from Mrs. Chesterton, saying so sorry not to have answered my +letter before, but it had been almost impossible to deal with the +correspondence that had reached them since they arrived in America. Her +husband asked her to say he would very much like to see me. And could I +call at the hotel round about twelve o'clock on Sunday morning? No +difficulty about meeting Mr. Chesterton in the kindness of that. But +Sunday might be quite too late for the purpose of my article. So I'll go +to the theatre anyway, and I'll certainly accept all Chesterton +invitations.</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>A colored dignitary in a uniform sumptuously befrogged with gold lace +who commanded the portal directed me to the stage entrance. I passed +into a dark and apparently deserted passage and paused to consider my +next step. Before me was a tall, brightly lighted aperture, and coming +through this I caught the sound, gently<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> rising and falling, of a rather +dulcet voice. A slight pause in the flow of individual utterance, and +directly following upon this a soft wave as of the intimate mirth of an +audience wafted about what was evidently the auditorium beyond. Just +then a figure duskily defined itself before me and addressed me in a +gruff whisper. I was directed to proceed around the passage extending +ahead, to Room Three. I should have passed behind a tall screen (I +recognized later), but inadvertently I passed before it, and suddenly +found myself the target of thousands upon thousands of eyes—and the +unmistakable back of Mr. Chesterton looming in the brilliance directly +before me.</p> + +<p>Regaining the passage, I found a door labelled A 3. Receiving no +response to my knock, I opened it; and peered into a lighted cubby-hole +about one-third the size of a very small hall bed-room. The only object +of any conspicuousness presented to me was a huge, dark garment hanging +from a hook in the wall. It seemed to be—ah! yes; it was a voluminous +overcoat with a queer cape attached. So; I was in the right shop all +right.</p> + +<p>I thought I ought to look around and try to<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> find somebody. I wandered +into what I suppose are the "wings" of the theatre. Anyway, I had an +excellent view, from one side, of the stage and of a portion of one +gallery. The only person quite near me was a fireman, who paid no +attention whatever to me, but continued to gaze out steadily at Mr. +Chesterton, with an expression of countenance which (as well as I could +decipher it) registered fascinated incomprehension. I attempted to lean +against what I supposed was a wall, but to my great fright the whole +structure nearly tumbled over as I barely touched it. Perceiving a chair +the other side of the fireman, I passed before him, sat down, and gave +myself over to contemplation of the spectacle.</p> + +<p>My first impression, I think, was that Mr. Chesterton was speaking in so +conversational a key that I should have expected to hear cries of +"Louder!" coming from all over the house. But from the lighted +expressions of the faces far away in the corner of the gallery visible +to me he was apparently being followed perfectly. I did not then know +that at his first public appearance in New York he had referred to his +lecturing voice as the original mouse that came from the mountain.<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> Nor +had I then seen Francis Hackett's comment upon it that: "It wasn't, of +course, a bellow. Neither was it a squeak." Mr. Hackett adds that it is +"the ordinary good lecture-hall voice." I do not feel that this quite +describes my own impression of it the other afternoon. Rather, perhaps, +I should put the matter in this way. My recollection of the conversation +I had with him in 1914 at Beaconsfield is that there was a much more +ruddy quality to his voice then than the other day, and more, much more, +in the turn of his talk a racy note of the burly world.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he feels that before a "representative" American audience one +should be altogether what used to be called "genteel." At any rate, I +certainly heard the other day the voice of a modest, very friendly, +cultivated, nimble-minded gentleman, speaking with the nicety of +precision more frequently observed among English people than among +Americans. There was in it even a trace of a tone as though it were most +at home within university walls. Though, indeed, I am glad to say, Mr. +Chesterton did not abstain from erudite, amused, and amusing allusions +to the society most at home in "pubs." And I cannot but suspect that +perhaps he would have been found a<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> shade more amusing even than he was +if ... but, no matter.</p> + +<p>One gentleman who has written a piece about his impressions of Mr. +Chesterton's lectures here felt that his audience didn't have quite as +much of a good time as the members of it expected to have. I heard only +a brief, concluding portion of one lecture. The portion of the audience +which came most closely before my observation were those seated at the +well filled press table, which stood directly between the speaker and +me. These naļve beings gave every evidence of getting, to speak +temperately, their money's worth.</p> + +<p>Though Mr. Chesterton turned the pages of notes as he spoke, he could +not be said to have read his lecture. On the other hand, it was clear +that he did not appreciably depart from a carefully prepared +disquisition.</p> + +<p>The tumbled mane which tops him off seemed more massive even than +before. It did not, though, appear quite so tumbled. I think there had +been an effort (since 1914) to brush it quite nicely. Certainly it is +ever so much greyer. I think in my earlier article I said something like +this: "Mr. Chesterton has so remarkably red a<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> face that his smallish +moustache seems lightish in color against it." While Mr. Chesterton's +face today could not be described as pale, it looks more like a face and +less like a glowing full moon. The moustache is darker against it; less +bristling than before, more straggly.</p> + +<p>A couple of our recent commentators upon Mr. Chesterton have taken a +fling at the matter of his not being as huge as, it seems to them, he +has been made out to be. I remember that when I saw him before I was +even startled to find him more monstrous than even he had appeared in +his pictures. He appears to take part a good deal in pageants in +England; and recent photographs of him as Falstaff, or Tony Weller, or +Mr. Pickwick, or somebody like that, have not altogether squared up with +my recollection of him. True, he has not quite the bulk he had before; +but it is a captious critic, I should say, who would not consider him +sufficiently elephantine for all ordinary purposes.</p> + +<p>He was saying (much to the delight of the house) when I became one of +the audience, that he would "not regard this as the time or the occasion +for him to comment upon the lid on liquor." A bit later in the course of +his answer to the<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> question he had propounded, "Shall We Abolish the +Inevitable," he got an especially good hand when he remarked: "People +nowadays do not like statements having authority—but they will accept +any statement without authority." He concluded his denunciation of the +idea of fatalism with the declaration: "Whatever man is, he is not in +one sense a part of nature." "He has committed crimes, Crimes," he +repeated—with gusto in the use of the word,—"and performed heroisms +which no animal ever tried to do. Let us hold ourselves free from the +boundary of the material order of things, for so shall we have a chance +in the future to do things far too historic for prophecy."</p> + +<p>I darted back toward Room Three, ran into Mr. Widdecombe, we wheeled, +and saw the mountain approaching. Whereas before, this off-stage place +had been deserted, now the scene was populous—with the figures of +agitated young women. Mr. Widdecombe, however, with much valiance +secured Mr. Chesterton. "Yes, yes," he said, and (remarkable remark!), +"I had the pleasure of meeting you in England." He glanced about rather +nervously at the dancing figures seeking to obtain him, and led the way<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> +for me into the dressing room. Mr. Widdecombe pulled the door to from +without.</p> + +<p>I am far from being as large as Mr. Chesterton, but the two of us +closeted in that compartment was an absurdity. Mr. Chesterton eclipsed a +chair, and beamed upon me with an expression of Cheeryble-like +brightness. Upon his arrival in New York he had declared to the press +that he would not write a book of his impressions of the United States. +I asked him if, after being here a week or so, he had changed his mind +as to this determination. "Not definitely," he said, "not definitely. +But, of course, one could never tell what one might do." He might write +a book about us, then? Yes, he might. Did he think it at all likely that +he would take up residence over here? A very joyous smile: "One's own +country is best," he said. Rumors had several times been afloat that he +had entered the Roman Catholic Church. Would he say whether there was +any likelihood of his doing this? He was an Anglican Catholic, he +replied. Not a Roman Catholic—yet. That was not to say that he might +not be—if the English Church should become more Protestant. What was +his next book to be?<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> Had he any project in mind of going to Turkey, or +Mexico, or some such place? No; the only books he was working on at +present were a new volume of short stories and a book (smiling again +widely) on eugenics. He knew Mr. Lucas, of course? "Yes, fine fellow." +Did he know Frank Swinnerton? No. What was.... But the door was popped +open. Several persons were waiting for him, among them Mrs. Chesterton. +I helped him into the cape-coat. Stood behind the door so that when it +was opened he could get out. "You know Mr. Holliday," he said to Mrs. +Chesterton. "Thank you, so much," he said to me. And was whisked away.</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>Sunday at the hotel. He was late in arriving. I thought it would be +pleasanter to wait a bit out in front. Expected he would drive up soon +in a taxi. Then I saw him coming around the corner, walking, rolling +slowly from side to side like a great ship, Mrs. Chesterton with him—a +little lady whose stature suggested the idea of a yacht gracefully +cruising alongside the huge craft. I wonder if, nowadays when most +writers seem to try to look like something else, Mr. Chesterton<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> knows +how overwhelmingly like a great literary figure he looks.</p> + +<p>When we were seated, I asked if he had any dope on his "New Jerusalem" +book. He began to tell me how surprised he had been to find Jerusalem as +it is. But the substance of this you may find in the book. He expressed +sympathy with the idea of Zionism. Remarked that he "might become a +Zionist if it could be accomplished in Zion." All that he could find to +tell me about his "New Jerusalem" was that it had been "written on the +spot." Seemed very disinclined to talk about his own books. Said his +feeling in general about each one of them was that he "hoped something +would happen to it before anybody saw it."</p> + +<p>His surprise at Jerusalem suggested to me the question, Had he been +surprised at the United States—what he had seen of it? But he dodged +giving any "view" of us. His only comment was on the "multitudinous +wooden houses."</p> + +<p>Had he met many American authors? The one most recently met, a day or so +ago in Northampton, though he had met him before in England, was a +gentleman he liked very much. He was so thin Mr. Chesterton thought the +two of<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a> them "should go around together." His name? Gerald Stanley Lee.</p> + +<p>But there is not a particle more of time that I can spend on this +article.<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<br /><br /> +WHEN IS A GREAT CITY A SMALL VILLAGE?</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>OW many times you have noticed it! Regular phenomenon. Suddenly, within +a few hours, the whole nature of the great city is changed—your city +and mine, New York or Chicago, or Boston or Buffalo or Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>Though nobody seems to say much about it afterward. Just sort of take +the thing for granted.</p> + +<p>It is just like Armistice Night, every once in awhile. Total strangers +suddenly begin to call each other "Neighbor." Voices everywhere become +jollier. Numerous passersby begin to whistle and sing. People go with a +skip and a jump. Catcalls are heard. Groups may be seen all around going +arm in arm, and here and there with arms about necks. Anybody speaks to +you merrily. Merrily you speak to anybody. All eyes shine. Roses are in +every cheek. Hurry is abandoned. Small boys run wild. Nobody now objects +to their stealing a ride. It is fun to see<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> their swinging legs dangling +over the tail of every wagon. Sour human nature is purged. Good humor +reigns. Hurrah!</p> + +<p>I mean on the night of a big snow.</p> + +<p>This year it looked for long as though we were going to be done out of +this truly Dickensean festival. Seemed like we were going to be like +those unfortunate people in Southern California, who never have any +winter to cheer them up. How tired they must get of their wives and +neighbors, with it bland summer all the time. Perhaps that is the reason +there is such a promiscuous domestic life out there.</p> + +<p>Young Will Shakespeare had the dope. He piped the weather for jollity +and pep. "When blood is nipp'd"—"a merry note!"</p> + +<p>You remember how it was this time: Spring all winter—and spring fever, +too, a good many of us had all the while. (My doctor said it was +"malaria" with me.) We were congratulating ourselves that we were going +to "get by" without any "blizzards" at all this year. We became "softy." +We guarded ourselves with our umbrellas against the shower. We became +prudent. And what is it Stevenson says of that? "So soon as prudence has +begun to grow up in the brain,<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> like a dismal fungus, it finds its first +expression in a paralysis of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink +spiritually; he develops a fancy for parlors with a regulated +temperature, and takes his morality on the principle of thin shoes and +tepid milk."</p> + +<p>Then one night there came a tinkle in the temperature as of sleigh +bells. And the town, the world sank into a soft blanket of white. Were +you out then? Ah! you should have been. You were not, I hope, in a +parlor with a regulated temperature.</p> + +<p>Well, anyhow, everybody else was out. The cross streets of the big city +had "all to oncet" taken on the air of a small town "sociable." Shadowy +multitudes seemed to sprout up out of the ground. The sidewalks, +especially those usually so deserted at this hour, now ahum with dark +busy bowing figures, rang and clanged gayly with the sound of scoop and +shovel. In the democratic, jovial, village-like spirit of the occasion, +many of the workers (those more staid and portly ones) removed their +coats. Every here and there an areaway held, in a holiday effect, a +cluster of bare-headed maid-servants—the "gallery" of the shovellers, +whose presence<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> tended to make of the task of clearing the sidewalk a +night-hour lark.</p> + +<p>Voices in the street, as you know, and laughter there, is never so +musical as above snow-stilled pavements. Then, too, cheery echoes are +abroad among the recesses between the houses, in the courts and down the +ways where packages are delivered. The shovellers good-naturedly banter +one another and pass a cordial jest with those who travel by. And every +here and there the rich contralto of negro mirth is heard.</p> + +<p>I do not know that the city's parks are not a finer spectacle under snow +than in the summer—their dark glistening branches laden ą la Christmas +card, and, after dark, their festoons of lamps more twinkling and more +yellow than at any other time.</p> + +<p>Along Broadway what a whirl! The street like an arena, hordes of +gladiators in doughty combat with the onslaught of the storm, snow-carts +banging and backing about (horses seem to stomp and snort and rear more +in a snowstorm than at any other time), new ridiculously miniature +"caterpillar tractors" performing like toy tanks at war, traffic in a +hilarious tangle, street cars crawling along looking more than<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> ever +before like prodigious cat-eyed bugs. Here with a terrific buzz comes +one all dark furiously thrashing the snow from side to side by means of +revolving brooms beneath. The crowds an animated silhouette against the +whitened air. One wants to hop and shout one feels so much alive.</p> + +<p>Lots of funny things happen. A taxicab there has got stuck in a drift. +It whirs in a passion. Wallows forward. Runs its nose up a little +hillock of hard crusted snow. Stops. Makes a fine hubbub. Slides back, +stilled, exhausted. Tries again. Same thing repeated. A pounding is +heard on the inside of the door. Chauffeur reaches back his hand to turn +handle of door. Something is wrong. He climbs down. Pulls at door. +Nothing doing. Door has apparently been sprung somehow. Taxi is now +observed to be a bit listed to one side. Pounding, louder than before, +again heard from inside. Conductor from nearby car comes to side of +chauffeur. Also policeman. All lay hold of each other and pull with +united effort at taxi door. Door flies open. Closely knit group of +chauffeur, conductor and policeman nearly tumbles backward into snow. +From cab door descends tall, elegant figure in evening clothes and top +hat. Followed by even<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> more elegant figure of slender lady in opera +cloak. For some reason she appears to be very angry, and shakes her fist +at her three humble liberators. The couple seek some path, from the +trampled oasis where they stand, through the drifts to the sidewalk. +There is none. Her dazzling skirt she has caught high from the mess +about her feet. Perhaps a yard of pale yellow silken hose is revealed +above her satin pumps. Finally in desperation the two plunge forward, +taking gigantic steps, sinking knee-deep at every onward move, +tottering, swaying and at length fairly scrambling toward the haven of +the curb. The dozens along the sidewalk who have been held spellbound by +what they have found to be so delicious a comedy turn to one another +with delighted smiles—and move along again on their way.</p> + +<p>It is things like this always happening all about which make snow-storm +nights in the city such a hippodrome affair, and all the world akin.</p> + +<p>Over on the Avenue busses are busily pushing plows hitched on before. +There one has got stalled in a drift. It whirs and buzzes and backs and +starts and whirs and buzzes over and over again. No use, it seems. +Still, draped along the<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> curb, the spectators stand, unmindful of the +gale, as absorbed as if at a Yale-Princeton game. +Buzzzzzzzzz—Whirrrrrrrrrrr—and away. She's off! A feeble cheer goes +up. And everybody starts onward again in better humor with himself for +having seen so entertaining a show.</p> + +<p>It snowed the night through.</p> + +<p>In the morning banks of snow breast-high through the side streets. +Through a narrow aisle down the middle of the roadway trucks cars and +wagons slowly go in single file. Moving thus all in a single line they +have something the effect of a circus parade—elephants and lion cages +and so on.</p> + +<p>And lions remind me. It is always well to look at public statues and +outdoor pieces of sculpture the morning after a heavy snow. You are +likely to find them very comical apparitions. The celebrated literary +lions before the New York Public Library, for instance, wore throughout +the day after the first big snow of this winter ridiculous tall caps +pulled down very rakishly over their eyes.</p> + +<p>Streaming from the direction of the railroad station were coming the +swarms of our commuter friends, the legs of many of them hoisting along<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> +those prodigious "arctics" which are all the vogue nowadays. Isn't it +curious? There was a time when if you were obliged to wear glasses you +got them as nearly invisible as possible. If you were a man you felt +there was something shameful about having "weak" eyes. If a woman, you +"just knew" that glasses made you look "horrid." And when you wore +overshoes you got them as inconspicuous as possible. Now you affect +shell spectacles that can be seen a block away, and having huge lenses. +Now there is nothing smarter, apparently, than for a young woman with a +trim foot to come into town swaddled in floppers which fit her slim +ankles like a bucket.</p> + +<p>Men are still shovelling and scraping away at the streets, a motley +army. What is it so many persons are pausing to smile at, others +hurrying on but with grinning faces turned back? It is at a gentleman +shoveller. Here recruited somehow among this gang of husky laborers is a +slim eccentric figure in a—yes, a frock coat, a derby hat, kid gloves, +and very tight trousers ... a quaint picture of the shabby genteel. +Walking very briskly back and forth, very upright in carriage, the small +of his back curved inward, he pushes his scraper before him holding it +by the<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> very tip of the long handle—and as well as can be observed +doesn't scrape anything at all. His fellow workers regard him with surly +disgust and roughly bump into him at every opportunity. What story is +there, in that absurd, pathetic scene, what O. Henry tale of mischance +in a great city?</p> + +<p>A wagon on a side street has got its wheels ground into the snow bank at +the side of the narrow cleared way. Such accidents are all about, and +everywhere men may be seen leaving their own affairs to give a helping +hand to a fellow being in sore straits. The visitation of a great snow +storm strikingly unites the bonds of the brotherhood of man.</p> + +<p>Stalled for interminable periods in suburban trains and in traffic jams +hurried men give themselves up cheerfully to the philosophic virtue of +patience.</p> + +<p>Vagabonds sent on errands two miles away return after three hours with +tales of the awful slowness of trolley cars. And on days of great snow +storms meet with Christian forgiveness.<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<br /><br /> +THE UNUSUALNESS OF PARISIAN PHILADELPHIA</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> DISCOVERED the other day that Philadelphia is a very great deal nearer +to Paris than New York is.</p> + +<p>How do I figure out that?</p> + +<p>Plain enough. It's because New York women, buds and matrons, thinking +they are got up (or as the English say, "turned out") smart as anything, +are parading around in fashions today altogether passée.</p> + +<p>You know the New York scene. And how for some considerable time now its +most—well, most apparent feature has been a—er, a hosiery display ... +unparalleled off the gay stage of musical comedy. Very, so to speak, +exhilarating that once was—the glistening spectacle of, moving all +about, those symmetrically tapering lines of pink and rose and orange +and pearl and taupe and heather tan and heather green and purple wool +and sheen of black and gloss of mottled snake and—and all that.<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a></p> + +<p>But, I am afraid, the eye over-long accustomed to the great Metropolitan +movie thriller of the fashionable streets had become somewhat dulled.</p> + +<p>The Parisienne knew about the peculiar character of the eye, and that it +ceases to see with any emotional response at all that which remains +within its range of vision for any extended length of time. So she +(roguish witch!) alertly changed the picture.</p> + +<p>I picked up by chance, during my two-hour run on the train, a copy of +one of our most dashing fashion journals. It was the "Forecast of Spring +Fashions" number. I opened it, at random, at the headline: "The Short +Skirt Has Had Its Day in Paris." Below was a jolly photograph (of a +stunning lady at the latest races at Auteuil) illustrating "the new +skirt length." Visible beneath the hem—a trim foot, and a bit of tidy +ankle.</p> + +<p>Who was the fellow (with a gifted eye for the lasses) who spoke with +such delight of the tiny feet that "like little mice run in and out"? +And there was that other poet (what was his name? I declare! my +literature is getting awful rusty), who sang with such relish the charm +of feminine<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> drapery "concealing yet revealing." Anyhow, you know what +I'm getting at.</p> + +<p>I closed the magazine and forgot about the matter—until shortly after I +had come out of the Broad Street Station.</p> + +<p>The modish scene I apprehended was, to an eye accustomed steadily for +some time to the natty abbreviations of Fifth Avenue, a refreshing, a +charming spectacle. I seemed suddenly to have left my "orchestra seat." +And to have returned again to a view of, so to put it, ladies in private +life.</p> + +<p>Though, indeed, occasionally in the distance I caught a flashing glimpse +of, according to Paris decree, the obsolete skirt length.</p> + +<p>Come to think of it, isn't this so, too: that there are in Philadelphia +more rose-cheeked damsels of hearty figure and athletic-heel swing than +you usually come across in other cities?</p> + +<p>At any rate, there are quite a number of very unusual things about +"Phila," as I believe intimate friends of the city affectionately call +the place. Things which it may be you have not noticed lately—perhaps +because you haven't been there recently, or maybe because you live +there, and so see them every day.<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a></p> + +<p>One of the unusual things about Philadelphia is that so many ladies and +"gem'men" who do light housekeeping on and around Manhattan Island (in +other words "New Yorkers") apparently find it easier frequently to get +to Chicago, or Palm Beach, or London, or Santa Barbara than to journey +to Philadelphia. I suppose the reason for this state of mind is the same +as the cause of my sometimes feeling that it would be about as simple +for me to undertake a trip from the Grand Central to Buffalo as to get +from Times Square down to Fulton Street for a luncheon appointment. A +place which is only half an hour, or two hours away, is a place, you +think, that you can run down to any time. And—well, just at the moment +with everything so pressing and all that. To become keyed up about +taking a "real" trip is another matter.</p> + +<p>And when I myself do get there I always feel that it is an unusual thing +that I have allowed so long a time to lapse since I came before. Because +it is so unusually pleasant and restful a ride that it makes me sore to +think what an unusually deuce of a thing I am put to every night going +home in the rush hour to Dyckman Street on the subway.<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a></p> + +<p>It is an unusual thing (or, at least, so it seems to me) that in +Philadelphia cards in windows advertising rooms to let should be (as +they are) labelled "Vacancies."</p> + +<p>It is an unusual thing that here so many undertakers' shops should be +conducted in what appear to be private residences. It is an unusual +thing that there should be so many ways of paying your fare on the +street cars—in some you pay when you get on, in others when you get +off. It is an unusual thing that in Philadelphia there are more +different kinds of street lamps than (I suspect) there are in any other +city in the world. There are powerful arc lamps, high on tall poles, +cold white in their light. There are lower down, particularly pleasant +in the twinkle of their numbers in Washington Square, gas lamps glowing +a mellow yellow through their mantles. Various other kinds of lamps, +too. But the ones I like best are those squat fellows throughout +Independence Square. Octagonal iron-bound boxes of glass, small at the +base, wide at the top, with a kind of ecclesiastical derby hat of iron +as a lid. They somehow suggest to me the lamps which I fancy before Will +Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a></p> + +<p>Here golden Diana with her bow does not poise high on her slender +Spanish tower. But from far above the "Public Buildings" Brother Penn +looks down on more banks, United States Mints, trust companies, firms +dealing in securities, places handling investments, and such-like +business concerns than (one has a feeling) can be found in any other +city in Christendom. There are too, I should guess, in Philadelphia +about as many different styles and periods of architecture as in any +other municipality between the two great seas: Georgian, Colonial, +bay-window, London brick row, ramshackle frame, modern mansion, +skyscraper, etc., etc., etc. And certainly I don't know where one could +go to count more different kinds of porches. Nor where one could find so +many such pleasant oddities of today as hitching-blocks, doorway +foot-scrapers, and those old friends of our childhood the front yard +stone storks.</p> + +<p>And where, Oh, where! (not even in London) can one find so many alleys +to the square inch? Many of them, lanes of but a few blocks in length, +highly respectable, even aristocratic, quarters of the town. Such as +Camac Street, tucked away between Thirteenth and Twelfth Streets, one<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> +block of it either side of Locust, and the home or haunt of those of +artistic persuasion. Here the famous Franklin Inn Club, the charming +Poor Richard Club, and divers other clubs of kindred spirit. Unusual +this quaint street of art in this: in fixing it up for its present +purpose its quaintness and its "artiness" have not been overdone. Far, +far finer in effect than New York's over eccentric alley of painters, +Washington Mews, its original loveliness has simply been restored. It is +as jolly to look upon as London's artist nook, Cheyne Row. Perhaps even +jollier.</p> + +<p>Now another unusual thing about Philadelphia is that Philadelphians +standing within three blocks of the place can't tell you where South +Carlisle Street is. Professional Philadelphians, such as policemen, +firemen, postmen, street car men, can't do it. In the attempt they +contradict each other, and quarrel among themselves. For the benefit of +both Philadelphians and visitors to the city I will set down here +exactly the location of South Carlisle Street. West of Broad, south of +Pine, it runs one block from Pine to Lombard Street. After a jump, where +there isn't any of it, north of Market Street there is more of it.<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a></p> + +<p>But what the dickens is South Carlisle Street, and why should anybody +care where it is? Well, though it isn't in the books on Historic Shrines +of America it is a street you "hadn't ought to" miss. It's about twelve +feet (or something like that) from wall to wall. The doorways seem to be +about three feet wide. There, in South Carlisle Street, Philadelphia's +mahogany doors, fan-lights above, white pillars before, marble steps +below, her immaculate red brick, her freshly painted wooden shutters, +her gleaming brass knockers are in their most exquisite perfection.</p> + +<p>A wealthy and cultivated gentleman or two "took up" the street a year or +so ago, decided to make their homes there, and it has become quite +"class." Same idea, more or less, that Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt has +concerning the "exodus" of her set from Fifth Avenue to unheard-of +Sutton Place over among the tall yellow chimneys by New York's East +River.</p> + +<p>Considering the great wealth in Philadelphia and its environs, +particularly those patrician environs lying toward Harrisburg, it is, I +think, unusual that you never see on the streets there a Pekingese or a +Pomeranian attended by a personage in livery.<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a></p> + +<p>Unusual, too, that in a city of the first class along the eastern +seaboard so few canes are "worn."</p> + +<p>And, by the way, that's an unusual railroad service from Philadelphia to +New York. Conductor calls out: "Train for Newark and New York. Newark +first stop." Train slides a few feet—halts at West Philadelphia. Spins +along a bit again, and pulls up at North Philadelphia. Stops later along +the way at Trenton, Newark, and Manhattan Junction. I really do not see, +putting a wreck out of the calculation, where else it could stop.</p> + +<p>I took from a boy in the Pennsylvania station a copy of one of New +York's most popular evening papers. It came apart in the middle. +Straightening it out, I caught a headline on the "Talks to Women" page. +It read "Short Skirts Remain." Below a cut of a beaming lass attired, +the caption said, in "frock of navy blue ruffled taffeta with short +sleeves and 'shorter' skirt."</p> + +<p>When I came out onto the street the temperature (in skirts) seemed to +have risen since my departure a couple of days before.<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /><br /> +OUR LAST SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT AS A FINE ART</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> HAVE just witnessed a revelation. At least, it was a revelation to me. +I'm keen on telling you all about it.</p> + +<p>One of my earlier articles in this series had to do with the +establishment here and there in a great city of those gentlemen engaged +in the estimable business of packing you up for keeps—that is the +"parlors" of various sorts of "undertakers." I had been much struck by +the vast number of cozy little places catering, so to say, to the poor +and humble who have forever (as Stevenson puts it) "parted company with +their aches and ecstasies." And I had wondered at how very few places +there were in evidence on the streets to take care of the "remains" of, +in a manner of speaking, the first-cabin passengers in life, those who +have travelled through their days in a fashion de luxe. The +establishments of this type which now and then I did see were very +palatial indeed—and didn't look at all as though<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> they would +countenance the corpse of just an ordinary person such as you and me.</p> + +<p>Also, all the undertaking establishments visible to me in my goings and +comings about town were quite obviously undertaking establishments. They +displayed within and without the air, the accoutrements, the +paraphernalia traditionally associated with one's last social engagement +on earth, his funeral. They varied only in this: some were rich and +haughty in general effect, others simple and perhaps dingy in +appearance. But each and all of them looked as much like an undertaking +shop as a barber shop looks like a barber shop. You could not possibly +have mistaken any one of them for a Turkish bath establishment, or a +Carnegie library, or an office for steamship tickets.</p> + +<p>As I say, I wrote that article telling all this and that about what +anybody may see any day as he goes about on his rounds through the thick +of the city. But when the article appeared—originally—it soon +developed that I was not abreast of undertaking matters at all. I had +not in the least kept track of the remarkable advances which have to +date been made in the art of being buried—and a very fine art, in the +advanced<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a> phases of the affair, it certainly has become. I did not even +know the present-day, the correct, name for what I, in so old-fashioned +a condition of mind, called an "undertaker's." No.</p> + +<p>That word, "undertaker," has long, long ago been discarded by the élite +of the profession. What a queer word as a business title it was, anyway! +How did it originally ever come to be used in its mortuary relation? No +one in the business that I have asked has been able to tell me. And why +in the dim past when names were being given to trades did not this word, +undertaker, seem to be equally descriptive of the career of physician or +attorney? Indeed, does not he that sets himself the highly hazardous +task of saving a living fellow being from disease or the gallows +undertake to do more than he who merely performs the quiet office of +laying us away?</p> + +<p>And then, oddly enough for its tragic associations, the word acquired in +our minds something of a ludicrous turn. It was reminiscent of Dickens, +of hired professional "mourners," and that sort of thing. At mention of +the word, a picture popped into our mind of a grotesquely angular being, +of sallow, elongated features and lugubrious<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a> manner, garbed in a rusty +frock coat and "stove pipe" hat, who put together before him the tips of +black-gloved fingers and spoke with a hollow sound. We would say to our +friends when they were feeling blue: "What's the matter with you? You +act like an undertaker."</p> + +<p>Well, as doubtless you have noticed, the term "funeral director" more or +less recently pretty well superseded the word undertaker among +progressive concerns. It is a phrase much more in the modern spirit, +like "domestic science" for (what used to be) "household work," +"modiste" for "dressmaker," "maid" for "hired-girl," "psychic" for +"fortune teller," "publicity engineer" for "press agent," and so on. And +it has a good, business-like, efficient sound.</p> + +<p>Still (I discovered) to be buried by a funeral director is not the very +latest, the most fashionable thing. The really smart way nowadays of +bidding good-bye to the world is to go to the establishment of a +"mortician."</p> + +<p>Yes; that's what the gentleman said in his very cordial letter: would I +care to look over a "real mortician's establishment in New York City?" I +replied that nothing could give me greater<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> pleasure. So at the time +appointed a couple of days later his car came round for me.</p> + +<p>When I told people of the visit I was about to make, they all laughed, +very heartily. Now that brings to one's attention a curious thing: why +should they laugh? Honestly, between you and me, think hard and tell me +what really there is funny about going to see a burial establishment?</p> + +<p>Paradoxical indeed is the attitude of mind of practically everyone +toward this subject of being ushered out of life. Sundry totally +contradictory emotions are aroused in the very same person by slightly +different aspects of the same subject. If you remark that you are going +to spend the afternoon at the undertaker's that is awfully amusing. At +the same time, is not nearly everyone down in his heart a bit scared of +undertakers' shops? Uncomfortable, gruesome places, would not most of us +feel, to have next door?</p> + +<p>At any rate, as we glided along I was told by the gentleman who had come +to fetch me that the feeling was very general that the presence of a +funeral director's establishment depreciated the value of property in +the immediate neighborhood. Though, he asserted, this popular idea +frequently had not at all been borne out in fact.<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a></p> + +<p>It developed (from his lively conversation) that nothing so much annoys +a funeral director, or a mortician, as for a visitor to pull old gags +which he thinks are smart—such, for instance, as the remark: "I see +your business is pretty dead." I gathered that this jocular pleasantry +was the stock joke of all near-wits who visited undertakers—I mean +morticians.</p> + +<p>No; there is another thing which annoys these gentlemen (morticians) +even more than such punk puns as that. They deeply resent, I discovered, +any disrespectful allusion to their silent clients, such as calling them +"stiffs," or something like that. How would you, they ask, like to have +someone of yours—someone who but yesterday returned your heart's clasp, +now dumb and cold—made game of by such ribaldry? Certainly, I cannot +say that I should like it.</p> + +<p>Another paradoxical contradiction! Tell me (if you can) what strange +spring of his being prompts a man to think it big and bold and hearty of +him to speak with such cynical contemptuousness of a fellow man returned +to rigid clay.</p> + +<p>We had arrived at our destination, I was told. But I saw nothing, but +what was (seemingly) a rather handsome private residence, set in a +pleasant<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> lawn. Though I did discern by the door a modest plate which +read (as I recall the name) "Wentworth Brothers," nothing more. +Wentworth Brothers might have been, for all the exterior evidence to the +contrary, architects, or teachers of dancing and the piano, or breeders +of pedigreed dogs, or dealers in antiques, or physical instructors, or +almost anything you please.</p> + +<p>This I soon learned was the fundamental principle of the sensitive art +of the mortician—to scrap all the old stage properties of the bugaboo +type of undertaker.</p> + +<p>We passed into a charming hall, light and cheerful, furnished in +excellent taste, altogether domestic in effect. A number of bright +looking people, apparently attached to the premises, were lightly moving +about. I had somewhat the sensation of having come to a most agreeable +afternoon tea.</p> + +<p>I was presented to my host, as cheerful, wholesome and cordial a young +chap as anyone would care anywhere to see. The senior, he, of the +brothers. I had been a little depressed that morning, having a bad cold +and being fretted by a number of gloomy things, but as we proceeded<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> +through the house my spirits picked up decidedly. I experienced a +feeling of mental and physical well-being, so attractive was everything +about.</p> + +<p>A dainty reception room opened off the hall at the front. My impression +was of a nice amount of charming Colonial furniture. Altogether such a +room as you might see in an illustration in the magazine <i>House and +Garden</i>. Secluded back of this rooms having a brisk atmosphere and +serving as offices. Peopled by very trim and efficient looking young +people.</p> + +<p>We descended to the "stock room," a most sanitary looking place of +cement floor, ceiling and walls, where was a large store of caskets of +many varieties. Behind this a spick and span embalming room which +(except for the two tables) somewhat suggested an admirable creamery. +Here I discovered that to the mind of the mortician towels belong to the +Dark Ages. The up-to-date way of drying hands is by holding them before +a blast of air turned on from a pipe.</p> + +<p>We ascended to the third floor. Here were the chapels, rooms which might +have been designed to accommodate fashionable audiences attending +literary lectures. In connection with them a tiny "minister's study," +not unlike the<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> sanctum of a university professor. Also here small hotel +suites, each with bath attached, available for the bereaved from out of +town. Here, too, snug quarters for wakes. And a spacious chamber wherein +friends may sit for a little last visit with the departed. The dominant +article of furniture in this room an Empire lounge such as we see +supporting the figure of Madame Récamier in the famous portrait by +David. A consummate refinement was shown me on this floor: telephones, +concealed behind panels in the wall, with no bells to jangle over-tried +nerves, but with a tiny red electric globe on the wall to light as the +signal.</p> + +<p>The top floor a dormitory for male employees, having much the effect of +rooms for boys at college, gay soft cushions, pipes and mandolins +scattered about.</p> + +<p>I lingered for a smoke and a chat with my host on the ground floor in an +oak panelled room like the library of a gentleman's club before leaving.</p> + +<p>I came away with (I very much fear) an idea that I should like to go +back tomorrow and see some one of my friends so agreeably buried from +that place.<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<br /><br /> +WRITING IN ROOMS</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> REMEMBER that I was somewhat surprised when E. V. Lucas expressed +surprise that I was writing in my room at the hotel where we both +happened to be at the same time for several days last summer. He +declared with an expression of sharp distaste that he could not write in +hotel rooms. But said he had no difficulty in writing on trains. That +rather got me, because I can't write at all on trains. And possibly +because I was a bit peeved at the easy way in which he spoke of doing +that exceedingly difficult thing, writing on trains, I asserted in reply +that anybody ought to be able to write in <i>any kind</i> of a room. But I do +know, what every writer knows, that the particular room one may be in +can make a good deal of difference in the way one is able to write.</p> + +<p>Of course, it does appear to be true that there are writers of a kind +that can write anywhere in any circumstances, apparently with equal +facility<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> and their customary standard of merit, whatever that may be. I +suppose war correspondents must be like that, and reporters for daily +newspapers. We know that a good many war books were announced as having +been written in dugouts, trenches, pill-boxes, tanks, submarines, +hospitals, airplanes and so on. In the matter of some of them I should +not undertake to dispute that they had even been written in asylums.</p> + +<p>I have known, and known well, men of that type of mind which seemed to +be so completely under control that at will it could be turned on or +off, so to say, like the stream from a water faucet. My friend Joyce +Kilmer had such a head. It has been told how some of his most moving +poems—for one instance "The White Ships and the Red"—were the result +of hurried newspaper assignments: how he could leave a poem in the +middle of its composition, go out and lunch heartily for two hours, +return and finish the writing of it; how early in his career he would +walk up and down a room of his home in suburban New Jersey at two in the +morning and dictate (without a pause) to his wife while carrying a +shrilly crying child in his arms; how<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> one of the best of his "Sunday +stories" was dictated directly after having been taken to a hospital +with three ribs fractured by being hit by his commutation train—and how +much more. A young man with a brain in perfect practical working +condition. But even he was not free from the mysterious tricks of +creative writing. For we know that after a daily round sustained for a +number of years of high productivity, when he went into the war, which +inspired countless others to <i>begin</i> writing, he suddenly ceased to +write, practically altogether.</p> + +<p>Poets and trains being up, brings to my mind my friend the Reverend +Edward F. Garesché, S. J., a source of amusement to many of his friends +because of his method of composition. He travels continually. Frequently +he will excuse himself from a group with whom he is talking, go to his +own seat, request the porter to bring him a card table, get out his +travelling typewriter, rattle off several poems, return to his party and +resume conversation at about where he had left off. Some of his poems +are very good; some (I'm sorry to have to say) are—not so good.</p> + +<p>And so round we come again to the matter of writing in rooms. We know +how Booth Tarkington<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> writes: in what he calls a "work spree," in a room +upstairs at home, a pile of freshly sharpened pencils ready to his +hand—and that, doubtless, he wouldn't be able to write anything in an +office if he were to be hanged for not doing it. (Probably never goes to +an office.) Meredith Nicholson, on the other hand, declares that the +only way it is possible for him to write is to go regularly at nine +o'clock every morning to an office he has downtown; where he tells +anyone who may ask over the telephone that he'll be there until five in +the afternoon.</p> + +<p>There are persons who like to have others around them, moving about, +while they write. And people there are who find it necessary to lock +themselves up, and can have no one else in the room. Though in some +cases such persons would not mind the bang of a bass-drum just the other +side of the door. I know a man who had an office in lower Manhattan +where for a considerable period just outside his open window a steam +riveter was at work. Terrific it was, the way the noise of this machine +smashed the air into tiny particles like a shower of broken glass. +Callers who found this man contentedly writing would hold their ears and +look at him with their<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> hair on end from amazement. A man of highly +nervous organism, too; one who would be very upset if his typewriter had +a pale ribbon, or be spoiled for the day if he couldn't find the right +pen—worn over just to his liking at the point. But, after the first day +or so, Mr. Soaping (name of the gentleman I'm telling you about) I know +didn't hear the riveter at all.</p> + +<p>Then those exist, Royal Cortissoz is one, who, dictating all they do, +can have in the room while they work only their secretary. Frequently is +it the case, too, that none but the amanuensis to whom they have been +long accustomed will do. A stranger throws 'em completely off. A +novelist I know, the writer of a very good style, who becomes very much +fussed up, and is practically destroyed, when he suspects a secretary of +giving critical attention to the manner of his prose. An embarrassing +thing about most stenographers, I have found, is that they are greatly +grieved if you say "'em" for "them," or anything like that. Or else they +won't let you do such things at all, and edit everything pleasant back +into perfectly good copy-book English. Some of them won't even let you +split an infinitive.<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a></p> + +<p>Who was it, Voltaire, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, somebody, who could +write only when elaborately got up in his satins and ruffles? It is what +not long ago was called a bromidium to say that humorists are sad +people. I'd probably be thought humorous if I should call myself any +particular flier as a humorist, but this I know: wherever in my writing +I may have approached being amusing that generally was written when I +was considerably depressed. Forenoon is the best time for some to write; +late at night for others. "Ben Hur," I seem to recall, was penned +beneath a noble tree. At any rate, we frequently see pictures of +novelists, particularly in England, at work in their gardens. The most +familiar photographs, etchings, medallions and so on of Mark Twain and +of Robert Louis Stevenson at work are those of them writing in bed. Now +I can't (as some so take their breakfast) eat in bed; and I'm quite sure +I should never be able comfortably to write anything there. I do not +tell you how it is with me because I regard it as of deep interest to +you to hear how it is with me, but merely to aid me in assembling a +collection of facts concerning the freakishness<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> of writing, and to +suggest to you how very different it may be with <i>you</i>.</p> + +<p>And I couldn't write under a tree. One writer, perhaps, writes more +easily in the winter than in the summer, or it is the other way round. +The mind of one, it may be, is stimulated by the companionship of an +open fire, and that of another (for aught I know) by the companionship +of an ice-box. Personally, I think that it is well in writing for the +weather to be cool enough to have the windows down; and that night is +the best time, for the reason that your mind (or, at least, my mind) is +more gathered together within the circle of light at your desk.</p> + +<p>Frequently, however (as you know), after sitting for hours with your +mind plumb stalled, it is not until shortly before your bed time that +that eccentric engine, your brain, gets buzzed up. Then, probably, you +can't call the thing off if you want to. I will tell you a story:</p> + +<p>A man there is, of some renown as a writer, who started a new book early +last spring. For some considerable time he had been much discouraged +about his writing. Hadn't been able to make it go. Could only lift +heavily and painfully one stilted sentence after another. Used<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> to take +up now and then one or another of his early books and look into it. +Marvelled how it was that he ever could have written such clever stuff. +Like Swift when late in life he re-read "Gulliver," so did this man +exclaim: "What a genius I had at that time!" He felt that the fire had +gone out; his inner life seemed to have completely died; he was a hollow +shell; could now neither receive nor impart anything worth half a +jews-harp. When, one day, he heard rosy, young Hugh Walpole say of +himself that of course what he had written was merely a beginning to +what he felt he might do, this man looked at rosy, young Hugh Walpole +with a deeply gloomy and very jealous eye.</p> + +<p>But, lo! as I say, this man started this new book. It began as a series +of articles for which he was to be paid—that was <i>why</i> it was begun at +all. Now see! With him it was as Professor George Edward Woodberry says +of Poe in his admirable "Life"—for a time his genius had "slept." With +the start of the new book he awoke. It began to run right out of the +ends of his fingers. Took (that book) hold of him completely. He +couldn't leave it. Go to bed, have to get up and go at it again. Try to +go<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> out for a round of exercise. After a block or so from his quarters, +walk slower and slower. Miserable. Tortured. Turn back. Immediately +happy again. Soon be back at work. Anybody who entangled him with an +invitation anywhere enraged him beyond measure.</p> + +<p>New book finished. Everything fine. Got another commission. Easy enough +job. Set to at it. Empty vessel again! In despair. He'd make all sorts +of excuses to himself to leave his place early in the morning to +postpone beginning work. He'd go anywhere, with anybody, to keep as long +as possible from facing that task again. Couldn't give any sensible +explanation of his prolonged delay to the publishers. Kept putting them +off again and again, with one cripple-legged excuse after another, in +the hope that he'd come round. Matter became a disgrace.</p> + +<p>Still queerer cases than that I know. Fellow who shared an apartment +with me one time. When according to the accepted law of nature his mind +should have been in a very bad way, then always was he at his best. +After leading a regular, wholesome life for a period his mind would +become dull, stale and unprofitable. When, following a very different +sort of period,<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a> he should in all reason have awakened with a splitting +head, a swollen eye and a shaking hand, he would get up at about dawn +one morning in rattling fine spirits, his mind as clear as a bell, and +with an impassioned desire to work. Could, then, write like a streak. +But doesn't William James touch upon such a matter as this somewhere?</p> + +<p>And Stevenson, how wrong he got the thing! What is it he tells us as to +the years of apprenticeship to writing:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is only after years of such gymnastic that one can sit down at +last, legions of words swarming to his call, dozens of turns of +phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice, and he himself +knowing what he wants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man's +ability) able to do it.</p></div> + +<p>Only last night it was I was talking to Jesse Lynch Williams. He said +nothing of "legions of words swarming to his call," nary a mention of +"dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice." +Instead, he asked if I found that writing came easier as time went on. +No, he said, it seemed to him that writing became harder and harder the +longer one wrote. That he had torn up everything he had done for a long +while.</p> + +<p>Always the paradox! Again, there are men<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> who write with astonishing +ease, or at least with astonishing rapidity, and write well. Not so long +ago I began a novel in collaboration with a writer known and admired +from coast to coast, a frequent contributor to <i>The Bookman</i>, and one of +the best. We were to do this thing turn and turn about, a chapter by me, +then a chapter by him, and so on. For something like ten days I toiled +over chapter one. I labored and I groaned. When it was finished I was +spent. I handed him the manuscript; he stuffed it into his overcoat +pocket and went whistling away. Returned within a few days and handed me +a wad of copy covering, I think, three chapters. Again I toiled in the +sweat of my brow. Gave him another chapter. When, after a couple of +weeks or something like that, he returned and I had read what he had +done I discovered that he had got people married that I hadn't known +were yet born. The collaboration busted up.</p> + +<p>My excellent friend does not like me to tell this story, because he +thinks it represents me as the conscientious artist and him as the +shallow scribbler. Well, that was not so; his chapters were far better +than mine. Nevertheless, his name I shall not give; I'll merely say<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> +that it has very much the sound of a name borne by one of the +Elizabethan dramatists.</p> + +<p>Then there is that sort of human head-piece which can only write when it +absolutely has to. I allude to the magical instrument of coercion known +as a "copy date." I know people, dozens of them, who having a month and +a half ahead of them in which to do an article can't possibly get +started on it until it is almost too late for them to get it in on time +to go to press—when a mad frenzy seizes them, their indolence vanishes +like mist before the rising sun, their minds open like a flower, and all +is well.</p> + +<p>And the "galley slaves," those poor devils who for years have lived +under the whip of copy day every day. How they dream of the "real" +things they might do, given time. If (they think) the Lord would only +subsidize them! Now and then the Devil takes one of them and does this +very thing. The happy man gets some sort of a sinecure. All he has to do +is to go write. And (in all probability) that's all there is to that +story. He is like those things Riley tells about who "swaller +theirselves." He gets nothing written.</p> + +<p>What do you write with? And why do you write with whatever it is you +write with instead<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> of with something else? Why did Mr. Howells (in all +the writing of his which I have seen) use a script-letter typewriter +instead of a Roman-letter machine? Why does Mr. Le Gallienne do so much +of his copy (if not all of it) by hand? Why is it that Mr. Huneker could +never either dictate or learn to run a typewriter? How is it possible +for those Englishmen—Swinnerton and Bennett, for instance—to put forth +in a few months whole novels in the monkish hand of an illuminated +missal? (I have seen the original manuscript of "The Old Wives' Tale," +every page like a copper-plate engraving, and hardly a correction +throughout.) And why is that it seems to me most natural to write some +things with a pen, others with a pencil, most things on a typewriter, +and yet again mix the use of all three implements in one composition? I +cannot tell you.</p> + +<p>Some authors, if they are going to write about a slum, have to go and +live in a slum while they are writing about a slum. Other authors, if +they are going to write about life in an Ohio town, go to Italy to write +about life in an Ohio town. In his excellent book "On the Trail of +Stevenson" Clayton Hamilton says:<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Throughout his lifelong wanderings, Stevenson rarely or never +attempted to describe a place so long as he was in it. For his +selection of descriptive detail he relied always on the +subconscious artistry of memory. He trusted his own mind to forget +the non-essential; and he seized upon whatever he remembered as, by +that token, the most essential features of a scene—the features, +therefore, that cried out to be selected as the focal points of the +picture to be suggested to the mind's eye of his readers.</p></div> + +<p>The author of the thirteen volumes known as "The Chronicles of +Barsetshire," a detailed picture of the English clergy of his time, had +never associated with bishops, deans, and arch-deacons; he built them up +(to use his own expression) out of his "moral consciousness."</p> + +<p>But round to rooms again. Often has it been told how Anthony Trollope +worked. How he accomplished so much—thirty-odd novels besides as many +tales—by a method he recommended to all who wish to pursue successfully +the literary career. In the drawing room of the Athenęum Club, in a +railway carriage, or on the ocean, wherever he might be he seated +himself for three hours as a limit, with his watch before him; and +regularly as it marked the quarter hour he turned off two hundred and +fifty words, undisturbed by any distraction about him. We know that the +unlettered man of genius, John Bunyan, wrote his<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> immortal allegory "The +Pilgrim's Progress" in Bedford jail. And there is being advertised now a +book recently written in an American prison. And much writing has been +done in garrets. Then here's our old friend George Moore. Again and +again he has told of exactly the places it was necessary for him to live +in while he wrote certain books. I open at random "Ave"; and I find +this:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I descended the hillside towards the loveliest prospect that ever +greeted mortal eyes.... And I walked thinking if there were one +among my friends who would restore Mount Venus sufficiently for the +summer months, long enough for me to write my book.</p></div> + +<p>Now, to be quite frank with you, I didn't intend to write this paper at +all. You may remember that when I set out I was merely in disagreement +with Mr. Lucas concerning the matter of writing in a hotel room. One +thing (as it will) led to another; and the upshot has been all this +pother. However, there are, I hope, no bones broken—and that's saying a +good deal for any kind of a discussion in these unsettled times.</p> + +<p>What I am coming to is (the fashionable thing to come to nowadays) the +psychic. A fellow I know was much puzzled. He recently got back to 16 +Gramercy Park from a trip around the<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> world. I saw him there having some +toast and a pot of tea. He told me these interesting circumstances. He +would be at a superbly appointed hotel in some city. Beautiful suite of +rooms. Commodious bath-room with lovely bay-window. Everything to make +for perfect mental and physical well-being. Impotent to write there. +Later runs into some terrible dump of a lodging house. Horrible din of +low noises all about. One dirty window looks out on scene of squalor. So +cold at night has to put chair on bed and sit there to be nearer gas +jet. Gets on wonderfully with writing. Strikes another place, handsomest +of all; writes pretty well. Comes to most fearful place yet; can't write +at all.</p> + +<p>Couldn't make head nor tail of the matter, this fellow. Discussed the +thing with many people. Finally found young woman who gave convincing +explanation. It's like this: Undoubtedly you are, in any room, affected +by something of the spirit which lingers there of former occupants. +Maybe they were persons, whatever their station in life, sympathetic to +your spirit—maybe not.<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X<br /><br /> +TAKING THE AIR IN SAN FRANCISCO</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> few days ago, in the warm and brilliant winter sunlight there, I was +strolling along the Embarcadero. Now all my life I have been very fond +of roving the streets....</p> + +<p>And that confession reminds me:</p> + +<p>I one time heard a minister (a clergyman of considerable force of +eloquence) preach a sermon against streets. His idea seemed to be that +streets were not good for one—that they were very bad places. He +admonished mothers to keep their children "off the streets." He regarded +it as very reprehensible in a wife for her to "gad the streets." The +footpad (he said) plied the street at night, while the righteous were at +home in bed. What so sad as "a child of the streets"? If we wished to +describe a worthless canine we called it a "street dog." The outcast has +his home in the streets. The drunkard makes his bed in the street. It +was painful (I gathered)<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> for a civilized being to hear the "language of +the street." And so on.</p> + +<p>But I very much fear that the eloquence of this gentleman was greater +than his Christianity. If we are to love our neighbors as we do +ourselves, we will find him in greatest variety in the streets. If we +are to give away our cloak, the beneficiary, I should think, would be a +citizen much accustomed to the streets. And, as far as I can make out, +there is more rejoicing in heaven over the arrival of a sister who has +"walked the streets" than attends the reception of a nun.</p> + +<p>Certainly I admit that roaming the streets (like everything else) can +doubtless be overdone. Nevertheless, to most people, people of ordinary +ways of life (like myself), I highly recommend the practice, as a most +healthful exercise, as a pleasant course of profitable education, as a +source of endless amusement, and as a Christian virtue. The trouble, I +think, with most of us is not that we see too much of the streets but +that we do not see as well as we might the streets we happen to be on. +We do not read as we run.</p> + +<p>So I would write an article In Praise of Streets.</p> + +<p>As I was saying (when that minister switched<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> me off), I was strolling +along the Embarcadero. Among all the different sorts of streets there +are none I think more beguiling than those which lie along the water +front of a town or a city. The water-front streets of all seaport +cities, of course, partake very much of the same character. Particularly +in the picturesque aspect of the shop windows.</p> + +<p>Here along the rim of San Francisco Bay you pass the sparkling pier +buildings (now and then of Spanish mission architecture) of the Toyo +Kisen Kaisha Oriental S. S. Co., of the American Hawaiian S. S. Co., the +Kosmos Line, and the Pacific-Alaska Navigation Co., among others. While +on New York's West Street you see the structures of the White Star Line, +the Cunard Line, the Red Star Line, erected in masonry of a sort of +mammoth and glorified garage architecture, funnels and masts peeping +over the top; and further down the frame sheds of the Morgan Line, the +Clyde Steam Ship Company, Savannah Line, Lackawanna Rail Road, Hoboken +Ferry, and so on. But the tastes of the sailor man as a shopper appear +to be very much the same whether he is along the London docks, on West +Street, by Boston piers or here on the Embarcadero.<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> In this the West +and the East do meet.</p> + +<p>The ęsthetic taste of the water front inclines, very decidedly, to the +ornate. As (presumably) a present to a lady and a decoration for the +home the favorite object seems to be a heavy china plate. A romantic +landscape, or a moonlight scene, or perhaps a still life study of portly +roses is "hand painted" in very thick pigment on its face. Its rim is +plaited in effect, like the edge of a fancy pie, and through numerous +openings in this rim is run a heavy ribbon by which to hang it on the +wall.</p> + +<p>Next in prominence in the window displays of water-front bazaars is the +set of bleary-colored glass ware (upper edges bound in gold) which I +take to be designed for the purpose of serving punch, or perhaps +lemonade—a large bowl of warty surface, with a number of cups to match +hanging from hooks at its brim.</p> + +<p>The water front obviously is strong for the amenities, the arts and the +refinements of life. Bottles of perfume (with huge bows of ribbon at +their necks) are in great abundance in its shop windows; as also are +packets of boudoir soap (Dawn Lilac seems to be the favorite), toilet<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> +powders, silk initial handkerchiefs, opera glasses, ladies' garters of +very fluffy design, feminine combs ornamented with birds in gilt, +exceedingly high stand-up collars for gentlemen, banjos, guitars, +mandolins, accordions (of a great variety of sizes), harmonicas, playing +cards, dice and poker chips.</p> + +<p>As for the rest of the display, it is a multifarious collection: rubber +hip-boots, hair clippers, money belts, brogans, bandana handkerchiefs, +binoculars, tobacco pouches, spools of thread, pitch-black plug tobacco, +hand searchlights, heavy underwear, woolen sox, razor strops, tin +watches, shaving brushes, elaborately carved pipes, trays of heavy +rings, and here and there some quaint curiosity, such as a little model +of a sailing ship in a bottle which it could not have entered through +the mouth, or some such oddity as that.</p> + +<p>One old friend of mine on West Street I missed on the Embarcadero. And +that is (very battered and worn are the specimens of him which remain as +the last of his noble race) the cigar-store wooden Indian.</p> + +<p>And (I much regret) neither on the Embarcadero nor on any other water +front in America do we have the rich costume ball effects that you<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> find +about the docks of London. There (as you remember) about the East India +and the West India docks may be observed tall, dark visaged figures in +loosely flowing robes and brilliant turbans solemnly pushing along high +laden trucks and, high above on the decks of ships, hauling away at +ropes.</p> + +<p>But on the shore side of the San Francisco water front, my fancy was +much taken by the salt sea savor of the signs of the houses of +entertainment—signs reminiscent of the jovial days of briny romance, +echoed in the chantey in "Treasure Island," which has as its refrain:</p> + +<p class="c">Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum.</p> + +<p>I passed, among others, the Marine Café, the Navy Café, the Admiral +Café, the Harbor Bar, and the Ferry Café.</p> + +<p>I did not turn up Market Street, but went on around the nose of the +peninsula, which is the foundation of San Francisco. I passed a +three-masted ship, the <i>Lizzie Vance</i>, lying by her wharf, with men +aloft in her rigging. Then I clambered up endless relays of rickety +wooden stairs mounting Telegraph Hill. On either side of the ladder-like +steps, ramshackle cabins bedecked with<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> lines of fluttering "wash." Like +the celebrated editor of <i>Puck</i>, H. C. Bunner, I might say that in my +travels I've missed many a cathedral but I never missed a slum.</p> + +<p>I went along through the Latin Quarter, slid down the steep slope of +Kearny Street, and found myself wandering into that quaint little park, +Portsmouth Square, where R. L. S. in his most stressful days lounged in +the sun and listened to the tales of the vagabonds of the Seven Seas. +Somewhat bigger than tiny Gramercy Park, hardly as large as little +Madison Square, this park. In the center of the bit of rolling lawn, +before a towering screen of rustling trees, the graceful little stone +ship, buoyant on its curling stone wave, rides atop its tall stone +pedestal graved "To Remember Robert Louis Stevenson," and on the face of +which is cut that most fragrant of creeds, which (as everyone knows) +begins: "To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little and to spend a +little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence" +...</p> + +<p>Behind the bench on which I rested was the establishment, so proclaimed +the legend printed on its front, of Wing Sun, Funeral Director. For, as +you know, Portsmouth Square is embraced<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a> on one side by prosperous +Chinatown, and on the other by the Italian quarter of San Francisco. And +the races, Latin and Oriental, mingle in the little park to take the +air.</p> + +<p>What here is still more colorful and picturesque, frequently there is a +striking and amusing mixture of races in the costume of an individual +figure. A Manchu lady, it may be, of waxen, enigmatic features, draped +in flowing black silken trousers, hobbles along on high-heeled, +pearl-colored American shoes. And there a slim reed of an Oriental +maiden, with a complexion like a California orange, whisks by in the +smartest of tailored suits—without a hat, her gleaming black hair done +in Chinese fashion, long ornamented rods thrust through it, a vivid +pendant of bright blossoms at one side of the head.</p> + +<p>Sitting there, I thought of the nature of public parks and what pleasant +places they are.</p> + +<p>Splendid thing, elaborate park "systems," whereby you may go for miles +through a grimy city, and move among groves and meadows and bosky dells, +with inspiriting glimpses of mirror-like ponds and flashing streams all +the way. And of course I enjoy the great parks of a great city.</p> + +<p>But more appealing to me than the gorgeous<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> spectacle of Hyde Park, or +Van Cortlandt, or Fairmont, or Jackson, or Forest Park are the little +places tucked here and there in the seething caldron of the town. These +are a lovely department of the streets—they are the little parlors of +the streets. Here calls are made, and infants sun themselves—they have, +these parklets, their social and their domestic life, under the +democratic heavens.</p> + +<p>Now soon is a time to watch with joy these plots of open space in the +city's rushing life. Spring is more winsome on Boston Common and at +Union Square than in the country. A tuft of green shoots seen against +canyon walls of steel and stone—one must be in the city to savor the +tenderness of spring.</p> + +<p>And when summer comes and (in our eastern climate) all the town swelters +under a blanket of gritty dust and heavy heat, then one comes upon one +of these small areas of greenery with the refreshment of spirit with +which at the meal hour one greets the appearance of a nice, cool, green +salad.</p> + +<p>I arose from my seat in Portsmouth Square and wandered off for the rest +of the day through the Streets.<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI<br /><br /> +BIDDING MR. CHESTERTON GOOD-BYE</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE note, which came altogether as a surprise, read: "My husband +suggests that if you have nothing better to do perhaps you would look in +upon us on Wednesday evening at about eight-thirty." Mrs. Chesterton +further said, in giving the address, that they had a little apartment +lent to them for the last week of their stay here. She had asked Mr. +Woollcott to come, too, and Gerald Stanley Lee.... "We can only promise +you smokes and talk."</p> + +<p>I wondered, as I hurried for the 'bus, whether I'd have time to get my +shoes polished. It was precisely the hour appointed when I reached what +I took to be the door. The hall-man declared that he had "gone out." I +insisted that the hall-man telephone up. "No answer," he said, after a +bit, and hung up. Now what do you think of that! Well, I'd take a walk +and return a little later.<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a></p> + +<p>As I was rounding the corner coming back I saw an agile, rotund figure, +with a gleam of white shirt-front in the half darkness, mounting the +dusky steps instead of descending into the lighted areaway. Looked kinda +like Mr. Woollcott. If so, the gentleman was going wrong, so I called to +him.</p> + +<p>"He has not come back," the hall-man asserted, but assented to our +demands to ring up again. No response. "It was about an hour ago he went +out," he replied to our question. Standing there, Mr. Woollcott and I +contrived several theories. One was that Mr. Chesterton had intended to +return by now but had lost track of the time. Another was that possibly +Mrs. Chesterton had invited us on her own hook and had overlooked +notifying Mr. Chesterton of the matter. "Has a third gentleman been +here?" we asked, meaning Mr. Lee. No. We went for a stroll.</p> + +<p>It was nine o'clock. And Mr. Woollcott's manner indicated that he was +inclined to take some sort of revenge on the hall-man. Was he, the +hall-man, certain that he had everything straight? "Sure," he nodded; +"it's Mr. Cushman's apartment." Mr. Cushman's apartment! Had we, then, +been blundering in the wrong place<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> all this time! "Mr. Chesterton!" +roared Mr. Woollcott. Yes, yes; he understood that ... the gentleman had +come in yesterday. That was right according to the note I had had from +Mrs. Chesterton; so we demanded that the man make another effort at the +telephone. Ah!... he heard something. "It's all right," he mumbled; +"they are there."</p> + +<p>As we got out of the car Mr. Chesterton was cramming the tiny hall. He +was in an attitude which I took to be that of a bow, but I later +discovered, as he shuffled back and forth about the apartment, that he +walks that way all the time now when in the privacy of his own quarters. +Mrs. Chesterton greeted us as we entered the room, Mr. Chesterton +trailing in behind us and continuing a welcoming murmur which had +somewhat the sound of a playful brook. Mrs. Chesterton ensconced herself +behind a tea table. Mr. Chesterton lumbered about with cigars. He +disclaimed the great easy chair by the electric table lamp in which it +was unmistakable that he had been sitting, but was prevailed upon to +return to it.</p> + +<p>In apology for the lateness of our arrival we mentioned our difficulties +in discovering that he<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> was in. Mr. Chesterton seemed bewildered by the +circumstance. He shook his head and (evidently referring to the +hall-man) said he was not able to understand "that foreigner" at all. +"That foreigner?" we smiled at the Englishman. I think it most likely +that the explanation of his not having heard our earlier rings was that +he was not familiar with the system of bells in the apartment. They had +not been out, he declared; oh, yes! they had been out, too, a good while +ago, to get something to eat. "We are camping here," he said, "in a +rather Bohemian fashion." Didn't they enjoy that as a change from life +in fashionable hotels? Oh, yes! Very much.</p> + +<p>They wondered if Mr. Lee were not coming. Yes; he had assured me that he +was, when I had seen him that afternoon at the club. In fact, we had +discussed what we would wear, and had agreed on dinner jackets. Mr. +Chesterton was wearing a braid-bound cutaway coat of felt-like material +(very much wrinkled in the skirt) and dark striped trousers of stiffish +quality, but not recently pressed. His bat-wing collar had a sharp +crease extending outward at one side as though it were broken. Though it +was a very warm night for early spring—a hot night, indeed<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a>—he wore +uncommonly heavy woolen sox, which were very much "coming down" about +his ankles. His comically small English eye-glasses, with a straight rod +joining them across the top, were perpetually coming off his nose. On +one finger he wore a rather large ring. I noticed that for so large a +man his hands were somewhat small, and were delicately made. At one side +of him were three ashtrays (one of them a huge brass bowl well filled +with tobacco ash) and at the other side of him one tray.</p> + +<p>Well, what sort of a time had he been having? How far west had he got? +He had been as far as (I think) Omaha. "Halfway across," he said. He had +been much mystified by a curious character he had run into there: a +strange being whose waistcoat and coat front were covered by symbolic +emblems, crescents, full moons and stars. This person had accosted him +in the street saying, "And so you are a lecturer." The man had then +informed him that he also was a lecturer. He lectured, he said, on +astronomy. "Indeed, in my country," Mr. Chesterton had said, "it is not +the custom for astronomers to display on their person devices symbolic +of the science in which they are engaged." Next, the man had opened his +coat<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> and exhibited the badge of a sheriff, or some sort of officer of +the peace. Mr. Chesterton had been astounded to discover the functions +of a man of science, a lecturer and a policeman united in one and the +same person. It was quite evident that this (as I assume he was) +harmless lunatic had made a most decided impression upon Mr. +Chesterton's mind; he took the eccentric individual with much +seriousness, apparently as some kind of a type; indeed, I feared that we +would never get him switched off from talking about him; and I have no +doubt that, in the course of time, this ridiculous astronomer will +appear as a bizarre character in some fantastic tale, a personage +perhaps related to Father Brown, or something like that.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chesterton observed that he had enjoyed the opportunity of seeing +various grades of American life, that he had been in the homes of very +humble people as well as in houses of persons of wealth and social and +intellectual position. In a former article I noted how Mr. Chesterton +had been greatly startled to find (what he then called) "wooden houses" +in this country, and such multitudes of them. He now returned to this +phenomenon. What was his one outstanding impression<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> of the United +States? Well, he remarked that he had said it before, but he continued +to be chiefly struck by the vast number of "frame houses" here.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lee arrived. A gentleman who looks very much as though you were +looking at his reflection in one of those trick mirrors (such as they +have at Coney Island) which humorously attenuate and elongate the +figures before them. Or, again, perhaps more justly still, a gentleman +who looks as though Daumier had drawn him as an illustration for "Don +Quixote." In his evening clothes (to put it still another way), a +gentleman who looks much like a very lengthened shadow dancing on a +wall. Mr. Whistler would have made something very striking indeed out of +Mr. Lee in a dinner coat, something beautifully strange. I do not know +that I have ever seen anything finer, in its own exceedingly peculiar +way, than Mr. Lee, thus attired, with a cup of tea in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Do you like wine?" Mr. Woollcott asked Mr. Chesterton, and told him of +a restaurant nearby where this could be obtained. Our prohibition, Mr. +Chesterton said, did not bother him so much as might be thought, as for +reasons having to do<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> with his health he was (as you or I would say) +"off the stuff" at present.</p> + +<p>One of us, Mr. Woollcott I think, commented upon the sweep of Mr. +Chesterton's fame in the United States. The opinion was advanced that +the evening of the day he landed his arrival was known in every literate +home in New York. Mr. Chesterton was inclined to think that his +"notoriety" in large measure came from his "appearance," his +"avoirdupois." Knowledge of him had spread through the notion that he +was a "popular curiosity." It was contended that his writing had been +well-known over here ten years before his pictures became familiar to +us. (Though, of course, I myself do think that the pictorial quality of +his corporeal being has been very effective publicity for him.)</p> + +<p>Then there was another thing which Mr. Chesterton thought might to a +considerable degree account for his American celebrity. That was this +"tag" of "paradox." People loved "easy handles" like that, and they went +a long way. Somehow or other we let this point pass, or it got lost in +the shuffle, and the discussion turned to the question of whether there +was an American writer living whose arrival in England would command<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> +anything like the general attention occasioned by Mr. Chesterton's +entrance into the United States. We could not think of anyone.</p> + +<p>Mark Twain, of course; yes. O. Henry, doubtless, too. And, indeed, in +the matter of years O. Henry might very well be living now. Mr. +Chesterton quite agreed as to the English welcome of Mark Twain or of O. +Henry. Tom Sawyer and Huck, he said musingly, certainly were +"universal." Then, ponderingly, he observed that English and American +literature seemed to be getting farther and farther apart, or more and +more distinct each from the other. That is, he remembered that when he +was a boy his father and his uncles simply spoke of a new book having +come out whether it had been written in England or in the United States. +As in the case of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table": when it +appeared it was enjoyed and talked about by everybody in England; but +not spoken of there as a new American book: it was a new book, that's +all. Now, however, with Englishmen impressed by the "Spoon River +Anthology," "and rightly so," or by "Main Street," "it would not be that +way."</p> + +<p>He had much liking for O. Henry. But he<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> had begun by not liking him. He +had been puzzled by the "queer commercial deals" on which so many of the +stories turned—"buying towns, selling rivers." He had, even now, to +re-read much of the slang to get the meaning. And so we talked awhile of +slang.</p> + +<p>"You have an expression here," said Mr. Chesterton, shaking his head as +though that were something very remarkable indeed, "<i>a bad actor</i>" Much +mirth from Woollcott, Lee and Holliday. "Now in England," Mr. Chesterton +continued, "we mean by that one who has mistaken his vocation as to the +stage. But I discovered that here it has nothing to do with the +theatrical profession." Then, it developed, some reporter in the West +had referred to him as "a regular guy." At first Mr. Chesterton had been +for going after the fellow with a stick.... Certainly a topsy-turvy +land, the United States, where you can't tell opprobrium from flattering +compliment.</p> + +<p>Then one of us told Mr. Chesterton a story of a prize line of American +slang. He (the teller of the story) had got a letter in which a friend +of his had been spoken of in a highly eulogistic fashion. Thinking this +opinion of him would please his friend this man showed the letter to<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> +him. The gentleman so much praised in it read the letter and remarked: +"Well, whenever I get the hand I always see the red light." Mr. +Chesterton looked dazed. "You'll have to translate that to me," he said. +It was explained to him that the meaning of this was that whenever this +person heard applause of himself he always scented danger. "Oh, oh! I +see!" crowed Mr. Chesterton, "the hand, the hand," and he began clapping +his hands in illustration of the figure with much glee.</p> + +<p>"Glee," yes. And "crowed," also. They are the words, some of the words, +to describe Mr. Chesterton's sounds. His utterance was rapid, melodious. +The modulations of his softly flowing voice had curiously somewhat the +effect of a very cheerful music-box. His easy and very natural command +of a great multitude of words was striking. And yet there was something +decidedly boyish about the effect of his talk. I think the cause of this +was, for one thing, the rather gurgling enjoyment with which he spoke, +and for another thing, in his impulsive concern for the point of his +idea he frequently did not trouble to begin nor end sentences. He just +let 'er go. But the fundamental source of this boyishness<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> of spirit I +think was this: I do not believe I have ever seen a man who had borne +the brunt of life for some forty-five years and still retained such +complete, abounding, unaffected and infectious good humor as Mr. +Chesterton.</p> + +<p>"As I believe I have said somewhere before," Mr. Chesterton was saying, +"it seems to me that the best known character in literature is Sherlock +Holmes." Mr. Woollcott was inclined to consider Svengali. Dear me! +Svengali may have been in the running at one time, but it strikes me +that today he has pretty much gone by the board, somewhat to mix the +figure.</p> + +<p>As to detective stories: "They are essentially domestic," declares Mr. +Chesterton. "Intimate, all in the household, or ought to be. The +children's nurse should murder the Bishop. These things where the +Foreign Office becomes involved and" (chuckling) "Indian rajahs and +military forces come in are never right. They are too big. The detective +story is a fireside story."</p> + +<p>Had Mr. Chesterton been much to the theatre while here? No; the only +thing he had seen was "The Bat." Something like anguish on the face of +the dramatic critic of the New York <i>Times</i>. Why, he, Mr. Chesterton, +had liked "The Bat,"<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> a good deal. Speaking of plays, the American +presentation of "Magic" came into the conversation. It was remarked that +the extremely mystical character of the setting rather crushed the +mysticism of the play itself. The idea was advanced that a very simple, +matter-of-fact, even bleak setting, would have been the thing to act as +an effective foil to this play. Mr. Chesterton seemed to be not the +slightest interested in stage-settings. And he knew next to nothing at +all about the career of "Magic." He wasn't even sure whether or not he +held any proprietary rights in the play. There was, he said as though +fumbling around in his mind, something involved about the matter. Friend +of his wanted a play. Necessary to finish it in a hurry. He didn't +really know, answering a question to this purpose, whether or not he +received any royalties from it.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Chesterton again handed about some fudge. The collection of +ash-trays and bowls surrounding Mr. Chesterton had become jovially +freighted with tobacco ash and cigar ends. He smoked his cigars in an +economical fashion, down as far as they could comfortably be held.</p> + +<p>There was one thing (the talk had turned to<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> his lecturing) Mr. +Chesterton "wished you wouldn't do in this country, or that we didn't do +in England, either." That was for the gentleman who "introduced" a +lecturer to refer to his "message." In his own case, for instance, how +ridiculously was this term misapplied. The word "message" conveyed +something "quite the opposite of personality." Or, that is, before its +popular corruption it had meant something very different. It meant that +something was carried. One with a message was a messenger, a vessel, an +envelope. It was hard to think of a figure who could rightly be said to +have a message. The Old Testament prophets, Mohammed, perhaps. Whitman, +now certainly you couldn't say that Whitman had a message.</p> + +<p>A ring; and Mr. Cushman came in. Youthfully cropped grey hair. A +gentleman who looked like a habitual first-nighter.</p> + +<p>Yes, Mr. Chesterton was telling us, it was a curious thing. He had +always heard that Americans worshipped machines. A machine everywhere +here, and a machine brought to an amazing state of mechanical +perfection, was the elevator, as we called it. When he had first got +into an American elevator he had been arrested by<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> the fact that the men +entering it took off their hats and stood silently with bared heads as +it ascended. It is so, he had said to himself, they are at worship, at +prayer, this is some religious rite, mystic ceremony, the elevator is +their temple.</p> + +<p>Had he been in our subway? was asked. No; he had been down in a station +one time, but he had not ridden on one of the trains. I wish now that I +had thought to cut into the rapid battledore and shuttlecock of the +conversation to learn why he had not been. Was he scared of 'em?</p> + +<p>What were the things which Mr. Chesterton particularly liked in the +United States? Well, for one thing, he very much liked the "elevated." +He thought it was grand up in the air that way.</p> + +<p>And what had be especially <i>disliked</i>? Mr. Lee apparently had knowledge +of a memorandum book kept by Mrs. Chesterton, known to their ultimate +little circle as her "Book of Likes and Dislikes." She was, with some +difficulty, prevailed upon to read from this—which she did very +guardedly, clutching the book very firmly before her. Among the things +put down in it as not liked were ice cream, ice water, "American boots" +(by which was meant women's high-heeled shoes), and interviewers, +reporters and camera<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> men. Things especially liked included parlor-car +seats. Mr. Chesterton: "I don't dislike it, now. I've got the evil habit +of ice water."</p> + +<p>"Lift," it was generally agreed, was a happier word than "elevator." +Mrs. Chesterton thought that the scientific, technical, correct, or +whatever you call them, words for things always took all the feeling of +life out of them. "Aviator," for example, had no color at all. But how +fine in the spirit of the thing was the popular term "flying-man," or +"fly-man"!</p> + +<p>The conversation had got momentarily divided into groups. Mr. Chesterton +was heard saying to Mr. Woollcott, "The time I mean was when Yeats was +young—when mysticism was jazz."</p> + +<p>Just how he got started in on them I do not recall. He began with +Belloc's most entertaining and highly vivacious ballad which has the +refrain, "And Mrs. James will entertain the king"; a kind of a piece +among friends, which unfortunately is not in any book. He recited with a +kind of joyous unction, nodding his head forward and back from side to +side, thus keeping time to the music of the verse, punctuating the close +of each stanza with bubble of chuckles. On and on and on and on he went +through goodness<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> knows how many bits of rollicking literary fooling.</p> + +<p>It was half past eleven. I saw Mr. Chesterton, when someone else was +speaking, yawn slightly now and then. The four callers arose to go. Some +one of us asked Mr. Chesterton if he expected to be back in America +soon. Through a wreath of smiles he replied that he was not getting a +return ticket on the boat.</p> + +<p>The two of them were framed in their doorway as we got into the +"foreigner's" car. Mrs. Chesterton called to us that she hoped to see us +all in England, "singly or together." As the car dropped from their +floor both were beaming a merry, friendly farewell.</p> + +<p>Suddenly it struck me that they were very like a pair of children—they +were so happy, so natural, so innocent of guile, and obviously so fond +of one another.<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII<br /><br /> +NO SYSTEM AT ALL TO THE HUMAN SYSTEM</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> THINK I'll tell you about myself. Maybe it's the same way with you. +Anyhow, it's a mighty queer thing. And we ought to try to get some light +on the matter—why there is, apparently, no reason or logic at all about +our systems.</p> + +<p>You see, I go along a pretty fair amount of the time feeling all right; +nothing wrong with my system; nothing, at any rate, that I can notice. +Everybody says: "How well you're looking! Great color, you've got." And +so on.</p> + +<p>Then, maybe, I see in the paper that there is an epidemic scheduled to +devastate the city pretty soon. This news lays hold of me right off. The +paper goes on to say that it behooves all citizens to take thought to +fortify their systems against the ravages of this terrible disease which +is rapidly approaching.</p> + +<p>Or I read, say, that Thrift Week was such an<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> enormous success (for +everybody else) that a campaign is under way to inaugurate a Health +Week, which (I read) will greatly reduce the mortality in the community. +The way to reduce my own mortality (I read with considerable attention) +is for me to Stop, Look and Listen in the matter of my health. And To Do +It Now! I don't like those profane words, like mortality. They disturb +me. And occasionally get me into no end of trouble—as you'll see.</p> + +<p>Or, perhaps, I notice around in cars and places an unusual number of +advertisements instructing you what firm to consult in order to +"safeguard the interests of your heirs." A died (one of these cards may +say) and left his estate to B, his widow, naming C as executor. C died +suddenly shortly afterward. B (the widow) met E, with oil lands in +Hawaii—and so on. The advertisement winds up: Are you A?</p> + +<p>Not yet; I'm not! But I'd better watch out. I know this is a good +advertisement because it gets into my mind the way it does.</p> + +<p>Or, again, perhaps there are just a number of little things that I come +across. A gentleman one day tells me at luncheon, we'll say, that he +can't drink tea because it gives him uric acid so<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> bad. Good gracious! +And I (maybe) subject to uric acid!</p> + +<p>An octogenarian (we'll suppose) is interviewed. He attributes his +longevity to abstemiousness in the use of inexpensive cigarettes. (I at +once put mine out.)</p> + +<p>A chemist (very likely) gets a lot of publicity by declaring that you +are to Look Before You Leap in the matter of drinking water. (And but +the night before I drank from the spout in the kitchen!) And so on. +Well, things such as these set one to thinking.</p> + +<p>I say to myself when I get that way (to thinking, I mean) a stitch in +time saves nine; there's no loss so bad as the loss of your health, +because if you have that you can obtain aught else; a word to the wise +is sufficient; make hay while the sun shines; little drops of water wear +away the stone; take heed for the morrow while it is yet May; be not +like unto the foolish virgin who spilt the beans. And many other things +of this kind, which (doubtless in wise measure) are both good and true.</p> + +<p>Well, in short, I determine to "build up," to get myself in thoroughly +"good shape."</p> + +<p>I swear off smoking. I put away the home<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> brew. I do not eat fresh +bread. I procure myself overshoes against the rain. I rise with the +lark. I (religiously eating an apple first) go to bed betimes. I walk so +many miles a day—also skip a rope. I shun all delicacies of the table. +I take those horrid extra cold baths, for the circulation. I do "deep +breathing." I "relax" for twelve minutes each day. I shun the +death-dealing demon "worry." I "fix my mind on cheerful thoughts." I +"take up a hobby," philately, or something like that. I eat the skins of +potatoes. I watch the thermometer at the office, and monkey continually +with the steam radiator. Everything like that.</p> + +<p>When you undertake a thing (even if it's only shelling peas) be thorough +in it, that's my motto. I don't, indeed, in this regimen get much work +done, but it's better to be slow and sure.</p> + +<p>Well, what happens?</p> + +<p>When I set out to build up this is what happens to me: First thing, +maybe, I get pimples. No; no maybe about it. I sure get pimples. Then, +very likely, I get a carbuncle. (I have just asked my assistant how you +spell that word. She inquires if I mean the gem, or—or the other. I +have told her I mean the other.)<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a></p> + +<p>Next, very probably, I "contract" (as they say) a cough. This cough +"develops" into a cold.... You have (I trust) had that sort of cold +which hangs on for months. Nothing recommended is of any help to you. +You become resigned (more or less) to the idea—just as a man who has +lost a leg (or his mind) must resolve to do the best he can with the +rest of his life without his leg (or his mind), so must you adapt +yourself to the stern condition imposed by Fate of always having a cold. +That's the kind of a cold I mean that I get. (Only worse!)</p> + +<p>My cold branches out into several little side lines, such as acute +neuralgia and inflammatory rheumatism. Stiff joints impede my agility in +getting down the hill to my morning train to the city. I slip on the ice +and break my glasses.</p> + +<p>Not having my glasses causes me at the office to greet Mr. Sloover as +Mr. Rundle, and this sort of error breathes a chill upon the nice +nuances of business.</p> + +<p>Or in my personal correspondence (if I were that kind of a person) I +might put my letter for Penelope into the envelope for Pauline. This, +when I had discovered the calamity, would doubtless perturb my thoughts. +My thoughts being<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> perturbed, I might walk out of the restaurant without +my change of three dollars and eighty cents. Thoroughly upset by now, I +walk under a ladder. Realizing that I have done this, my nervousness is +the occasion of my dropping my watch. Enough! I recognize that there is +no use in my going back to the office that afternoon. I telephone in +that I have gone home to bed with my cold.</p> + +<p>On coming out of the cigar store where the telephone booth is, I see +Christopher Morley, Don Marquis and Franklin P. Adams walking down the +street arm in arm. (I can see very little without my glasses, but well +enough to recognize such a spectacle as that.) Something, I say, must be +on. And I cheer up considerably. Some cheering up certainly is just what +I need. I overhaul the company. And I ask it (the company) where it is +bound. It says: "For 'Mecca.' Come along." Don hands me a pocket flask +(largely empty), Chris presents me with a large green cigar, and Frank +gives me a match. It is agreed that we roll a little pool for a few +hours while waiting for the cab.</p> + +<p>Well, you see, I've been led to abandon the<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> idea of building up my +health—but I don't care, one may as well die happy.</p> + +<p>I have a great time at that show. (My cold is immensely better.) I fix +on one eye-glass so as to see something desirable. And I cut up a lot.</p> + +<p>But—when we turn to leave I discover the president of my company going +out just ahead of me. Well, I suppose I'll have to take what is coming +to me tomorrow.</p> + +<p>That one good meal, anyhow (after the pool), has strengthened my spirit +immensely. I plan to have a regular, genuine breakfast in the morning. +The kind I used to enjoy before I started in to get myself in fine +shape. A breakfast of sliced pineapple, eggs, steak, fried potatoes, +cottage-cheese, hot rolls, and two pots of good strong coffee. A pipe +afterward.</p> + +<p>When I get out to the house I find that my uncle (from whom I had been +estranged for years) has died, and left me his fine, ninety carat, forty +jewel, repeater watch.</p> + +<p>I wake up bursting with joyous life. The girl tells me that those +especially handsome glasses I lost last New Year's Eve have been found. +Down at the station the station-master comes out<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> to greet me. He says +so many people have slipped on our hill that next week the railroad is +going to install a free coach service. I see by the morning paper that +the horse I took a twelve to one shot on in the Buenos Aires derby came +out the length of the stretch to the good. On the train into town I +smoke a couple of packages of cigarettes—as I become a bit bothered +about the situation at the office.</p> + +<p>A girder, or something, had fallen across the track. The train is held +up. For a couple of hours it stands there. I become more than decidedly +nervous. Now this is awful bad doings. Everything had been coming so +right again. It seems as if there is no reward in this world for +anything. Here for a whole month or so I had been subjecting myself to +the most rigorous and unpleasant kind of discipline solely in order to +make myself more efficient in my work, and so more valuable to the +house. Nothing else. Then by an accident I am kept away from the office +one afternoon, and this has to go and happen just to keep me away +probably the whole of the forenoon. Everything will, of course, be +misunderstood and misinterpreted. Instead of getting just credit for +what I've done, I'll probably get<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> bounced. If anyone wants to have the +moral of this story pointed out to him: it is that there is not much use +in trying, you can see that.</p> + +<p>When I do get to the office my secretary is in quite a flurry. She tells +me that Mr. Equity, the president, has been inquiring for me. In +fact—she hesitates—wants me to step in to see him as soon as I arrive.</p> + +<p>So, there you are!</p> + +<p>Mr. Equity (a most unusual thing in any circumstances) shakes my hand +with great cordiality. He smiles, not benignantly but rather +deferentially. Says that he has recognized for some little time that I +have not had a salary commensurate with my services. Times, however, are +not of the best. Would I be willing to continue with the firm at—a +pause—well, double my present salary? Everything, he adds, would be +made as pleasant for me as possible.</p> + +<p>His secretary whispers to me in an outer office: "He has been so +flustered. He was scared you weren't ever coming back."</p> + +<p>I discussed this matter of the strange workings of the human system with +a friend of mine outside the office. "Ah!" he said, "you didn't +persevere<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> long enough in looking after yourself. If you had kept it up +for a year instead of only a month, you'd be a well man today. And," he +added seriously, "a successful man, too."<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br /><br /> +SEEING THE "SITUATIONS WANTED" SCENE</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">"W</span>HAT a lot of things they put in the papers!" Hilaire Belloc observes +somewhere in one of his essays. Indeed, it is so!</p> + +<p>I fear, however, that one of the features "they" put in the papers does +not have anything like as popular a reading as it deserves to have. +Those of the governing class, personages who employ people, probably +consult fragments of this department of the newspaper now and then. But, +it may fairly be claimed, nobody reads, with the delicious pleasure and +the abundant profit he might read, that part of the paper fullest of all +of, so to say, meat and gravy.</p> + +<p>The story it tells is probably the deepest grounding in life to be found +in print. There as it stands in today's paper Shakespeare (I fancy) +could not have written it, nor Balzac, nor Dickens, nor Arnold Bennett, +nor O. Henry, nor Sinclair Lewis. This newspaper feature is<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> called +"Situations Wanted." It might just as accurately be called "The Human +Scene," or "The Heart of the World," or "The Cry of the Soul." Its tale +is of what all men are seeking (and have ever sought), each in his own +degree, and after his fashion—bread, a place in the sun, a level higher +than that of today.</p> + +<p>Let us, briefly, survey this Page of Life.</p> + +<p>The most conspicuous figure in the vast and motley throng is the Bold +and Confident Man. He that knows his superior worth and does not propose +to hide his light, he that has the spirit to attack the conqueror. His +method is to fling a large and arresting headline across his "ad." "I AM +THE MAN YOU WANT!" he begins. Or, "PAR-EXCELLENCE," he announces in big +type. Or, "Mr. Busy Manufacturer," he says in good sized "caps"; in +smaller letters asks: "Are you in need of <i>a competent manager</i>?" If Mr. +B. M. is in such need, it is squarely put up to him: he "will do well to +address X." To the employer who hesitates this vital opportunity is +lost. The ad says: "Write now—<i>Right Now!</i>" Undoubtedly this is the +horse to put your money on; the hero to marry your daughter to. He will +not want.<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a></p> + +<p>Our bold, aggressive friend frequently writes, barring a bit of +"bounce," an admirable, clean-cut account of himself. He has, he +declares, acted for some of the leading concerns in the country; he has +never yet failed to give satisfaction; every employer he ever had will +testify to his ability and character. He invites the closest +investigation of his record, and he is open for any engagement where +faithful work, absolute integrity and devotion to his employer's +interests will be productive of "a fair living salary." It is, indeed, +difficult to avoid the impression that this man "has the goods."</p> + +<p>Akin to him in his method of a bill-board-like headline is another, of +whom one is not so sure. He does not so much command attention as seek +to beguile it. His particular "lay" is the Ingenious. Here is one +example of his style:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="c">AN ADVERTISING ADVENTURER<br /> +offers 16 years' experience</p> + +<p class="nind">(scarred by a few notable defeats and a thorough knowledge edge of +what NOT to do) to a manufacturer, for whom he will SAVE more than +his wages; a bad man, who does not drink, never was out of work, is +married and proud of it; age 32; would rather work than eat. +Address: Alert.</p></div> + +<p>Then there is the Challenge Not to Be Denied. Here is a sample: +"<i>Accountant</i>.—Are you one of<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> the progressive firms? If you are, you +want——" etc. Frequently one comes across the Facetious Advertiser. He +runs some such headline as this: "<i>Editor for Rent.</i>" Or perhaps he +says: "'<i>Secretarial Services' For Sale.</i>" In contrast to him is the +advertiser with the Tremulous Appeal. He may begin: "<i>Who Wants My +Services?</i>" And go on to say: "I am hard worker and steady, and willing +to go anywhere. Salary about $12 a week." Or perhaps he says: +"<i>Privilege</i> of meeting man who can utilize my services." Or maybe it is +thus: "$15 per Week and an Opportunity." Such a very human ad as this is +likely to continue somewhat like this:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Can you use a young man of twenty-one—one of really serious +purpose? I have had enough business experience and training to know +that to be of help I must do well whatever I am given to do. Of +course I am looking for a future—but I know that it does not +matter so much what I do as how I do it. Therefore, I believe any +reputable business holds a future. I am from Kansas, in New York on +my own resources and so must have $15 per week to start. I have a +high school education, and have read a great deal, and have +attended Business School.</p></div> + +<p>Next is the Poignant ad. The purest example of this which in my studies +I have discovered is headed: "<i>Who Will Talk With Me?</i>" A step<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> beyond +this we come upon the Altogether Pitiful. I mean like the one I here +copy out:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>WILL you please find or give office employment to an educated, with +physical defect, young man; just a chance to work two weeks without +salary desired?</p></div> + +<p>Akin to the poignant situation-wanted advertisement is the Urgent: +"<i>Advertising Writer</i>, college man (Princeton), urgently needs +situation." Or: "<i>Proofreader</i>, educated young man, requires position +<i>immediately</i>." It is, such is the inference, defective philanthropy in +an employer to delay. A touching figure, too (because he does not +suspect that he is a touching figure), is the Cheery and Hopeful. We +have him here: "<i>Ambitious</i> young American (28) desires position; will +try anything; moderate salary to start."</p> + +<p>A wily fellow is the Ingratiating advertiser. Sometimes he is a "Spanish +young man" who offers to work altogether without salary as Spanish +correspondent in some export house "where he could practice English." +Occasionally he is a "copy writer" who, wishing a position with an +agency or mercantile firm, is "willing to demonstrate ability for two +weeks before drawing salary." Now and then a still more positive<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> +character baits the hook with the offer of gratis services. In this +morning's paper a stenographer releases the seductive declaration that +"one trial will demonstrate my value to you."</p> + +<p>A rōle played on the stage of the "Situations Wanted" page which I have +always much admired is that of the Highly Dignified. The Bold and +Confident Man, the Ingenious, the Tremulous, the Poignant, the Hopeful, +the Ingratiating—the voices of all these figures touch one with a sense +of the harsh clash of life, its trickiness, its vicissitudes, its pathos +and its tragedy. But "<i>A Gentleman</i> of 50," who, "having a considerable +private income, desires dignified occupation; salary unimportant," +revives the poetic idea that (at any rate, now and then) God's in His +heaven and all's right with the world. The highly dignified advertiser +certainly is a very enviable character. It must be very nice to be able +to say, as in this advertisement before us: "<i>Light Occupation of an +Important Nature</i> is sought by middle-aged gentleman capable of assuming +control and conducting any normal business enterprise."</p> + +<p>A very colorful feature of the "Situations Wanted" page is the +interesting qualifications<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> frequently set forth. Glancing at the paper +in hand I find a young man of twenty-five who seeks a "permanent +position" with a publisher recommending himself as being "affable." Also +here is a "refined gentleman" who desires a "compatible" position and +lists among his accomplishments skill in the art of "tasty drawing." A +"keen discreet American" looking for a job with a "corporation" mentions +his "suave manners." A butler unemployed regards himself as "very nice." +A college graduate of twenty-eight who wants to "begin at the bottom" +asserts that he is a "fluent talker." A "young man with literary +ability" flings out the intimation that he "desires position where it +will be of some use." A dressmaker states that in her calling she is +"perfect." A clerk is "very smart at figures." A nurse puts forward her +asset as a "plain writer." You are pleased to discover that so many +people have a "pleasing personality." And that among stenographers there +are so many who may be described (they say) as an "attractive young +girl." Here is one who introduces herself as both "prepossessing" and +"brainy." A "woman of education" who seeks occupation at "anything +useful if there is friendliness" gives<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> as her leading characteristic a +"sense of humor." Now and then the recommendations offered somewhat +mystify me, as in the advertisement of the lady, "age 29, fine +personality (widow of P. M. of F. and A. M.)." Then there is that great +company who have but one merit to display. They may be represented in +the "Female" column by the "<i>Respectable</i> young woman" who "wishes day's +work." And in the "Male" column by the "<i>Sober</i> man" who (simply) +"desires position." Sometimes here it is difficult to determine the +degree of sobriety maintained, as in the frequent advertisement of the +chauffeur who discreetly states that he is "temperate."</p> + +<p>In case you should write down your idea of your own "appearance," what +would you say? I confess that such a problem would puzzle me. It does +not puzzle some. "Situation Wanted" ads record that there are numerous +young men of "exceptional appearance." Though occasionally we come upon +a young man of almost painful conscientiousness who feels that he should +not go further than to say that he is of "fair appearance."</p> + +<p>The queer dissimilarity of human aspirations echoes through the +"Situations Wanted" page.<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> Here is a "<i>Gentleman</i>, excellent education +and personality, linguist," who wants a position as a companion, or +"courier, &c." A "<i>Highly</i> educated French lady would gladly take a +child for walks every day from 10 to 12." A "<i>Lady</i>, 27, of literary +bent desires position as companion around the world." It is remarkable, +the number of persons there are in the world of "literary" tendency. +Remarkable, too, how many people with an inclination to travel. Here is +a "<i>Cornell Graduate</i>" who has, apparently, no aversion whatever to +spending the winter in "a warm climate." There are "<i>Two</i> young men, +partners," who "wish to join an expedition, any destination." But there +are home-keeping souls, too. A "<i>Cultured</i> elderly man, neat," craves +"household duties." And so on.</p> + +<p>What a rich variety of characters throng the populous scene of the +"Situations Wanted" page! Here, in today's paper, following the +advertisement of a "sculptor" comes that of a "former policeman." A +"<i>Physician</i>, practicing twenty years in Paris, speaking English, +French, Spanish, German, Italian, seeking situation," is cheek by jowl +with a "<i>Plumber</i>, good all round man." A young man who has "put 9 years +at sea as steward"<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> nonchalantly asks "What have you?" A "<i>Former +College Professor</i>, 30, seeks field of occupation in advertising." And a +"<i>Cavalry</i> man, excellent record, wishes position at anything." A +"<i>Cultured Visiting Governess</i> of good family, social position, trains +ladies, English, grammar, literature, elegant correspondence, art of +conversation, current events, social etiquette." A remarkable +"gentleman" presents himself as "qualified to do most anything." And a +"Christian, age 38," wishes a position as "manager of a laundry."</p> + +<p>A strategic device frequently employed by the humble is that of getting +someone whose position has weight to present them. For instance, "Rev. +Dr. Moffett recommends a colored man for janitor of a loft building." +And numerous are the gentlemen who, laying up their cars, are interested +in placing their chauffeurs elsewhere.</p> + +<p>"<i>Boy</i>" is perhaps the word which dominates the page. Most boys, +apparently, are not particular in their choice of a calling. They are +"willing to do anything." Now and then one declares that he is a "good +fighter," or something like that. Here is one who demands a "position +where mental ability will be necessary." Here<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> is another who is very +specific, thus: "15½ years old, 5 feet 8¼ inches tall."</p> + +<p>Sometimes one meets a very extraordinary character in these columns. The +other day no less a distinguished person than this put in an ad:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I am compelled, through severe strain, to discontinue my work +(involving the mental faculties) with which I have puzzled the +scientific world for several years, and which has netted me a +weekly income of over $200; I have no other source for a livelihood +and consequently appeal to the business world for an opportunity to +grow up in a new endeavor. <small>WHY NOT MEET ME AND TALK IT OVER?</small></p></div> + +<p>A genuinely touching ad, sensible and obviously quite sincere, in which +you hear the appealing voice of a fellow being in trouble, but an ad +which I fear is rather futile, is one like this:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Am 43 years old; defective hearing prevents continuation of +salesman's career; I want situation where this impairment does not +prevent satisfactory discharge of required duties.</p></div> + +<p>A great, and a grave, lesson may be learned from the "Situations Wanted" +page. And that is to be found mainly in the section where the first word +of each advertisement is simply "MAN." Men there are in it of every age. +I mean in considering the plight of the world one should ponder that +great army whose business is "anything."<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV<br /><br /> +LITERARY LIVES</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">"M</span>Y God!" exclaimed the old lady in the railway carriage to Mr. Le +Gallienne, "Tennyson is dead!"</p> + +<p>Have not many of us as we have turned the daily papers these last +several years frequently experienced the sensations of this dear old +lady? Whistler, Swinburne, Meredith, Henry James, Howells. They are +dead. Walt Whitman (wasn't it?), when he heard that Carlyle was dead, +went out, and looked up at the stars, and said he didn't believe it.</p> + +<p>We have been stirred to these emotional reflections by chancing to come +early this afternoon in the Main Reading Room of the New York Public +Library upon what would commonly be called a well-known book of +reference. We had no intention of doing more than peer into it. Night +found us there—the book still open before us.<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a></p> + +<p>The excellent Solomon Eagle (otherwise known as J. C. Squire), in one of +his delightfully gossipy, though erudite, papers contributed to <i>The New +Statesman</i> of London (collected, many of them, into a volume, bearing +the title "Books in General"), remarks of works of reference that they +"are extremely useful; but they resemble Virgil's Hell in that they are +easy things to get into and very difficult to escape from." He +continues:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Take the Encyclopędia. I imagine that my experience with it is +universal. I have only to dip my toe into this tempting morass and +down I am sucked, limbs, trunk and all, to remain embedded until +sleep or a visitor comes to haul me out. A man will read things in +the Encyclopędia that he would never dream of looking at +elsewhere—things in which normally he does not take the faintest +interest....</p> + +<p>"Who's Who" takes me in the same way. Ordinarily I have no +particular thirst for it. I should not dream of carrying it about +in my waistcoat pocket for perusal on the Underground Railway. But +once I have allowed myself to open it, I am a slave to it for +hours. This has just happened to me with the new volume, upon which +I have wasted a valuable afternoon. I began by looking up a man's +address; I then read the compressed life-story of the gentleman +next above him (a major-general), wondering, somewhat idly, whether +they read of each other's performances and whether either of them +resented the possession by the other of a similar, and unusual, +surname. Then I was in the thick of it.</p></div> + +<p>Even so. But an afternoon spent in reading, straight along, the work of +reference we have in<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> mind could not be called wasted. Indeed, quite the +contrary; such an afternoon could be nothing less than one of those +spiritual experiences which suddenly give a measure of growth to the +soul.</p> + +<p>The work which we came upon, in the circumstances indicated, was "The +Dictionary of National Biography"; and the volumes which, by chance, we +took down were Volumes II. and III. of the Second Supplement of the +Dictionary. They contain, these volumes, memoirs of 1,135 noteworthy +English persons dying between January 22, 1901, and December 31, 1911. +The alphabet extends from John Faed, artist, to George, Lord Young, +Scottish Judge. The contributors number 357; the list of these names is +a roll of the most distinguished, in all departments, in the English +Nation of our day. This publication, we should say, is the most +interesting to English-speaking people, as in all probability it is the +most important, generally, issued within at any rate the year of its +publication. And though we cannot rid ourselves of a melancholy feeling +in contemplating this survey of the great stream of brilliant life +ended, we feel there is more good reading for the money in these pages<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> +than in any other book one is likely to come across at random.</p> + +<p>The toll these ten years have taken! The chronicle is here of some born +to greatness, like Queen Victoria; of those, like Cecil Rhodes, who have +achieved it. And the stories are told of some whom the world's fame +found but within the last hour, then dead: John Millington Synge +(contributed by John Masefield), and Francis Thompson (by Everard +Meynell).</p> + +<p>The proportion of biographies of men of letters predominates in +considerable measure. Science follows in the list, then art. The least +but one, sport, is the law. Among the names of women, forty-six in +number, are Florence Nightingale, Kate Greenaway, Charlotte Mary Yonge, +and Mrs. Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes).</p> + +<p>Three illustrious lives entered the twentieth century in England as full +of years as of honors. Meredith, Whistler, and Swinburne were born in +the Spring of the nineteenth century, in 1828, 1834, and 1837 +respectively, and the bloom of their days was with the giants, now +legends, of the Victorian reign. The Kings in the history of art and +letters have been—have they not?—gallant men. We suspect that it takes +a gallant man<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> to be a King in these callings. Of these three—two +wished to be soldiers—the most gallant spirit was the great-grandson of +a rather grand tailor.</p> + +<p>He won what men can and he bore what men must, is some ancient line.</p> + +<p>The most extensive article in these volumes is the "Meredith," by Thomas +Seccombe. It is the richest. Twelve pages is its compass. As a biography +we are disposed to rank it with—let's see?—-Froude's "Carlyle" (4 +vols. 8vo.). Perhaps, on the whole, it is better. To go into any detail +in our notice of the appearance of these books, and maintain any +perspective, would carry us to a vast length. The bibliographer is +deeply impressed with the character of Meredith, as a man, throughout +his life, of noble aspect. His critical verdict reduced to one word is: +"Thoroughly tonic in quality, his writings are [as Lamb said of +Shakespeare] essentially manly." This is one of the pictures which most +brightly sticks in our head:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>On the terrace in front of the chalet, whence he descended to +meals, he was often to be heard carrying on dialogues with his +characters, and singing with unrestrained voice. Whimsical and +sometimes Rabelaisian fabrications accompanied the process of +quickening the blood by a spin [a favorite word with him] over +<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> Surrey hills. Then he wrote his master works, ... and welcomed his +friends, often reading aloud to them in magnificent recitative, +unpublished prose or verse.</p></div> + +<p>If there is anything upon which an article could be "based" not included +in Mr. Seccombe's list of sources, it's a queer thing.</p> + +<p>The "Swinburne" is furnished by Edmund Gosse, whose adequate equipment +for the task includes "personal recollections extending over more than +forty years." Passages of his portrait of the radiant poet are the most +colorful in these volumes of the Dictionary. By way of critical +discussion the writer says: "It is a very remarkable circumstance, which +must be omitted in no outline of his intellectual life, that his +opinions, on politics, on literature, on art, on life itself, were +formed in boyhood, and that though he expanded he scarcely advanced in +any single direction after he was twenty. If growth had continued as it +began, he must have been the prodigy of the world. Even his art was at +its height when he was five and twenty." The Whistler article is by Sir +Walter Armstrong (who writes also on Holman Hunt) and is, one feels, the +most judicial summary that has appeared on the most controversial +subject, one can readily<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a> recall, of the epoch closed. A very clear +statement of a principle of the art of painting is this: "For years his +work bore much the same relation to Japanese art as all fine painting +does to nature. He took from Japanese ideals the beauties he admired, +and re-created them as expressions of his own personality."</p> + +<p>There is one delightful anecdote, in E. V. Lucas's sketch of Phil May. +His Punch editor, Sir Francis Burnand, tells a story to the effect that +on being asked at a club for a loan of fifty pounds, May produced all he +had—half that amount—and then abstained from the club for some time +for fear of meeting the borrower, because he felt that "he still owed +him twenty-five pounds."</p> + +<p>Sensible persons will read with satisfaction the just article by T. F. +Henderson on that fine figure Henley, "one of the main supports," said +Meredith, "of good literature in our time." Many good folks will like to +look up Leslie Stephen, the first editor of this Dictionary, "who +enjoyed the affectionate admiration of his most enlightened +contemporaries." The article is by the present editor, Sir Sidney Lee. +Ęsthetically minded persons may read about William<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> Sharpe. Among the +painters are Watts (biographer, Sir Sidney Colvin) and Orchardson. The +"Seymour Haden" is furnished by A. M. Hind. Memoirs of Sir Henry Irving, +Sir Theodore Martin, and Herbert Spencer come in this supplement. And so +on. A piece of American history is related here, too, in the account of +Edward Lawrence Godkin, founder of <i>The Nation</i>.</p> + +<p>A subject of emotional literary controversy at the present moment is +treated by Thomas Seccombe in his article on George Gissing. The general +qualities of the Dictionary may be clearly observed in this notice. When +the first volume of this second supplement—A to Evans—was issued not +long ago rumors reached us of some agitation occasioned in England by +the unepitaphical character of the memoirs of Edward VII. Well, +discrimination was not made against a King. The frankness of this high +tribunal in its calm recital of facts is striking.</p> + +<p>After some steady reading of the great Dictionary we wonder if printed +forms had been sent to the contributors, upon which they composed, in +answer to the questions there, their articles: the order of progress of +all the memoirs<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> is, in effect, so uniform. Each says at (it appeared) +about the same point: His appearance was this. Each seems to conclude +with a list of the portraits.</p> + +<p>And this idea recalled to us a story. A foreigner entering our country's +gates, upon being asked to fill out papers setting forth his +nationality, age, color, and so on, wrote beside the query, +"Business?"—"Rotten." In this intelligent interpretation of the +question, the "business" of many whose lives are recorded in honor here +was "rotten" for many a long year.</p> + +<p>The story of literature has not ceased to be a sorry story; still, as +was said on a time, comparable to the annals of Newgate. A tale it +continues, in a large measure, of outcast experience, of destitution, +"seeking a few pence by selling matches or newspapers," or development +through suffering, of hospital sojourns, of contemplated suicide, of +unfortunate "amorous propensities," of "ill-considered" marriage, of +that immemorial "besetting weakness," of "a curious inability to do the +sane, secure thing in the ordinary affairs of life," of "ordering his +life with extreme carelessness in financial matters," of the weariness +of reward for work of high character long<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> deferred, of charitable +legacies "from a great-aunt."</p> + +<p>Mr. Wells speaks somewhere of the amazing persistency of the instinct +for self-expression. Where it exists, one reflects in musing on these +biographies, you can't kill it with a club.</p> + +<p>Very imposing we felt the literary style of this Dictionary to be. It +treats of a man much as if he were a word, say, in the Century +Dictionary. This is the sort of biographical writing, we said, that a +man with whiskers can read. It does sound something like a court +calendar. Its tone is omniscient, indeed. But the Recording Angel here +does not drop a tear upon the oath of any Uncle Toby and blot it out +forever. No. He says, of one we tremble to name, "his language was often +beyond the reach of apology." Fine is the dignity with which sordid +things are related. "The return journey he was under the necessity of +performing on foot." Almost grotesque is the neglect of the caressing +touch of sentiment. "His own wish was to be a jockey." The treatment of +the theme of love is entertaining. "At the age of nineteen he married."</p> + +<p>August is the passivity in the presence of the Reaper who mows the +golden grain. Without<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a> poetry, oh, Death, where is thy sting! In these +volumes, of none is it sighed: At twilight his spirit fled. Had he but +lived ...! It is: He died December 14, 1908. He left no issue. A fair +portrait of him by Charles Ricketts is in the possession of Mr. Edmund +Gosse.</p> + +<p>We arose after several hours' reading with a sense of having perused for +a space two recent volumes of the Book of Judgment. We were full of +emotion. We felt the mystery of the destiny of man. How admirable he is +and how pitiful! Throbbing, we went forth into the throbbing city.<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV<br /><br /> +SO VERY THEATRICAL</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is a young woman I thought of taking there for luncheon the other +day, but when I called for her it did not seem to me that she had used +her lip-stick that morning—and so we went somewhere else.</p> + +<p>She is pretty good-looking and was dressed not at all unfashionably. She +would have done all right at the Waldorf, or at the Vanderbilt, or +Biltmore, or Ritz-Carlton, or Ambassador. Indeed, I don't know but that +at some such place as that I should have been rather proud of her.</p> + +<p>But, you see, for the place I had in mind her skirt was a little too +long—it came almost halfway to her ankles. Her bosom was quite covered. +She moves with fair grace, but without striking sinuousness. And I +suddenly recollected that she does not smoke much.</p> + +<p>No; I saved myself just in time; I should have been chagrined, +embarrassed, most decidedly<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a> uncomfortable; she would have been +conspicuous. I should probably have lost caste with the waiters, too; +and not again have been able to get a table after the plush rope had +been thrown across the entrance to the dining-room; which, so keen is +competition for places there, is shortly before one o'clock.</p> + +<p>If you know where this place is, why, of course, all right. But nobody +has any business to go shouting all over the housetops exactly where it +is. People who aren't just naturally by temperament a part of the +picture oughtn't to know how to find it. Though it is a perfectly good +bet that bunches of them would like to know.</p> + +<p>But that's just the way so many of these havens of the elect get ruined. +A lot of curious "visitors" go piling in right along; the scene soon +loses all its authenticity; and shortly becomes bogus altogether. Why, I +can remember when artists—painters and writers—lived in Greenwich +Village. There, in those days.... But all that was years ago.</p> + +<p>This much only will I tell you about the location of the most +<i>distingué</i> place there is in which to have luncheon. The centre of the +inhabited world is, of course, Longacre Square, that<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> widened curving +stretch of Broadway looking north several blocks from the narrow stern +of the gracefully towering Times Building, rising from its site of a bit +of an island surrounded by four surging currents of traffic. A few miles +away (from Longacre Square) the provinces begin. But there, the most +gleaming spot on this our globe under the canopy of the purple night, is +the quintessence, the apex of human life.... I am here speaking, of +course, in the spirit of those of that nomad race whose hopes for gold +and fame lie through the "stage entrance"—I mean the ladies and +gentlemen of the theatre.</p> + +<p>To the east just off Longacre Square along the crosstown streets is a +medley of offices of divers theatrical and screen journals, chop-houses, +and innumerable band-box hotels whose names doubtless only a district +messenger boy could recite in any number. The particular one for which +we are headed is famous enough to those familiar with fame of this +character. Here the "Uncle Jack" of the American stage, Mr. Drew, for +some time made his residence. It is always the stopping place in New +York of perhaps the finest of our novelists, Joseph Hergesheimer. That +mystical Indian gentleman, Mr.<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a> Rabindranath Tagore, has found it a not +unworthy tent on his western pilgrimages. And so on.</p> + +<p>You cannot be long in its rich little lobby without overhearing struck +the high note of its distinctive clientele. "Where do you open?" asks +someone of someone else. And the answer is not unlikely to be: "At +Stamford. When do you close?" In the subdued light bare satin arms and +enspiriting lengths of colorful stocking flash from the deep chairs +where feminine forms are waiting. A graceful hand opens a telephone +booth to expel a smoking cigarette.</p> + +<p>Here enters Walter Prichard Eaton, come down from his Berkshire farm for +the height of the theatrical season. A tall, leisurely, very New +Englandish, smooth-shaven young man, now coming decidedly grey just over +the ears. Entering the dining-room we come plump against our old friend +Meredith Nicholson lunching with a bevy of friends. A youthful fifty +perhaps now, the author of one of the best sellers of any day, "The +House of a Thousand Candles." Clean-shaven, with a physiognomy +suggesting that of a Roman senator. What has brought him just now from +Indiana? Well, he is revolving in his mind the idea of writing a new +play, as<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a> soon, he adds, as he "can find the right ink." Hasn't been +able to get hold of any that just suited him.</p> + +<p>But much more important to his mind, apparently, than this play is +another mission in which he has become involved. He is going to have +himself "mapped," that is, have his horoscope cast. Yes, by one of the +ladies of his party, who, it appears, is eminent as a professor of this +science, now rapidly coming into a period of great vogue. When he has +supplied her with the data concerning his birth she will reveal to him +the course of his career through 1922.</p> + +<p>On a number of the tables are cards marked "Reserved." Around two sides +of the room upholstered seats running the length of the wall seat +couples in greater intimacy of tźte-ą-tźte side by side before their +little tables. Most of the young women present—but could you really +call many of them young women?... Their most striking feature, after the +dizziness of their beauty, and the ravishing audacity of their clothes, +is the bewitching tenderness of their years. More than several of these +dainty, artfully rose-cheeked smokers look to be hardly past seventeen. +Their foppishly dressed male companions<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a> frequently are in effect far +from anything like such youth; and in a number of cases are much more +likely to remind you of Bacchus than of Apollo.</p> + +<p>Two of these misses nearby are discussing with one another their +"doorman." "Isn't he," exclaims one, "the very dearest old doorman you +have ever seen in all of your whole life!" Yes, it would seem that, +peering down the long vista of the past, from out of their experience of +hundreds of theatres, neither of these buds of womanhood could recall +any doorman so "dear" as their present one.</p> + +<p>The dominant group in the room is a gay and populous party about a large +round table in the centre. And undoubtedly the dominant figure of this +party is, you recognize, Alexander Woollcott, dramatic critic of the New +York <i>Times</i>, invariably at this same table at this same hour, a very +spirited, a very round plump young man, very dapper to the end of every +hair in his trim little black moustache. Next to him who is that? Why, +goodness me! if it isn't Edna Ferber, who, though I doubt not she would +not want to be counted in the fledgling class of some of our soubrette<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> +friends here, indeed does seem to be getting younger all the while.</p> + +<p>Joining this party now is an odd and rather humorous looking figure, +tall, amusingly stooping and amusingly ample of girth for a character of +such apparently early manhood, an intensely black crop of hair and a +very blackish streak of moustache, soft collar, unpressed clothes. Sits +down, hooping himself over his plate with a suggestion of considerable +shyness. Gives you an impression, perhaps by the brightness of his eyes, +of Puckish mirth playing within his mind. Heywood Broun.</p> + +<p>At the table on our right we perceive a very popular lady known to us, +Miss Margaret Widdemer, or, as she now is, Mrs. Robert Haven Schauffler. +Her general air breathing the simplicity of a milkmaid amid this scene. +Under her mammoth floppy hat reminding you of an early summer rose. She +is discussing with a spectacled person who looks as if he might have +something to do with book publishing whether her next book should be a +light romance on the order of her "Wishing-Ring Man" and "Rose Garden +Husband" or she should come into the<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> new movement of serious "Main +Street" kind of realism.</p> + +<p>And there, on our left, certainly is a publisher, Mr. Liveright of the +firm of Boni and Liveright. Young fellow, thirty-five perhaps. Maybe he +is talking about some of his striking successes, such as "Potterism" and +"From Mayfair to Moscow." With him Ludwig Lewisohn, literary and +dramatic critic.</p> + +<p>Back of us we detect young Burton Rascoe, former literary editor of the +Chicago Tribune, newly arrived in New York as managing editor of +<i>McCall's Magazine</i>, and to whom (by the way) the suppressed novel +"Jurgen" was dedicated. You wouldn't think anybody would be so frowning +as to want to suppress Mr. Rascoe. He looks as if he might be twin +brother to any dewy bud here.</p> + +<p>Who is that he is with? Theodore Maynard, I declare. Young English poet, +critic and novelist. And the other side of him is a gentleman, Oliver +Saylor by name, who at the height of the revolution went to Russia to +study the Russian drama, and engrossed in ęsthetics lived for a time in +quarters midway between the contending military forces. Beyond we see a +young lady<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> recently come on from Ted Shawn's song and dance studio in +Los Angeles.</p> + +<p>And yonder you see a young man who is just as dear and sweet as he can +be. He served his country during the war by knitting a sweater and a +"helmet" for a poet he knew in the army in France. He, this dainty +youth, looks pretty much lip-sticked himself. In order not to sin +against daintiness this young person has a habit of powdering his nose. +A coarse friend of his forbade his doing this, and the next time he met +him neatly powdered rebuked him for it. Whereupon the young man replied: +"Oh! You wouldn't (would you?) let a little powder come between +friends."</p> + +<p>And, finally, here most happily we are ourselves.<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI<br /><br /> +OUR STEEPLEJACK OF THE SEVEN ARTS</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is a rather frisky looking apartment house there now, a pastry +shop and tea room occupying the ground floor—behind it, the other side +of a venerable brick wall, a tiny, ancient burying ground. But in days +of yester-year here stood a tavern of renown, the Old Grape Vine, which +on this site, Sixth Avenue at Eleventh Street, had given cheer since +Sixth Avenue was little more than a country road. A sagging, soiled +white, two-story frame structure, with great iron grill lamps before the +door. Within, the main room was somewhat reminiscent of London's Olde +Cheshire Cheese.</p> + +<p>The proprietor was a canny Scot, one MacClellan. ("Old Mac"! Whither has +he gone?) I was coming along by there the other day, and I asked a man +with whom I chanced to walk if he remembered the Old Grape Vine. "Ah! +yes;" he said; "they had mutton pies there." They<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> did. And excellent +ale, also, served in battered pewter mugs. "They" had here, too (some +fifteen years ago), excellent society beneath the dingy light. Roaring, +roistering George Luks (as he was then) very much to the fore. At the +rickety mahogany table where Frans-Halsian George held forth frequently +was to be found the painter William J. Glackens and his brother "Lew," +humorous draughtsman for <i>Puck</i>. Ernest Lawson sometimes came in. A Mr. +Zinzig, a very pleasant soul and an excellent pianist and teacher of the +piano, often was of the company. A Mr. FitzGerald, art critic in those +days of the <i>Sun</i>, sometimes "sat in." And a delightful old cock, Mr. +Stephenson, art critic then of the <i>Evening Post</i>. Among the most +devoted habitués of the place was an old-school United States army +officer turned writer of military stories. (When the proceedings had +progressed to a certain stage of mellowness it was his habit to go home +and return directly arrayed in his uniform.) There was, too, a queer +figure of a derelict journalist associated with <i>Town Topics</i>. There was +an inoffensive gentleman of leisure whose distinction was that he was +brother to a famous Shakespearean scholar. (As the<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> hour grew late he +would begin to whistle softly to himself through his teeth.) There was a +rotund being of much reading who perpetually smoked a very old pipe and +who was editor of a tobacco journal. There was a man of the sea who +continually told stories of Japan. (After eleven he was somewhat given +to singing.) There was an illustrator for a tu'penny magazine, who (so +as to seem to be a large staff) signed a variety of names to his work. +From the land of R. L. S., he. One time while in a doze (somewhere else) +he was robbed. His comment upon his misfortune became a classic line. It +was: "By heaven! As long as whiskey is sold to lose ten dollars is +enough to drive a Scot mad!" (This was long before anybody had ever +heard of the now illustrious Mr. Volstead.) And many more there were. +Ah, me! ah, me! How the picture has changed!</p> + +<p>Well, the point of all this (if it have any point) is that it was in the +Old Grape Vine (of tender memory) that I first saw James Gibbons +Huneker. I think that, in his promenades as an impressionist, he was +there but seldom. Though we know that high among the Seven Arts he rated +the fine art of drinking Pilsner. The old places<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> of Martin's and +Lüchow's (headquarters on a time for the musical cognoscenti) were ports +of call on his rounds; and he moved freely, I believe, among the places +of refreshment along the foreign quarter of lower Fourth Avenue. At the +Grape Vine, I understand, he was an especial friend of Luks, and +probably of Glackens and Lawson. And, though he was a very famous man, +he seemed to like the motley company.</p> + +<p>Ten or twelve years ago I was earning a living more honestly than +perhaps I have been making one since. I was a clerk in a book store—the +retail department, it happened, of the house which publishes Mr. +Huneker's books. And there, from my position "on the floor," I +frequently saw him moving in and out. Moving rather slowly, with the +dignity of bulk. A distinguished figure, quietly but quite neatly +dressed, very erect in carriage, head held well back, supporting his +portliness with that physical pride of portly men, a physiognomy of +Rodinesque modelling—his cane a trim touch to the ensemble. He was, I +distinctly remember, held decidedly in regard by the retail staff +because he was (what, by a long shot, a good many<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> "authors" were not) +exceedingly affable in manner to us clerks.</p> + +<p>The moment I have particularly in mind was when Samuel Butler's volume +"The Way of All Flesh" first appeared in an American edition. We all +know all about Butler now. But, looking back, it certainly is +astonishing how innocent most all of us then were of any knowledge of +the great author of "Erewhon." Even so searching a student of literature +as W. C. Brownell was practically unacquainted with Butler. He was +taking home a copy of "The Way of All Flesh" to read. Mr. Huneker was +standing by. In some comment on the book he remarked that Butler had +been a painter. "A painter!" exclaimed Mr. Brownell, in a manner as +though wondering how it came about he knew so little of the man. "But +this," said Mr. Huneker, referring to the novel, "is not his best stuff. +That is in his note-books." Brownell: "And where are they?" Huneker: "In +the British Museum." Mr. Brownell made a fluttering gesture (as though +to express that he "gave up") toward Mr. Huneker: "He knows everything!" +he ejaculated.</p> + +<p>We should, of course, be surprised now that<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> anybody <i>did not</i> know that +Butler had been a painter. When, just a short time ago, W. Somerset +Maugham adapted for the purposes of his sensational novel "The Moon and +Sixpence" the character and career of Paul Gauguin, it was in the pages +of Huneker that many first looked for, and found, intelligence +concerning the master of the Pont Aven school of painting. Well, Gauguin +is now an old story. And Ibsen, Tolstoy, Wagner, Richard Strauss, +Rimbaud, De Gourmont, Nietzsche, Meredith, Henry James, William James, +Bergson, Barrčs, Anatole France, Flaubert, Lemaītre, Huysmans, +Maeterlinck, Baudelaire, Stirner, Strindberg, Faguet, Shaw, Wilde, +George Moore, Yeats, Synge, Schnitzler, Wederkind, Lafargue, Rodin, +Cézane, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, George Luks, that wondrous "flock of +Unicorns"—they all are old stories, too ... now. But it was our +Steeplejack, James Huneker, who was our pioneer watcher of the skies. +And what in the large sweep of his vision of the whole field of the +world's beauty he saw, he reported with infinite gusto. "Gusto," as H. +L. Mencken in the Huneker article of his<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> "Book of Prefaces" says, +"unquenchable, contagious, inflammatory."</p> + +<p>The extent of the personal contact which Mr. Huneker enjoyed and +maintained with the first-rate literary men of the world was amazing. +While I was with the book shop I speak of, "presentation copies" of each +new book of his, to be sent out "with the compliments of the author," +were piled up for forwarding literally several feet high. They went to +all the great in letters, in every country, that you could think of. +Anatole France, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, George Brandes, Edmund +Gosse, George Moore—people like that.</p> + +<p>Vast was the incoming stream of books to him, presentation copies, +review copies, "publicity" copies; so great a flood that it was +necessary for him periodically to call in an old book man to clear his +shelves by carting away a wagon-load or two of—genuine treasure. A +catalogue I one time saw of such volumes "from the library of James +Huneker" was sufficient in riches to have been the catalogue of the +entire stock of a very fair shop dealing in "association" volumes, first +editions, and so forth. And a survey of the books themselves made it +quite apparent that a reader<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a> who has read every word that Huneker ever +printed (and that would be a person who had read a good deal) may yet +(very likely) be a reader who has not read some of the best of Huneker. +I refer to "Jimmie's" humorous, pungent marginalia.</p> + +<p>Mr. Huneker's close friends have taken occasion since his death to speak +warmly of his kindness toward obscure, struggling talent. There was a +side to him, akin to this, which I have not seen commented upon. +Huneker's fame as a critic had been for years accepted throughout +Europe. When his "New Cosmopolis" was published (a book I did not myself +think so highly of) Joyce Kilmer, then newly come to journalism, +reviewed it for the New York <i>Times</i>, very eulogistically. Mr. Huneker +went to the trouble of looking up Kilmer to thank him very simply for +his praise.</p> + +<p>Mr. Huneker was a loyal and disinterested servant of good literature +wherever he found it, and his happily was the power to be an ambassador +to success. So short a time as about four years ago very few people had +heard of William McFee. "Aliens," his first book, had met with no +appreciable success. The manuscript<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> of "Casuals of the Sea" (or the +English "sheets" of the book, I do not recall which) came into the hands +of a publishing house at Garden City. A member of the editorial staff of +this house at this time was Christopher Morley. And I happened at the +moment to have a job as sort of handy man at editorial chores around the +premises. Morley immediately became a great "fan" for the book. +Undoubtedly a fine book, and it was accepted, but (there was a question) +could it be "put across"? It was very long, not of obviously popular +character, and the author's name commanded no attention at all.</p> + +<p>The first "advance" copy of the book sent out went (at Morley's +direction) to Mr. Huneker. He was then writing regularly critical +articles for something like a half dozen publications. "Casuals of the +Sea" (such things did not turn up every day) was a "find" for his +enthusiasm, He "pulled" two columns of brilliant Hunekerean firecrackers +about it in the New York <i>Sun</i>; wrote another article of length on the +book for the New York <i>Times</i>; gave the volume a couple of paragraphs of +mention in his department on the Seven Arts at that time running in +<i>Puck</i>,<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a> and perhaps mentioned the book elsewhere also. With the weight +of such fervor and authority "Casuals" was most auspiciously launched. +It could not now, by any chance, be passed by.</p> + +<p>I do not, of course, mean to imply that there was anything artificial or +"manufactured" about the "vogue" of "Casuals." First, Mr. Huneker was +not a reviewer but a critic, if not thoroughly a great one, certainly a +very real one; and about the last man going who could be got to "push" +anything he did not whole-heartedly believe was fine. And secondly, +"Casuals" had "the goods."</p> + +<p>Through my connection with the matter of "Casuals" I suppose it was that +a correspondence came about between Mr. Huneker and me. And in all my +days I have never seen so energetic a correspondent. It seems to me that +I got a letter from him about every other morning. I dropped out of the +publishing business and went to Indiana for a time. I let him know when +I got there, my motive in this being mainly to notify him that I <i>was</i> +out of the publishing business and so was no longer in a position to +give any business attention to letters relating to books. But letters +from him continued to reach me with the same regularity. While, I +hardly<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> need say, I enjoyed this correspondence enormously, I was +decidedly embarrassed by it, as I could not but keenly feel that I was +taking up his time to no purpose. Still, of course, I felt that I should +answer each letter of his without an impolite delay, and no sooner did +he get my reply than he answered back again. Gradually, however, we got +the thing slowed down.</p> + +<p>His letters were prodigal of witty things. I am afraid I have not kept +them; if so I do not know where they are—I move about a good deal. One +neat play of words I remember. I do not know whether or not he himself +ever used it elsewhere. I did use it in a book, giving due credit to Mr. +Huneker. I had told him that I was going in for writing on my own. His +comment was: "He that lives by the pen shall perish by the pen." Some of +his letters, I recall, were signed, "Jim, the Penman."</p> + +<p>And it was no simple trick to read them. He used a pale ink. The +handwriting was small, curious, and to me almost illegible. Why +compositors did not mob him I do not know. He wrote everything by hand; +never would learn to use a typewriter, and declared that he could not +acquire the faculty of dictation.<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a></p> + +<p>This leads me to the story of one of the articles he contributed to <i>The +Bookman</i>. When, upon my return to New York, I became (for a time) editor +of this magazine I pursued him for contributions. Yes, later on he would +send us something, but always it was later on, later on. I had about +given up hope of ever getting anything from him when a bulky wad of +closely-written "copy" on yellow paper arrived. Expecting that it would +take me a couple of days to decipher the manuscript, I joyously +acknowledged receipt of it at once, without a thought of questioning the +nature of the article. When I tried to read the article, after I had +held the first page sidewise, next upside down, then examined it in a +mirror, I "passed the buck" and sent the copy straight on to the +printers. If printers had read him before printers ought to be able to +do so again. I advertised the article to appear in the next number of +the magazine. When I got the article back in galley proofs—I got a +jolt. It wasn't "<i>Bookman</i> stuff" at all, all about a couple of "old +rounders," as Mr. Huneker called them, taking a stroll.</p> + +<p>I do not think that Mr. Huneker has as yet since his death, to the time +these rambling remarks<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a> are being written, received anything like +adequate recognition in the press. The "obituary" articles in the +newspapers have carried the air that he was hardly more than an +excellent "newspaper man"—somewhat older, but something like (dare I +say?) Heywood Broun or Alexander Woollcott. Ah! no; James Huneker was a +critic and an artist, and a figure, too, in our national life. Though he +was all his days until almost his last breath a hard-working journalist +with an immediate "copy date" before him. And though he most naturally +thought of himself, with common-sense pride in his calling, as a +journalist. I remember his one time speaking of Arnold Bennett as "a +hard-working journalist as well as a novel writer." Indicating his great +esteem for the character of journalist. And he used to speak, too, with +fraternal pride and affection in inflection, of young men who had +written good books, as being among "our men," meaning associated with +the same paper as himself.</p> + +<p>At the remarkable funeral service held in the new Town Hall in New York +high and touching honor was done his memory by the stage and the musical +profession, but literature seemed to<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> be officially represented by the +person of Richard Le Gallienne alone, and painting and sculpture not at +all. The articles by Mr. Huneker's colleagues among music critics have +seemed very largely to claim him as quite their own. True, no doubt, his +most penetrating writing was done in the field of musical criticism. +But, also, Huneker was an evangel who belongs to the Seven Arts.</p> + +<p>One thing should be added. It is a sad thing, but it is of the nature of +life. A good editorial in <i>The New Republic</i> began: "James Huneker named +one of his best books 'The Pathos of Distance.' In a single day his own +figure is invested with the memorial gentleness there described." No, +not altogether in a single day. He had already begun, and more than +begun, to recede into the pathos of distance. His <i>flair</i> was for the +championship and interpretation of the "new" men. And, for the most +part, his new men had become old men. His stoutest admirer must admit +that Mr. Huneker's work was "dated."</p> + +<p>But where (and this is sadder still) is his like today?<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII<br /><br /> +FORMER TENANT OF HIS ROOM</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE are certain things which must be done, to yield their best, when +one is young. For one thing, there is only one time in life to run away +to sea. If you did not run away to sea when you were a lad, it is too +late now for you to get any sport out of it. 'Tis something the same +with living in a garret or in a hall bedroom. If you did not read +"Robinson Crusoe" when you were a boy there is no use for you to read it +now; you will not understand it. There are some other things you can +enjoy when you are old—grandchildren, for instance. But the time to +come up to a great city is when one is young. The time to walk up +Broadway at night, and feel a gusto about it, and Fifth Avenue by day, +is when one is young. That is an enchanted time, when it is a fine +dashing thing to be doing, to live at a second-rate boarding house; when +discouragement is adventure; when it is worth while even<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> to be poor; +when one makes life-long friends at sight; when young love is sipped; +when courage is ever stout in one's breast; when one's illusions are +virgin yet; and all's right with the world. At that season one can swell +with a rich personal pride in "Shanley's" and, almost at the same time, +eat one's own theatre supper in a "Dairy Lunch" room, where every +customer is his own waiter as well, and where his table is the broadened +arm of his chair against the wall.</p> + +<p>Richard Day, student at the law, munched his egg sandwich (egg sandwich +was the favorite dish at the "Dairy Lunches" until eggs got so high) and +drank his coffee from a cup that remarkably resembled in shape a shaving +mug and was decorated in similar fashion. The blocks of sugar (two for +Richard) for this stimulating beverage (made out of chicory) were taken +by the customer with his fingers from a heaping-full sort of great +punch-bowl mounted on a pedestal in the middle of the room. It was drawn +from a nickel-plated engine with glass tubes by a young man in a white +coat like a barber's, who served it, with crullers, piece of pie, or +sandwich, across a kind of little bar at the rear end of the long room.<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a></p> + +<p>Day scorned the packed, parading trolley cars, and swung vigorously up +the street. Far up the thoroughfare an enormous electric sign (in its +size suggesting that it had been somehow brought back by Gulliver from +the country of Brobdingnag and mounted here upon a sturdy little +building for awful exhibition) its gigantic illuminated letters spelling +"Arthur Pendennis Ten Cent Cigar," lighted the mist for blocks +approaching it, and marked the north boundary of the dominion for +revelry. The sidewalks were much quieter now. One of those birds of the +urban night deftly wheeled his vehicle alongside our pedestrian and +pulled his clattering quadruped violently back upon its haunches until +it slid along the slippery pavement. "Cab, sir? Cab?" Then he whisked +away again. It was not long before Richard had entered into the district +of slumbering residences, and not much longer until he ran up the steps +before his own door, or, speaking more literally, his own landlady's +door. It is not much to mount three pairs of stairs in the brave days +when one is twenty-one, and Day was in the little room, where, rich only +in the glory of his rising sun, in his youth, he weathered it so long.<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a></p> + +<p>This apartment was the width of the dark hall, which was face to face +with it, about fourteen feet long, and furnished in tune, so to speak. +An uncommonly small, old-fashioned, wooden bedstead, a bantam-size +"dresser," a washstand its shorter brother, a small table or "stand," +and two half-grown chairs, mature before their season, were the +principal articles of furniture. The room was heated by an oil stove +that had passed the age of vanity in one's appearance; it was lighted at +night by a gas-jet, without a globe; by day through a single window, +which occupied between a half and a third of the wall space of the front +end of the room, and which balanced in decorative effect with the door +at the other end. A row of books was arranged along the dresser top +against the lower part of the small looking-glass. Two pictures (the +property of Day), one of Lincoln and one of Roosevelt squinting in the +sunlight (this is a land where every young man may hope to be +President), were tacked on the walls. In company with these were a +combination calendar and fire-insurance advertisement and a card +displaying a lithographed upper part and idealistic legs of a blithe +young woman wearing, stuck on, a short, bright skirt made of<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a> sandpaper +and streaked with match-scratches, who in fancy letters was ingeniously +labelled "A Striking Girl." These bits of applied art were properties of +Mrs. Knoll's establishment.</p> + +<p>Day's dresser had several small drawers and a little square door. He had +one day discovered adhering to the back of this door a hardened piece of +chewing gum, and from this he had deduced that a former tenant of the +room had been a woman, presumably a young one (for surely there is an +age after which one knows better). He sometimes speculated on the +subject of the former tenant, and he was of three minds about her +vocation. Sometimes he thought she had been a school-teacher, sometimes +he thought an art student, and again a clerk in a store. He +reconstructed her as having had red hair and having been a bit frowsy. +But whatever she had been she had slept on a mighty hard little bed, and +he felt something like a tenderness for her on that account.</p> + +<p>When he had got home from the theatre, Richard sat on the edge of his +bed (it seemed always somehow the most natural place in the room to +sit), and smoked his pipe. One Christmas Day he and his bosom friend had +gone together and<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> bought pipes exactly alike, then each had given his +to the other. Years later Day was compelled to give up smoking, and he +was never exactly the same again. But when he was young the gods blessed +him. He smoked his pipe out, then he slowly pulled off his shoes. That +is, he pulled off one shoe and sat abstractedly a considerable while +with it in his hand. He had many thoughts, mainly associated with an +unknown young lady he had seen that evening at the theatre. He wished he +had had on a different style of collar—and he would have had if his +laundryman had kept his word. However, he thought rather sadly what +booted it to him now. Then he roused himself, slowly undressed, put on +his pajamas (his mother had made them for him), turned off his light, +pulled up his window curtain (so the morning light would waken him), and +got into bed.</p> + +<p>Richard fell into a great many adventures in his night's sleep. He +fought bandits, with never any cartridges in his gun; he travelled +across plains that appeared to be constructed on the principle of a +treadmill; he visited sundry peculiar places and did divers queer things +with solemnity and without surprise. After a while it<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a> seemed to him +that he was somewhere talking with, or rather to, the former tenant of +his room. But the former tenant did not have red hair; her hair was the +loveliest brown; nor was she the least bit frowzy; she was the very +opposite extreme to that. Nor clerk nor teacher nor student was she. She +was a bright princess. Her complexion had rather more of the rose than +of the lily. Her pure and eloquent blood spoke in her cheeks. She and +the lady he had seen at the theatre were one and the same person. He +could not make out exactly how he came to know she was the former +tenant, but that seemed to be considered so very well understood he felt +ashamed to speak about it.</p> + +<p>He was saying to her some of the cleverest things he had ever heard. He +surprised himself as he listened to himself; and he was much elated; for +if ever he wished to speak well, now was the time. Now Day was really a +very clever fellow, as well as a comely one (this is only a story of his +youth, but in after life he became a distinguished man), and, like all +very clever fellows, he was never perfectly happy except when his +talents were recognized and appreciated. Here<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a> in his dream he had come +into his own. It was a night to be marked with a white stone. One of the +things that particularly impressed him in this dream was his impression +that it was not a dream.</p> + +<p>In the morning it was always colder in Day's room than at night, and +always it seemed somehow lonesomer. It was bare then, and not cozy. To +come directly from such an especially comfortable dream into the cold, +grey dawn, and find one's window opaque with frost and one's breath like +steam in the air, requires a little time for one to adjust oneself to +the transition. Richard lay a little time generating courage to get up. +He did not immediately shake off his dream entirely; but crumbs of it +stuck to his mind, like the last of a fine cake on the face. But it was +as if his cake had turned cold in the mouth. He squirmed in bed with +embarrassment when he reviewed those clever things, on which he had so +plumed himself, that he had said to the former tenant. They were so very +poor and flat that he tried to stop his mind against the recollection of +them. And even the former tenant herself, as she faded now more into the +night, and he came more out into the morning, was like Cinderella<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a> as +she fled from the hall back to her kitchen. But Richard caught up the +crystal slipper that remained to him and in his bosom bore it forth into +the day.<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII<br /><br /> +ONLY SHE WAS THERE</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">D</span>IRECTLY in the intense emphasis of white light from an arc lamp +overhead, and standing about midway in the long, dark, thickly-packed +line of people waiting, was a young man decidedly above the middle +stature, in a long outer coat. He was broad in the shoulders, formed in +excellent proportion, apparently in about the first or second and +twentieth year of his age. His forehead was intelligent, his nose +exceptionally good, his mouth rather big and lips full, his chin round +and with a cleft in the centre. His hair, chestnut, moderately cropped, +discovered, what of it was visible below his hat, a decided inclination +to curl. He was redolent of health and the unmined masculine vigor +pertaining to his time of life. As the earliest ancestor of this kind of +historical writing would have said, "He was one of the handsomest young +fellows that hath ever been seen"; in short, he was not<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> unlike one +Jones, Christian-named Tom. This young man was Richard Day, student of +the law, and he had come from his silent "furnished room" to refresh +himself, at a minimum cost, at the dramatic presentation of an immortal +story of love.</p> + +<p>On the occasions when the entertainment to be is of a superior order, +the price of admission is doubled or trebled, and the patrons of the +theatre gallery are of an exceptional character. They comprise school +teachers in abundance, miscellaneous students, matinée girls driven high +by the prohibitory prices below, young clerks, and a sprinkling from the +usual ranks of the gallery-god, the better sort of them, however, the +more wealthy and more aspiring. The original line containing Richard Day +had assembled an hour or so before time, to be on the spot at the +opening of the doors at a commendable production of "Romeo and Juliet."</p> + +<p>There came a sudden jolting, like the coupling of railroad cars, then a +denser packing of the line, a being pushed off one's balance and being +pressed back into it again, and slowly, jerkily, the crowd began to move +forward; then swept toward the entrance. The doors had been opened. As +the throng began to move, a woman'<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a>s voice rose near Day ejaculating +breathlessly, "Oh! Oh!" Simultaneously a shrill cry arose, "Oh, there's +a sick lady here! a sick lady! Oh, please! Oh, please! Won't you make +room for a sick lady!" Day with all his force made what room he could, +conceiving that the thing desired was to get the stricken lady out in +the open as quickly as possible. A little peaked woman in a light coat +took instant advantage of the slight breach then opened, impetuously to +advance herself in the line. When the momentary gap had closed again, +piteously the crying was resumed, and it continued at intervals almost +the entire distance to the box-office, though it was in a slightly +different neighborhood and observably proceeded from exactly the point +of vantage gained by the little peaked woman; who, it might be inferred, +was a dual personality, comprising in the same lady both a sick lady and +another who was her good Samaritan and assumed the care of her.</p> + +<p>Nothing railed the crowd into a straight line on one side, though on the +other a wall held them so. The impatient crowding forward from the rear +convexed the outer edge of the line of people, much against the will of +those persons who found<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> themselves being swept out of the direct way +and felt the main current surging past them. What was yet more agitating +to these was that ahead of them an iron railing did begin, at the foot +of some steps, fencing in a narrow approach to the ticket office. If +they should be swept past the mouth of this lane on the outside, their +chance of admittance was hopeless. Day stemmed the swerving current +himself by the strength of his body and by a kind of determined exercise +of his will. But he felt directly behind him someone less strong losing +hold with every step of advance; then suddenly this despairing someone, +realizing herself pushed quite to one side, with a little scream, caught +at his crooked arm; which he instantly, involuntarily clapped firmly +against him, hooking on in this manner and towing safely and rapidly +along someone frailer than himself. When they had come to the rail he +saw that he would get in by so narrow a margin himself that, himself +inside, he would then but tow her along outside, which of course would +be a less than useless thing for her. So he backed water, so to speak, +with all his might, bracing himself against the end of the rail, until +he had got a little space before him, around into which he drew her +whom<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a> he thought robbed of her place by the frantic selfishness of the +crowd.</p> + +<p>But in doing this, it seemed he had inadvertently held back for a moment +the little peaked woman, who was at his inside elbow. She, finding +herself delayed for a brief period almost at the goal in her desperate +bargain-counter sort of rush for the ticket-window, blew out into a +spitting cat kind of impotent fury. "Ain't you got no semblance of +decency! you great big brute!" she screamed in his ear. "Ain't you got +no ideas of gentlemanliness at all! If I was a man I'd teach you some +shame, tramplin' on a woman, a poor weak woman! a woman!" She fairly +writhed with scorn at this depravity. Day attempted to humble himself to +her, for her pacification; but another woman's getting in ahead of her +at that instant drove her almost mad, and her frenzy interfering for the +moment with her articulation she could only glare at him with an +expression suggesting some kind of feline hydrophobia. When her breath +returned more to her command she continued to revile him as they went +along. Although Day had done nothing to merit shame, he squirmed +inwardly with something not unlike that feeling, and he blessed the +general commotion<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> which drowned a vixen's voice. He felt ashamed, too, +to be where he was, though he had not thought of it that way before; he +should not have brought himself into a crowd more than half of women.</p> + +<p>His reflections became rather abstract and levelled themselves somewhat +against the feminine temperament in general. He felt the littleness of +it (so he saw it), the peevishness of it; its inability to take +punishment good-naturedly; its incapacity for being a "good loser"; its +lack of the philosophic character which accepts humorously discomforts +and injustice, real as well as imagined; its lack of broadness of view; +its selfish lack of the sense of fair play; its +not-being-square-and-above-board way; its sneakiness, its deceitfulness; +the contemptible devices that it will resort to, assuming them to be its +natural weapons against a superior strength, both physical and of the +understanding. He knew that in a crowd of men if anyone of them had had +the despicable disposition of this woman his dread of the hearty, +boisterous ridicule of his fellow brutes which would inevitably have +followed his meanness would have forced him to stifle his temptation in +silence. He knew that there is no place<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a> where one may better learn to +appreciate what may be called the good-natured easy-goingness of the +male animal generally than in an uncomfortable crowd of men. He thanked +heaven he was of the superior sex. When a young man thanks heaven that +he is of the superior sex it may not be uninteresting to observe in what +manner he conducts himself subsequently.</p> + +<p>As fast as the crowd was served with tickets it ran up the multiplied +flights of stairs, moved in single file past the ticket-chopper, then on +to come out, high up, into the vast bowl of the theatre. Here from one's +seat the impression of the weird, ship-at-sea like effect of the curves +of the galleries, balconies, and tiers of boxes, sweeping back from the +light in front, dropping away from the vaulted ceiling; the impression +of being high up close under a great roof and far from the stage; the +impression of the myriads of vague elusive faces in the half-lit, thick, +scintillating atmosphere of the hot, crowded place; the impression of +the playhouse scheme of decoration, red walls and tinsel in the dusk, +cream color and tinsel bas-relief in the highly artificial yellow light, +casting purplest shadows, and the heroic mural paintings in blue and +yellow and green, the sense<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a> of the infinite moving particles of the +throng; the sense of its all facing one way, of the low hum of it, and +of its respiration—all this is stuff that puts one in the mood for a +play. The keen actualities fade and become the shadows; sense of one's +own life and vanity and disappointment slips away; one is to enjoy a +transmigration of soul for a brief time. "Now for the play!" thought +Richard.</p> + +<p>A man was climbing up the steps of the aisle, some distance away, +flinging an inadequate number of fluttering programs into the crowd. +None fell in Day's neighborhood, to the indignant consternation of all +there. A chorus of exclamatory sighs went up from a feminine flock just +settled at his right, all faces following the disappointing program +distributor. A stocky young man at Day's left hand arose, and clambering +out between the parallel two rows of seats, occupants getting on their +feet to allow him passage, started after the disappearing man of +programs.</p> + +<p>A full-throated feminine voice burst almost in Day's right ear: "Oh, +please tell him to get one for us!" Day lunged after the stocky young +man, reaching for his coat-tails, and cried out, "Hey there! Hey! +Fellow! Hold on!" until<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> it was quite hopeless to continue. The sea of +people closed in between him and his quest; the stocky young man, his +ears plugged with the multitude of voices, shook himself free from the +narow, clogged passage, and was gone. Day turned to the owner of the +feminine voice, "He will bring a lot, I think; if not I'll get you +some," he said. And he caught an elusive impression of cheeks precisely +the color of cheeks that had just been smartly slapped, suggesting the +idea that if one should press one's finger against them one's finger +would leave streaks there when taken away; and he caught an impression +of eyes that were like deep, brimming pools reflecting lights; and an +impression of a cloud of dusky brown-like hair which reminded him of a +host of rich autumn leaves. She of these cheeks and eyes and this hair +was, apparently, in a party with two companions, whose peering faces +showed indistinctly beyond her. In one significance of the word, she +might have been called a girl, or she was a young woman, a miss, a lass, +a young lady, as you please; as were they her companions. Merry +school-girl spirits lingered in them all, supplemented by the grace and +dawning dignity of young womanhood. She was at that sweet nosegay +period<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a> when young ladies are just, as it is sometimes said, finishing +their education. Her age was that enchanted time, holiest of the female +seasons, which hangs between mature girlhood and full womanhood. Day +felt a suspicion, though without perceptible foundation, that this was +the very person he had towed along outside.</p> + +<p>The stocky young man returned presently, showing an uncommonly blunt +face and with the programs, which proved sufficient in number. There was +an interval in which to read them; then the huge place fell suddenly +much darker, except directly to the fore, which burst into great light; +the immense curtain majestically ascended, and the time was that of the +quarrels of the houses of Capulet and Montague in the sixteenth century. +Richard Day passed out of his body sitting upright on the seat and lived +in this incarnation of the master dramatist.</p> + +<p>But unwittingly he had inhaled a liquor, that was even then feeding his +blood; he was even then continuing to inhale it; it crept in at the +pores of his right side; it was stealing its sweet breath about his +brain. This liquor was the magnetism of a powerful pleasant young +feminine presence near to him—too near. Too near for a<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a> clean-cut young +man, in his second and twentieth year, redolent of health, with +moderately cropped chestnut hair inclined to curl, intelligent forehead, +good nose, rather big mouth, full lips, and round chin with a cleft in +the centre—too near for him even to remain in the hands of the master +dramatist. A warm glow suffused him. His intellectual perception of the +illuminated, noble spectacle before him in a frame of night numbed in +his brain and he was conscious only of the rich sensation that +circulated through him. Metaphorically, senses and emotions lolled on +rich colored divans, spread with thick rugs, in the tropical atmosphere +of his head. The magically spoken lines of Shakespeare became as so much +unfelt, unrecognized, distant sounding jargon. What he had come to be +thrilled by, as the dark, breathless audience like a sea about him was +thrilled, was in a moment nothing to him. And yet he had not touched +her, nor again spoken with her, nor glanced at her.</p> + +<p>Only she was there!<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX<br /><br /> +A HUMORIST'S NOTE-BOOK</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> ADMIT that (though, indeed, I can claim a very fair collection of +authors as acquaintances) I share the popular interest in the +idiosyncratic nature of the literary profession. I am as curious as to +the occult workings of the minds of authors, the esoteric process by +which subtle insinuations of inspiration are translated into works of +literary art, as though I had never seen an author—off a platform. I +would read the riddle of genius. I am fascinated by its impenetrable +mysteries. I would explore the recesses of the creative head.</p> + +<p>Therefore, in the presence of the treasure of such incalculable value +which is before me, I experience tense intellectual excitement. In the +thought of its possession by myself I find the uttermost felicity. What +it is is this: it is <i>a humorous writer's note-book</i>.</p> + +<p>I must tell you the wonderful story—how this<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> came into my hands, and +how, romantically enough, it is, so to say, by the bequest of the author +himself, your own possession. The strange circumstances are as follows:</p> + +<p>Something like a week ago I received through the post at my place of +residence an oblong package. It was similar in shape to an ordinary +brick; not so heavy, and somewhat larger. I had ordered nothing from a +shop, and so, as the parcel was plainly addressed to myself, I concluded +that it must contain a present. As I am very fond of presents, I was, +with much eagerness, about to open the package, when I suddenly +recollected the newspaper reports of the recent dastardly Bolshevist +bomb plots; the sending through the mails, by some apparently organized +agency, to prominent persons in all parts of the country these +skillfully disguised engines of death and destruction. They were +outwardly, I recalled, innocent looking parcels, which when opened blew +housemaids to bits, demolished dwellings and, in some instances, +accomplished the murder of the personage who had incurred the enmity of +the criminals.</p> + +<p>I bounded some considerable distance away from the object before me. +Though, after a moment,<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a> I did, indeed, reflect that I was not what +would probably be regarded as an eminent citizen, and had never felt a +sense of power in the government of my country, I could not dissolve a +decided distaste toward my undoing this mysterious parcel. Also I did +not enjoy seeing it remain there on my table. And, further, I had no +inclination to carry it from the room.</p> + +<p>In this dilemma it occurred to me to summon the janitor of the apartment +house where I reside. When I had explained to him that, because of my +having a sore thumb (which made it painful for me to handle things), I +wished him to open this package for me—, when I had explained this to +him, he told me that he was very much occupied at the moment mending the +boiler downstairs, and that he must hasten to this occupation, otherwise +the lower floors would shortly be flooded. And he withdrew without +further ceremony.</p> + +<p>I sat down to consider the situation. I realized that it was a +bothersome moral responsibility—placing the lives of others (even if +janitors) in jeopardy. But something must be done; and done +soon—perhaps there was a time fuse in this thing. A thought came to me +(the buzzer of our dumb-waiter sounded at the moment); I decided<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a> to go +further down the scale in the value of human life to be risked. So I +communicated down the shaft to our iceman (one Jack) that I desired his +presence in the apartment. Well, the upshot of the matter is that Jack +showed no hesitation whatever about coolly putting the package in a pail +of water and afterward undoing it.</p> + +<p>The parcel proved to be an ordinary cigar-box (labelled outside, in the +decorative fashion of cigar-box labels, "Angels of Commerce"); within +was a letter resting upon a note-book, and beneath that the manuscripts +of two short stories. The submersion of the box would have (most +disastrously) obliterated, or gone near to obliterating, the message of +the letter and the writing in the note-book and the manuscript, had not +(happily) these things been packed tightly into the box by surrounding +waste paper.</p> + +<p>The letter was from Taffy Topaz, known to us all—a humorist if there +ever was one. I cannot say that I had been on intimate terms with Mr. +Topaz; indeed (to admit the truth) all my acquaintance with authors is +slight. I admire authors so much that it is the joy of my life to be +acceptable to them in any degree. I put myself<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a> in their way at every +opportunity. I regard it as a great privilege (as, certainly, it is) to +spend freely of my income in entertaining them at meals. And in this way +and that it is that I have attained the honor of hobnobbing with a +number of writers, when they are not otherwise engaged.</p> + +<p>As I say, I had not been on intimate terms with Mr. Topaz; and so I was +no little surprised (and, I admit, no little flattered) at this decided +attention (whatever it might mean) to me. The letter was not (oh, not at +all!) a humorous letter. It was a very solemn letter. It said that Mr. +Topaz was just about to go to the war. I was, naturally, puzzled at +this: the war is (theoretically) over. I hunted round and found a piece +of the wrapping paper which had enclosed the box. On it was the postmark +(the paper had dried somewhat); and the stamp bore the date of October +1, 1917. I was still more puzzled as to where the box could have been +all this while. Then, I recollected the heroic labors of the post-office +in maintaining any kind of a schedule of delivery during the war. My +poor friend's box had been goodness knows where all this time!</p> + +<p>The letter stated (as I have said) that Mr.<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a> Topaz was about to go to +the war—as a newspaper correspondent. It said (oh, it almost made one +weep, so solemn was it!) that he might never return from "over there." +In case he did not come back (the letter continued), he (Mr. Topaz) +wished me to undertake the charge of placing the enclosed manuscripts +with some magazine or magazines; the money got from them, though it was +inadequate he knew (so he said), he prayed that I would accept as +payment for the advances which I had made him from time to time. (Alas! +my poor friend, what were those miserable loans compared to the wealth +of his society! How I remember that proud day when he called me, so +pal-like, a "poor fish"!) But this is not a time to indulge one's grief; +I must press on with my story.</p> + +<p>The remainder of his literary effects, he said (meaning, of course, the +note-book), he desired me (as he knew I had some connection with a +certain magazine) to present to the editor of that journal. Little more +remains to be said here of Mr. Topaz (my friend). He was not called upon +to lay down his life for his country (or his paper); after the armistice +he went valiantly into Germany; and there (as the papers have reported<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a>) +he contracted a marriage; and is little likely again to be seen in these +parts.</p> + +<p>The first page of the note-book contains these entries. It is headed</p> + +<p class="headd">JOTTINGS</p> + +<p>"Good name for a small orphan—Tommy Crandle.</p> + +<p>"Fat person—shrugged his stomach.</p> + +<p>"Name for a spendthrift—Charles Spending.</p> + +<p>"Aphorism—Fear makes cowards of us all.</p> + +<p>"Billy Sparks—Fine name for a lawyer.</p> + +<p>"Nice name for a landlady—Mrs. Baggs.</p> + +<p>"Humorous Christian name for a fat boy—Moscow.</p> + +<p>"Name for a clerk—Mr. Fife.</p> + +<p>"Good name for someone to cry out on a dark night—Peter Clue! Peter +Clue!</p> + +<p>"Good name for a sporting character—Bob Paddock.</p> + +<p>"Aphorism—A fool and his foot are soon in it.</p> + +<p>"Good name for a tea room in Greenwich Village—The Bad Egg.</p> + +<p>"Epigrammatic remark—Though somewhat down in the mouth he kept a stiff +upper lip."</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p><a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a></p> + +<p>Then follows this on umbrellas, evidently the opening of an unwritten +essay:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">And, like umbrellas, with their feathers</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Shield you in all sorts of weathers.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">M<small>ICHAEL</small> D<small>RAYTON.</small></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"Among all the ingenious engines which man has contrived for his +ornament and protection none, certainly, is more richly idiosyncratic +than the umbrella. Literary genius has always instinctively recognized +this; and doubtless the esoteric fact has been vaguely felt even by the +unthinking; but it is a profound truth which, I fear, has had but slight +popular appreciation.</p> + +<p>"The use of this historic and peculiarly eloquent article of personal +property, the umbrella, illustrates pictorially a proverbial allusion to +the manifestation of intelligence: it shows that a man has 'sense enough +to go in out of the rain.' It reveals not only the profundity of his +judgment but the extraordinary play of his cleverness, as it exhibits +him as the only animal who after crawling into his hole, figuratively +speaking, pulls his hole in after him, or, in other words, carries his +roof with him. Further than this, in the idea of carrying an umbrella +you find the secret of man's striking success in the world: the +intrepidity of<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a> his spirit in his tenacious pursuit of his own affairs +defies both the black cloud's downpour and the sun's hot eye."</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>There is this, headed</p> + +<p class="headd">HUMOR</p> + +<p>"There was once a man who was nearly dead from a disease. One day while +taking the air a friend cried to him encouragingly, 'Well, I see that +you're up and about again.' 'Yes,' replied the sick man good-naturedly, +'I'm able to walk the length of the block now.' This notion was so +irresistible that both the quick and the dying burst into laughter."</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>Among the longer entries in this note-book is the following remarkable +psychological study, having as its title</p> + +<p class="headd">TEMPERAMENT</p> + +<p>"That morning Kendle had seen himself famous. As he worked he began to +feel good in his brain and in his heart and in his stomach. He felt +virile, elated, full of power, and strangely<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a> happy. The joy of creating +a thing of art was upon him. Thrills ran down his spine and into his +legs. As he looked at his work he admired it. He knew that this was good +art. He felt that here was genius. He saw himself in a delectable +picture, an idol applauded of the multitude, and loved by it. For he +believed that the multitude was born, and ate and slept, and squabbled +among itself, and acquired property, and begot offspring, but to await +the arrival of genius. And the only genius he knew was genius in +eccentric painting. The only genius worth while that is, for there is a +genius that invents labor-saving machines, telephones, X-rays, and so +forth; but nobody loves that genius. It occurred to him that he was a +very lovable man, with all his faults (his faults were the lovable ones +of genius), and he would soon have achieved a distinction that would +make any woman proud of him. He determined to renew his addresses +to——.</p> + +<p>"Somehow in the evening his intoxication had died down. He felt very +sad. His work lay before him with so little eccentricity to it that he +was ashamed. His sense of power had quite departed. And now he dismally +felt that he would never amount to anything. He was a failure.<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a> An idle, +wicked, disgraceful fellow, no good in the world, and not worth any +woman's attention. His heart felt sick when he thought this. He was very +miserable. He despised himself. So he sighed. It would have been better, +he thought, if he had apprenticed himself to the plumber's trade in his +boyhood. He would in that case have grown up happy and contented, +remained at home and done his duty, respected by his neighbors and +himself, though only a plumber. A plumber is a good honest man that pays +his debts.</p> + +<p>"At home! Why was he not there, anyway? What good was he doing away from +there? There was his mother, in her declining years. Was his place not +by her side? He would never desert his mother, he thought. And Sis! +there was Sis. He would never desert Sis. How good they had been to him! +How they believed in him! (he squirmed) how they believed in him still. +He imagined them showing his most sensible pictures around to the +neighbors. 'My son is an artist,' he heard his mother say. His flesh +crawled. How mad he had been! How contemptible he was! Still a man was +not hopeless who had a soul for such feelings as he had now. He would +reform. He would henceforth eschew<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a> the company of such as Walker. He +enumerated his vices and renounced them one by one. He began life over +again. He would bask in the simple domestic pleasures of his mother in +her declining years, and Sis. He would get up very early every morning +and go to his humble toil before it was quite light. He felt himself +walking along in the chill of dawn—the street lamps still lit. He would +work hard all day. He would always tell the truth. Every Saturday night +he would come home tired out, with fifteen dollars in his pocket. This +he would throw into his mother's lap. 'Here, mother,' he would say in a +fine manly voice, 'here are fifteen dollars.' His mother would put her +apron to her eyes, and look at him through tears of pride and joy. He +would wear old clothes and be very honest and upright looking, the sort +of young man that Russell Sage would have approved, that Sis might +dress. He would not mind the sneers and gibes of the world, for he would +be <i>right</i>.</p> + +<p>"He looked defiantly around the room for a few sneers and gibes."<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX<br /><br /> +INCLUDING STUDIES OF TRAFFIC "COPS"</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE other day it was such a pleasant April day I thought I'd take the +afternoon off. It was such a very pleasant day that I didn't want to go +anywhere in particular. Do you ever feel that way? I mean like you just +wanted to be by yourself and sit down and think awhile.</p> + +<p>Later on, you have an idea, you'll come back into things much refreshed. +But the thought of answering these letters now, or of doing this or +doing that, kind of lets you down inside your stomach. Your brain seems +to have dropped down somewhere behind your ears. If that fellow across +the office comes over to pull another of his bright ideas on you you +think you'll probably scream, or brain him, or something. He's getting +terrible, anyhow.</p> + +<p>You have any number of excellent friends, and (ordinarily) you are quite +fond of them. Perhaps you will go to see one of them. There's Ed, you've +been wanting for you don't know<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a> how long to go round and see him. Never +seemed to have time. But no; you don't want to see Ed—today. Same way +with all the others, as you go over the list of them in your mind. +Couldn't bear to see any of 'em—not this afternoon. For one thing, +they're all so selfish.... So interested in their own affairs.</p> + +<p>As I was straightening up my desk an idea came to me about jobs. Seems +to me that when I have a job I'm all the while worrying about how to +break out of it. I think: Well, I'm tied up here until the first of the +year; but I'll sure shake it after that; too cramped and limited. And +then when I am out of a job I immediately begin to worry about how to +get another one. That's Life, I guess.</p> + +<p>I turned uptown and floated along with the current of the Avenue throng. +It was a glittering April throng. The newest stockings were out. I had +not seen them before. The newest stockings (you will have noted) are so +very, very thin and the pores (so to say) in them are so large that they +give the ladies who wear them the agreeable effect of being bare-legged.</p> + +<p>At Thirty-fourth Street the traffic policeman on post at our side of +this corner, by an outward<a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a> gesture of his arms pressed back the +sidewalk stream for a couple of moments of cross-town vehicular traffic. +He stood within a few inches of the front row of the largely feminine +crush. Whenever an impatient pedestrian broke through the line he had +formed and attempted to dart across the street he emitted a peculiar +little whistle followed by the admonishment, "Hold on, lady!" or "Hey +there, mister!" Thus having returned the derelict to cover, he would +smile very intimately, with a kind of sly cuteness, at the more handsome +young women directly before him—who invariably tittered back at him. +And thus, frequently, a little conversation was started.</p> + +<p>Now as a vigilant historian of the social scene this matter of the +gallant relations of traffic policemen to perambulating ladies of +somewhat fashionable, even patrician aspect, I find highly interesting. +It is a subject which does not seem to have been much examined into.</p> + +<p>Why, exactly, should flowers of débutante-Bryn-Mawr appearance look with +something like tenderness at policemen? Seems to me I have read now and +then in the papers strikingly romantic stories wherein a mounted +policeman in the park (formerly a cowboy) saved the life of an<a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a> +equestrienne heiress on a runaway mount, and was rewarded the next day +(or something like that) with her hand. Such a story my mind always +gladly accepts as one of the dramatic instances where life artistically +imitates the movies. Crossing Thirty-fourth Street, however, seems to me +another matter.</p> + +<p>And what system of selection operates in the Department whereby this +officer or that is chosen from among all his brethren for the +paradisaical job of being beau of a fashionable crossing? And would you +not think that a more uniform judgment would be exercised in the +election of men to such Brummellian duties? Adonises in the traffic +force I have, indeed, seen (there is one at Forty-second Street), but +this chap of whom I have just been speaking (the whimsical whistler) +certainly was not one of them. He was what is called "pie-faced." +Hunched up his shoulders like an owl. Yet his ogling of loveliness in +new spring attire was completely successful, was in no instance that I +observed resented, was received with arch merriment. Indeed, his heavy, +pink-tea attentions were obviously regarded as quite flattering by the +fair recipients! As he let the tide break to cross<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a> the street it was +plain, from bright glances backward, that he had fluttered little hearts +which would smile upon him again. And so, in such a Romeo-like manner, +does this bulky sentimentalist, armed with concealed weapons, have +dalliance with the passing days. What you 'spose it is about him gives +him his fascination in flashing eyes haughty to the rest of the +masculine world—his bright buttons, or what?</p> + +<p>Yes; these curious and romantic little relationships between traffic +cops on social duty, so to say, and their dainty admirers are not (in +some instances at least) so transient as to be merely the exchange of +roguish words and soft glances of the moment. There is that really +august being of matinee-idol figure at—well, let us say at Forty-second +Street. Sir Walter Raleigh could not with more courtliness pilot his +fair freight across the Avenue. So it was the day after Christmas I saw +not one but several of his young friends blushingly put dainty packages +into his hands.</p> + +<p>Is there not an excellent O. Henry sort of story in this piquant city +situation?</p> + +<p>Well, floating like a cork upon a river I drifted along up the Avenue. I +passed a man I had<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a> not seen for several years. Yes; that certainly was +the fellow I used to know. And yet he was an altogether different being +now, too. The sort of a shock I got has perhaps also been experienced by +you. Only a short time ago, it seemed to me, this friend of mine had +been robust and ruddy, masterful and gay, in the prime of his years. I +had somehow innocently expected him always to be so. Just as I find it +very unreal to think of myself in any other way than I am now. Don't +you? As to yourself, I mean. He was quite grey. His shoulders hung +forward. His chest seemed to have fallen in on itself. His legs moved +back and forth without ever altogether straightening out. He had a +whipped look. Wrinkled clothes and dusty black derby hat, he was +conspicuous in the peacockean scene. And yet on a time he had been, I +knew, as much a conqueror of hearts as any policeman. So would it +sometime be with me—like this?</p> + +<p>What do you know about that! In the next block another acquaintance of +old I saw. But when I had known him he was stooped and little and thin +and dried up and cringing. He worked in a basement and did not wear a +collar, at least by day. He used to look very old. Now here<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a> he was +swinging along looking very much like Mr. Caruso, or some such personage +as that.</p> + +<p>How may this phenomenon be accounted for, what was the misfortune of one +of these persons and the secret of the other? I know a man who has a +theory which, at least, sounds all right. It is not buttermilk nor +monkey glands, he contends, which will keep a man young and stalwart so +much as (what he calls) an objective in life—a distant rampart to take, +a golden fleece to pursue. That is why, he declares, scientists and +artists frequently live happy and alert to such a great age: Thomas A. +Edison, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Jap chap (what's his name? Hokusai) +who at a hundred and ten or thereabout was called "the old man mad about +painting."</p> + +<p>Maybe it was thinking of that idea, maybe it was the fearsome thought of +that dusty derby hat of my friend's which haunted my mind, or maybe my +competitive instincts had been aroused from spring slumber by the +spectacle of my Caruso-like friend careering along, anyhow a decidedly +bugged-up feeling began to flow through me; I wavered in my loitering, I +turned, my sails (so to speak) caught the wind, and I laid my<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a> course +abruptly back to the office. I had suddenly a great itch to get at all +those letters.</p> + +<p>I was very glad to see that fellow across the office from me. He is a +good fellow and very helpful. I said to him, "Look here, what do you +think about this idea for getting business?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my goodness!" he said; "it's altogether too fine a day to think +about work. I'd just like to go out and wander up the Avenue with +nothing on my mind but my hair."<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI<br /><br /> +THREE WORDS ABOUT LITERATURE</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> FRIEND of mine (and aside from this error a very fine friend he is, +too) not long ago published a book which he declared, in his Preface, +should be read in bed. He insisted, to such an extent was he the victim +of a remarkable and pernicious fallacy which I find here and there, that +this book could not otherwise be properly enjoyed.</p> + +<p>Now the difficulty about this particular book, that is the circumstance +wherein my friend has got me in a position where it is not so easy for +me to overturn him all at once, is this: one, not knowing any better, +might take the author's advice, and find pleasure reading the book in +bed, not being aware that this simply was because here was a book that +one would find pleasure in reading anywhere. But because you have got +hold of a book which it is possible to enjoy reading in the wrong way, +it naturally follows (does it<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> not?) that you'd enjoy it much more +reading it in the right way. That, I should say, was simple and logical +enough.</p> + +<p>I know, I know! I'm coming to that: there are plenty of other people who +have this ridiculous reading-in-bed idea. There, for instance, is +Richard Le Gallienne. I had a letter from him awhile ago, in which he +remarked that it was his practice to do most of his reading in bed. Then +I had a letter recently from Meredith Nicholson, in which there was some +such absurd phrase as "going to bed and reading until the cock crows." +Also I one time read an essay, a very pleasant essay outside the +mistaken notion of its main theme, by Michael Monahan, which was largely +about the pleasure of reading in bed. Spoke of the delights of being +tucked in, with what satisfaction you got the light just right, and all +that.</p> + +<p>It must, of course, be acknowledged that all these gentlemen are, if +perverse in their method, persons of some reading. However, a fact such +as that, an accident as you might say, cannot be permitted to upset the +course of a profound argument. Why! as to that, a suspicion just occurs +to me that maybe someone could dig up Lamb, Hazlitt, Mark Twain, +Coleridge, Leigh<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a> Hunt, Cowper (perhaps all of them, and more) to the +effect that it is pleasant to read in bed. Didn't Thackeray have some +nonsense about "bedside books"? <i>I</i> haven't time to refute each of these +persons separately. It is sufficient, I take it, to roll into one point +of attack all this bed-reading heresy, from whatever quarters it comes, +and put an end to that.</p> + +<p>Understand me; I have no complaint against the reading in bed of persons +confined there through physical disability. The world war which brought +more people to bed for indefinite periods than any other matter since +time began thereby probably got more souls into the way of reading than +seventeen times several hundred schools ever did. All of them, however, +would find that they were much better off in the matter of reading when +they had got out of bed. What I say is that, in a manner of speaking, +there is no use in taking the air in a wheel-chair if you can take it on +horseback. Why do a thing in a halfway fashion when you can go to it +right?</p> + +<p>Another thing. There are people (I've seen them at it) who read on +porches. Sometimes in swings, rocking to and fro. Even in hammocks, +slung above the ground from trees. On trains,<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a> too. I have (with my own +ears) heard people say that they would "take a book" and go out into the +park, or into the woods, or out in a boat, or up on the mountain, or by +the sea, or any conceivable place except where one should go to read.</p> + +<p>All of these ways of reading are worse, if anything can be worse than +that, than reading in bed. Because in bed you do, at least, have your +mind sandwiched within doors. You do not feel the surge and rumble of +the world—the sound and movement of the things of which literature is +made; but any contact with which (at the moment of reading) is +destructive to the illusion which it is the province of literature to +create.</p> + +<p>For literature (reading it, I mean here) is, in this, like love: Richest +are the returns to that one whose passion is most complete in its +surrender. And a man lapping his frame in soft indolence, though he have +a book in his hand, is indulging in sensuous physical pleasure at least +equally with intellectual receptivity or aesthetic appreciation. No. +Reading should not be taken as an opiate.</p> + +<p>The way to read, then—but, a moment more; a couple of other points are +to be cleared up. There is much babble of slippers and <a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a>dressing-gowns, +easy chairs and "soft lights" in connection with the comments about the +pleasures, the "delights" as I believe some people say, of reading.</p> + +<p>What is wanted to <i>know</i> the relish to be got from reading is, first (of +course), an uncommon book. And by that term is meant merely one +uncommonly suited to the spirit of the reader. (The only perfect +definition, that, of a "good book.") Some people still read Stevenson. +Well, there's no great harm in that. Providing you read him (or anybody +else) as follows:</p> + +<p>You should read as you should die—with your boots on. You take a wooden +chair, without arms, such (this is the best) as is commonly called a +"kitchen chair." It has a good, hard seat. You sit upright in this, +crossing and recrossing your legs as they tire. Nearby you is a good, +strong light, one with a tonic effect, a light that keeps your eyes wide +open. You sit facing a dull, blank wall. No pictures or other ornaments +or decorations should be on this wall, as, in case such things are +there, and you happen to raise your eyes for an instant, in ecstasy or +in thought, your vision lights upon one of these things; and the heart +which you have given your<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a> author is, certainly in some measure, +alienated from him. Maybe, indeed, you go back to him almost at once. +But then harm has been done—you have not read with supreme abandon.<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII<br /><br /> +RECOLLECTIONS OF LANDLADIES</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is no figure in the human scene which makes so unctuous an appeal +to our relish of humanity as the landlady. When the landlady comes upon +the stage at the theatre, we all awaken to an expectation of delight in +the characteristic manifestations of her nature, and seldom are +disappointed. The genius of the greatest of authors always unfolds with +particular warmth in the presence of their landladies. A moment's +reflection will recall a procession of immortal landladies. Whether it +is that the colorful calling of landlady cultivates in one a peculiar +richness of human nature, or whether landladies are born and not +made—those with characters of especial tang and savor instinctively +adopting this occupation,—I cannot say, but the fact is indisputable +that landladies are not as other persons are. No one ever saw a humdrum<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a> +landlady. A commonplace person as a landlady is unthinkable.</p> + +<p>Now I think I may say that all my life, or nearly all, I have been an +eager and earnest student of landladies. I am, indeed, much more +familiar with the genus landlady than with courts and kings, or with +eminent personages generally such as supply the material for most of +those who write their recollections. Thus I am competent, I think, to +speak on a subject curiously neglected by the memorist.</p> + +<p>One who makes a culture of landladies comes in time to have a flair for +these racy beings, and is drawn by a happy intuition to the habitats of +those most resplendent in the qualities of their kind. Of course, one +never can tell what life will bring forth, but it seems to me that my +present landlady marks the top of my career as a connoisseur, an +amateur, of landladies. She is strikingly reminiscent of an English +landlady. And England, particularly London, is, as all the world knows, +to the devotee of landladies what Africa is to the big game +sportsman—his paradise. There the species comes to luxuriant flower, so +that to possess with the mind one or two well-developed London +landladies is never to be<a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a> without food for entertainment. My present +landlady, to return, is of course a widow. While it may be, for aught I +know, that all widows are not landladies, with very few exceptions all +landladies worthy of the name are widows. Those who are not widows +outright are, as you might say, widows in a sense. That is, while their +husbands may accurately be spoken of as living, and indeed are visible, +they do not exist in the normal rōle of husband. The commercial impulses +of the bona-fide husband have died in them, generally through their +attachment to alcoholic liquor, and they become satellites, hewers of +wood and drawers of water, to the genius awakened by circumstances in +their wives.</p> + +<p>I one time had a landlady of this origin in Norwalk, Connecticut. She +was a woman of angular frame, with a face of flint, a tongue of vinegar, +and a heart of gold. This, I have found in my travels, is the type of +the semi-widowed landlady. I had another such an identical one in +Topeka, Kansas. The asperity, doubtless, is occasioned by biting +disillusionment in the romance of long ago, but it is external; frost on +the window; at the heart's core wells the sense of universe-embracing +maternity which makes the character of<a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a> the landlady by vocation +sublime. All semi-widowed landladies have (it is their divine +inspiration) large families of half-grown sons. My landlady of Norwalk +grumbled continually; she could be heard out in the kitchen complaining +in a shrill, querulous tone that, with things as high as they were, +people would be crazy to expect meat twice a day. Yet she had at her +board the meanest, most low-down, ornery, contemptible, despicable cuss +in human form I ever knew, and the only fault I ever heard her find with +him was that he didn't eat enough.</p> + +<p>The erudite in landladies have, of course, cognizance of a class which +are in no degree widows. Those of this department of the race, however, +frequently are not landladies in fibre, but merely incidentally. They +are young wives who for a transient period seek to help out in the +domestic economy by taking a few lodgers who come with unexceptionable +references. As wives doubtless they are meritorious; but no monument +need be erected to them as landladies. Though I should like to see in +the principal public square of every town and city a monument designed +by an artist of ability placed to the enduring glory of the landladies +of that place. For are not landladies<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a> ancient institutions fostering +the public weal, and in their field not a whit less deserving of homage +than governors and soldiers? I would say to a nation, show me your +landladies and I will tell you your destiny. I should be remiss, +however, in my chronicle did I not note that among these partial and +ephemeral landladies occasionally are to be found pronounced landlady +potentialities. I recall a landlady I had on Montague Street, Brooklyn +Heights, whose passion for cleaning amounted to a mania. This young +person's housewifery frenzy always put me in mind of another soul who +could not rest—Hokusai, who at about a hundred and ten was spoken of as +"the old man mad about painting."</p> + +<p>Hovering about, tortured by a desire to begin, when I left for my +breakfast, she was still at it upon my return from my morning stroll, my +door barricaded by articles of dismembered furniture; still at it when I +came back a bit impatiently from a second walk; still at it while I read +the paper in her dining-room. And so without surcease throughout the +march of days and seasons. She unscrewed the knobs of the bed to polish +the threads thereof; she removed penpoints from penholders and made them +to shine like<a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a> burnished gold. I had another landlady moved by the same +springs of feeling, on Spruce Street, Philadelphia. Later, I heard, her +husband died, and she espoused her latent career.</p> + +<p>There is in the galaxy of landladies quite another type, an exotic plant +in the wondrously competent sisterhood, specimens of which may be found +blooming here and there like some rare orchid. I mean the fragile, lady +landlady, the clinging vine bereft of the supporting husband oak. Such +was Mrs. Knoll, of Central Avenue, Indianapolis, a little, plump, +rounded body, exceedingly bright, pleasant, intelligent, amiable, and +helpless; all of which qualities shone from her very agreeable face and +person. In her youth no doubt she was a type of beauty, and she remained +very well preserved. "Life and vanity and disappointment had slipped +away" (in the Thackerian words) from Dr. Knoll some years before; and +his widow and only child, Miss Knoll, were left in possession of the old +family home, and nothing more. They could not bear to leave it, that +would "break their hearts," said good, ineffectual Mrs. Knoll; so it was +viewed by them, unfortunately somewhat fallaciously, in the light of a +possible support.<a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a></p> + +<p>The Doctor evidently was a man of books, and his widow had sought, more +and more, companionship in reading. Life—the actual world about her, +that is—, and vanity, but not disappointment, had, in a manner of +speaking, slipped from her, too. And she had turned to that great world +of shadows. "In books," she said, "I can choose my own company." She had +plighted her troth in youth to Dickens and to Thackeray, and to these +she had remained ever faithful. In a world of false books and unsafe +friends she knew that she had by the hand two true spirits. Jane Austen +she loaned me with tremulous pleasure. And she was very fond of Mr. +Howells, with whom, she said she lived a great deal; and the Kentons, +the Laphams, and the Marches, were characters better known to her "than +her next-door neighbors." But it must be confessed that the tender +perfume of Mrs. Knoll was not altogether an equivalent in the sphere of +her passive efforts to the homely vegetable odor of the authentic +landlady.</p> + +<p>In great cities, amid the sheen of civilization is to be found just +adjacent to smart quarters of the town the tulip in the variegated +garden of landladies—the finished, polished stone gathered<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a> from the +mine, the bird of plumage of the species; I mean, of course, the +landlady <i>du beau monde</i>, the modish landlady, or perhaps I should say, +the professional hostess, as it were. For it seems rather vulgar, a +thing repellent to the finer sensibilities, to touch this distinguished +figure of immaculate artificiality with the plebeian term of "landlady." +The personages of this type are, so to say, of the peerage of their +order. Such a Lady Drew it was whose guest I became for a time on +Madison Avenue, New York. With silvered hair like a powdered coiffure; +softly tinted with the delicate enamel of cosmetic; rich and stately of +corsage—this expensive and highly sophisticated presence presided, in +the subdued tone of the best society, over the nicely adjusted machinery +of her smart establishment by the authority of a consciousness of highly +cultivated efficiency and an aroma of unexceptionable standards.</p> + +<p>This consummate hostess type of landlady is, of course, one which the +passionate collector will preserve in the cabinet of his mind with +tremulous happiness in the sheer preciosity of it. I cannot but feel, +however, myself, that this type fails of complete perfection as a work +of art in<a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a> this: that in every work of the first genius, it cannot be +denied, there is always a strain of coarseness. And perhaps I should +confess that my own taste in landladies, though I hope it is not +undiscriminating, leans a bit toward the popular taste, the relish of +the Rabelaisian.</p> + +<p>Stevenson has observed that most men of high destinies have even +high-sounding names. And anyone who has reflected at all upon the +phenomenon of landladies must have been struck by the singularly +idiosyncratic character of their names. Indeed, an infallible way to +pick out a competent landlady from an advertisement is by her name. Is +it a happy name for a landlady? Go there! As her name is, so is her +nature. I one time had a landlady on Broome Street, New York, whom the +gods named Mrs. Brew. I one time had a landlady (in Milligan Place, +Manhattan) of the name of Mrs. Boggs. One time I had a landlady just off +the East India Dock Road, London, whose name was Wigger. I shall always +cherish the memory of the landlady I had down in Surrey, Mrs. Cheeseman. +One and all, these ladies, as landladies, were without stain.</p> + +<p>Regarded as a bibelot, Mrs. Wigger was, I think, of the first +perfection. In her own genre,<a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a> so to say, she was as finished, as +impossible of improvement, as an Elgin marble, a Grecian urn, a bit of +Chinese blue and white, a fan of old Japan, a Vermeer, a Whistler +symphony, a caricature by Max Beerbohm. She was of massive mould and +very individually shapen. Her face was very large and very red and +heavily pock-marked. In her bizarre garments, in some indefinable way +she imparted to the character of the born slattern something of the +Grand Style. Her utterance was quavered in a weird, cracked voice, which +had somewhat an effect as of the wind crying high aloft in a ship's +rigging. She slipslod about, always a bit unsteadily. Her movements and +her manner generally, I felt, made it not unreasonable to suppose that +she had in secret certain habits no longer widely approved by society. +The apple of her eye was an unkempt parrot which spent its days in +vainly attempting to ascend the embracing sides of a tin bathtub.</p> + +<p>Landladies, beyond all other persons, have the esoteric power of +becoming for one the geniuses of places. It would, for instance, be +quite impossible for anyone to visualize my Mrs. Cheeseman torn from, as +you might say her context.<a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a> If you were asked to describe Mrs. Cheeseman +you would naturally do it in this way: You would say, "Well, I wonder +what has become of the sweetest, quaintest, fairest old inn in all +England!" And into your mind would come a rapid cinematograph picture:</p> + +<p>A highway winding out of Dorking, stretching its way between hills to +the sea. You round a turn and see before you long, low, glistening white +stables—the stables, evidently, of a coaching inn. And presently you +come into view of an ancient, white, stone building with a "Sussex +roof." From a tall post before the door swings the board of the "King's +Head." White ducks ride in a pond at the roadside there. Round this inn +which you are approaching is the greenest, handsomest hedge ever seen. +And along the road beyond you perceive the cottages of a wee village.</p> + +<p>"We know that all things work together for good to them that love God." +The romance of destiny which in its inscrutable way has been leading you +all your long life long to the bosom, if I may so put it, of Mrs. +Cheeseman, reveals its beneficence now by carefully graduated steps. At +the other side of the main bulk of the "King's Head," which it was given +you<a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a> first to see, you come upon a delicious little flagged yard leading +to another arm of the house, older still, very venerable, with a high +roof low descending, a roof which tucks under its projecting wing many +oddly placed little latticed windows gayly sporting innumerable tiny +panes. Like a miniature cathedral spire, a tall, quaint chimney stands +sentinel at one corner, and several chimney-pots peep over the roof's +dark crown.</p> + +<p>Up this little yard, bounded on one side by a multicolored flower garden +whose fragrance bathes you in a softening vapor of perfume, you enter, +by a door which requires you to stoop, the wee taproom. Here: a +cavernous fireplace, settles are within against its sides, a gigantic +blackened crane swung across its middle, and a cubby-hole of a window at +its back. Above it is swung an ancient fowling-piece. The stone floor of +the room, like the ancient flags without, is worn into dips and hollows. +Along the window-sill of an oblong window measuring one wall is a bright +parade of potted plants.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that there is something psychic +about landladies. As you look about you at the environment in which<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a> you +find yourself, you experience a premonition that you are nearing an +affinity in the landlady world. It is strange, too, that there are +places where you have never been before (in the life which you +consciously remember) that give you at once completely the feeling of +your having arrived at the home familiar to your spirit. And there +presently occurs here an event in your career predetermined (I doubt +not) ęons and ęons ago. A buxom body with the most glorious complexion +(you ween) in all England—which is to say in the world—enters the +ancient room: a lass whose rosy, honest, pedestrian face and bursting +figure are to become forever more for you the connotation of the name +"Maggie." The daughter, this, (you later learn) of your Mrs. Cheeseman.</p> + +<p>Soon it is all arranged, and you are having your tea—a "meat tea"—in +the sitting-room of the "King's Head," your sitting-room now. A bucolic +slavey—a person whose cheerful simpleness is like to that of the little +creatures of the field—attends you. In this commodious apartment of +yours is a great scintillation of chintz; flowers, in pots and vases, +everywhere caress the eye; and the fancy is kindled by the spectacle<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a> of +many stuffed birds in glass cases. On the heavily flowered wall hangs a +handsome specimen of the "glass" (invariably found in England) for +forecasting the weather; a "pianoforte," as piquantly old-fashioned as a +cocked hat, crosses one end wall; and venerable paintings (which time +has mellowed to the richness and the general color effect of an old plug +of tobacco), bright sporting prints, and antique oddities of furniture +to an extent that it would require a catalogue to name, all combine to +give an air of true sitting-room opulence to the chamber.</p> + +<p>But of landladies, and the connotations of landladies, one could write a +book of several volumes; and it being a very fair day, and a Sunday, and +the first cool breath after a very hot summer, I do not think I shall +write those volumes this afternoon; I shall go out for a bit of air and +a look at the world.<a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII<br /><br /> +AN IDIOSYNCRASY</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HEN there's the matter of these dedications. Several weeks ago I +received a communication. I think it was sent by Miss Katherine Lord, or +maybe it was Hamlin Garland. Anyhow, it was an invitation. The upshot of +this invitation was that the annual exhibit of the "best books of the +year" held at the National Arts Club, New York City, under the auspices +of the Joint Committee of Literary Arts was now going—or was just about +to go. Further, it was conveyed that the opening evening of the exhibit +would be devoted to a reception for the authors of the books exhibited. +Also, that on this evening speeches would be made by a number of +distinguished persons acquainted with this matter on the subject of the +idiosyncrasies of authors and editors. Further than this, this +invitation made clear beyond all manner of reasonable doubt that the +pleasure of the evening would<a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a> be generally felt to be sadly incomplete +without the presence there among the speakers of myself.</p> + +<p>The reasons why I was (I am sorry to say) unable to rise to this +occasion were two. For one thing, I have known long and intimately a +considerable number of authors and editors. Also, I have had the honor +of having been several times to the National Arts Club. And (such is my +tact and delicacy) I could not feel that this was any fit place for me +to discuss the (as the term is) idiosyncrasies with which a decidedly +checkered career has acquainted me. Then, as to one of my own +idiosyncrasies: I am like George Moore in this which he says, that he is +"the only Irishman living or dead who cannot make a speech"—except that +I am not an Irishman.</p> + +<p>All of this, however, is merely picking up the threads of my thought. +What I have in my eye is an idiosyncrasy of authors which doubtless I +could have discussed with some propriety. That is, if I were able to +discuss before an audience anything at all. Though with this subject, as +many of those present were authors (who had their toes along with them) +I should have had to exercise more than a little caution, and +considerable<a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a> skill in maintaining a honeyed amiability. Maybe this +theme wouldn't have done at all either.</p> + +<p>You see, it's this way: Many people, I believe, do not read the +introductions, prefaces, forewords (and whatever else such things are +called) to books. I always do. Perhaps this is a habit formed during a +number of years spent as a professional reviewer. If you read the +introduction, preface (or whatever it's called), to a book you can +generally pick up pretty much what the author thought he was about when +he wrote it, the points he intended to make in the work, the +circumstances in which he wrote it, and so on. This is a great time and +labor saving procedure. All you've got to do then is to read a bit in +the volume here and there to taste the style, pick up a few errors of +fact or grammar, glance at the "conclusion," where the author sums up, +to see whether or not he got anywhere—and so far as you are further put +out by having this book on your hands it might just as well never have +been written. But I am drifting. That's one reason I can't make a +speech. Never can recollect what it was I set out to say.</p> + +<p>Oh, yes! About these dedications. Less people<a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a> than read prefaces, I +fancy, read the dedications of books. I always read 'em. I read them +when I have no intention whatever of reading the volumes which +they—well, dedicate. They are fine—dedications. Better, far better, +than old tombstones. But never judge a book by its dedication.</p> + +<p>I one time knew a man, of a most decidedly humorous cast of mind, who +was a great spendthrift, an A 1 wastrel. He ran through everything his +father left him (a very fair little fortune), and then when he had run +through, in advance of that gentleman's death, everything his wife was +to inherit from his father-in-law he had no means whatever. He had a +daughter. Without, it was clearly evident, the least suspicion of the +pleasant humor of this, he named her Hope. She was a small child. +And—it's absurd, I know; but 'tis so; there was not a particle of +conscious irony in it; this child's name was the one blind spot in her +father's sense of the ridiculous—her parents frequently referred to her +affectionately as "little Hope."</p> + +<p>So, quite so, with dedications. Whenever, or perhaps we had better say +frequently, when a man writes a particularly worthless book he lays<a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a> the +deed (in his dedication of it) onto his wife, "without whose constant +devotion," etc., etc., etc., "this work would never have come into +being." Amen! Or he says that it is inscribed "To—my gentlest +friend—and severest critic—my aged Grandmother." Or maybe he accuses +his little daughter, "whose tiny hands have led me." Again he may say +benignantly: "To—my faithful friend—Murray Hill—who made possible +this volume"; or "the illumination of whose personality has lighted my +way to truth."</p> + +<p>Doubtless he means well, this author. And, in most cases, highly +probable it is that his magnanimous sentiments are O. K. all round. For +to the minds of what would probably be called "right-thinking" persons +is not having a book dedicated to you the equivalent, almost, of having +a career yourself? I know a very distinguished American novelist—well, +I'll tell you who he is: Booth Tarkington—who has told me this: Time +and again he has been relentlessly pursued by some person unknown to him +who, in the belief that did he once hear it he would surely use it as +material for his next book, wished to tell him the story of his life. +This life, according to the communications received by the novelist,<a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a> +was in every case one of the most remarkable ever lived by man. It was, +in every case, most extraordinary in, among a variety of other singular +things, this: the abounding in it of the most amazing coincidences. And +so on, and so on, and so on. One of these romantic personages nailed the +novelist somewhere coming out of a doorway one day, and contrived to +compel him to sit down and listen to the life story. He was an old, old +man, this chap, and firmly convinced that the tale of his many days (as +simple, commonplace, dull and monotonous an existence as ever was +conceived) was unique. Now he did not want any pay for telling his +story; he had no design on any royalty to come from the great book to be +made out of it; no, not at all. All he asked—and that, he thought, was +fair enough—was that the book be dedicated to him. And so it was with +them all, all of those with the remarkable, obscure, romantic, humdrum +lives. So much for that.</p> + +<p>Dedications run the whole gamut of the emotions. A type of author very +tonic to the spirit is that one whose soul embraces not merely an +individual but which enfolds in its heroic sweep a nation, a people, or +some mighty idea. What,<a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a> for instance, could be more vast in the +grandeur of its sweep than this—which I came upon the other day in a +modest little volume? "To the Children of Destiny." The Great War, which +has wrought so much evil and inspired so much literature, is responsible +for a flood of noble, lofty dedications. The merest snooping through a +bunch of recent war books turns up, among a multitude more, the +following: "To the Mothers of America." "To—the Loyalty and +Patriotism—of the—American People." "To the Hour—When the Troops Turn +Home." "To All the Men at the Front."</p> + +<p>I should not affirm, of course, that there is anything new under the +sun. And it is very probable that ever since this psychic literature +began (whenever it began) authors resident beyond the stars have, +naturally enough, dedicated their manuscripts submitted to earthly +publishers to folks back in the old home, so to say. But with the War, +which has so greatly stimulated literary activity on the other side of +life, the dedications of these (to put it so) expatriated authors have +perhaps become (in a manner of speaking) loftier in tone than ever +before. As a sample of the present state of exalted feeling of authors<a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a> +of this sort I copy the following dedication from the recently published +book of a writer "gone West": "To the heroic women of the world, the +mothers, wives and sweethearts who bravely sent us forth to battle for a +great cause:—we who have crossed the Great Divide salute you."</p> + +<p>I wish, I do wish, I had at hand a book which I saw a number of years +ago.... As examples of persons to whom books have been dedicated may be +specified The Deity, The Virgin Mary, Royalty and Dignitaries of Church +and State, "The Reader," and the author himself. Many of the pleasantest +dedications have been to children. Besides armies and navies, countries, +states, cities and their inhabitants, books have also been dedicated to +institutions and societies, to animals, to things spiritual, and to +things inanimate. An attractive example of a dedication to Deity is +furnished by one John Leycaeter, who, in 1649, dedicated his "Civill +Warres of England, Briefly Related from his Majesties First Setting Up +his Standard, 1641, to this Present Personall Hopefull Treaty"—"To the +Honour and Glory of the Infinite, Immense, and Incomprehensible Majesty +of Jehovah, the Fountaine of all Excellencies, the Lord of Hosts,<a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a> the +Giver of all Victories, and the God of Peace." He continued in a poem, +"By J. O. Ley, a small crumme of mortality."</p> + +<p>But about that book I saw some time ago. You, of course, remember that +prayer in "Tom Sawyer" (or somewhere else in Mark Twain) where the +great-hearted minister called upon the Lord to bless the President of +the United States, the President's Cabinet, the Senate of the United +States, the governors of each of the states, and their legislatures, the +mayors of all the cities, and all the towns, of the United States, and +the inhabitants—grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and wives, +husbands and fathers, sons and daughters, bachelors and little +children—of every hamlet, town and city of the United States, also of +all the countryside thereof. Well, this book of which I am +speaking,—this minister in the august range and compass of his prayer +had nothing on its dedication. It was published, as I recollect, by the +author; printed on very woody wood-pulp paper by a job press, and had a +coarse screen frontispiece portrait of the author, whose name has long +since left me. What it was about I do not remember. That is a little +matter. It lives in my mind, and should live in the memory<a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a> of the +world, by its dedication; which, I recall, in part was: "To the Sultan +of Turkey—the Emperor of Japan—the Czar of Russia—the Emperor of +Germany—the President of France—the King of England—the President of +the United States—and to God."</p> + +<p>But it was in an elder day that they really knew how to write sonorous +dedications. If I should write a book (and the idea of having one to +dedicate tempts me greatly) I'd pick out some important personage, such +as Benjamin De Casseres, or Frank Crowinshield, or Charles Hanson Towne, +or somebody like that. Then I would take as the model for my dedication +that one, say, of Boswell's to Sir Joshua Reynolds. I am afraid you have +not read it lately. And so, for the joy the meeting of it again will +give you, I will copy it out. It goes as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>My Dear Sir,—Every liberal motive that can actuate an Authour in +the dedication of his labours, concurs in directing me to you, as +the person to whom the following Work should be inscribed.</p> + +<p>If there be a pleasure in celebrating the distinguished merit of a +contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of vanity not altogether +inexcusable, in appearing fully sensible of it, where can I find +one, in complimenting whom I can with more general approbation +gratify those feelings? Your excellence not only in the Art over +which you have long presided with unrivalled fame, but also in +Philosophy<a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a> and elegant Literature, is well known to the present, +and will continue to be the admiration of future ages. Your equal +and placid temper, your variety of conversation, your true +politeness, by which you are so amiable in private society, and +that enlarged hospitality which has long made your house a common +centre of union for the great and accomplished, the learned, and +the ingenious; all these qualities I can, in perfect confidence of +not being accused of flattery, ascribe to you.</p> + +<p>If a man may indulge an honest pride, in having it known to the +world, that he has been thought worthy of particular attention by a +person of the first eminence in the age in which he lived, whose +company has been universally courted, I am justified in availing +myself of the usual privilege of a Dedication, when I mention that +there has been a long and uninterrupted friendship between us.</p> + +<p>If gratitude should be acknowledged for favours received, I have +this opportunity, my dear Sir, most sincerely to thank you for the +many happy hours which I owe to your kindness,—for the cordiality +with which you have at all times been pleased to welcome me,—for +the number of valuable acquaintances to whom you have introduced +me,—for the <i>noctes cęnęque Deūm</i>, which I have enjoyed under your +roof.</p> + +<p>If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the subject +of it, and whose approbation, therefore, must ensure it credit and +success, the Life of Dr. Johnson is, with the greatest propriety, +dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was the intimate and beloved +friend of that great man; the friend, whom he declared to be "the +most invulnerable man he knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him, +he should find the most difficulty how to abuse." You, my dear Sir, +studied him, and knew him well: you venerated and admired him. Yet, +luminous as he was upon the whole, you perceived all the shades +which mingled in the grand composition; all the peculiarities and +slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus. Your very warm +commendation of the specimen which I gave in my "Journal of a<a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a> Tour +to the Hebrides," of my being able to preserve his conversation in +an authentik and lively manner, which opinion the Publik has +confirmed, was the best encouragement for me to persevere in my +purpose of producing the whole of my stores....</p> + +<p class="c">I am, my dear Sir,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Your much obliged friend,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 9em;">And faithful humble servant,</span><br /> +London, April 20, 1791. +<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="smcap">James Boswell.</span></span></p></div> + +<p>In a more modern style of composition the epistolary form of dedication +is still employed. I wish I had not (one time when I was moving) lost +that copy I had, English edition, of George Moore's book "The Lake." I +have a feeling that the dedicatory letter there, in French, was an +admirable example of its kind of thing. If you happen to have a copy of +the book, why don't you look it up?</p> + +<p>When poems are written as dedications an established convention is +followed. You affect at the beginning (in this formula) to be very +humble in spirit, deeply modest in your conception of your powers. You +speak, if your book is verse, of your "fragile rhyme," or (with Patmore) +you "drag a rumbling wain." Again perhaps you speak (in the words of +Burns) of your "wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble," or you call +Southwell to witness that:<a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">He that high growth on cedars did bestow,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Gave also lowly mushrumps leave to grow.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>And so on. At any rate, you always do this. Then you say that his (or +her) eyes for whom the book was written will change the dross to gold, +the "blind words" to "authentic song," the "mushrump" to a flower, or +some such thing. So, after all, you skillfully contrive to leave your +book to the reader on a rather high, confident note. Any other way of +writing a dedicatory poem to a book of verse (being out of the tradition +altogether) is, I take it, bad, very bad, literary etiquette.</p> + +<p>Numerous dedications have considerable fame. There is that enigmatical +one to "Mr. W. H.," prefixed by Thomas Thorpe, bookseller of London, to +Shakespeare's Sonnets. And Dr. Johnson's scathing definition of a patron +when Lord Chesterfield fell short of Johnson's expectations in the +amount which he contributed to the publication of the famous dictionary +men will not willingly let die. Another celebrated dedication is that of +"The Gentle Art of Making Enemies"—"To the Rare Few, who, early in +life, have rid themselves of the Friendship of the Many." Laurence +Sterne's solemn "putting up fairly to<a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a> public sale" to an imaginary lord +a dedication to "Tristram Shandy" is not without merit. John Burroughs +was felicitous in his dedication of "Bird and Bough"—"To the kinglet +that sang in my evergreens in October and made me think it was May." And +a very amiable dedication prefixed to "The Bashful Earthquake," by +Oliver Herford, illustrated by the author, is this: "To the Illustrator, +in grateful acknowledgment of his amiable condescension in lending his +exquisite and delicate art to the embellishment of these poor verses, +from his sincerest admirer, The Author." Mr. Herford's latest book (at +the time of this writing), "This Giddy Globe," is dedicated so: "To +President Wilson (With all his faults he quotes me still)."</p> + +<p>A clever dedication, I think, is that of Christopher Morley's +"Shandygaff"—"To The Miehle Printing Press—More Sinned Against Than +Sinning." A dedication intended to be clever, and one frequently seen, +is, in effect, "To the Hesitating Purchaser." A certain appropriateness +is presented in a recent book on advertising, "Respectfully dedicated to +the men who invest millions of dollars a year in national advertising." +And some nimbleness of wit is attained in<a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a> the inscription of the book +"Why Worry"—"To my long-suffering family and circle of friends, whose +patience has been tried by my efforts to eliminate worry, this book is +affectionately dedicated." As cheerful a dedication as I have come +across is that prefixed by Francis Hackett to his volume "The Invisible +Censor"; it is: "To My Wife—Signe Toksvig—whose lack of interest—in +this book has been my—constant desperation."</p> + +<p>Miss Annie Carroll Moore, supervisor of work with children at the New +York Public Library, tells me that the other day a small boy inquired, +"Who was the first man to write a book to another man?" I'm sure I don't +know. Perhaps this is told somewhere. A number of books and articles +concerning dedications, I have heard, are to be found in studious +places. I have never read any of them. I remember, however, reviewing +for a newspaper a number of years ago (I think it was in 1913) a book, +then just published, called "Dedications: An Anthology of the Forms Used +from the Earliest Days of Bookmaking to the Present Time." It was +compiled by Mary Elizabeth Brown. The volume made handy to the general +reader a fairly representative collection of dedications.<a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV<br /><br /> +THE SEXLESS CAMERA</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is no nicer point, perhaps, in the study of photography as the one +true, detached observer of mankind than here: It sees, what man has not +seen—as his own representations show, his paintings, his drawings, his +sculptures—the feminine underpinning with a quite passive, sexless eye.</p> + +<p>In this interesting matter there are two human conceptions. There is the +chorus girl style of leg, the expression of piquancy, which does not +perhaps appeal to the noblest emotions, but the fascination of which has +always haunted man whenever he has delineated anything in a stocking. +Then there is the chaste, nude feminine limb of the painter and the +sculptor. Both photography shows to be idealization.</p> + +<p>When the camera reproduces the chorus girl herself, suddenly strangely +plain and painted, there is to the observing and reflective instead of<a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a> +sauciness the hollowness of sauciness. There can be few things more +awful than those silent photographs of some gay chorus, reproducing, as +they do, the spectacle with solemn critical aloofness from the spirit. +It is as though the dawn of Judgment Day had suddenly broken upon the +unspeakably wretched and tawdry scene. There is something, it would +seem, indescribably tender, affectionate, in the irony of the gods which +arranges that men should display in theatre lobbies, as an inducement to +buy tickets of admission within, these death's heads of frivolity. As if +the Comic Spirit itself were touched by the charm of the naiveté of man.</p> + +<p>But, indeed, twinkling in the sympathetic light upon the Broadway stage, +the professional chorus girl leg, well selected no doubt to begin with, +and shaped with all the science of art, has beguiled even the +reflective. A light intoxicant, it swirls in the veins like champagne +for the careless moment it makes. It is pleasant because it is false.</p> + +<p>The real leg, remarks the camera, is the amateur leg; it is depressing, +but terribly convincing. As it stands in the raw light of the cheap +photographer (and this too, too human document,<a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a> the likeness of the +poor girl who has performed somewhere in curiously home-made looking +"tights," and been photographed thus afterward, is one of the stock +exhibits of that most realistic of historians, the cheap photographer) +the amateur leg decidedly lacks dash. The knee joint somehow seems to +work somewhat the wrong way. Sometimes, in circumference, this limb is +immense, sometimes the reverse. But the terribleness of it always is +that it is so human. That is, it is the leg of an animal. Subconsciously +it suggests surgery.</p> + +<p>Conspicuous among the postures assumed for its iconoclastic purpose by +the genius of photography is that of "art." That fetish of the great +body of the unenlightened, the dim feeling that to the enlightened +bodily nakedness in pictorial representation is something very fine, is +played upon. The "art photograph" is an ironic tour de force. If +specimens of this have ever fallen in the way of your observation, then +you have reflected upon the strange discrepancy between the female nude +as presented in painting and sculpture and in photographs. (Oh, souls of +Fragonard, Boucher, Watteau, what romantic rogues you were!) You will +have perceived,<a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a> with some grim humor, that until the invention of +photography, nobody, apparently, had ever seen a nude female figure.</p> + +<p>Now there is Edgar Degas,—and it is a curious reflection that in +comparison with the work of this pessimist genius who has deliberately +brought cynicism to bear upon the female nude, photographs purporting +(over their sneer) to be reflections of beauty, give by far the most +distressing impression. In the painful realization that they have a kind +of truth beyond human art these abominable humbugs are a kind of art. +What (you exclaimed) was Schopenhauer's remark about the clouded +intellect of <i>man</i> which could give the name of the "fair sex" to "that +under-sized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, knock-kneed race"?</p> + +<p>It may be a long "drive," but it strikes you as a thoughtful observer +that there is some biological analogy between "art photographs" and the +photographs, to be seen in travel books, of native African women. What a +philosopher the camera is! The French savant was very probably +contemplating the photograph of some member of a savage tribe when he +wrote, in "The Garden of Epicurus" (addressing modern ladies): "But<a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a> +never think too highly of yourselves, my sisters; you were not, at your +first appearance in the world, perfect and fully armed. Your +grandmothers in the days of the mammoth and the giant bear did not wield +the same dominion over the prehistoric hunters and cave-men which you +possess over us. You were useful then, and necessary, but you were not +invincible. To tell the truth, in those far-off ages, and for long +afterwards, you lacked charm. In those days you were like men, and men +were like brutes. To make of you the fearful and wonderful thing you are +today—veils: the Empire, crinoline, décolleté, tube, pannier." And, the +sexless camera explains, the poetry of man.<a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV<br /><br /> +I KNOW AN EDITOR</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> KNOW a young woman—a very handsome young woman she is, too. (I have a +decided penchant for handsome young women.) But that is beside the +point. As I was about to say (when a pleasant but an extraneous idea +interrupted me): this young woman the other day took her young husband +by the hand and conducted him to the offices of a publisher. Here she +mounted him upon a chair (very much, I fancy, as though the child were +about to have his hair cut), and she said to the barber—I mean she said +to the editor, with whom she had some acquaintance—she said: "This is +my husband. He is just out of the army. I have brought him in to have +his head shingled"—— No, no! that isn't what she said; I am getting my +wires crossed. She said, "I have brought him in to get him a position +here."</p> + +<p>Said the editor, "What would your son, I mean your husband, like to +do?"<a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a></p> + +<p>"I want him," replied the young woman, "to be an editor."</p> + +<p>"Has he ever been an editor?" inquired the editor kindly, as he admired +the shape of the young woman's nose.</p> + +<p>"No," she answered, stroking his hand (the hand, that is, of her +husband), "why, no."</p> + +<p>"What has been his experience?" asked the editor, as the thought of all +the hard work he had to do in the next hour and a half wrestled in his +mind with his pleasure in the young woman's voice.</p> + +<p>"Why," she said, "before he went into the army I don't know that he had +any particular experience. He was just out of college, you see."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said the editor, "I see. And why," he asked musingly, "do you want +him to be an editor?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know exactly," answered the young woman, "I just thought +it would be rather nice to have him be an editor."</p> + +<p>Even so. Day after day, come into publishing houses young persons, and +indeed people of all ages, who have a hunch (and apparently nothing more +to go by) that they would like to be "an editor." Also, in every other +mail, come letters<a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a> from aspirants in distant parts setting forth (what +they deem) their qualifications.</p> + +<p>Now and then someone makes such an application who has been an editor +before. It (editing) is probably the only business he knows, and perhaps +it is too late (or his spirit is too broken) for him to take up another. +So, disillusioned but not misguided, for him there is charity of +thought. But the fledglings are in the great majority. Their +qualifications (is it necessary to say?) usually are: a university +degree, perhaps some association with a college paper, maybe the credit +of an article (or a poem) or two published in a minor magazine issued +for the Intelligentzia, a very sincere attachment to books of superior +worth, a disdain for empyreal literature, openness to a modest salary +(to begin), and an abysmal lack of any comprehension of the business of +publishing books or magazines. Every little bit turns up one who (it +develops) wants a job on the side, as it were, merely to sustain the +real business of life, which (maybe) is taking a graduate course at +Columbia, or some such thing. And in many cases (it is obvious) the real +business of life is writing poetry, or fiction,<a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a> though to this end a +job must be endured—doubtless temporarily.</p> + +<p>Now why anyone should want to be an editor beats me. No, I retract. 'Tis +quite plain. Ignorance, ma'am, sheer ignorance of the calamity. I know +an editor; in fact, I know six. One, indeed, is a brother of mine, +another is a cousin, a third an uncle. Before they became editors they +used to read books and magazines—for pleasure, sometimes; or again for +profit to their souls. Now they do neither. They read only +professionally. They can't read anything unless they have to, in the way +of business. Before they became editors they led intellectual lives; +spiritually they grew continually. They used to be perfectly delighted, +excited (as people should be), by hearing of books, of authors, new to +them. They were fascinated by the journey of their minds. They might +have gone on thus through their years, interested in themselves, +interesting to others, pillars of society. They might even, for all +their thoughts (then) were inspirations, have written delightful things +themselves. In fact, two of them did. But they became editors.</p> + +<p>Now they, subconsciously, count the words of manuscripts. They cut +articles, like cloth, to fit.<a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a> They gauge the "rate" to be paid for +this, for that. They cannot take an interest in this because something +like it has just appeared somewhere else. They can't take an interest in +that because it is not like something that has just made a hit somewhere +else. Now when they have something to read they say (like Plim, Bimm, +whatever his name was, the veteran hack novelist in the early Barrie +story), "I'll begin the damn thing at eight o'clock."</p> + +<p>Worst of all, they have lost, totally lost, that shield against +adversity, that great joy in days of prosperity, that deep satisfaction +of life. I mean, of course, the relish of <i>buying</i> books. Everyone knows +that to revel in the possession of a book one must covet it before one +feels one should buy it. Everyone knows that to love a book jealously +one must have made some sacrifice to obtain it. That a library which +supplies unending strength to the spirit means in all its parts, a +little here, a little there, some self-denial of other things.</p> + +<p>But editors, poor fish, are impotent in this high and lasting pleasure; +they have lost the power to spend their money for books. They expect +books to be given to them free by the publishers. Their money goes for +Kelley pool and cigars.<a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI<br /><br /> +A DIP INTO THE UNDERWORLD</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">"W</span>HEN I go back home," he said, "and tell them about this they won't +believe it."</p> + +<p>It was a pleasant April Sunday afternoon. We were sitting very +comfortably in a saloon over Third Avenue way about the middle of +Manhattan Island. Throngs of customers came and went through the front +door, whose wicket gate was seldom still. Whiskey glasses twinkled and +tinkled all along the long bar. Only here and there in the closely +packed line of patrons stood one with a tall "schooner" of beer before +him. Harry and Ed, in very soiled white jackets, led an active life.</p> + +<p>You see, since theoretically intoxicants were not being sold, there was +no occasion for the pretence of being closed on Sunday and confining +business to the side door and the back room. On the table between us lay +a newspaper. Its headlines proclaimed yesterday's "liquor raids," +thousands<a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a> upon thousands of dollars worth of "rum" confiscated by the +city police in the progress of the campaign resulting from the recent +passage of the New York State "dry" law.</p> + +<p>At the bottom of the page was a little story of the conviction of a +delicatessen dealer somewhere on the outskirts of Brooklyn on whose +premises had been discovered by the authorities a small amount of wine +containing more than one-half of one per cent alcohol.</p> + +<p>Pete came in hurriedly. Harry and Ed glanced at him questioningly. He +nodded to them as though to say "yes," and dropped into the chair before +us. "They're comin'," he remarked. "About half a block off." Every +whiskey glass had suddenly disappeared from the bar.</p> + +<p>Pete, a little grey man now of about fifty who arises for the day at +about noon, has had an interesting career. Once upon a time he was a +"bell-hop" in Albany. He is a devoted patron of the silent drama and a +man of intellectual interests—making a hobby of clipping from +newspapers poems and editorials which impress him and reading them +several months later to chance acquaintances who are too drowsy to +oppose him. His<a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a> connection with this establishment is light and +picturesque. His duties are chiefly social. That is, he sees home one +after another customers who require that friendly attention. He is +perpetually agreeable to the suggestion of gratuitous refreshment. He is +very cheerful and gentlemanly in the matter of accommodating his tastes +to any liquid from ten-cent beer to ninety-cent Scotch which the +purchaser is disposed to pay for.</p> + +<p>Here they were! The two police officers strolled in slowly, smiling. In +their blue and their gold buttons they looked very respendent against +the somewhat shabby scene. Ranged along before the bar were a number of +young men in the uniform of private soldiers. There were several +sailors. Here was a postman cheering himself on his rounds. There was a +huge fellow the nickel plate on whose cap announced that he was a piano +mover. The centre of a group, there was a very large man who looked as +though he had something darkly to do with ward politics. At one place in +the line was a very dapper little Japanese, who produced his money from +a wallet carried in his breast pocket. But mostly the motley company was +of the riff-raff <a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a>order of humanity. That is another one of the curious +developments of "prohibition." Here, in all places of this character, +you may find an endless number of the sort of men who used to be +accustomed to paying as little as ten cents for a drink of very fiery +and inferior whiskey, now standing before the bar by the hour and paying +from fifty to seventy-five cents for whiskey (if you can call it that) +considerably worse. How on earth can they do it? I do not know.</p> + +<p>The two policemen moved the length of the room, and came to a halt at +the open end of the bar. Here they stood for a couple of moments, +observing (I felt with some amusement) Harry and Ed serving their +beakers of beer. Then, as though suddenly having a bright idea, one of +them made his way along back of the bar to the cigar case at the front +end. He stooped, opened the sliding panel at the bottom of this and +poked around inside with his club. As he came along behind the bar back +to the open end he stooped several times to peer at the shelf below. He +joined his comrade, the two of them thrust their heads into the back +room, and then moved out through the side door.</p> + +<p>"Well, we're safe for another hour," said Pete. "Why couldn't they find +the stuff?" I<a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a> asked him. "I'll bet you couldn't find it if you'd go +behind the bar yourself," he answered. Harry and Ed had found it within +two seconds after the shadow of the law had lifted. And the room was +humming with the sound of renewed, and somewhat hectic, conviviality. +"We'll get caught pretty soon though, I guess," observed Johnnie, the +Italian "chef," who on week-days served the economical lunch of roast +beef sandwiches and "hot dogs." Harry and Ed laughed in a rather +uncomfortable way. But for the present, at least, business was too brisk +for their thoughts to be distracted more than a second or two from the +job.</p> + +<p>"The old man," remarked Pete, referring to the proprietor, "is on a toot +again. Been under the weather for about a week now. He always gets that +way whenever one of the new law scares comes along. Gets worried or sore +or something and that upsets him."</p> + +<p>Pete hadn't been very well himself for several days. Sick in bed, he +said, yesterday. He never used to be sick at all, "in the old days," he +declared, no matter how much he had taken the day before. Never had a +headache, or bad stomach, or anything like that. A little nervous,<a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a> +perhaps, yes. "But it's the kind of stuff we get nowadays," he thought. +"There hasn't been time since prohibition started for the system to get +trained to react to this TNT stuff, like it was to regular liquor. Maybe +in ten years or in the next generation people's systems will have got +adjusted to this kind of poison and it'll be all right with 'em." It's +an interesting idea, I think.</p> + +<p>A customer was requesting Ed to "fix him up" a pint flask. No, it +couldn't be done just now, as the supply was running too low for it to +be passed out that much at a time. The disappointed customer tried to +content himself with endeavoring to absorb as much of a pint as he could +obtain through a rapidly consumed series of single drinks. And pretty +soon it was officially announced from the bar that there would be "no +more until nine o'clock in the morning." I gathered that the reserve +stock was upstairs or downstairs and that the "old man" had gone away +with the key.</p> + +<p>We went forth to take a walk, Pete accompanying us as a sort of +cicerone, and discoursing with much erudition of bar-rooms as we went. +"These places are getting scarce," he observed. "There don't seem to be +any, or there seems to<a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a> be hardly any of the old places uptown," I +remarked. "Oh! no; not in residential neighborhoods," he replied; and I +inferred that the law was, in deference to the innocent spirit of +domesticity, keener-eyed there. "And there ain't but very few below the +dead-line downtown," Pete said.</p> + +<p>They have, the bars, very largely disappeared from Broadway. Have been +gone from that thoroughfare for some time. And in this thought we come +upon one of the great mockeries of the situation which has existed since +the Eighteenth Amendment went (more or less) into effect. What I mean is +this: A great many people who had no ferocious opposition to the idea of +a cocktail being drunk before a meal, or wine with it, or even a liqueur +after it, did detest the saloon. It was the institution of the common, +corner saloon, I fancy, at which the bulk of American temperance +sentiment was directed.</p> + +<p>The perverse operation of prohibition then was this: It ceased to be +possible (openly) to obtain any alcoholic beverage in anything like +wholesome surroundings, in a first-class restaurant or hotel or in a +gentleman's club. But in New York City, as is known to everybody who +knows anything<a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a> at all about the matter, the saloons, and particularly +the lower class of saloons, have flourished as never before.</p> + +<p>As we crossed Broadway Pete pointed out one place which had been going +until a short time ago, an odious looking place (as I remember it) +within. It was but a short way from a club of distinguished membership. +So much had this doggery become frequented by these gentlemen that it +became jocularly known among them as the "club annex."</p> + +<p>Continuing on over into the West Side, here was a place, now a shop +dealing in raincoats, but formerly a "gin-mill" where throughout this +last winter there had been an extraordinary infusion of Bacardi rum, +drunk neat, as their favorite drink, by its multitudinous customers. And +there was a place, a baby carriage exhibited for sale in its window now, +which as a saloon had burned out one night not long ago; when its +proprietor accepted the catastrophe with striking cheerfulness, withdrew +his business activities to his nearby apartment and took up calling upon +old customers by appointment. Innumerable the places over which Pete +breathed a sigh, which had lately turned into tobacco stores or candy +shops.<a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a></p> + +<p>We turned in at a door on Sixth Avenue. A little more caution seemed to +be observed here than at the place we had just left. But Pete, of +course, would pass any scrutiny. The liquor bottle, you noted, stood +within the safe at the inner end of the bar, its door hanging ready at +any moment to be kicked to. The barman covered with his hand the little +glasses he set out until you took them, and admonished, "Get away with +it!" The drinks were eighty cents a throw, but they had the feel of +genuine good-grade rye.</p> + +<p>Night had fallen. We passed into the back room, where a pathetic object +was banging dismal tunes on a rattle-trap of a piano. A party of four +entered. The young women were very young and decidedly attractive. The +two couples began to circle about in a dance. Next moment came a +terrific thundering on the front of the building. "Cop wants less +noise," said the waiter to the dancers; "you'll have to quit." "Throw +that into you," he said to the seated customer he was serving, and +directly whisked away the glasses.</p> + +<p>"When I go back home," said my friend from the Middle West, "and tell +them about this they won't believe it."<a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII<br /><br /> +NOSING 'ROUND WASHINGTON</h3> + +<h4>I</h4> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> CAME very near to being shot in the White House grounds the other day. +Yep! You see, my friend is a bit on the order of what the modistes call +"stylish stout." Rather more than a bit, indeed. Looks something like a +slightly youthfuller Irvin Cobb. Also wouldn't consider it decent of him +out of doors not to "wear" his stag-handled cane. Altogether, not +unlikely to be taken for a real somebody. He was fishing round in his +breast pocket for the letter his senator from "back home" had given him +to the President's secretary. Drew out what may have seemed an important +looking document.</p> + +<p>As we came along the path toward the executive offices there was an +up-stage looking bunch thronging about the little steps—rollicking +gamins, smartly turned out flappers, a sprinkling of rather rakish +looking young males, and (in<a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a> their best black silk) a populous +representation of those highly honorable and very ample figures who have +generously mothered the young sons and daughters of the American +prairies.</p> + +<p>Suddenly from the side lines they popped out—a whole battery of them, +with their bug-like machines on tall stilts. The motion picture camera +men were taking no chances that anything important would escape their +fire. Evidently they couldn't quite place us, however, so we got through +the door without further incident.</p> + +<p>When we had entered the grounds through the gate at the far side of the +lawn my thoughtful friend had thrown away his lighted cigar, feeling +that promiscuous smoking here would be taboo from danger of fire to so +precious a national jewel as the White House. Within the anteroom to the +executive offices the scene very decidedly suggested one of those jovial +masculine gatherings termed a "smoker." The seething and motley company +of (obviously) newspaper men put one in mind of the recent arrival at a +military training camp of a nondescript batch of drafted men not yet got +into uniform. General air about the room of loafing in a corner cigar +store.<a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a></p> + +<p>Then, suddenly, a rising murmur and a pell-mell push toward the door. My +friend and I were swayed out upon the step, and saw at the gate directly +at the street corner of the building the movie camera men very +vigorously clearing for action. They had halted close before them a +tall, striking and very distinguished figure. You instantly recognized +him by the insignia which he wore on the slope toward his chin of his +under lip—a wisp of whisker (light straw color) such as decorated the +illustrious countenance, too, of the late James Abbott McNeil Whistler.</p> + +<p>He was, this gentleman, looking very sheepish, continually bowing in a +rather strained manner to the camera men and lifting his black derby hat +to them. They were scrambling about the legs of their engines and +cranking away with a rattle. "Over this way a little, Mr. Paderewski!" +yelled one. "Hold on, Mr. Paderewski, there you are!" bawled another. +Boisterous mirth about the doorway.... "That's good!" "Sure, he's only a +premier."</p> + +<p>Then, a deferential scattering to make way for him as he approached. +Held him up again, the <a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a>camera guerrillas, on the steps. He was bowing +with an effect of increasing strain and the intensity of his +sheepishness becoming painful to contemplate. His hair a white bush +thrusting out behind. Ghostly white bow tie. His black clothes +beautifully sleek and pressed. At close up, his features blunter, less +sensitive in chiselling than appears in his photographs. The flesh of +his face striking in the degree of the pinkness and fairness of +complexion of the races of Northern Europe.</p> + +<p>My friend and I had not yet seen Mr. Christian. Had that morning called +upon Mr. Tumulty on a matter of business. Found he had set up shop in a +business structure called the Southern Building. Transom Legend: Law +Offices ... Joseph P. Tumulty. On entrance door: Joseph P. Tumulty, +Charles H. Baker. Outstanding feature of ante-chamber a life-size cream +plaster bust, on tall polished wood pedestal, of Woodrow Wilson. Mr. +Tumulty, stocky of stature, driving in manner, bustled forth from his +private office. Exhaled atmosphere of ruddiness.</p> + +<p>My friend at times (I fear) speaks with some circumlocution. Our real +business here settled, he was ambling on toward the expression of his<a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a> +hope that we might possibly be able sometime, just for a moment, to see, +just get a glimpse of....</p> + +<p>"The President," Mr. Tumulty cut in, with an anticipating nod. My friend +looked a bit confused as (I could see) the words "the ex-President" were +about to come from him. But, undoubtedly, both of them meant the same +gentleman.</p> + +<p>In the executive offices we trailed along with the newspaper men for +their daily afternoon interview with Mr. Christian, my friend bathing +himself in tobacco smoke as complacently as anyone of the party. Entered +a sort of council chamber. Long table down the middle. Conspicuous +ornament of the apartment, on a mantel, a plaster cast of a humorous +Uncle Sam in a dress coat, holding aloft an American flag, and flanked +by a turkeyfied looking eagle.</p> + +<p>Congregation pressed close about the table, behind which in a swivel +chair sat in a relaxed and rather pensive attitude an angular figure, +swinging leisurely looking legs which terminated in very white sox and +low-cut shoes. A rather thick thatch of greying hair, large aquiline +features, a rather melancholy cast of expression,<a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a> eyes cast downward at +the table, clothes not recently pressed and which no one would be +inclined to call dapper, Mr. Christian in general effect suggested a +good deal one's impression of a somewhat dusty "reference librarian" at +the information desk of the New York Public Library being besieged by an +unusually large number of questioners.</p> + +<p>"Well, gentlemen," he uttered very quietly and slowly, "what have you +got on your mind?"</p> + +<p>"George," asked a figure with pad and pencil in hand, "what about this?" +Mr. Christian appeared to ponder the matter a good while, and the upshot +of his cogitation appeared to be that there wasn't much of anything +about it. "And what is there to that?" inquired another. Well at length +there didn't seem to be much to that either. A few items of information +were given. And the audience briefly closed.</p> + +<p>When we had filed out with the company from the room my friend and I +took seats in the corridor. He had given his letter to the doorman. A +couple of soldiers in uniform, a group of very spruce, robust and +cheery-looking Catholic priests, an elderly individual of very dejected +pose, and a miscellaneous assortment of humanity<a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a> also were waiting. The +doorman was being continually accosted. "Just want to shake hands with +him, that's all," and "Just want to say 'How de do'," were solicitations +frequently overheard.</p> + +<p>The doorman beckoned to us and told us to go into an apartment which he +indicated and "take a seat." Probably my friend didn't hear that +instruction, as he marched straight up to Mr. Christian directly upon +entering the room flooded with afternoon light pouring through an +imposing row of tall and beautiful windows. Mr. Christian slowly arose +from his desk, coming gradually to his full height, and yielded a +cautious hand to my friend. He looked at the bright and somewhat +flustered countenance of my friend rather sadly, as it seemed. Though at +some sally of my friend's about the pronunciation of his name he smiled +with considerable natural human warmth. Then very gravely he stated that +with so many appointments at present to be made, and with the +multitudinous labors now upon him, and so forth and so on, it was hardly +possible that he could just now arrange for my friend to have a word +with, as he said, ... "the Senator."</p> + +<p>My friend was, obviously, a bit taken aback<a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a> by the term, as his mind +had been careering along with visions of his seeing no less a person +than the President. But there was no doubt that both he and Mr. +Christian were referring to the same gentleman.</p> + +<p>I should add that my friend's self-imposed mission of shaking hands with +Mr. Harding and writing an article about his impressions of him before +the President had yet given an audience to the accredited +representatives of the press was more or less audacious. And I should +add still further that Mr. Christian seemed genuinely reluctant to +dismiss my friend without a ray of hope, and suggested that he call +again after a few days. Suggestion was at Mr. Christian's own volition.</p> + +<p>As we turned to leave the room we saw that the bevy of Catholic Fathers +and several other persons had also been admitted, and were all beaming +with bland cheerful confidence.</p> + +<p>We strolled along the driveway leading by the front entrance to the +White House. The baggy looking policeman lazily sunning himself beside +the portico recalled to my mind with amusing contrast the snappy +Redcoats who briskly pace back and forth before Buckingham Palace.<a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a></p> + +<p>They are superbly haughty and disdainful beings. A charmingly democratic +character, this policeman. "'At a fierce cloud over there," he observed +to us as we paused nearby.</p> + +<p>A splendid looking army officer together with a caped naval commander +emerged with springy step from the White House door, both carrying an +air of high elation. A sumptuous car rolled up and halted beneath the +portico roof extending over the driveway. From it a lady leaned out +extending a card. Out pranced a gleaming negro flunky to receive it with +bows of elaborate courtliness. As he turned to re-enter the White House +it struck me that I did not believe I had ever seen a happier looking +human being. Also, in his beautiful dark blue tail coat with bright +silver buttons, and delicately striped light waistcoat, he brought to my +mind (incongruously enough) the waiters at Keen's Chop House. The lady +rolled on.</p> + +<p>A bumptious looking character mounted to the entrance, and sent in a +card. It was evident in his bearing that he expected within a moment to +stride through the doorway. A figure in a skirt coat emerged. Bumptious +being springs upon him and begins to pump his hand up and<a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a> down with +extraordinary verve, straining the while toward the doorway. Skirt coat +(his hand continuing to be pumped) deferentially edges bumptious +character outward toward descending steps.</p> + +<p>It had been an exceedingly hot day for early spring. Traffic policemen +had stood on their little platforms at the centre of the street +crossings under those mammoth parasols they have to shield them from the +rigors of the Washington sun. As we proceeded toward our exit from the +grounds, approaching to the White House came a diminutive and decrepit +figure muffled in an overcoat extending to his heels, bowed under a tall +top hat, a pair of mighty ear-muffs clamped over his ears.</p> + +<p>We had that morning visited the Capitol. My friend had been much more +interested in the guide-conducted touring parties than in the atrocious +painting of the Battle of Lake Erie, and so on, expatiated on to them. +Parties which, he said, made him feel that he was back again at the +Indiana State Fair. We had sat, in the visitors' gallery of the Senate, +in the midst of a delegation of some sort of religious sect, whose +beards had most decidedly the effect of false<a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a> whiskers very insecurely +attached. Had been much struck by the extreme politeness of a new +Senator who bowed deeply to each one in turn of a row of pages he passed +before. Had responded within a few minutes to the command of "All out!" +because of executive meeting, and sympathised with the sentiments of +fellow citizens likewise ejected who went forth murmuring that they +hadn't "got much."</p> + +<p>We had wandered through the noble and immaculate Senate Office building, +and been much impressed by the scarcity of spittoons there, an abundance +of which articles of furniture we had since boyhood associated with all +public buildings. We had sat in the outer office of our state's senator, +and listened to one lady after another explain to his secretary in this +wise: "I just made up my mind ... I just decided to go right after it +... I just determined ... I just thought ... Otherwise, of course, I +shouldn't presume to ask it."</p> + +<p>In the Library of Congress we had been much interested to hear an +European gentleman of vast erudition connected with the Library declare +that "there was more intellectual life in Washington than in any other +city in America—that<a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a> it was an European city, in the best sense." We +had been accosted on the street by a very portly and loud-voiced man who +introduced himself by inquiring where we were from; who confided that +his business in Washington had to do with an alcohol permit; and who +asked to be directed to Corcoran Gallery. We had run into an old actor +friend who was here playing, he said, "nut stuff"; and who observed that +Washington was "more of a boob town than ever." We had been assured by a +newspaper friend that Washington was so full of inventors and blue law +fans that if you "dropped a match anywhere a nut would step on it."</p> + +<p>We had been charmed by the vast number of elderly couples apparently on +a final mellow honeymoon before the fall of the curtain. At lunch had +overheard an inland matron inquire of a waitress if scollops were +"nice." Had enjoyed hot corn bread with every meal. Had been unable to +account for the appearance on the streets of so many wounded soldiers. +Had made the mistake of getting up so early that in the deep Washington +stillness of half past seven we were scared to run the water for our +baths for fear of rousing the sleeping hotel to angry<a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a> tumult. Had noted +that nowhere except in London is the fashion of freshly polished shoes +so much an institution. Had speculated as to why the standard model of +the American statesman's hat should be a blend of an expression of the +personalities of W. J. Bryan, Buffalo Bill and Colonel Watterson.</p> + +<p>And, finally, listening in the evening to the orchestra in the corridor +of the New Willard, we discussed the large opportunities for a serious +literary work dealing with the varieties and idiosyncrasies of the +Washington hair cut. There is the Bryan type, with the hair turned +outward in a thick roll above the back of the neck, and forming a neat +hat rest. There is the roach back from a noble dome. There is the grey +curly bushy all around. There is the heavy grey wave mounting high over +one side. And—well, there seem to be an almost endless number of +styles, all more or less peculiar to the spirit of Washington, and all +of distinct distinction.</p> + +<h4>II</h4> + +<p>"Who's the old bird gettin' so many pictures took?" inquired a loitering +passerby.</p> + +<p>A hum of much good nature was coming from<a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a> the motley throng about the +steps before the executive office of the White House. "Beer and light +wine," called out someone, apparently in echo to something just said by +the queer looking character being photographed by the battery of camera +men, and a rattle of laughter went around through the group.</p> + +<p>"That's old Coxey," replied someone. "He's down here to get Debs out," +he added. The amiable and celebrated "General" who a number of years ago +had led his "army" on to Washington was smiling like a very wrinkled and +animated potato into the lenses of the cameras which had been moved to +within a couple of feet or so of his nose.</p> + +<p>My friend and I crossed the street to the State, Army and Navy building. +We had been there the other day to see a young man in the State +Department to whom he had a card. Had been much struck by his beauty. +And had wondered if handsomeness was a requisite for a statesman in this +Administration.</p> + +<p>Now we sought the press room. Presented our credentials to a press +association man there. Cordial chap. Said, "Stick around." Others +floated in. Pretty soon press association man<a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a> heartily calls out to my +friend (whose name is Augustus), "George. Come on!" And we trail along +with about fifty others into the ante-chamber of the new Secretary of +the Navy, who at half past ten is to give his first interview to the +newspaper men.</p> + +<p>Funny looking corridors, by the way, in this building. Swing doors all +about, constructed of horizontal slats, and in general effect bearing a +picturesque resemblance to the doors of the old-time saloon.</p> + +<p>I noticed that as we went along my friend punched in one side of the +crown of his soft hat and raked it somewhat to one side of his head. He +felt, I suspected, uncomfortably neat for the society of this bonhomie +crowd of bona fide newspaper men, and did not wish to appear aloof by +being too correct in attire.</p> + +<p>The company passed along the corridor and into the anteroom under a +heavy head of tobacco smoke. There the press association man presented +each of the flock in turn to a chubby little fellow behind a railing, +whom I took to be secretary to the Secretary; and presently the +delegation was admitted to the inner office, a spacious apartment where +one passed first an enormous<a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a> globe, then a large model of the <i>Old +Kearsarge</i> in a glass case; and at length we ranged ourselves closely +before a mountain of a man in a somewhat saggy suit. Clean shaven, +massive features, very bald dome, widely smiling, Secretary Denby looks +just a bit (I thought) like Mr. Punch. His voice comes in a deep rumble +and he has entirely ample ears. Trousers too long.</p> + +<p>No; he had not seen the story in that morning's paper which was handed +to him by one of the reporters. He would not confirm this; he would not +deny that. After all, he had been "only a week in the job." And one +might so very easily be "injudicious." "Wily old boy," was one comment +as the party trailed out and made for the press telephones, discussing +among themselves "how would you interpret" this and that?</p> + +<p>Next, at eleven o'clock, the Secretary of State was down on the +newspaper men's schedule. We went into a kind of waiting room across the +corridor from the real offices of the Secretary. Most conspicuous +decoration a huge painting of a Bey of Tunis, the presentation of which +(the inscription said) had something to do with condolences from France +on the death of Lincoln.<a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a> Also on one wall a portrait of Daniel Webster.</p> + +<p>Mr. Fletcher, Under Secretary of State, appeared before us. Very dapper +gentleman. Athletic in build. Fashionable clothes. Grey hair but +youthful in effect. Handsome, smooth-shaven face. Suggested an actor, or +perhaps a very gentlemanly retired pugilist. Held beautiful shell +spectacles in hand before him. Stood very straight. Had another fellow +alongside of him to supply information when himself in doubt. When asked +concerning someone who was in jail, inquired "Where is the old boy?" +Smiling cordially, seeking continually for an opportunity for some joke +or pleasantry, trying bravely to keep up a strong front, but obviously +becoming more and more uneasy under the ordeal of rapid-fire questions +about Russia, Germany, Japan and so on and so on. On being asked +concerning diplomatic appointments under consideration, bowed briskly, +replied "A great many," and escaped—almost, it might be said, fled.</p> + +<p>Secretary of War next on the list. Full length portraits in his offices +of Generals Pershing, Bliss and Petain. Many flags, historic ones +(presumably) in glass cases. Heavy build, Secretary Weeks, very wide +across the middle.<a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a> Straggling moustache, drooping. Very direct and +business-like in manner. Entered room saying, "Well, there are a number +of things I have to tell you gentlemen." Frank and positive in his +statements and denials. Stood twisting a key-ring as he talked. Wore +neat pin in tie. When told that the War Department was supposed to have +such and such a thing under consideration, he replied, tapping himself +on the breast, "Not this part of the War Department." One questioner +sought to obtain from him a more direct reply to a question that had +been put to the Secretary of the Navy. He answered, "I know nothing +about the navy." When there was apparently nothing more that he had to +say, he concluded the audience very deftly.</p> + +<p>"He's a different guy, ain't he?" was one correspondent's observation as +we passed out of the room. "One of the biggest men in the government," +he added. "Gives the impression of knowing as much about that job now as +Baker did when he left."</p> + +<p>To the National Press Club we went for lunch. It is pleasant to see in +what esteem this club holds those two eminent journalists, Eugene Field +and Napoleon Bonaparte, whose portraits hang<a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a> framed side beside on one +of its walls. Napoleon, however, is held in such very great regard as a +newspaper man that another and larger picture of him hangs in another +room.</p> + +<p>The newspaper army had shifted to the business office of the White +House. As we entered Secretary Weeks was departing. He pressed through +the throng of reporters clustered about him. "Nothing to say," was +apparently what he was saying. "We are referred to Warren," said one of +the men. "Looks like we really were going to see him," said another. The +President had not yet given an interview to the press men. So we took +seats among the rows of figures ranged around the walls.</p> + +<p>While waiting we were given an audience, so to say, by Laddie, the White +House Airedale. Curly haired breed. "How old is he?" we asked the small +colored boy whose office includes charge of him. "A year," he said. The +dog stands well, and holds his stump of a tail straight aloft, correctly +enough. But there is altogether too much black on him, we observed; +covers his breast and flanks, instead of being merely a "saddle" on his +back. "Yes, everybody says it," answered the boy.<a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a></p> + +<p>Secretary Hughes was seen coming down the corridor on his way out. The +newspaper men pressed forward forming a narrow line through which he +walked, very erect, smiling broadly, bowing to right and left, and +continually moving his black derby hat up and down before him. "Gets a +great reception, don't he?" said one reporter, glowing with a sort of +jovial pride at Mr. Hughes.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to see the boss," Mr. Hughes repeated a number of times as +he came along, and turning slightly made one last very good-natured bow +as he moved out through the door.</p> + +<p>"Are they all here?" called out Mr. Christian, then marshalled us +through his office and into the large, circular and very handsome office +of the President.</p> + +<p>While we awaited him he could be seen, through a doorway, talking, on a +porch-like structure opening out along the back of the building. He was +very leisurely in manner. I think my first outstanding impression of my +glimpse of him was that he was a very handsome man, most beautifully +dressed in a dark blue serge sack suit, very sharply pressed.</p> + +<p>He came in, moving slowly, stood close behind<a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a> his desk, and said, +"Well, gentlemen, what is there that I can tell you?" He spoke very +quietly and deliberately. The Cabinet he said had discussed problems +relating to the "hang-over" (as he put it) of the War, in particular the +trade situation of the world. He mentioned that he did not desire to be +quoted directly. He had not been "annoyed" but he had been "distressed," +he said, by having been so quoted not long ago. The top button of his +coat was buttoned. His cuffs were stiffly starched. He inclined his head +a good part of the time to one side. Sometimes half closed his eyelids. +Then would open them very wide, and make an outward gesture with his +hands, accompanied by something like a shrug of the shoulders. Close up +I was struck by the bushiness of his eyebrows. He wore a single ring, +mounting a rather large light stone. No pin to his tie. He swung +backward and forward on his feet. Put on shell-rimmed nose glasses to +read. Sometimes pursed his lips slowly. As he talked absently rolled a +small piece of paper he had picked up from his desk into the shape of a +cigarette. His talk had a slightly oratorical roll. He was exceedingly +patient and exceedingly courteous. His general<a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a> atmosphere was one of +deep kindness. In conclusion he said, "Glad to see you again."</p> + +<p>"That's pretty nice," was the comment of one of the newspaper men as we +emerged from his presence.</p> + +<p>As we moved away through the grounds my friend dilated on a somewhat +whimsical idea of his. This was to this effect. In motion picture plays +(my friend insisted) kings were always much more kingly in appearance +and manner than any modern king would be likely to be. But (he declared) +it would be very difficult for a motion picture concern to get hold of +any actor to play the part who would look so much like an American +President as President Harding.</p> + +<p>We stopped in to look at the east room, now again open. A character who +had evidently not been born in any of the capitols of Europe was +admiring the place vastly. He looked with especial approval at the +enormous chandeliers, those great showers, or regular storms, of glass. +"Pretty hard to beat," was his patriotic comment.</p> + +<h4>III</h4> + +<p>It's a big old building, dark inside, the Washington Post Office. He +looked like some sort of<a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a> a guard about the premises who was too tired +to stand up and so did his guarding sitting in a chair. My friend had +got so accustomed to inquiring our way to the office of Secretary +Hughes, and of Secretary Weeks, and so on, that he asked where we would +find Secretary Hays.</p> + +<p>The man looked at us very contemptuously. "The Postmaster General?" at +length he boomed. Well, he was on the fifth floor. As we stepped from +the car my friend remarked on the practice universal in Washington of +men removing their hats when in the presence of women in elevators.</p> + +<p>Our appointment was for ten o'clock. We had got quite used, however, to +waiting an hour or so for the gentlemen we sought to see. Several other +callers were ahead of us here, and we sat down in the outer office when +we had presented our cards to a very kind and attentive young man who +appeared to be in charge.</p> + +<p>Within a very few minutes, however, we were ushered round into a +secluded inner office. "The General," the young man said, "will be in in +a <a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a>moment. He sees them in two different rooms at the same time." This +large room was entirely bare of painting or other decorations.</p> + +<p>Speaking of decorations reminds me of the striking handsomeness of the +Cabinet officers we had so far been seeing. Beginning with the President +himself (prize winner of the lot in this respect) the spectacle of this +Administration had up to this moment been a regular beauty show.</p> + +<p>The physiognomy of Mr. Hays, of course, strikes a somewhat different +note in the picture. Though he is not, I should say, as funny looking as +some of his pictures suggest.</p> + +<p>He fairly leaped into the room. Spidery figure. Calls you by your last +name without the prefix of Mister. Very, very earnest in effect. No +questions necessary to get him started. He began at once to talk. Poured +forth a steady stream of rapid utterance. Denounced the idea of labor as +a "commodity." Said: "We have a big job here. Three hundred thousand +employees. Millions of customers. I think we can do it all right, +though. But our people in the department all over the country everywhere +must be made to feel that a human spirit is behind them. It's in the +heart that the battle's won. It's because of the spirit behind them +whether<a name="page_314" id="page_314"></a> our men throw a letter on the floor before a door or put it +through the door." Made a gesture with his hands illustrating putting a +letter through a door. Looked very hard at the very clean top of his +desk much of the time as he talked. Now and then looked very straight +indeed at us. Gave us a generous amount of his time. At length arose +very briskly.</p> + +<p>Routed us out around through some side way. Had a private elevator +concealed somewhere in a dark corner. Turned us over to the colored man +in charge of it with the request, "Won't you please take my friends +down?"</p> + +<p>As we were crossing the street we ran into our old friend from New York +who edits a very flourishing women's magazine. Down here, he said, to +get an article from Mrs. Harding. Had found her altogether willing to +supply him with an article, but in so much of a flutter with her new +activities that she didn't see her way to finding time soon to write it. +What, we asked, was the article to be about? Well, Mrs. Harding's idea +was to revive all the old traditions of the White House. And what were +those traditions? Mrs. Harding hadn't said beyond the custom of Easter +egg-rolling.<a name="page_315" id="page_315"></a></p> + +<p>We were on our way over to see Assistant Secretary of the Navy +Roosevelt. He is not in the State, Army and Navy building where Mr. +Denby is, but some ten minutes' walk away, in the long, rather fragile +looking Navy Department building constructed during the War.</p> + +<p>Here numerous gold-braided officers continually come and go. The +building is filled with very beautiful models of fighting ships. At one +side of Roosevelt's door is a model of the <i>San Diego</i>, at the other +side a "sample U. S. Navy Patrol Boat."</p> + +<p>As we gave him our cards a young man asked us if we knew "the Colonel." +An old Washington newspaper man had told us that morning, "He will go +far under his own hat." Several very large men, also waiting, were +smoking very large cigars while we waited. While all male visitors to +public offices in Washington appear to smoke continually, those in +government positions apparently do not smoke during office hours. And +government business hours there seem to be queer. The Senate goes into +session at just about lunch time. The President seems to be around in +his business office throughout the whole of the middle of the day. And +the office of the Secretary<a name="page_316" id="page_316"></a> of State telephones you at six o'clock +Saturday night.</p> + +<p>The young man showed us in. Mr. Roosevelt arose from his desk, shook +hands very cordially, said "How do you do?" sat down again and at the +moment said nothing further. It was up to us to swing the conversation. +So my friend launched out: We had nothing to do with affairs of state, +had no design to interview him as to naval matters, simply were curious +to see if we should find him eating an apple and wearing white sox, or +what. With hearty good nature, Mr. Roosevelt replied that he was not +eating an apple because he did not have one to eat, and that he had only +once worn white sox, woolen ones, when a boy at school.</p> + +<p>He was very neatly dressed in a suit of quiet dark material, wore rich +dark red tie, with a stick pin to it. Curiously weather beaten looking +complexion. As he has just published a book we asked him if he intended +to carry on more or less of a literary career together with his public +life. He said, well, perhaps more or less. But he wouldn't have time for +much such work. He "practised" writing on Saturdays and Sundays, but +mainly for the purpose of attaining to clearness<a name="page_317" id="page_317"></a> in expressing himself. +He insisted that the great bulk of his father's writing had been done +<i>before</i> the full course of his political activities and <i>after</i> he had +retired from them.</p> + +<p>After we had arisen to go he walked up and down the room with us, with a +somewhat arm-in-arm effect. Declared we should know a friend of his up +in Boston, because we'd "like him." Said to look in on him again any +time when in Washington. Very affable young man.</p> + +<p>We went out on S Street to see Wilson's new house. Handsome enough +structure, but, undetached from the building next door and fronting +directly on the sidewalk, we decided that it looked somewhat more like a +club than like a private residence. Were told later that the part of +that house to look at is the back of it, as there are wonderful gardens +there.</p> + +<p>One cannot fail to note in the numerous art shops where pictures of +Harding, Roosevelt, Washington, Lincoln and Cleveland are displayed in +abundance the relative absence of pictures of Wilson.</p> + +<p>Why do august statesmen in the lobby of the New Willard cross their legs +so that we can see that their shoes need to be half-soled? Why do<a name="page_318" id="page_318"></a> so +many distinguished looking gentlemen in Washington wear their overcoats +as though they were sleeveless capes? What on earth do so many Oklahoma +looking characters do in Washington? Why is it that there the masses do +not, as in New York and Chicago and Los Angeles, stroll about at night?</p> + +<p>We stopped in again at the executive office of the White House. +Remarkable number of doormen there got up somewhat like policemen, so +that you repeatedly have to explain yourself all over again. Man new to +us on today. Suspiciously asked our names. Then (though what just our +names could have meant to him I cannot see) shook hands with immense +friendliness, and told us his name.</p> + +<p>Quite a throng waiting. Busy hum all about. Different crowd from usual. +Hardly any reporters. Old gentlemen. Stout red-faced fellows with large +black slouch hats. Several youngish women with very generous bosom +displays. Some sort of a delegation, apparently. We did not make out +just what. But the scene somewhat suggested a meeting of the Los Angeles +branch of the Ohio Society. At length<a name="page_319" id="page_319"></a> the company lines up. We trail in +through with the rest.</p> + +<p>The President, looming in the centre of his office, shakes hands with +each caller in turn, in a manner of paternal affection. Holds your hand +very gently within his for a considerable while. Rather odd position he +takes when shaking hands. Right shoulder lifted. Looks (though I felt +that he was unconscious of this effect) somewhat like a pose that a +painter might put his model into when about to paint him shaking hands.</p> + +<p>He bent over us in a very fatherly fashion. Said, yes, yes, he had got +our letters while in the South. Which was quite a mistake, as we hadn't +written him any letters. But his kindly intention was quite +unmistakable.</p> + +<h4>IV</h4> + +<p>Senator New's secretary, in his room on the second floor of the Senate +Office building, was opening a wooden box that had come by mail. No; he +wasn't exactly opening this box, either. He was looking at it +suspiciously and cautiously tipping it from side to side. "Feels like it +was a snake," he said fearsomely. "Soft, live-like<a name="page_320" id="page_320"></a> weight in there. I +don't believe I'll open it. You see," indicating the stamps, "it's from +India, too."</p> + +<p>"But why would anybody be sending Senator New a snake?" inquired my +friend.</p> + +<p>"Goodness gracious! We get lots of things just as queer as snakes," +replied Mr. Winter. "I guess the Senator must be coming in pretty soon," +he remarked, glancing about. "So many people coming in," he added, and +continued: "It's a remarkable thing. Visitors seem to have some sort of +psychic knowledge of when the Senator will be in. Same way out in +Indianapolis, we could always tell when Tom Taggart was likely to be +back soon from French Lick—so many people (who couldn't have heard from +him) looking for him at the Denizen House."</p> + +<p>"Everybody," someone observed, "always comes to Washington at least once +a year." All United-Statesians, at any rate, one would say looking about +the city, probably do. And among visiting United-Statesians not +habitually seen in such profusion elsewhere one would certainly include, +Indians, Mormons, Porto-Ricans, Civil War veterans, pedagogues, +octogenarians, vegetarians, Virginians, Creoles, pastors, suffragettes,<a name="page_321" id="page_321"></a> +honeymooners, aunts, portly ladies of peculiar outline, people of a very +simple past, and a remarkable number of gentlemen who still cling to +white "lawn" ties, hard boiled shirts and "Congress shoes."</p> + +<p>Also, of course, that vast congregation of people who "want" something +in Washington. "What are you looking for around here?" a remark commonly +overheard in the hotel lobbies.</p> + +<p>But there are other American cities to which "everybody" goes, too, now +or then, though the visitors are not perhaps so recognizable. Coming out +of the Capitol, passing through the grounds of the White House, what do +you frequently overhear? Frequently some such remark as this: "Haven't +you ever been in the subway? To the Bronx? When you go back you +certainly must go in it."</p> + +<p>And out in Los Angeles they boastfully tell you that one way in which +Los Angeles "is like New York" is this: That whereas a man may or may +not happen to go to Richmond or to Detroit, sooner or later you are +bound to see him on the streets of Los Angeles. That, as I say, is what +they tell you out there.</p> + +<p>But what are those aspects of Washington<a name="page_322" id="page_322"></a> which are peculiar to that +city, and make it so unlike any other city in the United States? And +which in some cases make it an influence for the bad to many of its +visitors? And which in some cases it is so strange should be the aspect +of such a city?</p> + +<p>For one thing, the first thing which must strike any stranger to the +city is the enormous extent of the souvenir business there. It is +perhaps natural enough that this should be so, and that souvenir shops +should range themselves in an almost unbroken stretch for miles. What is +not altogether so easy to answer is why nearly all of the souvenirs +should be the kind of souvenirs they are.</p> + +<p>Printed portraits of the present President and of former Presidents, and +plaster busts of these personages, of course. That many of the articles +for "remembrance" should be touched with a patriotic design, of course, +too. But why today should so many millions of the "souvenir spoons" +(with the Capitol in relief on the bowl), the "hand painted" plates +(presenting a comic valentine likeness of George Washington), the +paper-weights (with a delirious lithograph of the Library of Congress +showing through), the<a name="page_323" id="page_323"></a> "napkin rings," butter knives, and so on and so +on—why should such millions of these things be precisely in the style +of such articles proudly displayed in the home of my grandmother when I +was a boy in the Middle West?</p> + +<p>Outside of Washington, as far as I know in the world, any considerable +exhibition of wares so reminiscent of the taste of the past can only be +found along the water fronts of a city where men of ships shop. And +there, along water fronts, you always find that same idea of ornament.</p> + +<p>Another thing. Where in Washington are shops where real art is +sold—paintings of reputable character and rare specimens of antique +furniture? They may be there; I do not swear that they are not, but they +are remarkably difficult to find.</p> + +<p>Painting reminds me. The Corcoran Gallery is, of course, a justly famous +museum of art. But a minor museum, containing no Old Masters, but an +excellent collection of American painting, particularly excellent in its +representation of the period immediately preceding the present, the +period of the men called our impressionist painters. Its best canvas, I +should say, is the<a name="page_324" id="page_324"></a> painting by John H. Twachtman, called (I believe) +"The Waterfall." My point is, that visitors there certainly are seeing +what they are supposed to be seeing there—art.</p> + +<p>What I am coming to (and I do not know why someone does not come to it +oftener) is this: That hordes of people who come to Washington will look +at with wonder as something fine anything which is shown to them. The +numerous beautiful works of architecture—to which is now added the very +noble Lincoln Memorial—they see, and probably derive something from. +But the cultural benefits of their visits to their Mecca of patriotic +interest must be weirdly distorted when they are led gaping through the +Capitol and are charged twenty-five cents apiece to be told by a guard +who knows as much about paintings as an ashman a quantity of imbecile +facts about prodigious canvases atrociously bad almost beyond belief.</p> + +<p>The Embarkation of the Pilgrims and Washington Resigning his Commission, +and so forth, indisputably are historic moments for the American breast +to recall with solemn emotion. And the iniquity of these paintings here +to minds uninstructed in works of art is that by reason of<a name="page_325" id="page_325"></a> their appeal +to sentiments of love of country these nightmares of ugliness are put +over on the visitor as standards of beauty.</p> + +<p>Still speaking (after a fashion) of "art," another aspect of Washington +hits the eye. And that is the extremely moral note here. In Los Angeles +(that other nation's playground of holiday makers) perhaps even more +picture cards are displayed for sale. A very merry lot of pictures, +those out there—all of "California bathing girls" and very lightly +veiled figures, limbs rythmically flashing in "Greek dances." Such +picture cards of gaiety of course may be found in windows here and there +on some streets in New York and other cities. But after much window +gazing I fancy that anybody bent upon buying such things in Washington +would have to get them from a bootlegger or someone like that.</p> + +<p>And whereas, as I recall, in other centres of urban life, and especially +on the Pacific Coast, the photographers' exhibits run very largely to +feminine beauty and fashion, in photographers' windows in Washington, +you will note, masculine greatness dominates the scene.</p> + +<p>Speaking of photographers and such-like suggests<a name="page_326" id="page_326"></a> another thing. Let us +come at the matter in this way. A good many women of culture and means, +I understand, choose to live in Washington; probably in large measure +because the city is beautifully laid out, because it is a pleasant size, +because there are no factories and subways there, and so on. We know +that numerous retired statesmen prefer to remain there. There is society +of the embassies. In consideration of all this, and in consideration +further of the comparatively large leisure there for an American city, +you would suppose that, behind the transient population, in Washington, +a highly civilized life went on. Very well.</p> + +<p>True, they have the third greatest reference library in the world and +the numerous scholars associated with it. But where do the people <i>buy</i> +their books? One bookstore of fair size. Another good but quite small. A +third dealing mainly in second-hand volumes. Not one shop devoted to +sets in fine bindings, first editions, rare items and such things. +Though in Philadelphia, for instance, there is one of the finest (if not +the finest) bookshops dealing in rare books anywhere in the world. In +San Francisco<a name="page_327" id="page_327"></a> numerous bookstores. Larger cities? Yes (as to that part +of it), of course.</p> + +<p>But it does seem queer that not a single newspaper in Washington runs +book reviews or prints any degree at all of literary comment.</p> + +<p>Alluding to San Francisco, that happy dale of the <i>bon-vivant</i>, how does +he who likes good living make out in Washington, unless he lives in a +club, an embassy, or at the White House? A grand public market, two +first-class hotel dining-rooms, and many fine homes. But an earnest +seeker after eating as a fine art could find tucked away none of those +chop-houses and restaurants to dine in which enlarge the soul of man.</p> + +<p>But, of course, perhaps you can't have everything at once. From the +visitors' gallery the spectacle of the Senate in active session is a +game more national than baseball. "There he goes!" cries one ardent +spectator, pointing to a "home player," so to say, moving down the +aisle. "That's him! Gettin' along pretty good, ain't he?"<a name="page_328" id="page_328"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII<br /><br /> +FAME: A STORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="c">$10,000!<br /> +IN PRIZES FOR SHORT STORIES!</p> + +<p><i>You</i> have a story. We want to read it. Every human life has one +great story in it. Every man, every woman, has at least one story +to tell.</p> + +<p class="c">THIS MEANS YOU!</p> + +<p>From your experience, from your own heart history, you can draw a +tale. You may not know that you can write. But you never know what +you can do until you try. We believe there are thousands of +unwritten little masterpieces, waiting only for the right +encouragement to be produced. Here is our offer——</p></div> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">B</span>ENJAMIN KEYESER drew a long breath. "This means you"—there was no +doubt about that. These printed words had read his heart. He felt that +deep was answering unto deep.</p> + +<p>A brief résumé of his life passed through Keyes's mind. And he was +touched, as never <a name="page_329" id="page_329"></a>before, by the romance of destiny. He had not +contrived to be called up to public charges or employments of dignity or +power in the world. When Ol' Necessity had tapped him on the shoulder he +had cut his scholastic pursuits short of college, and a family friend, +Dr. Nevens, had got him a fifth-rate job in a third-rate business +concern. Here it seemed extremely probable that he would spend a good +many of his days. By the continued exercise of steadiness of character, +diligence, and application, he might hope, as Dr. Nevens by way of +encouragement occasionally pointed out, to advance at the rate of a +couple of dollars or so every couple of years. Clerkdom hedged him about +as divinity doth a king.</p> + +<p>The city directory rated him, "B. C. Keyes, Clerk." Should he be killed +in a railway accident, chosen as a juror, or arrested for homicide, the +newspapers would report that B. C. Keyes, a clerk, of 1120 Meredith +Street,—etc. There was, he felt when he looked at it fairly, no way +out. In the "Americans of Today" magazine articles, men rise from +bootblacks to multi-millionaires, but these legends, Keyes felt numbly, +had about as much relation to his own life as the hero tales of ancient +Greece. His lot was cast in the bottom of a well.<a name="page_330" id="page_330"></a></p> + +<p>And yet,—Keyes had been considered a bright youngster at school; he +regarded himself as a rather bright young man now; and sometimes even +yet, in wayward, impractical moments, he saw in his mind a picture of +himself breaking away from the field (so to say) and coming rounding +into the home stretch to bear down on a grandstand wild with applause. +He bore about within him a subconscious premonition, as it were, which +apparently would not die, that something remarkable was to happen to him +sooner or later. An unpleasant circumstance was that it was getting +later now all the time. Still the estimate of his worth returned to him +by life did not rid him of the belief that he had been originally +intended by his Maker for higher things than he had found.</p> + +<p>When, occasionally, the gloomy contrast of his life as it was with his +career as he conceived it had been meant to be depressed him too +untowardly, a young lady whom Keyes called Louise would administer +spiritual stimulants.</p> + +<p>Louise was a very clever person, and she knew a superior young man when +she saw one. She did not care for your common men at all. She was +intellectual. She read everything, her<a name="page_331" id="page_331"></a> friends said. She often told +Keyes that he ought to write. She knew, she declared, that he could +write better than most of the people who did write.</p> + +<p>This idea of writing had, now and then, occurred to Keyes himself. He +was rather fond, in his odd hours, of reading periodical fiction, which +he liked to discuss with serious people like Louise. Sometimes with the +exhilaration occasioned by the reading of a particularly good story, a +romantic impulse to express himself welled up in him, and then +evaporated. Generally in these instances he wanted to write a kind of +story he had just read. He felt the glamour of the life of adventurous +tales. He thrilled in response to the note struck in that sort of +romance best exemplified, perhaps, in one of his favorites, "The Man Who +Would Be King." Or he longed to be like O. Henry, wise with the wisdom +of the Town. But there was one sort of story which always ignited in his +mind the thought that he really did know a story of his own. This he +sometimes positively yearned to tell. This the advertisement had put its +finger upon. "Every human life has one great story in it." It was even +<a name="page_332" id="page_332"></a>so. "From your own heart history ..."—Benjamin Keyes felt that emotion +which is the conception of a work of art.</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>He was pregnant with his idea. He rose from his bed betimes. He breathed +a strangely fragrant air. He looked at the beautiful world. He wrote. He +mentioned his little employment to no one: he felt rather ashamed of it, +in fact; but it infatuated him. He encountered some awful tough spots, +and at times he almost despaired—but he could not give up. Something +within him, which he himself was conscious he did not understand, +tortured him to go on. All day long, while at his business, his meals, +his shaving, his story turned and twisted and talked in the back of his +head. Despair alternated with exultation. At hours there came a gusto to +his work; words that he had heard or read, forgotten and never used, +came back to him from heaven knows where, and sprang to his pen at the +felicitous instance. He felt that his mind was more alert than he +remembered it to have ever been; he felt that his eyes were brighter; +his hands, his whole right arm, felt strong. He knew as he worked that +this was character, and this was sentiment,<a name="page_333" id="page_333"></a> and this was humor. He was +shaken by the respiration of a heady drama. He felt that this—was +almost genius! And he was aghast that he had lived such a dull life +hitherto when this capacity had been in him.</p> + +<p>He possessed little theoretic knowledge of writing; his story grew +naturally, like a tree: he was intelligent, and he had a story to tell +which must be told. In the matter of technical construction he followed +in a general way, intuitively, unconsciously for the most part, without +elaborate examination, the form of a short story as he was acquainted +with it through his reading of stories. He wandered alone at night, +oblivious of anything else, thinking, thinking his story over; and he +felt good in his brain and in his heart and in his stomach. He felt +virile, elated, full of power, and strangely happy. The joy of creating +a thing of art was upon him. Thrills ran down his spine and into his +legs; he would grin to himself in the dark streets; and sometimes he +laughed aloud. Everything else he neglected. He could not even read the +newspapers; he stayed at home two days from business; he worked early +and late, and walked up and down, throbbing, meantimes.<a name="page_334" id="page_334"></a></p> + +<p>The story was almost finished. The story <i>was finished</i>. What would +Louise say? Would she think that he ought not to have written, ought not +to make public, so intimate a history? Then in the story he had carried +things further than they were in fact: the artistic instinct had +formally plighted the lovers' troth. He thought of submitting his +manuscript without showing it to Louise. Would it not be fine for her to +discover the story in print! But Keyes had to read that story to someone +or blow up.</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>His evening with Louise began awkwardly. The pleasant interchange of +being did not, as usually so happily it did with Louise, flow naturally +along. Keyes was accustomed to feel that with Louise he talked better +than before anyone else. He now and then wished that certain other +people, upon whom he felt he had not made so favorable an impression as +he deserved, could overhear him sometime with Louise. Now, curiously, +with her he felt as he had with them: he could not somehow get his real +machinery started. Three or four times he determined to embark upon the +subject in his mind, and as many times<a name="page_335" id="page_335"></a> the rising fulness in his chest +and the sudden quivering of his heart daunted him. As he looked now at +Louise, sitting there before him, the dignity of her as a young woman +struck him, and it occurred to him as extraordinary that he could have +been so intimate with her. He about concluded to put off his story until +another time, at which immediately he felt much relieved.</p> + +<p>His gaze wandered about among the familiar objects of the little +parlor—the ordinary articles of the family furniture, the photographs +on the mantel, the hand-painted plate on the wall,—then rested upon the +framed Maxfield Parrish, which Keyes knew, with a glow of pride, to +express the superior refinement of Louise's own taste. Keyes shared +Louise's interest in art; he knew, and very much admired, the work of +Dulac, James Montgomery Flagg, N. C. Wyeth, Arthur Keller, and many +others; this was one of the fascinating bonds which united them, in +division from a frivolous, material, and unsympathetic world. He glanced +again now at the sumptuous Rackham book on the table, which it had been +such a delight to him to give her at Christmas; and the revived +discussion of ęsthetics led him fairly comfortably into the subject of +his<a name="page_336" id="page_336"></a> own entrance into work in that field. His manuscript came out of +his pocket; and, straightening up on the edge of his chair, a little +nervous again in the still pause that ensued, he cleared his throat, +and, in a rather diffident voice, began to read. As he proceeded and +knew that his effort found favor, his want of confidence left him. He +fell into the swing and color of his work; and the heart of it he tasted +like fine wine as he read. In the more moving passages his voice shook a +trifle, and tears very nearly came into his eyes; it was all, he felt, +so beautiful. When he had concluded there was in Louise's eyes—as he +looked up, and saw her sitting, leaning forward with her chin on the +back of her hand, her elbow on her knee,—a strange light. It occurred +to Keyes that he did not remember ever to have seen a woman's face look +exactly that way before. Probably not. This was a light some men never +find on land or sea. It does not shine for any man more than once or +twice. They sat awhile, these two in the little parlor, and happiness +roared through their veins. Louise told Keyes that she had always known +that he "had it in him."</p> + +<p>Then they arose, and they were near to each<a name="page_337" id="page_337"></a> other, and their hearts +were filled, and beneath the chandelier he moved his arms about her. His +lips clasped hers. It was thus as it was in the story.</p> + +<p>Keyes emerged from the brightly lighted doorway with Louise beaming +tenderly after him. In his blissful abstraction of mind he neglected, on +the dark porchway, to turn the corner of the house to the steps; but +walked instead, straight ahead, until the world gave way beneath him, +and he collapsed with a crash among the young vines.</p> + +<p>The next week Louise, who held a position in the "Nickel's Weekly" +Circulation Branch office in the Middle West, neatly typed the +manuscript on one of the firm's machines. One evening they went together +to post the story.... The ancient, imperturbable moon observed this +momentous deed.</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>When Keyes put that manuscript into the mail box, he <i>knew</i> that it +would be accepted. He felt this in his bones. He felt it in the soles of +his feet and in the hair on his head.</p> + +<p>For several days succeeding, a sensuous complacency<a name="page_338" id="page_338"></a> pervaded young +Keyes. In a rich haze he saw himself acclaimed, famous, adored. His +nature was ardent, and he had always craved the warmth of approbation; +but he had not had it, except from Louise. Now there were moments when, +in a picture in his mind, he saw an attractive figure, which he +recognized as himself somewhat altered, come jauntily along, amiably +smiling, swinging a cane. He had always secretly desired very much to +carry a cane, but he had felt uncomfortably that the humbleness of his +position in life would make this ridiculous. In his moments of ambition +he had hoped, sometimes, that walking-sticks would not go out (to put it +so) before he came in. In the background of his mental picture Keyes +recognized among the doting multitude the faces of about all of his +acquaintances, some brought for the occasion from rather remote places.</p> + +<p>Keyes felt a slight wrench of conscience in winking at this poetic +liberty taken with realistic probability. When a name occurred to him +the physiognomy of whose person was absent, Keyes's sense of probity was +smothered, with a slight twinge of pain, by the ardor of his +imagination; and place in the press was found for this<a name="page_339" id="page_339"></a> person, very +kindly well up in front, where a good view could be had by him of the +celebrity—at this point the celebrity in the delectable vision was +observed gaily to light a cigarette. Discernible in the throng, too, +were some few whose mean and envious natures writhed, the psychologist +in Keyes perceived, at this handsome recognition of the worth of a young +man it had once been their wont to snub.</p> + +<p>In this balmy temper of mind Keyes got down to business one morning a +little late. The humdrum of a business life had begun to be somewhat +more irksome than hitherto to Keyes's swelling spirit. He ruminated this +morning, as he stood before his tall stool at his ledger, on the curious +ill-adjustment of a universe so arranged that one of his capacity for +finer things could remain so unsuspected of the world about him, and the +rich value of his life to some unmeaning task-work be allowed to give. A +sudden electric buzzing beneath his high desk signalled him that his +presence was desired by his chief. "What now?" he thought, a little +tremulously and a little irritably, as he went: he had been caught up on +several slips lately. He paused respectfully in the private office +doorway. Mr. Winder, from his<a name="page_340" id="page_340"></a> swivel-chair, flashed up his white +moustache very straight at Keyes. "Sit down," he directed. The suavity +which was his habit was quite absent. Keyes felt the presence in the air +of a good deal of masculine firmness.</p> + +<p>"This," said Mr. Winder, his eye steadily on Keyes, "is a place of +business. It is not a gentleman's club. Now, I want you to take a brace. +That will do."</p> + +<p>As Keyes took up his pen again and began to write, "By merchandise," his +breast was full with resentment: a sense of the real integrity of his +nature welled up in him. His mind rapidly generated the divers manly +replies he wished, with an intensity amounting to pain, he had thought +of a moment before. He saw himself, now exasperatingly too late, saying +with frank honesty to Mr. Winder:</p> + +<p>"I realize that I have of late been a little delinquent. But (with some +eloquence) it has always been my intention to be, and I believe in the +main I have been, a faithful and conscientious employee. I shall not be +found wanting again."</p> + +<p>But here he was a rebuked culprit. He felt the degradation of servitude. +He experienced sharply that violent yearning so familiar to all<a name="page_341" id="page_341"></a> that +are employed everywhere, to be able to go in and tell Mr. Winder to go +to the devil. And though he felt at bottom the legitimacy, in the +business ethic, of Mr. Winder's attitude, he also felt forlornly the +coldness of the business relation, the brutal authority of worldly +power, and its conception of his insignificance. And he was stung at the +moral criminality, as he felt it to be, of a situation which placed such +a man as Mr. Winder over such a nature as his own; Mr. Winder he did not +suppose had read a book within the last ten years.</p> + +<p>As, at that hour which sets the weary toiler free, in the gathering dusk +Keyes stood on the curb amid the hurrying throng homeward bound,—oh! +how he longed for that establishment in the eyes of men which the +success of his story would bring him. Oh, when would he hear! As he +bowled along in the crowded trolley the thought stole through him, until +it amounted almost to a conviction, that the great letter awaited him at +home now. He could hardly bear the tedium of the short journey. +Restlessly he turned his evening paper.</p> + +<p>In him had developed of late a great interest in authors; he peered +between the pages, a little<a name="page_342" id="page_342"></a> sheepishly, at the column, "Books and Their +Makers." He read that Mr. So and So, the author of "This and That," was +a young man thirty years of age. Instantly he reflected that he himself +was but twenty-seven. This was encouraging! He had formed a habit +recently of contrasting at once any writer's age with his own. If he +learned that Mr. Galsworthy, whose books were much advertised but which +he had not read, was forty-something, he wanted to know how old he had +been when he wrote his first book. Then he counted up the number of +books between that time—comparing his age at that time with his +own—and now. He was absorbed in the literary gossip of the day. That +Myra Kelly had been a schoolteacher, that Gertrude Atherton lived in +California, that Mr. Bennett had turned thirty before he published his +first book, that such a writer was in Rome, or that some other one was +engaged on a new work said to be about the Russian Jews,—he found very +interesting. He read in his newspaper the publishers' declaration that +Maurice Hewlett's new creation recalled Don Quixote, Cyrano, d'Artagnan, +Falstaff, Bombastes Furioso, Tartarin, Gil Blas. His notions concerning +the characters of this company were<a name="page_343" id="page_343"></a> somewhat vague; but he was stirred +with an ambition to create some such character, too.</p> + +<p>On leaving the car whom should he see but Dr. Nevens. They walked along +together. Dr. Nevens inquired about the business. A bad year, he +surmised, for trade. Trade! Keyes felt his heart thumping with the +temptation to confide the adventures of his literary life; which, +indeed, he had found exceedingly difficult to keep so much to himself. +But his position gave him clairvoyance: he divined that no sort of +ambition receives from people in general so little respect, by some +curious idiosyncrasy of the human mind, as literary aspiration. With +what coarse and withering scorn had an intimation—which had escaped +him—that he had sought to give some artistic articulation to his ideas +been met by Pimpkins the other day at the office!</p> + +<p>The personality of Dr. Nevens, however, suggested a more sympathetic +attitude, by reason of the dentist's cultivation. Dr. Nevens was spoken +of as a "booklover." He had a "library"—it was, he implied, his +bachelor foible—the cornerstone of which was a set of the Thistle +edition of Stevenson that he had bought by subscription from an agent. +(Keyes had thought it odd one day<a name="page_344" id="page_344"></a> that Dr. Nevens had not cut the +leaves.) And "the doctor" was fond of speaking familiarly of Dickens, +and gained much admiration by his often saying that he should like—had +he time—to read through "Esmond" once every year. Here, Keyes felt, +would be spiritual succor.</p> + +<p>But Keyes quickly learned that he was quite in a different case from the +author of "Esmond." Dr. Nevens was kind, but pitying.</p> + +<p>"Only one out of hundreds, thousands," he said, "ever comes to +anything."</p> + +<p>It did not occur to him, Keyes thought, as within the range of remotest +possibility that he, Keyes, <i>might</i> be one of these. Then came the +doctor's reason.</p> + +<p>"You do not know anything," he said paternally, "anything at all."</p> + +<p>Keyes realized, with some bitterness, that this world is not an +institution existing for the purpose of detecting and rewarding inner +worth. He had known enough to write his story, he guessed. With some +flare of rage, he felt that simply unsupported merit is rather frowned +upon, as tending by comparison to cast others possibly not possessing so +much of it somewhat into the shade. He had a savage thought that<a name="page_345" id="page_345"></a> when +he was Dr. Nevens's age he would not be a country dentist. He saw the +intense egoism of mankind.</p> + +<p>Dr. Nevens was determined to show a young man who had betrayed a +consciousness of superiority of grain, his place—economically and +socially. The selfish jealousy of the world!</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>His letter had not come. There was only a package from Louise—a copy of +"Book Talk," containing a marked article on "Representative American +Story Tellers"; from this, after dinner, Keyes imbibed most of the +purported facts about Booth Tarkington. Then he went to bed to sleep +through the hours until the return of the postman.</p> + +<p>The next evening still there was no letter. Keyes's spirit was troubled. +He sought the solace of solitude in the quiet, shadowed streets. A +reaction was succeeding his rosy complacency! Doubts pierced his +dissolving confidence. Was his story so good, after all? Somehow, as he +looked back at it now, it seemed much less strong than it had before. He +felt a sort of sinking in his stomach. A sickening suspicion came to +him<a name="page_346" id="page_346"></a> that, perhaps, it was absurd. Maybe it was very silly. In a +disconnected way certain remarks and passages in it came back to him now +as quite questionable. Yes, they sounded pretty maudlin. He squirmed +within with mortification as a recollection of these passages passed +through his mind. He hoped his story would never get into print. A fear +that it might nauseated him. Then he was suffused with a sensation of +how little he amounted to. He felt, with a sense of great weakness, the +precariousness of his job. A horror came over him that he might lose it. +He wished he did not know Louise, who expected things of him. He felt +how awkward it was so to fail her. In the position he had got himself +into with her, how he had laid himself open to humiliating exposure! Oh, +why had he ever sought her? He wished he did not know anybody well. He +was an ass and he would never come to anything. He felt the futility of +his life. Why could he not slink away somewhere and live out his feeble +existence unobserved? As he got into bed he felt that very easily he +could cry.</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p><a name="page_347" id="page_347"></a></p> + +<p class="c">The August<br /> +FAVORITE MAGAZINE<br /> +This number contains<br /> +The Great Prize Story<br /> +by<br /> +BENJAMIN CECIL KEYES<br /> +GET <span style="margin-left: 5em;">IT!!</span></p> + +<p> +<br /> +</p> + +<p>... Keyes stood before a downtown news-stand. Hurrying pedestrians +bumped into him. An irascible character or two, thus impeded, glared +back at him—what was the matter with the fellow! Did he think there was +nobody but himself in the world?</p> + +<p>B. C. Keyes walked home to the sound of a great orchestra reverberating +through him. He could not tolerate the thought of subduing himself to +the confinement of a car. He needed movement and air.</p> + +<p>It had come, his great letter, a few weeks before. At his sitting down +to dinner his mother had given him the envelope. <i>The Favorite +Magazine</i>—these words had seemed to him to be printed in the upper +left-hand corner; it had struck him that perhaps the strain on his +nerves<a name="page_348" id="page_348"></a> of late had so deranged his mind that he now saw, as in a +mirage, what was not. "Benjamin C. Keyes, Esq."—so ran the address. +Keyes in his dizziness noted this point: people had not customarily +addressed him as <i>esquire</i>. Then, for the first time in his life, he +held in his hand a substantial check payable to his own name—wealth! +Courteous and laudatory typewritten words danced before his burning +eyes.</p> + +<p>He felt, though in a degree an hundred times intensified, as though he +had smoked so much tobacco, and drunk so much coffee, he could not +compose himself to eat, or read a paper, or go to bed, or stay where he +was; but must rush off somewhere else and talk hysterically. He got +through his meal blindly. He could not explain—just yet—to his mother: +he felt he could not control the patience necessary to begin at the +beginning and construct a coherent narrative.... He must go to Louise +who already understood the preliminary situation.</p> + +<p>It had occurred to Keyes on his hurried, stumbling way thither that the +whole thing was unbelievable, and that he must be quite insane. After he +had pushed the bell, an interminable time seemed to elapse before his +ring was answered.<a name="page_349" id="page_349"></a> As he stood there on the porch he felt his flesh +palpitating. A terrible fear came over him that Louise might not be at +home.... Louise said, when her frenzy had somewhat abated, that she had +always known that he "had it in him." She told him there was now "a +future" before him.... Keyes had determined to go on about his business +as though nothing unusual had occurred; then when the story appeared, to +accept congratulations with retiring modesty. Before noon the next day +he had told three people; by night, seven.</p> + +<p>So, going over it all again, Keyes arrived at home, to learn that—"What +do you think?" His mother said "a reporter" had been at the house; an +occurrence—quite unprecedented in Mrs. Keyes's experience—which had +thrown her into considerable agitation. This public official she had +associated in her confusion with a policeman. He had, however, treated +her as a personage of great interest. He told her "there was nothing to +be ashamed of." He drew from her trembling lips some account of her +son's life, and requested a photograph.</p> + +<p>Next day the dean of local newspapers, vigilant in patriotism, printed +an extended article on<a name="page_350" id="page_350"></a> the "state's new writer." And in an editorial +entitled "The Modern Athens" (which referred to Keyes only by +implication) the paper affirmed again that Andiena was "by general +consent the present chief centre of letters in America." It +recapitulated the names of those of her sons and daughters whose works +were on the counters of every department store in the land. It concluded +by saying: "The hope of a people is in its writers, its chosen ones of +lofty thought, its poets and prophets, who shall dream and sing for it, +who shall gather up its tendencies and formulate its ideals and voice +its spirit, proclaiming its duties and awakening its enthusiasm." Keyes +read this, as he took it to be, moving and eloquent tribute to his prize +story with feelings akin to those experienced, very probably, by Isaiah.</p> + +<p>Keyes received an ovation at "the office." The humility of Pimpkins's +admiration was abject. Keyes perceived the commanding quality of +ambition—when successful. Miss Wimble, the hollow-breasted cashieress, +regarded him with sheep's-eyes. Even Mr. Winder, in passing, +congratulated him upon his "stroke of luck."</p> + +<p>Wonders once begun, it seemed, poured. Two letters awaited him that +evening. One from the<a name="page_351" id="page_351"></a> editor of <i>The Monocle Magazine</i>. <i>The Monocle +Magazine</i>, as Louis said, "think of it!" The editor of this +distinguished institution spoke of his "pleasure" in reading Mr. Keyes's +"compelling" story; he begged to request the favor of the "offer" of +some of Keyes's "other work." By way of a fraternal insinuation he +mentioned that he was a native of Andiena, himself. "Most of us are," +was his sportive comment. The "Consolidated Sunday Magazines, Inc.," +wrote with much business directness to solicit "manuscript," at +"immediate payment on acceptance at your regular rates for fiction of +the first class."</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>The extraordinary turn of events in Keyes's life brought him visitors as +well as letters. Dr. Nevens called, benignly smiling appreciation. His +impression appeared to be that he had not been mistaken in giving Keyes +his support. Of more constructive importance, however, was the turning +up of Mr. Tate, who had been Keyes's instructor in "English" at the +Longridge High School. A slender, pale, young man, with a bald, domed +forehead "rising in its white mass like a tower of mind," Mr. Tate was +understood to<a name="page_352" id="page_352"></a> nourish a deep respect for literature. He had contributed +one or two very serious and painstaking "papers" on the English of +Chaucer (not very well understood by Keyes at the time), to "Poet-Lore"; +and had edited, with notes, several "texts"—one of "The Lady of the +Lake," with an "introduction," for school use. He reverenced, he now +made evident, the "creative gift," as he designated it; which, he +realized, had been denied him. He had come to pay homage to a vessel of +this gift, his former pupil, now illustrious.</p> + +<p>With the hand of destiny Mr. Tate touched a vital chord. Self-assertion; +to be no longer an unregarded atom in the mass of those born only to +labor for others; to find play for the mind and the passion which, by no +choice of his own, distinguished him from the time slave: this was now +Keyes's smouldering thought. Mr. Tate, from his conversancy with the +literary situation, reported that there never was in the history of the +world such a demand for fiction as now, and that "the publishers" +declared there was not an overproduction of good fiction. Editors, Mr. +Tate said, were eager to welcome new talent. He strongly encouraged +Keyes to adopt what he<a name="page_353" id="page_353"></a> spoke of as the "literary life." In fact, he +seemed to consider that there was no alternative. And, indeed, already +in Keyes's own idea of his future he saw himself eventually settled +somewhere amid the Irvin-Cobbs, the Julian-Streets, the +Joseph-Hergesheimers, and other clever people whose society would be +congenial to him.</p> + +<p>For the present he cultivated his ego, as became a literary light; and +now, with Mr. Tate's assistance, he began to devote the time at his +command to preparation for his life's work, to study. Mr. Tate was +ardent to be of service; he felt that he had here connected himself with +literary history in the making. The great need for Keyes, he felt, was +education. The creative genius, Mr. Tate said, could not be implanted; +but he felt that this other he could supply. He recommended the patient +study of men and books. He thought that what Keyes needed in especial +was "technical" knowledge; so he went at that strong. Maupassant, Mr. +Tate said, was the great master of the short story. Keyes began his +evening studies in English translations of Maupassant.</p> + +<p>The galling yoke of his business life was becoming well-nigh unbearable. +His soul was in<a name="page_354" id="page_354"></a> ferment. If only he did not have to get up to hurry +every morning down to that penitentiary, there to waste his days, he +could get something done. That sapped his vitals. And he was tortured by +a flame—to do, to read, study, create, grow, accomplish! He was +expanding against the walls of his environment. God! could he but burst +them asunder, and leap out!</p> + +<p>Mr. Tate had a high idea of a thing which he spoke of as "style." In +elucidation of this theme he suggested perusal of essays and treatises +by DeQuincey, Walter Pater, and Professor Raleigh, He felt also that the +"art of fiction" should be mastered by his protégé. So Keyes pitched +into examinations of this recondite subject by Sir Walter Besant, Marion +Crawford, R. L. Stevenson, and Anthony Trollope. Keyes realized that he +had <i>not</i> realized before what a lot there was <i>to</i> writing. Mr. Tate +purchased out of his slender means as a present, "Success in +Literature," by G. H. Lewes. He unearthed a rich collection in titles of +books the consumption of which literature would be invaluable to one in +training for the literary profession. An admirable bibliography, this +list, of the genre which was Keyes's specialty:—"The Art of Short +Story<a name="page_355" id="page_355"></a> Writing," "Practical Short Story Writing," "The Art of the Short +Story," "The Short Story," "Book of the Short Story," "How to Write a +Short Story," "Writing of the Short Story," "Short Story Writing," +"Philosophy of the Short Story," "The Story-Teller's Art," "The Short +Story in English," "Selections from the World's Greatest Short Stories," +"American Short Stories," "Great English Short-Story Writers." In the +reading room of the public library Keyes followed a series of articles +in "Book Talk" on the "Craftsmanship of Writing." He advanced in +literary culture, under Mr. Tate's zealous lead, to consideration of +"the novel," its history and development. And, too, to the drama, its +law and technique. His head was filled with the theory of dénouements, +"moments," rising actions, climaxes, suspended actions, and +catastrophes. At times he had an uneasy feeling that all these things +did not much help him to think up any new stories of his own. But Mr. +Tate said "that" would "come."</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>And wealth and fame were even now at hand. The promoters of the great +prize contest advertising<a name="page_356" id="page_356"></a> dodge had not been at fault in business +acumen; the winning story returned ample evidence of its popular appeal. +It was akin to the minds of the "peepul." <i>The Favorite Magazine</i> was +sold during August by enterprising newsboys <i>on trolley cars</i>. That +great public whose literature is exclusively contemporaneous,—whose +world of letters is the current <i>Saturday Mail-Coach</i>, the <i>All-people's +Magazine</i>, the <i>Purple Book</i>, the <i>Nothing-But-Stories</i>, the <i>Modiste, +The Swift Set, Jones's—the Magazine that Entertains, Brisk Stories, +Popularity</i>, and the <i>Tip-Top</i>,—discussed the big features on front +porches. Keyes's story even attracted the interest of those <i>who seldom +read anything</i>. A number of letters from persons of that impulsive class +which communicates its inward feelings to authors personally unknown +were forwarded to Keyes from his publishers. A young lady resident in +St. Joe, Michigan, wrote to say that she thought the scene where the +boat upsets was the "<i>grandest thing</i> ever written."</p> + +<p>Imagine a man like Keyes sitting his days away on an office stool. His +mother, however, could not "see" his resigning his position. His +<a name="page_357" id="page_357"></a>"father had always" ... and so forth. Keyes foamed within. What a +thing—woman's maddening narrowness! At the office Keyes's situation +grew, in subtle ways, more and more oppressive. His position appeared to +become equivocal. Mr. Winder seemed to make a point of increasing +exactness. Keyes felt a disposition in authority to put down any +subordinate uppishness of feeling possibly occasioned by doings outside +the line of business. And he became conscious, too, of a curious +estrangement from his associates there. They, on their side, Pimpkins in +especial, seemed to feel that he felt he was too good for them. And, in +truth, he did. The mundane aims of those around him got on his nerves. +Their commonplace thoughts irritated him. They were <i>common</i> natures. +But, with fierce secret joy, Keyes knew that an event was approaching +which promised, would command, deliverance from it all.</p> + +<p>Fall came. And the Favorite Publishing Company bound up the prize story +as a "gift book" for the holiday trade. Claud Clarence Chamberlain, the +well-known illustrator and creator of the famous "Picture-Hat Girl," was +commissioned to make the decorations. These were done with much dash in +highly colored crayon<a name="page_358" id="page_358"></a> and popular sentiment. One was printed on the +paper jacket of the book, with the title in embossed letters. The +advertisement pronounced the work altogether "an exquisite piece of +book-making." It declared the production the "daintiest gift of the +season," and reminded "people of culture and refinement" that there was +"no present like a book."</p> + +<p>Indeed a hero is not without fame in his own country. The +Stanton-Merritt bookstore on Capital Street arranged a window display of +about a ton of "Will Rockwell Makes Good," with one of Mr. Chamberlain's +original illustrations, framed, in the centre. A monster advertising +banner was flung across the front of the store above the entrance and +windows. Just inside, a pyramid breast-high was built of the books, +beneath an artistic piece of work—a hanging board upon which was burned +in old English letters: "'A good book is the precious life blood of a +Master Spirit'—Milton." A lady who informed the salesman that she +thought "books" were "just fine," bought twenty copies for holiday +distribution. She inquired if there was not a discount on that number +purchased.</p> + +<p>Drugged with triumph, they returned together<a name="page_359" id="page_359"></a> Saturday night from the +exhibition "down town"; and, in the now historic little parlor again, +Louise wept upon the shoulder of her affianced. Yes; they were formally +engaged. Keyes was not without a sensation that the situation was rather +chaotic. But destiny seemed to close in on him and bear him on.</p> + +<p>The reviewers got on the job. And they were there with the goods. +Statements from a few typical press notices follow. "An absorbing +story," said the Topeka <i>Progressive</i>, "throbbing with optimism." "Mr. +Keyes strikes a new note in this unusual production; vivid, +dramatic,"—San Francisco <i>Lookout</i>. "A story of vivid and compelling +interest," one critic declared. "A delightful story, rich in heart +throbs," was one good one. One reviewer said, "Here we have a real love +story, a tale of love, tender and true, delightfully narrated. There are +so many fine, tender passages in the episode of these two, who live just +for each other, that reading the little book is like breathing strong, +refreshing air." "The creator of 'Will Rockwell," said one paper, "has +here written a new idyl of America." "An inspiring picture," said +another. One very fine critique said: "Once in awhile, possibly once in<a name="page_360" id="page_360"></a> +a lifetime, there arises before us a writer of fiction whose genius is +undeniable the instant it greets us." When Keyes read this, quoted in +his publisher's latest newspaper advertisement, he knew that he had +found his work in the world. And reasoning from his experience, he saw +before him a calling that would be ever a noble intoxication of the +soul, a kind that would know naught of headaches or remorse.</p> + +<p>But perhaps the best of all the critical dicta was this: "Written," it +declared, "with blood and tears and fire." Very impressive was the +number of times that were used such adjectives as "big," "vital," +"absorbing," "compelling," "remarkable," "insistent," and "virile." +"Optimism," it developed too, was the supreme merit of fiction. One of +the arresting terms employed was "economy of means."</p> + +<p>There were, it is true, a few dissenting voices from the chorus of +unrestrained praise, chiefly from certain notoriously dull, +conservative, killjoy journals. The New York <i>Evening Postman</i> said: +"This somewhat amateurish little essay in fiction seems to be the +product of an untutored sincerity. In this, its sincerity, it is not +without a degree of vigor. We doubt, however,<a name="page_361" id="page_361"></a> whether the author can +repeat the performance." And that irrepressibly ribald organ, the New +York <i>Beam</i>, could not forbear its customary jocular sport. Its smart +review of this little classic (as one bookseller already pronounced it) +began: "Hooray for 'Will'! Hooray also for 'Mabel'! They are the real +simegoozlia."</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>"Don't you think you could write something now, dear?" inquired Mrs. +Keyes, who did not see how scholarship pure and simple was, so to say, +to move the boat.</p> + +<p>This idea of writing something now had indeed occurred to Keyes; but +somehow he had not been able to think of anything in particular to +write. So he went on with his studies, at the same time keeping an eye +open for available material, characters, and plots.</p> + +<p>"Surely you can write something, Ben, that we could get some money for," +said Louise. A wife, after all, is only a woman, with a mind fitted to +petty things, such as groceries, family washings, clothing, and divers +household bills. It is irritating to a man of lofty mind who night and +day is racking his brain for an idea, to be prodded<a name="page_362" id="page_362"></a> on in this fashion. +Keyes ground his teeth and bore it; he reflected that an author's life +is frequently a battle with mediocrity. Perhaps he was mistaken as to +where lay the mediocrity with which he battled.</p> + +<p>He fretted and worried and at length sat himself down to write without +an inspiration. He bethought himself of Trollope's example to literary +aspirants, and tried to grind out two hundred and fifty words every +fifteen minutes for three hours a day. He couldn't write twenty. He kept +doggedly on. He could not make his characters act or talk—the talk was +the most hopeless thing of all. He couldn't, as once he had done, cry +over them. Sometimes, in the stillness of the night with his clock +ticking before him, he almost thought that he had regained for a moment +a tithe of the power he once had; but in the morning when he reviewed +his work he admitted that he had been sadly mistaken. Now doubts haunted +his soul; even as he wrote another consciousness within not thus +employed whispered of his impotency. Fact is, Keyes had not at all the +creative gift.</p> + +<p>He struggled through a number of stories, some better and some worse. +When he mailed<a name="page_363" id="page_363"></a> these it was with a faltering, doubting heart. Something +with a weak action away in his interior told him that they would not be +accepted.</p> + +<p>Keyes got thinner in flesh, more distressed in spirit, and poorer in +this world's goods as time went on. Sometimes he felt like an imposter +and was ashamed to face his wife; then he reread his press notices and a +fever to do something shook him. But a man cannot support himself and +his wife on a fever to do something. Benjamin Cecil Keyes could not +understand the thing: if he had literary genius why couldn't he write? +If he had not, how then had he written? To sit in full view of one's +wife day after day pretending to be interested in a book when the +bill-collector calls; and to be tormented all the time by a desire to do +something and not to be able to do it, or know when, if ever, one will +be able; and to be ashamed and afraid to tell one's wife this; but to be +compelled to be there, or to run away, or to hang one's self—this is a +situation more than uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>A thousand times Keyes decided to roll up his sleeves and do something +else—engage in any profitable employment; and a thousand times he +decided not to—just yet. A man often exists in<a name="page_364" id="page_364"></a> this way until he gets +quite to the end of the string where the wolf is.</p> + +<p>"That was an accident, Louise," said Keyes sadly one day. "I find I +can't write."</p> + +<p>Keyes was mistaken again. No fine thing ever was made by accident. Keyes +managed to write that story because its theme was the most interesting +incident in his life; because it appealed to him more strongly than +anything else had in his whole experience; because he was thoroughly +familiar with the life and the people he featured in his story; because +he was absolutely sincere in his sympathies, appreciation, and emotions +here; he had no ideals set way beyond his power, no aping tendencies +after an effective style, no attention distracted by an ill-digested +knowledge of mechanical construction. The structure, and the style +simply came, probably because—and finally he managed to write that +story because—he was keyed up to it.</p> + +<p>A domestic woman often has a wretchedly unworshipful view of art and +fame. Keyes's confession did not kill Louise. I suppose he expected her +to go back to her parents in high dudgeon as one who had been grossly +swindled.</p> + +<p>"Do you care if you can't write?" she said, after<a name="page_365" id="page_365"></a> a moment's silence. +"Just think how nice you are—how much nicer you were before you tried +to write! And how it has worried you!"</p> + +<p>Keyes got a job as a collector for a mercantile house. "My health +demands outdoor employment," he told his acquaintances.</p> + +<p class="cb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>Sometimes, alone with his lamp after the day's confounded drudgery, +Keyes got out the old magazine and reread his forgotten story.</p> + +<p> +<br /> +</p> + +<p class="c">THE END.</p> + +<div class="boxxx"> +<p class="c">The following typographical errors have been corrected:<br /> +(note of etext transcriber)</p> + +<p>seene=>scene</p> + +<p>bibiographer=>bibliographer</p> + +<p>Bandelaire=>Baudelaire</p> + +<p>as you might saw her context=>as you might say her context</p> + +<p>inquired aonther=>inquired another</p> +</div> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Turns about Town, by Robert Cortes Holliday + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURNS ABOUT TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 36085-h.htm or 36085-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/8/36085/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +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: Turns about Town + +Author: Robert Cortes Holliday + +Release Date: May 11, 2011 [EBook #36085] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURNS ABOUT TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +TURNS ABOUT TOWN + +ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY + + +By ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY + +TURNS ABOUT TOWN + +MEN AND BOOKS AND CITIES + +BROOME STREET STRAWS + +WALKING-STICK PAPERS + +PEEPS AT PEOPLE + +BOOTH TARKINGTON + +THE MEMOIR TO: + JOYCE KILMER: POEMS + ESSAYS AND LETTERS + + + + +TURNS ABOUT +TOWN + +BY + +ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY + +[Illustration: colophon] + +NEW YORK + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + +_Copyright, 1921, +By George H. Doran Company_ + +_Printed in the United States of America_ + + + + + CORRESPONDENCE + CONCERNING + THE + DEDICATION + OF THIS BOOK + TO JOHN BUNKER, ESQRE + + _The Players, + 16 Gramercy Park, + New York City, + June 10, 1921._ + + DEAR JOHN: + + I am, with your permission, dedicating to you a new book of + mine--that it, on condition that you help me read the proofs. The + book is to be called "Turns About Town." It will be published + sometime this autumn. + + _Ever yours,_ + BOB. + +_To: John Bunker, Esqre_ + + * * * * * + + _New York, + 521 West 148th Street, + June 12, 1921._ + + DEAR BOB: + + _You can't intimidate me by any such threat. On the contrary, I + think I shall be secretly (and tremendously) pleased. As for the + proofs, all I have to say is (in the words of the stage villain), + "Produce your proofs!"_ + + _Always, dear Bob, + Sincerely yours,_ + JOHN. + +_To: Robert Cortes Holliday, Esqre_ + + + + +FOREWORD + + +More than half of these pieces were syndicated in a number of American +newspapers by The Central Press Association of New York. Several others +of them originally appeared in _The Bookman_. "Literary Lives" has been +amplified since it was written for the New York _Times_ as a review of +the "Dictionary of National Biography," Second Supplement, Volumes II +and III. "Only She Was There" and "Former Tenant of His Room" are +reprinted from the New York _Evening Post_. "The Sexless Camera" was +contributed to a magazine called _The International_. "I Know an Editor" +was written at the invitation of a gentleman whose name I cannot recall, +and whether or not he ever used it in whatever publication it was with +which he was connected I do not know. + +I thank all these friends of mine for permitting me to here reprint +these articles. + +R. C. H. + +New York, 1921. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + +FOREWORD vii + +I THE HOTEL GUEST 13 + +II A HUMORIST MISFITS AT A MURDER TRIAL 28 + +III QUEER THING, 'BOUT UNDERTAKERS' SHOPS 36 + +IV THE HAIRCUT THAT WENT TO MY HEAD 46 + +V SEEING MR. CHESTERTON 55 + +VI WHEN IS A GREAT CITY A SMALL VILLAGE? 72 + +VII THE UNUSUALNESS OF PARISIAN PHILADELPHIA 81 + +VIII OUR LAST SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT AS A FINE ART 90 + +IX WRITING IN ROOMS 99 + +X TAKING THE AIR IN SAN FRANCISCO 115 + +XI BIDDING MR. CHESTERTON GOOD-BYE 124 + +XII NO SYSTEM AT ALL TO THE HUMAN SYSTEM 141 + +XIII SEEING THE "SITUATIONS WANTED" SCENE 151 + +XIV LITERARY LIVES 162 + +XV SO VERY THEATRICAL 173 + +XVI OUR STEEPLEJACK OF THE SEVEN ARTS 182 + +XVII FORMER TENANT OF HIS ROOM 196 + +XVIII ONLY SHE WAS THERE 205 + +XIX A HUMORIST'S NOTE-BOOK 216 + +XX INCLUDING STUDIES OF TRAFFIC "COPS" 228 + +XXI THREE WORDS ABOUT LITERATURE 236 + +XXII RECOLLECTIONS OF LANDLADIES 242 + +XXIII AN IDIOSYNCRASY 256 + +XXIV THE SEXLESS CAMERA 271 + +XXV I KNOW AN EDITOR 276 + +XXVI A DIP INTO THE UNDERWORLD 281 + +XXVII NOSING 'ROUND WASHINGTON 290 + +XXVIII FAME: A STORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 328 + + + + +TURNS ABOUT TOWN + + + + +TURNS ABOUT TOWN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE HOTEL GUEST + + +Some people just go to a hotel (sometimes referred to as "an hotel") and +stay awhile and go away again. And think nothing about the matter. + +Of course, some may complain more or less at the place about the +"service." Or swank round outside about the address, saying carelessly: +"Oh! yes: at the Blackstone, you know." Or again, if it's a rather +inexpensive place, remark to friends: "Isn't it a funny hole! But the +cuisine is excellent. You'd be surprised! That's why I stop there. And +then it's much more homey, too, than those garish places." + +Now I myself am a fan for hotels. + +If I was a rich man I'd do like an aristocratic and restless young man I +know, who used to go to one New York hotel about twelve at night (after +the evening's entertainment) and leave a call for ten in the morning, +when he would get up and drive to another hotel, check in, eat lunch and +dinner there, and move on to a third New York hotel that night. A +cheerful way he had of adding variety to his life. + +He was a highly agreeable youth, this chap. Always "wore" a +silver-headed cane. I'm sorry to have to say that he is now in jail. +Yep! You see, he had many attractive qualities, but dependability was +not a feature of his equipment. However, his is a resilient nature, and, +fortunately, he is an epicure by temperament. I was rather distressed, +myself, when I heard that he was in jail; and other of his friends that +I met also were decidedly disturbed about him. One day one of them got a +letter from him (it was in France, you know, that he was then in jail), +a bubbling, delightful letter (just like the youth), in which he +declared with much gusto that the jail he was in had the best menu of +any jail in France. + +But about hotels. Oh, yes! + +I always like those huge, brown-paper laundry bags they have hanging up, +pressed beautifully flat, in the rooms, closets or bathrooms of hotels. +You can't roll up your laundry all in one wad and thrust it into one of +these bags, because this would tear the bag. The way to do is to put in, +for instance, first your collars, then, say, your sox, follow perhaps +with your shirts, and so on. In hotels of the very first water, you have +observed, a neat little pocket is attached to the outside of the bag, +into which you have the fun of pinning your laundry slip, all +elaborately made out. + +Next thing, of course, is to get your laundry started on its way. And +here come up a view of the nice nuances of hotels. You gotta watch your +Ps and Qs in these matters or you're likely to get a black-eye at your +hotel. All right in a modest sort of place just to holler down the +telephone for a boy. Then you say to boy, waving hand toward objects: +"Laundry to go down, suit to be pressed, hat to be ironed, shoes to be +polished, letters to be mailed," and so forth. Boy gathers up +miscellaneous collection of articles and proceeds upon these divers +assignments. Presto! Nothing further to detain you. + +But suppose you have gone in for a little more class in the matter of +your hotel--Statler, or something like that. Then you find much more of +a ritual to life. To accomplish your existence requires thought, a clear +head--and time. You pay the penalty of the dignity of pomp and +circumstance. No large, off-hand, free and easy manner about sending up +a boy. The "operator" knows nothing of boys. In the matter of your +laundry you may request her to connect you with the "bell captain," +through whose agency (but not otherwise) a boy may be procured. One +message. In the matter of your suit you may request to be connected with +the "valet service." Message two. And so on. + +Then you sit you down and await the procession. Or, if you prefer, +contemplate the spectacle of life by looking out at the window. + +You fee Buttons. Lapse of time. + +Boots (as Dickens calls him) arrives--what probably here is a +porter--for shoes. Then you have an excellent opportunity (which may not +occur again during the day) for a slight period of philosophical +meditation, or to whistle a tune, before the valet appears. + +In such places as I am describing it is not etiquette at all (though it +may seem to you the simplest way of doing the thing) to call a bellboy +to get down your bag. The porter does that--and through the correct +channel, that is by way of the freight elevator. And, say, something +goes wrong with your ice-water pipe. You are not to outrage hotel +decency here. What is necessary for you to procure is a waiter. Waiters +attend to your inner wants. + +I like best the character of valet when he is English (either so by +birth, or this by self-cultivation); wears a skirt coat, immaculately +pressed, and a "buttonhole"; advances into the room in the attitude of a +bow, and comes to a pause in the pose of one listening with deep and +profoundly respectful attention to the haughty utterance of a stage +earl. Though, indeed, there is an element of disquiet in your being thus +elevated to the Peerage if, as with me, the suit you turn over to this +unexceptionable servitor is of Hirt, Snuffler and Muss manufacture, and +growing a trifle frail in the seat. + +The same thing is true of bath-rooms. I don't, of course, mean that +bath-rooms perform the valet act. But that the more aristocratic in +hotels you get the more likely you are, so to say, to get into hot water +in bath-rooms. Like this: + +If you get into a bathtub which is not quite the last word in bathtubs, +that is a bathtub which has legs and spigots to turn on the water, you +know where you are at all the while. You turn on the hot water in the +amount desired. It comes out of the hot water spout. As desired you turn +on the cold water. Out of the cold water spout comes it. + +But, as you know, the last word in bathtubs is not simple and democratic +like that. It is built onto the floor and has a clock-like dial on the +wall. Dial marked at different points: "Cold," "Medium," "Hot," "Off." +Turn little handle to regulate temperature and flow of water. All out of +same pipe. Yes--but--dial untruthful--very. "Off" scalds you; "Medium" +freezes you. Bad time trying to take last word in baths. + +"Tub or shower?" Maybe you say "shower." And draw one of those +police-court cells. Except the door, no opening in the little, square, +completely cement room but the small hole in the center of the floor +through which the water runs away. But that's not the way to look at it. +These little catacomb-like chambers are aesthetic in their ascetic +character. You may entertain yourself by fancying that you are St. +Jerome, or somebody like that. In here nothing that it will hurt can +get wet, and you can have a fine time making the whole room a +merry-go-round of splashes. One disturbing thought may occur to you. If +the door should stick you might not be found until the hotel got worried +about your bill, when perhaps it would be too late. + +Still, I think the chummiest bath-rooms are those with a bay-window; +very reprehensible those which have no hooks on which to hang your +pajamas and razor strop. + +Then there are those hotels so far-seeing into the possibilities of evil +chance and so solicitous of your equanimity that they provide your pin +cushion with one suspender button. I suppose the thought is to impress +you with the idea that nothing for your comfort, even down to the +smallest detail, is forgotten. Still, though I do not know that such an +untoward incident ever happened, it is within the range of human +possibility that a man might be shorn of two suspender buttons at once. +If, further, the hotel management were co-ordinated with the gentlemen's +underwear business a safety pin would be served along with the suspender +button--in view of the singular fact that, until your wife has taken a +reef in them, all nether garments are much too great in girth for any +figure at all approximating normal. + +Working, however, as it does, with human material no hotel can get away +with perfection. For, as Dr. Johnson observed, "a fallible being will +fail somewhere." It was in San Francisco recently that three days were +required for me to recover a suit sent in the morning to be pressed by +that afternoon. This mischance was occasioned by three circumstances. To +wit: goblins (presumably) made away with the ticket attached to it; the +hotel tailor fell indisposed with (I hope) leprosy; and his assistant +had a slight mental infirmity, in other words he was seven times an +idiot. + +Reverse English in Los Angeles a few days later. When one night I found +neatly hung on the coat frame in my closet a suit of excellent material, +of fashionable design, and seemingly of virgin character. I reported the +matter to the third assistant manager. One criticism only I have to make +of that suit. It was too confoundedly tight. + +Then, of course, even at the best places (I almost think particularly in +the best places) you are likely any time to find under your door in the +morning a telephone message stamped "Rush," directing you to call +so-and-so "as soon as possible"--and dated 5:17-1/2 two days earlier. +Or, on coming in you are handed by the clerk a memorandum which states +that Mr. Cohan telephoned. Such matters, you reflect, are retrogressive. +If you are unacquainted with any gentleman of the name of Mr. Cohan, so +it may very well be that the guest here who is a friend of Mr. Cohan +received notice that _your_ friend Mr. Sloan telephoned. And there you +are! + +My friend Harry Heartydrop (who, I declare! looks rosier even than +before the middle of January, 1920) has adopted a hotel life altogether +of late. He explains to me that the advantage of this is the new +side-line activity of numerous compassionate bell captains, who, it +seems--but that would be telling. + +One of the pleasantest things, I think, about hotels is the "night maid +service" furnished at fashionable places. When you come in you find your +light burning and so do not break your shins, and your bed is "turned +down" for you. Very softening to the spirit, this. In a kind of a sort +of a hazy way one's thoughts turn back to the maternal solicitude which +used to "tuck" one "in." + +Good night! + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A HUMORIST MISFITS AT A MURDER TRIAL + + +Are you in on the great Crime Wave, brother? Almost everybody is, I +guess, in one way or another. What's your particular line? Murderer, +bandit, burglar, mortally wounded innocent bystander, juror, witness, or +victim? The police are in on it, too; every once in awhile one of them +gets blackjacked, or something like that. + +I had the flu bad enough, when that was the big thing going; but somehow +so far I myself have escaped being caught in the Crime Wave. This gives +me the great advantage over most people of being a detached spectator of +the rollicking game. + +I have a friend, though, who was caught up just a few days ago. He has +been telling me all about it. Murder case. + +This fellow is a sort of author. He had served a time or two as a juror +in the Supreme Court of New York County. In that building down by the +City Hall. But he says those cases bored him terribly. They were +chicken-feed sort of rows, generally concerned with the question of how +many dollars and fractions thereof X had occasioned the loss of to Z by +reason of his failure to deliver such and such a quantity of (say) +beeswax before the drop in the market of 39.7-1/4 cents, as called for +by telephone agreement, possibly. The "Court" (a nice, pink and grey old +fellow) would go to sleep, with his mouth open, during the drone of the +legal argument, and be awakened automatically (apparently by some change +in atmospheric conditions) at the moment required for him to begin his +charge to the jury. Occasionally, he would come semi-to for an instant +before this, and indistinctly utter the words, "Objection sustained." + +My friend's chief impression of these proceedings is his recollection of +one phenomenon which he observed. Not long after the opening of the +presentation of X's side of the case he saw very clearly that Z hadn't a +leg to stand on. It was ridiculous that he had the face to come into +court with an attempt to question the truth of facts which were as +apparent to the naked eye as the Woolworth Building. My friend felt it +needless to pay any further attention to the foolish formalities of the +argument. If he had not had an uneasy feeling that he might get pinched +for this, he would have gone to sleep, like the Judge. + +But those were dull days in the jury business. + +A little later my friend gets some sort of a ticket instructing him to +call and talk things over with a gentleman having the university degree +of Commissioner of Jurors. This gentleman asks my friend if he has ever +been arrested on a criminal charge, if he is opposed to capital +punishment, and if he has any prejudice against Episcopalians. My friend +is a man of liberal mind, and replies that he would just as soon hang an +Episcopalian as anybody else. "You're on," said the gentleman, reaching +for a blotter; and signed him up. My friend didn't know exactly for +what. But the gentleman said everything was all right, they might not +call on my friend for a long time, and then perhaps it would be a short +case. + +Sometime back was all this. My friend had almost forgotten about his +acquaintance with the Commissioner. Then all of a sudden the gong sounds +and the great Crime Wave is on. Detectives dash madly about with +shotguns. A jeweller is shot every day after lunch and a subway +ticket-seller is robbed directly after every train starts. My friend +hurries home early because everybody is fined who is caught on any paved +street after dark, and there in his letter-box is the summons from his +old friend the Commissioner, who apparently has borne him in mind all +this while. + +On the document is printed by a printing-press, "Jack Hammond _vs._ The +People of the State of New York." And on it is written with a pen my +friend's name, before the printed words "Special Juror." It very +urgently invites my friend to appear at ten o'clock four days distant at +the Criminal Courts Building and there "await further order of the +Court." + +You get off the subway at Brooklyn Bridge, you know, and go, past the +Municipal Building, up Centre Street. A district around behind the +"lanes" (as they say of steamship travel) of general traffic, and one +infrequently traversed by my friend. He was much interested in the +spectacle hereabout. Buildings labelled Public Health on this hand, +buildings labelled Public Records on that. Then you come to that prison +as gruesome in its name as the Tower of London is romantic in its +connotation--the Tombs. The structure itself, a cluster of rather +slender wings, rises from behind its dark walls with an element of +grace, in contrast to that chill, squat, mouldering pile which begot and +bequeathed the historic name. Ugh! though, those barred windows, row +upon row, give a fellow such qualms as do the ugly symbols of our +mortality. Even though you ain't done nothin', make you feel sorta faint +like inside! + +There in the south wall is a little door, like a rabbit burrow, with a +little group about it, and quite a small bustle going on. Standing in +this bit of a doorway, as though she had something to do in the way of +belonging there, is a queer, oval body who looks much as though she +might be what is called an "apple woman." Marked "Visitors' Entrance," +this door. What is it all the people on this side of the street are +pausing to look at over there? + +A cab is drawn up. From this lightly steps (or flashes) a dizzy dream. +"Floppy" hat, scant skirt awhirl, pink-hued stockings gleaming to the +height of the full curve behind the knee, tall satin pump-heels dancing +the wearer on her toes--she swirls through the dark doorway. "They all +have their wimmin," remarks a blousy-looking loiterer to my friend. + +At the north, three stories up, the prison connects with the courts +building by that fabled structure the "bridge of sighs." + +Lively scene before the main entrance to this edifice on Centre Street. +Streams of figures hurrying up the broad front steps--on their way to a +busy day at the height of the crime season. Taxis flying up and +discharging chattering groups as at a theatre. Open pops a taxi door, +out leap three. A couple of very hard-looking young men, of that +sawed-off, stocky stature frequently observed in this type of very +hard-looking young man. Elegantly dressed, these; between them one of +"Oh!-you-beautiful-doll" type. Rapidly they make their way up the steps, +as though very well acquainted with the place. + +Regular jam inside. My friend learned from an attendant that his +particular destination was two flights up. Great crush wedging into the +elevator. Elevator man calls out merrily to an acquaintance he observes +outside his door: "It's a great life if you don't weaken!" + +Threads his way, my friend, around the balcony, so to say, upstairs. +Centre of building open from ground floor to roof. Effect: spacious, +beautiful, ornamented in the richness of a house of grand opera. Finds +the right door. Card on the wall nearby. Several persons (tough-looking +youths in caps and soft collars) reading it. It lists previous day's +proceedings in this court room. Says: So-and-so; Murder; Indicted (or +something like that). Then the names of attorneys for the defense given. +Second line: So-and-so; Murder; etc. Third line: So-and-so; Murder. +Fourth line: So-and-so; Grand Larceny. Next line: So-an-so; Rape. Next: +Murder. And so on. Sure, my friend thinks, I've got to the real shop +this time. He has a few moments yet, and so he strolls over to a door at +the opposite side of the building. 'Nother card there. Same sort of +thing: murder, murder, grand larceny, homicide, murder, murder. (If you +don't believe it, go down there and look at those cards.) "Holy cat!" +says my friend to himself, "comparatively little of this crime stuff +gets into the papers, after all, don't it? I never heard of any of these +cases." + +Enters court room. Takes a seat. Room soon filled. Now in my friend's +experience as a petit juror he had found himself among a rather +grotesque company of very small characters, frequently somewhat seedy in +outward effect. Here he was much struck by the decidedly first-rate +quality in appearance of practically every man in the room. Also, +before, he had observed with a good deal of annoyance that a court of +law could consume about twenty-nine times the time in accomplishing a +very simple matter that would be devoted to a thing of similar +consequence in any practical business office. Here in this flourishing +mill for dealing with capital crime the clerk of the court (or whatever +you call him) began to call the roll of jurors present fifteen minutes +before the hour set for opening of court. And so did affairs proceed +with well-oiled despatch. + +"Oyez-mumble-jumble-jabber-jabber-yah-meow-wow-jumble-jabber-jumble" (or +whatever the devil it is), sang out the attendant who cries out that. +Everybody at once gets to his feet. In comes his corpulent Honor, +swinging along briskly, his gown flowing out behind, and mounts to his +wooden-canopied throne. A large, glossy, rather handsome face, neatly +cropped dark moustache, eye-glasses swinging from a broad black ribbon. +General effect what might be called that of a heavy-weight "club man," +looks as if he might be quite a hearty fellow when out with "the boys." + +Door opens at back of room. Sound of marching steps. Then are seen +coming along through a zoo-like cage round two sides of the room three +figures, burly civilian-clothed one in the middle, uniformed officer +fore and aft. They line up this side of a rail fencing the jurors off +from an area before the Judge. Burly figure is very well dressed. Stands +solidly on his feet, eyes trained directly on the Judge. Holds a dark +soft hat in his hands which he clasps behind his back. What from a +position somewhat to the rear can be seen of the side of his face +reveals a heavy scar, the result evidently of a knife slash across one +cheek. The Judge puts his palms together and addresses this person. "You +are charged with murder," he begins. He says it rather gently, in a +somewhat chiding manner, as though he had said, "Bad fellow, bad +fellow." Just then, "For the defendant!" calls out an attendant, and +another figure hurries forward. + +The defendant's attorneys have not appeared, it seems. Their case is not +quite prepared. A postponement is asked. "Why is it not prepared?" asks +the Judge. The defendant speaks out. Declares his attorney has not been +paid. Judge's reply is that the attorney provided for him is an able +man, who will see that all his rights are observed. Grants postponement +until the next morning, positively no further. Officer by his side +plucks defendant's coat tail, and starts him off back through the cage. +As he goes he is heard to say that his attorney will not be there in the +morning either. + +And as he turns, my friend gets, with a shock, a full-face view of him. +He had never expected anybody off the melodramatic stage to _look_ so +much like a murderer. Scarey, that face, a countenance almost majestic +in its ruthlessness and force: gangster, gunman, typically personified. + +Jurors excused until ten-thirty next day. As they move toward the door, +two attractively dressed young women arise from the rear. "Who are the +ladies?" asks one. "Friends of the defendant," says another. + +Next day, game called sharp on the stroke of the clock. Following +preliminaries of the day before, attendant spins that little roulette +wheel sort of an affair. Looks at slip thus drawn. "John Cole," he +cries. Mr. Cole passes round behind jury box, reappears in far corner at +left of Judge. "Rigmarole-rigmarole-solemnly swear, rigmarole," chaunts +attendant there, thrusting very dilapidated Bible before him. Mr. Cole +takes what later will be the witness chair. + +Assistant district attorney arises and explains the case to him. The +charge is murder in the first degree. The prosecution must rely largely +on the testimony of an accomplice. + +Defendant sits in whispered consultation with his attorney, his arm +almost around him. As prosecutor seats himself, attorney for the defense +gets up to put Mr. Cole through his paces. A fat, oily-looking man, with +(it is evident) a browbeating manner in reserve. + +Has Mr. Cole, or anyone "near and dear" to him, recently met with any +"accident" at the hands of robbers? No. He will not, then, have a +revengeful feeling toward any person charged with crime? Not at all. +Would he give the same weight to the "story" of a "self-confessed thief +and murderer" that he would to the testimony of a "man of probity"? +Probably not. Now, doubtless, Mr. Cole is a reader of newspapers. He +has, of course, seen this "literature" (with a sneer), this "newspaper +hysteria" about a "c-r-i-m-e wave" (tongue in cheek). Well, can Mr. Cole +go into the jury box and look at this case detached from the +"atmosphere" now "being created by the newspapers"? Finally, is Mr. Cole +acquainted with anyone connected with the police department? + +Mr. Cole, for some reason, strikes out. + +Third man accepted. He comes around from behind it to enter the jury +box. At the gateway, while defendant stands and faces him, some more +rigmarole-mumble-jumble business. + +Suddenly my friend is called. His business? asks district attorney. A +writer, he replies. Defendant and his attorney exchange strange glances. +Undoubtedly there is something low and suspicious about a fellow with +such a business. Attorney for the defense comes forward hurriedly. Soon +takes my friend in hand. He at once adopts the sarcastic. My friend's +work must require unusual "observation." He must be "gifted" with "great +powers of de-duct-shun" (said out of one corner of his mouth). Of +course, he has too a "fine imagination." By the way, what is the nature +of his writing? Has he written any novels? + +No, my friend says, he is a humorous writer. "A what?" exclaims the +lawyer, his mouth remaining open. Then, "Like Don Mark_ee_?" "Somewhat," +says my friend. Lawyer visibly pales. Withdrawing toward counsel table, +looks back at the accused, who vigorously shakes his head. + +"Excused by per-emptory challenge," utters lawyer, dropping into his +chair. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +QUEER THING, 'BOUT UNDERTAKERS' SHOPS + + +Queer thing, that, about undertakers' shops! I don't remember to have +been struck by undertakers' shops in San Francisco. Maybe they have none +there--because, as you'll see, it's a queer thing about them. + +Now in Indianapolis undertaking is a very fashionable affair. People +there, apparently, want "class" in the matter of being finally disposed +of. They believe, evidently, with the author of the popular little idyl, +"Urn Burial," that "Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous +in the tomb." + +The most aristocratic street in that city is named North Meridian +Street. A street, until a short time ago, entirely of stately lawns and +patrician homes--mansions. Of late, a little business, shops of the most +distinguished character, has been creeping up this street from +down-town. Notably, de luxe motor car salesrooms, studios of highly +aesthetic photographers, and particularly palatial undertaking +establishments. They are, these last, wondrous halls, which surely none +could enter but those who (in life) had been rich in treasure. Features +of the city are they--"sights." + +But here's the riddle: + +Strolling about New York, from river to river, uptown and down, one +might readily fancy that here only the poor pass out of the world. Or +that if the rich and fashionable ever die their bodies are mysteriously +spirited away to destinations unknown; or are secretly preserved +(presumably by some taxidermal process) in their homes. + +Why? Well, where on Fifth Avenue is an undertaker's? True, a man I know +declares there is a single one there. I am unable to find it. Where on +any fine street of the metropolis? Why, yes; as a rare phenomenon. You +do know, of course, that enormous place on upper Broadway. Sign says +branches in Paris, London, Berlin, Petrograd. + +Viewed through the great windows interior presents somewhat the effect +of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In foreground large harp, equally +huge Chinese vase--probably of the Tang Wang period, on great marble +pedestal enormous bronze of a mounted Diana repelling with spear attack +of ferocious animal resembling tiger. Appropriateness of this sculpture +somewhat puzzling. On wall, somewhat further within, immense tapestry. +One door labelled "Delivery Entrance." All of this, of course, is +magnificence as much as even the most covetous would crave. + +But in New York this august undertaking hall is an anachronism. Here, +for some reason mysterious, it is in shabby neighborhoods that the +"parlors" of undertakers abound. You may find them sprinkled all about +the lower East Side. Frequent on Hudson Street, and, say, on Varick. +Quaint and curious places, these. Very human in their appeal. Tiny +places, most of them. + +One such cozy crib I know on Greenwich Avenue. Has a stained glass +screen in the window, suggesting a good deal the style of window +ornamentation popular with that American institution lately +deceased--the saloon. The social spirit rife in small undertaking shops, +at least in some of them, is pleasant to observe. Business there not +being pressing, and life moving in these inns of death in a leisurely +and quiet current, neighborly amenities appear to be much cultivated. + +This place of which I speak has, particularly in the evenings, much the +air of a club, where choice spirits of the locality foregather to +discuss politics, it may be, and the more engrossing forms of sport, +such as boxing. And perhaps relish a little game at cards. I often pass +this place at night and feel a warmth of spirit at the hum of jovial +social contact within. + +I like, too, the way the undertakers' shops of the humble and obscure +carry on cheek by jowl with the familiar, homely, friendly things of +life. This gives Death a neighborly sort of air. On my walks in that +quarter I always give a friendly glance to the windows of a "Cremation +Ass'n" on Eighth Avenue, on one side of it a delicatessen shop, on the +other a "loan office," in the basement below a plumber. + +Attractive, too, is it to consider how founders of tidy undertaking +houses have become personages and are held in revered esteem. For they +are not, it would seem, like unto those who have established just +ordinary businesses. This I will show you: + +At a corner of Twenty-third Street, over a telegraph office, is an +establishment of some caste. Window legend reads: +"Undertakers--Cremations--Night and Day--Interments in all Cemeteries." +The last phrase reminds me of the way my old friend James Huneker used +to date his letters to me from Brooklyn. They began, "Flatbush by the +C--emeteries." But that's not the point. It's a pity the alert English +writer who recently visited us and discovered a statue of General Grant +in Grant Park, overlooking the Blackstone (where nobody had ever seen +one before), and that the huge bust of Washington Irving in Bryant Park, +behind the New York Public Library, was an effigy of Father George +Washington--it's a rotten shame E. V. Lucas missed this corner while +here. + +Because when you go round this corner you are to look up just above the +level of your head. (Though I'm afraid you neglect to do this.) There on +a ledge is a grand sight. It's a bust of God. Fact! Anyhow, looks just +like pictures of God William Blake used to make. Old gentleman. Noble +brow. Patriarchal beard, flowing out in a pattern of rhythmical +waves--most realistically mildewed by time and weather.... But, no; +inquiry reveals that it's a likeness of the founder of this "old +established" undertaking concern. + +Then there's that place a short step down Eighth Avenue. It declares on +its sign that it is the "original" house bearing the name of the +Reverend gentleman who conducts it. When you look through the glass in +the door you view just within, displayed on an ornamental easel, a +life-size crayon portrait, enlarged from a photograph, of a +distinguished-looking person wearing brown Dundreary whiskers and a top +hat. One corner of the portrait is gracefully draped in an American +flag. + +Yes; you'd be surprised how strong undertakers are on patriotism. Hard +by here, next door to a dentist advertising "painless extraction," you +find a firm of "Funeral Directors" where conspicuous among such +ornaments as tall, bronze lamps with big shades, a spittoon, a little +model of a casket and an urn, is a large bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln. +A plate says: "No Charge for Rooms or Chapels for Funerals." And above +stairs is seen a row of somewhat ecclesiastical stained-glass windows. +Though we are given to understand by an advertisement that the +atmosphere of these chapels is "non-sectarian." + +Then over on Third Avenue (where there are lots and lots of undertakers) +is a place. Always sitting just within the doorway, very silent, a +stout, very solemn individual wearing a large, black derby hat and big, +round, green-lens spectacles. Above him on the wall a framed lithograph +in colors of George Washington--beside it a thermometer. In the window a +rubber-plant. Rubber-plants varying in size from infant to elephant are +in the windows of all undertakers. The symbolism of this decoration I +know not. Beside the plant an infant's white casket, proclaimed by a +poster which leans against it to be composed of "purity metal." In some +places the casket, perhaps not of purity metal, is protected by being +enclosed in a glass case. The name of the proprietor of this shop, as +given on his sign, ends in "skey." Set in the door-frame is the usual +"Night Bell." And, as always in undertakers' shops, the card of a +"notary public" is displayed. Next door "Family Shoes" are featured. + +Only yesterday afternoon I was looking in at the window of an undertaker +on Second Avenue, one I had just found. Along the curb before the door +a string of rather frayed and wobbly-looking "hacks," with a rusty-black +hearse at the head. Horses to these vehicles drowsy in disposition, +moth-eaten in effect as to pelt, and in the visibility of their +anatomical structure suggesting that they might have been drawn by +Albert Duerer in some particularly melancholy mood. + +In groups along the edge of the sidewalk, conversing in subdued tones, +the Dickensesque drivers of this caravan. Tall and gaunt, some; short +and stout, others. Skirt coat on one, "sack" coat on another. Alike in +this: frayed and rusty and weather-beaten, all. And hard, very hard of +countenance. Each topped by a very tall, and quite cylindrical hat of +mussed, shoddy-black, plush texture. Hangovers, so to say, these +figures, from New York's hansom-cab days, or the time in London of the +"four-wheeler." + +No, not altogether. There was something piquant--Villonesque, or +jovial--Rabelaisian, about the pickpockets of that tribe. These solemn +mummers strike a ghoulish note. But at the same time, out here in the +sane and cheerful sunlight, they don't look real. Create an odd +impression. Strikes you as about as queer, this bunch, as if a lot of +actors from a melodrama should turn up in the street with their makeup +on and gravely pretend to belong to real life. + +"Perhaps," I thought, "there is a funeral, or something, going on +inside, and I should not be gaping in at this window." + +Out of doorway pops little, rotund man, oily countenance. "Are you +looking for anybody?" he asks. + +"Here," I said inwardly, "is where I get moved on." No, I told him, I +was just observing his window. + +"Ah!" he cried, immensely flattered. He waved his hand back toward a +couple of little, marble crosses with hearts carved in relief on the +base. "You don't often see that, do you? Do you, now? They're sixty +years old. Made out of a single piece!" + +But the saddest thing about undertakers' shops is to go by where was one +long familiar to you and find it gone. There was a splendid little place +which it was a great consolation to me to admire. That building is now +given over to an enterprise called "The Goody Shop." Its lofty dignity +and deep eloquence are gone! It looks like a department store. It is +labelled, with the blare of a brass band, "The Home of Pussy Willow +Chocolates." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HAIR CUT THAT WENT TO MY HEAD + + +I did not expect anything in particular when I went in. Though, indeed, +it is a very famous place. That is, the hotel is--the Brevoort. + +The name itself, Brevoort, is very rich in romantic Knickerbocker +associations. Probably you know all about that. Or, possibly, you don't +know--or have forgotten. Well, you do know how Broadway curves around +there at Tenth Street. That ought to recall Hendrick Brevoort to you. +His farm was all about this neighborhood. Caused this kink, he did, so +it is said. + +This valorous descendant of the old burgher defied the commissioners to +destroy his homestead, which lay in the proposed path of Broadway. Or to +cut down a favorite tree which blocked the intended course of Eleventh +Street. Stood at his threshold with a blunderbuss in his trembling old +hands (so the story has it), when the workmen arrived to carry out their +instructions to demolish the house--and carried his point so +effectively that Broadway was deflected from its course, while Eleventh +Street between Broadway and Fourth Avenue was never completed. Grace +Church, which now stands at about where valiant Henry stood that day, +was built by a descendant of his, the architect also of St. Patrick's +Cathedral. + +I like to think of these matters sometimes when I enter the cool cream +beauty of this ancient frame hostelry. + +Also of another Henry Brevoort, a descendant of the original proprietor +of the farm in New Netherland, who built the substantial old double +house at the corner of Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. Fine iron +balconies, pillared door, within a small green enclosure, and a walled +garden to one side: all preserved. + +Here was held (in 1840) the first masked ball given in New York. An +affair of picturesque celebrity, on account of the occasion it furnished +a famous beauty of the day, Miss Mathilda Barclay, daughter of Anthony +Barclay, the British consul, to elope in fancy dress, domino and mask +with a certain young Burgwyne of South Carolina, of whom her parents had +unamiable views. She went as Lalla Rookh and he as Feramorz, and in +this disguise they slipped away from the ball, at four in the morning, +and were married. That, it seems to me, is the way for a man who does +not enjoy solemn ceremonies to be happy while getting married. + +Across the way, at the corner of Eighth Street, the mellow white hotel +maintains the distinguished name, and touches "the Avenue" with a very +aromatic French flavor. Famous for its cuisine, largely patronized by +the transient French population of the city, a habitual port of call of +many painters and writers, the scene of the annual Illustrators' Ball, +and so on. + +I like within the frequent spectacle of gentlemen of magnificent bulk +and huge black beards, in general effect impressively suggesting the +probability of their all being Academicians. I like the fact (or the +hypothesis) that all the waiters are Looeys and Sharses and Gastongs. I +like the little marble-top tables with wire spindle legs. I like the +lady patrons (Oh! immensely) who are frequently very chic (and with +exquisite ankles). I like the young gentlemen customers, who (many of +them) look exactly as though their faces were modelled in wax, and who +wear the sort of delicate moustaches that are advertised in _Vanity +Fair_. + +But even more I like the quaintness of the scene without doors. There +along the curb, you recall, stand (in summer beneath the pleasant +greenery of drooping trees), awaiting hire, a succession of those +delightful, open, low-swung, horse-drawn vehicles, victorias, which were +the fashionable thing at the period named by Mrs. Wharton "The Age of +Innocence." The romantically leisurely drivers of these unbelievably +leisurely craft are perfectly turned out to be, so to say, in the +picture. They affect coachmen's coats (piquantly tempered by age) with +large silver buttons and, in mild weather, top hats constructed of +straw, painted black. In some instances these coachmen are +"colored"--which is a very pleasant thing, too, I think. + +This hotel, naturally, has figured in a number of pieces of fiction. In +Samuel Merwin's novel "The Trufflers" it is the Parisian, where +Greenwich Village, when in funds, dines, lunches, breakfasts in the +little rooms which you enter from the Avenue, directly under the wide +front steps, or from the side street through the bar, and where Upper +West Side, when seeking the quaintly foreign dissociated from squalor, +goes up the steps into the airy eating rooms with full length hinged +windows to dine. And where (in this book) the young lady whose blooming +presence in the barber shop in the basement invites you to manicure +attentions gives rise to some very dramatic occurrences. The place, this +shop, of Marius (as called in the story), "the one barber in New York +who does not ask 'Wet or dry.'" + +Now I had plumb forgotten about this barber's celebrity in fiction when +the other day I entered this shop. And I was struck with embarrassment +by the immediate attentions of so very distinguished a figure as that +which sprang forward to assist me out of my coat. I thought surely this +gentleman must be some kind of an Ambassador, who had perhaps mistaken +me for the President. A slimmish man, obviously very French. Amazingly, +overwhelmingly polite. Fine, a very fine beard. Long. Swept his chest. +Pointed. Auburn. Wavy. Silken. Shot delicately with grey. Beautifully +kept. Responded gently to the breeze--waving softly to and fro. A most +beautiful beard--oh, my! And a glorious crown of hair! It rose from the +line of its parting in a billowing wave, then fell with a luxuriant and +graceful sweep to his ear. Only when he had tucked me in the chair could +I realize that this must be the head barber. I had never before had the +honor of being served by, or even of having seen himself, the proprietor +here. + +Then I mentioned Mr. Merwin's book. He took from a drawer several copies +of _The Saturday Evening Post_, in which periodical the story had +appeared serially, proudly to exhibit them to me. So it was we fell to +chatting of his place. He had been here some sixteen or eighteen years. +Before he had opened his shop this room had been several tiny rooms; +Cleveland Moffett had for a time occupied them as a residence, and had +here written his first book. My friend gayly produced a copy of an old +magazine article by Mr. Moffett in which mention was given the shop. + + * * * * * + +Shaved, I was straightened up to have my hair trimmed. And, being for a +moment free to look about. I spied a card on the wall. It said: + + SILK HATS IRONED + 25_c_ + COUP-DE-FER-AU CHAPEAU + +But, my goodness! That was not all. No, indeed! + +_This very man who was cutting my hair_ had cut the hair of General +Joffre--when he had his hair here in the United States. At "Mr. Frick's +house," where they were guests, he had attended the distinguished party +on its mission here. He would go in the morning, stay until they had +gone forth for the day; return in the afternoon, and spruce them up for +their evening out. + +And what did they say, these great men of might? + +Well, Joffre didn't say much. They were always out late--hurry out +again. He shaved some of them "almost in the bath." That fellow, the +Blue Devil,--one leg--cane--but back and forth from his bath quick like +anybody. He was the most talkative: + +"I could not but laugh at what he told me. I asked, 'Do you speak +English?' 'No,' he said, 'but I ought to.' 'How is that?' I asked. +'Because,' he said, 'I'm half American.' 'Oh!' I said, 'your father then +was American and your mother French?' 'No,' he said. 'Ah!' I say, 'then +your mother was American and your father was French.' Do you +understand? I say that to him. 'No,' he say; 'no.' 'What then?' I ask. +'Why,' he say, 'I have one leg in France and one leg in America.' I +could not but laugh. Do you understand?" + +When the visitors had departed Mr. Frick asked my friend for his bill. +"Oh, no!" he said; "he would take nothing but the great honor for his +little services." + +My hair cut was finished. As I paid him (there being in this case, I +felt, no such great honor for his little services), he showed me a +drawing on the wall of a poodle he had one time owned. It had died. Very +sad. He was very fond of dogs. Of bred dogs, that is. He bred them +himself. He handed me his card as a professional dog fancier. It read: + + CHINK A TU KENNELS + CHOW CHOWS, PEKINGESES, POMERANIANS, ALL COLORS + FROM PRICE WINNING STOCK + MINIATURE SPECIMENS + AT STUD. PEKINGESE, WONDERFUL SON OF WENTY + OF HYDEGREE. FEE REASONABLE. + AT STUD. LORD CHOLMONDELEY III SON OF CHAMPION + LORD CHOLMONDELEY II. + TOY DOGS BOARDED + MME. HENRI GRECHEN + +Yes, that morning he had done "some manicure work" for his dogs. She +looked up, the manicurist (milk-white blonde, black velvet gown), and +said, "Do you use the clippers?" + +He: "Yes, of course. But not powder and polish. Quick, they want. Not +hold hands for hour--conversation about best show in town." + +He bowed, very low, as I crossed his threshold. I turned and bowed, very +low, to him. A man of many parts and a barber illustrious in his +profession. It was some time before my head cooled off. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SEEING MR. CHESTERTON + + +Somewhat later in this article I am going to present an "interview" (or +something like that) with Gilbert K. Chesterton. At least I hope I am +going to present it. Yesterday it looked as though I might have to get +up my interview without having seen Mr. Chesterton. Though today the +situation appears somewhat brighter. "Seeing" Mr. Chesterton (on his +visit over here, at any rate) seems to be a complicated matter. + +As anything which gives some view of the workings of the Chestertonian +machinery ought to be of interest to all who can lay claim to the happy +state of mind of being Chestertonites, I'll begin by telling the +proceedings so far in this affair. Then as matters progress to supply me +with more material (if they do progress) I'll continue. + +I one time wrote an article in which I told with what surprising ease I +saw Mr. Chesterton several years ago in England. Without acquaintances +in England, some sort of a fit of impudence seized me. I wrote Mr. +Chesterton a letter, communicating to him the intelligence that I had +arrived in London, that it was my belief that he was one of the noblest +and most interesting monuments in England; and I asked him if he +supposed that he could be "viewed" by me, at some street corner, say, at +a time appointed, as he rumbled past in his triumphal car. Mrs. +Chesterton replied directly in a note that her husband wished to thank +me for my letter and to say that he would be pleased if I cared to come +down to spend an afternoon with him at Beaconsfield. Mr. Chesterton, I +later recollected, had no means readily at hand of ascertaining whether +or not I was an American pickpocket; but from the deference of his +manner I was led to suspect that he vaguely supposed I was perhaps the +owner of the New York _Times_, or somebody like that. + +This escapade of my visit to Overroads I suppose it was that put into +the head of the editor of _The Bookman_ the notion that I was a person +with ready access to Mr. Chesterton. So I was served with a hurry-up +assignment to see him and to deliver an article about my seeing him for +the March number of the magazine before that issue, then largely in the +hands of the printers, got off the press. Thus my adventures, the +termination of which are at present considerably up in the air, began. + +I at once wrote to Mr. Chesterton at the hotel where at the moment he +was in Boston. At the same time I wrote to Lee Keedick ("Manager of the +World's Most Celebrated Lecturers") at his office in New York. I had +picked up the impression that a lecture manager of this caliber owned +outright the time of a visiting celebrity whom he promoted, and that you +couldn't even telephone the celebrity without the manager's permission. +I didn't know that you couldn't telephone him anyway. Or that you +couldn't telephone the manager either. + +Mr. Keedick very promptly replied that he would be very glad to do +everything that he could to bring about the interview. Or at least I +received a very courteous letter to this effect which bore a signature +which I took to be that of Mr. Keedick. + +Mr. Chesterton was not to be back in New York until after a couple of +days. On the day set for his return to town I attempted to communicate +with Mr. Keedick by telephone. I am (I fear) a bit slow at the etiquette +of telephones, and I so far provoked a young woman at the other end of +the wire as to cause her to demand rather sharply, "Who are you?" This +matter adjusted amicably, Mr. Keedick it developed was so utterly remote +from attainment that I am not altogether sure such a person exists. +However, another gentleman responded cordially enough. Still, it seemed +to me (upon reflection) that in a matter of this urgent nature I had +been at fault in having failed to obtain more definiteness in the matter +of an appointment. So I went round to the manager's office. Very affably +received. Presented to a gentleman fetched for that purpose from another +room, where he had been closeted with someone else. Mr. Widdecombe, this +gentleman's name. Introduced as Mr. Chesterton's secretary. A pronounced +Englishman in effect. Said very politely indeed, several times, that he +was "delighted." Mr. Chesterton, however, was going away tomorrow. Would +return two days hence. Made, Mr. Widdecombe, very careful memorandum of +my address. + +In due course of time thought I'd better look up Mr. Widdecombe +again--his memorandum might have got mislaid. Telephoned lecture bureau. +Satisfied young lady of honorable intentions. Explained matters all over +again to owner of agreeable masculine voice. Received assurance that Mr. +Widdecombe would be reminded at once of pressing state of affairs. +Disturbed by uneventful flight of time, called in at lecture bureau once +more. Learned that Mr. Widdecombe had not yet turned up. They, however, +would try to get him on the wire at the Biltmore for me. Yes, he was +there, but the fourth floor desk of the hotel said he had just gone into +Mr. Chesterton's room, and so (as, apparently, everyone ought to know) +could not be communicated with just now. He would call up shortly. +Lecture people suggested that I go round to the hotel. If Mr. Widdecombe +called in the meantime they'd tell him I was on my way over. + +Thought I recognized the gentleman stepping out of the elevator at the +fourth floor. I did not know whether or not it was at all what you did +to lay hold of an Englishman in so abrupt a fashion, but concluded this +would have to be done. Mr. Widdecombe was all courtesy. The point, +however, was that "Mr. Chesterton had had an hour of it this morning. +Had had an hour of it." This afternoon he was getting off some work for +London. Then tomorrow, of course, would be his lecture. My matter _did_ +seem to be urgent. But what could "we" do? Mr. Chesterton was a +"beautiful man." He had been so hospitable to the gentlemen of the +press. But if we should go in to him now he would say, "Dear me! Dear +me!" I readily saw, of course, that this would be an awful thing, +still.... + +Mr. Widdecombe was somewhat inclined to think that we "could do" this: +Suppose I should come to the Times Square Theatre the next afternoon, at +about a quarter to five, call for him at the stage entrance. Yes, he +thought we could arrange it that way. I could talk to Mr. Chesterton in +the taxi on the way back to the hotel. Perhaps detain him for a few +moments afterward. Mr. Widdecombe smiled very pleasantly indeed at the +idea of so happy a solution of our difficulties. And I myself was rather +taken by the notion of interviewing Mr. Chesterton in a cab. The fancy +occurred to me that this was perhaps after all the most fitting place +in the whole world in which to interview Mr. Chesterton. + +So everything seems to be all right. + + * * * * * + +New complications! (This is the following day.) In the morning mail a +letter from Mrs. Chesterton, saying so sorry not to have answered my +letter before, but it had been almost impossible to deal with the +correspondence that had reached them since they arrived in America. Her +husband asked her to say he would very much like to see me. And could I +call at the hotel round about twelve o'clock on Sunday morning? No +difficulty about meeting Mr. Chesterton in the kindness of that. But +Sunday might be quite too late for the purpose of my article. So I'll go +to the theatre anyway, and I'll certainly accept all Chesterton +invitations. + + * * * * * + +A colored dignitary in a uniform sumptuously befrogged with gold lace +who commanded the portal directed me to the stage entrance. I passed +into a dark and apparently deserted passage and paused to consider my +next step. Before me was a tall, brightly lighted aperture, and coming +through this I caught the sound, gently rising and falling, of a rather +dulcet voice. A slight pause in the flow of individual utterance, and +directly following upon this a soft wave as of the intimate mirth of an +audience wafted about what was evidently the auditorium beyond. Just +then a figure duskily defined itself before me and addressed me in a +gruff whisper. I was directed to proceed around the passage extending +ahead, to Room Three. I should have passed behind a tall screen (I +recognized later), but inadvertently I passed before it, and suddenly +found myself the target of thousands upon thousands of eyes--and the +unmistakable back of Mr. Chesterton looming in the brilliance directly +before me. + +Regaining the passage, I found a door labelled A 3. Receiving no +response to my knock, I opened it; and peered into a lighted cubby-hole +about one-third the size of a very small hall bed-room. The only object +of any conspicuousness presented to me was a huge, dark garment hanging +from a hook in the wall. It seemed to be--ah! yes; it was a voluminous +overcoat with a queer cape attached. So; I was in the right shop all +right. + +I thought I ought to look around and try to find somebody. I wandered +into what I suppose are the "wings" of the theatre. Anyway, I had an +excellent view, from one side, of the stage and of a portion of one +gallery. The only person quite near me was a fireman, who paid no +attention whatever to me, but continued to gaze out steadily at Mr. +Chesterton, with an expression of countenance which (as well as I could +decipher it) registered fascinated incomprehension. I attempted to lean +against what I supposed was a wall, but to my great fright the whole +structure nearly tumbled over as I barely touched it. Perceiving a chair +the other side of the fireman, I passed before him, sat down, and gave +myself over to contemplation of the spectacle. + +My first impression, I think, was that Mr. Chesterton was speaking in so +conversational a key that I should have expected to hear cries of +"Louder!" coming from all over the house. But from the lighted +expressions of the faces far away in the corner of the gallery visible +to me he was apparently being followed perfectly. I did not then know +that at his first public appearance in New York he had referred to his +lecturing voice as the original mouse that came from the mountain. Nor +had I then seen Francis Hackett's comment upon it that: "It wasn't, of +course, a bellow. Neither was it a squeak." Mr. Hackett adds that it is +"the ordinary good lecture-hall voice." I do not feel that this quite +describes my own impression of it the other afternoon. Rather, perhaps, +I should put the matter in this way. My recollection of the conversation +I had with him in 1914 at Beaconsfield is that there was a much more +ruddy quality to his voice then than the other day, and more, much more, +in the turn of his talk a racy note of the burly world. + +Perhaps he feels that before a "representative" American audience one +should be altogether what used to be called "genteel." At any rate, I +certainly heard the other day the voice of a modest, very friendly, +cultivated, nimble-minded gentleman, speaking with the nicety of +precision more frequently observed among English people than among +Americans. There was in it even a trace of a tone as though it were most +at home within university walls. Though, indeed, I am glad to say, Mr. +Chesterton did not abstain from erudite, amused, and amusing allusions +to the society most at home in "pubs." And I cannot but suspect that +perhaps he would have been found a shade more amusing even than he was +if ... but, no matter. + +One gentleman who has written a piece about his impressions of Mr. +Chesterton's lectures here felt that his audience didn't have quite as +much of a good time as the members of it expected to have. I heard only +a brief, concluding portion of one lecture. The portion of the audience +which came most closely before my observation were those seated at the +well filled press table, which stood directly between the speaker and +me. These naive beings gave every evidence of getting, to speak +temperately, their money's worth. + +Though Mr. Chesterton turned the pages of notes as he spoke, he could +not be said to have read his lecture. On the other hand, it was clear +that he did not appreciably depart from a carefully prepared +disquisition. + +The tumbled mane which tops him off seemed more massive even than +before. It did not, though, appear quite so tumbled. I think there had +been an effort (since 1914) to brush it quite nicely. Certainly it is +ever so much greyer. I think in my earlier article I said something like +this: "Mr. Chesterton has so remarkably red a face that his smallish +moustache seems lightish in color against it." While Mr. Chesterton's +face today could not be described as pale, it looks more like a face and +less like a glowing full moon. The moustache is darker against it; less +bristling than before, more straggly. + +A couple of our recent commentators upon Mr. Chesterton have taken a +fling at the matter of his not being as huge as, it seems to them, he +has been made out to be. I remember that when I saw him before I was +even startled to find him more monstrous than even he had appeared in +his pictures. He appears to take part a good deal in pageants in +England; and recent photographs of him as Falstaff, or Tony Weller, or +Mr. Pickwick, or somebody like that, have not altogether squared up with +my recollection of him. True, he has not quite the bulk he had before; +but it is a captious critic, I should say, who would not consider him +sufficiently elephantine for all ordinary purposes. + +He was saying (much to the delight of the house) when I became one of +the audience, that he would "not regard this as the time or the occasion +for him to comment upon the lid on liquor." A bit later in the course of +his answer to the question he had propounded, "Shall We Abolish the +Inevitable," he got an especially good hand when he remarked: "People +nowadays do not like statements having authority--but they will accept +any statement without authority." He concluded his denunciation of the +idea of fatalism with the declaration: "Whatever man is, he is not in +one sense a part of nature." "He has committed crimes, Crimes," he +repeated--with gusto in the use of the word,--"and performed heroisms +which no animal ever tried to do. Let us hold ourselves free from the +boundary of the material order of things, for so shall we have a chance +in the future to do things far too historic for prophecy." + +I darted back toward Room Three, ran into Mr. Widdecombe, we wheeled, +and saw the mountain approaching. Whereas before, this off-stage place +had been deserted, now the scene was populous--with the figures of +agitated young women. Mr. Widdecombe, however, with much valiance +secured Mr. Chesterton. "Yes, yes," he said, and (remarkable remark!), +"I had the pleasure of meeting you in England." He glanced about rather +nervously at the dancing figures seeking to obtain him, and led the way +for me into the dressing room. Mr. Widdecombe pulled the door to from +without. + +I am far from being as large as Mr. Chesterton, but the two of us +closeted in that compartment was an absurdity. Mr. Chesterton eclipsed a +chair, and beamed upon me with an expression of Cheeryble-like +brightness. Upon his arrival in New York he had declared to the press +that he would not write a book of his impressions of the United States. +I asked him if, after being here a week or so, he had changed his mind +as to this determination. "Not definitely," he said, "not definitely. +But, of course, one could never tell what one might do." He might write +a book about us, then? Yes, he might. Did he think it at all likely that +he would take up residence over here? A very joyous smile: "One's own +country is best," he said. Rumors had several times been afloat that he +had entered the Roman Catholic Church. Would he say whether there was +any likelihood of his doing this? He was an Anglican Catholic, he +replied. Not a Roman Catholic--yet. That was not to say that he might +not be--if the English Church should become more Protestant. What was +his next book to be? Had he any project in mind of going to Turkey, or +Mexico, or some such place? No; the only books he was working on at +present were a new volume of short stories and a book (smiling again +widely) on eugenics. He knew Mr. Lucas, of course? "Yes, fine fellow." +Did he know Frank Swinnerton? No. What was.... But the door was popped +open. Several persons were waiting for him, among them Mrs. Chesterton. +I helped him into the cape-coat. Stood behind the door so that when it +was opened he could get out. "You know Mr. Holliday," he said to Mrs. +Chesterton. "Thank you, so much," he said to me. And was whisked away. + + * * * * * + +Sunday at the hotel. He was late in arriving. I thought it would be +pleasanter to wait a bit out in front. Expected he would drive up soon +in a taxi. Then I saw him coming around the corner, walking, rolling +slowly from side to side like a great ship, Mrs. Chesterton with him--a +little lady whose stature suggested the idea of a yacht gracefully +cruising alongside the huge craft. I wonder if, nowadays when most +writers seem to try to look like something else, Mr. Chesterton knows +how overwhelmingly like a great literary figure he looks. + +When we were seated, I asked if he had any dope on his "New Jerusalem" +book. He began to tell me how surprised he had been to find Jerusalem as +it is. But the substance of this you may find in the book. He expressed +sympathy with the idea of Zionism. Remarked that he "might become a +Zionist if it could be accomplished in Zion." All that he could find to +tell me about his "New Jerusalem" was that it had been "written on the +spot." Seemed very disinclined to talk about his own books. Said his +feeling in general about each one of them was that he "hoped something +would happen to it before anybody saw it." + +His surprise at Jerusalem suggested to me the question, Had he been +surprised at the United States--what he had seen of it? But he dodged +giving any "view" of us. His only comment was on the "multitudinous +wooden houses." + +Had he met many American authors? The one most recently met, a day or so +ago in Northampton, though he had met him before in England, was a +gentleman he liked very much. He was so thin Mr. Chesterton thought the +two of them "should go around together." His name? Gerald Stanley Lee. + +But there is not a particle more of time that I can spend on this +article. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHEN IS A GREAT CITY A SMALL VILLAGE? + + +How many times you have noticed it! Regular phenomenon. Suddenly, within +a few hours, the whole nature of the great city is changed--your city +and mine, New York or Chicago, or Boston or Buffalo or Philadelphia. + +Though nobody seems to say much about it afterward. Just sort of take +the thing for granted. + +It is just like Armistice Night, every once in awhile. Total strangers +suddenly begin to call each other "Neighbor." Voices everywhere become +jollier. Numerous passersby begin to whistle and sing. People go with a +skip and a jump. Catcalls are heard. Groups may be seen all around going +arm in arm, and here and there with arms about necks. Anybody speaks to +you merrily. Merrily you speak to anybody. All eyes shine. Roses are in +every cheek. Hurry is abandoned. Small boys run wild. Nobody now objects +to their stealing a ride. It is fun to see their swinging legs dangling +over the tail of every wagon. Sour human nature is purged. Good humor +reigns. Hurrah! + +I mean on the night of a big snow. + +This year it looked for long as though we were going to be done out of +this truly Dickensean festival. Seemed like we were going to be like +those unfortunate people in Southern California, who never have any +winter to cheer them up. How tired they must get of their wives and +neighbors, with it bland summer all the time. Perhaps that is the reason +there is such a promiscuous domestic life out there. + +Young Will Shakespeare had the dope. He piped the weather for jollity +and pep. "When blood is nipp'd"--"a merry note!" + +You remember how it was this time: Spring all winter--and spring fever, +too, a good many of us had all the while. (My doctor said it was +"malaria" with me.) We were congratulating ourselves that we were going +to "get by" without any "blizzards" at all this year. We became "softy." +We guarded ourselves with our umbrellas against the shower. We became +prudent. And what is it Stevenson says of that? "So soon as prudence has +begun to grow up in the brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first +expression in a paralysis of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink +spiritually; he develops a fancy for parlors with a regulated +temperature, and takes his morality on the principle of thin shoes and +tepid milk." + +Then one night there came a tinkle in the temperature as of sleigh +bells. And the town, the world sank into a soft blanket of white. Were +you out then? Ah! you should have been. You were not, I hope, in a +parlor with a regulated temperature. + +Well, anyhow, everybody else was out. The cross streets of the big city +had "all to oncet" taken on the air of a small town "sociable." Shadowy +multitudes seemed to sprout up out of the ground. The sidewalks, +especially those usually so deserted at this hour, now ahum with dark +busy bowing figures, rang and clanged gayly with the sound of scoop and +shovel. In the democratic, jovial, village-like spirit of the occasion, +many of the workers (those more staid and portly ones) removed their +coats. Every here and there an areaway held, in a holiday effect, a +cluster of bare-headed maid-servants--the "gallery" of the shovellers, +whose presence tended to make of the task of clearing the sidewalk a +night-hour lark. + +Voices in the street, as you know, and laughter there, is never so +musical as above snow-stilled pavements. Then, too, cheery echoes are +abroad among the recesses between the houses, in the courts and down the +ways where packages are delivered. The shovellers good-naturedly banter +one another and pass a cordial jest with those who travel by. And every +here and there the rich contralto of negro mirth is heard. + +I do not know that the city's parks are not a finer spectacle under snow +than in the summer--their dark glistening branches laden a la Christmas +card, and, after dark, their festoons of lamps more twinkling and more +yellow than at any other time. + +Along Broadway what a whirl! The street like an arena, hordes of +gladiators in doughty combat with the onslaught of the storm, snow-carts +banging and backing about (horses seem to stomp and snort and rear more +in a snowstorm than at any other time), new ridiculously miniature +"caterpillar tractors" performing like toy tanks at war, traffic in a +hilarious tangle, street cars crawling along looking more than ever +before like prodigious cat-eyed bugs. Here with a terrific buzz comes +one all dark furiously thrashing the snow from side to side by means of +revolving brooms beneath. The crowds an animated silhouette against the +whitened air. One wants to hop and shout one feels so much alive. + +Lots of funny things happen. A taxicab there has got stuck in a drift. +It whirs in a passion. Wallows forward. Runs its nose up a little +hillock of hard crusted snow. Stops. Makes a fine hubbub. Slides back, +stilled, exhausted. Tries again. Same thing repeated. A pounding is +heard on the inside of the door. Chauffeur reaches back his hand to turn +handle of door. Something is wrong. He climbs down. Pulls at door. +Nothing doing. Door has apparently been sprung somehow. Taxi is now +observed to be a bit listed to one side. Pounding, louder than before, +again heard from inside. Conductor from nearby car comes to side of +chauffeur. Also policeman. All lay hold of each other and pull with +united effort at taxi door. Door flies open. Closely knit group of +chauffeur, conductor and policeman nearly tumbles backward into snow. +From cab door descends tall, elegant figure in evening clothes and top +hat. Followed by even more elegant figure of slender lady in opera +cloak. For some reason she appears to be very angry, and shakes her fist +at her three humble liberators. The couple seek some path, from the +trampled oasis where they stand, through the drifts to the sidewalk. +There is none. Her dazzling skirt she has caught high from the mess +about her feet. Perhaps a yard of pale yellow silken hose is revealed +above her satin pumps. Finally in desperation the two plunge forward, +taking gigantic steps, sinking knee-deep at every onward move, +tottering, swaying and at length fairly scrambling toward the haven of +the curb. The dozens along the sidewalk who have been held spellbound by +what they have found to be so delicious a comedy turn to one another +with delighted smiles--and move along again on their way. + +It is things like this always happening all about which make snow-storm +nights in the city such a hippodrome affair, and all the world akin. + +Over on the Avenue busses are busily pushing plows hitched on before. +There one has got stalled in a drift. It whirs and buzzes and backs and +starts and whirs and buzzes over and over again. No use, it seems. +Still, draped along the curb, the spectators stand, unmindful of the +gale, as absorbed as if at a Yale-Princeton game. +Buzzzzzzzzz--Whirrrrrrrrrrr--and away. She's off! A feeble cheer goes +up. And everybody starts onward again in better humor with himself for +having seen so entertaining a show. + +It snowed the night through. + +In the morning banks of snow breast-high through the side streets. +Through a narrow aisle down the middle of the roadway trucks cars and +wagons slowly go in single file. Moving thus all in a single line they +have something the effect of a circus parade--elephants and lion cages +and so on. + +And lions remind me. It is always well to look at public statues and +outdoor pieces of sculpture the morning after a heavy snow. You are +likely to find them very comical apparitions. The celebrated literary +lions before the New York Public Library, for instance, wore throughout +the day after the first big snow of this winter ridiculous tall caps +pulled down very rakishly over their eyes. + +Streaming from the direction of the railroad station were coming the +swarms of our commuter friends, the legs of many of them hoisting along +those prodigious "arctics" which are all the vogue nowadays. Isn't it +curious? There was a time when if you were obliged to wear glasses you +got them as nearly invisible as possible. If you were a man you felt +there was something shameful about having "weak" eyes. If a woman, you +"just knew" that glasses made you look "horrid." And when you wore +overshoes you got them as inconspicuous as possible. Now you affect +shell spectacles that can be seen a block away, and having huge lenses. +Now there is nothing smarter, apparently, than for a young woman with a +trim foot to come into town swaddled in floppers which fit her slim +ankles like a bucket. + +Men are still shovelling and scraping away at the streets, a motley +army. What is it so many persons are pausing to smile at, others +hurrying on but with grinning faces turned back? It is at a gentleman +shoveller. Here recruited somehow among this gang of husky laborers is a +slim eccentric figure in a--yes, a frock coat, a derby hat, kid gloves, +and very tight trousers ... a quaint picture of the shabby genteel. +Walking very briskly back and forth, very upright in carriage, the small +of his back curved inward, he pushes his scraper before him holding it +by the very tip of the long handle--and as well as can be observed +doesn't scrape anything at all. His fellow workers regard him with surly +disgust and roughly bump into him at every opportunity. What story is +there, in that absurd, pathetic scene, what O. Henry tale of mischance +in a great city? + +A wagon on a side street has got its wheels ground into the snow bank at +the side of the narrow cleared way. Such accidents are all about, and +everywhere men may be seen leaving their own affairs to give a helping +hand to a fellow being in sore straits. The visitation of a great snow +storm strikingly unites the bonds of the brotherhood of man. + +Stalled for interminable periods in suburban trains and in traffic jams +hurried men give themselves up cheerfully to the philosophic virtue of +patience. + +Vagabonds sent on errands two miles away return after three hours with +tales of the awful slowness of trolley cars. And on days of great snow +storms meet with Christian forgiveness. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE UNUSUALNESS OF PARISIAN PHILADELPHIA + + +I discovered the other day that Philadelphia is a very great deal nearer +to Paris than New York is. + +How do I figure out that? + +Plain enough. It's because New York women, buds and matrons, thinking +they are got up (or as the English say, "turned out") smart as anything, +are parading around in fashions today altogether passee. + +You know the New York scene. And how for some considerable time now its +most--well, most apparent feature has been a--er, a hosiery display ... +unparalleled off the gay stage of musical comedy. Very, so to speak, +exhilarating that once was--the glistening spectacle of, moving all +about, those symmetrically tapering lines of pink and rose and orange +and pearl and taupe and heather tan and heather green and purple wool +and sheen of black and gloss of mottled snake and--and all that. + +But, I am afraid, the eye over-long accustomed to the great Metropolitan +movie thriller of the fashionable streets had become somewhat dulled. + +The Parisienne knew about the peculiar character of the eye, and that it +ceases to see with any emotional response at all that which remains +within its range of vision for any extended length of time. So she +(roguish witch!) alertly changed the picture. + +I picked up by chance, during my two-hour run on the train, a copy of +one of our most dashing fashion journals. It was the "Forecast of Spring +Fashions" number. I opened it, at random, at the headline: "The Short +Skirt Has Had Its Day in Paris." Below was a jolly photograph (of a +stunning lady at the latest races at Auteuil) illustrating "the new +skirt length." Visible beneath the hem--a trim foot, and a bit of tidy +ankle. + +Who was the fellow (with a gifted eye for the lasses) who spoke with +such delight of the tiny feet that "like little mice run in and out"? +And there was that other poet (what was his name? I declare! my +literature is getting awful rusty), who sang with such relish the charm +of feminine drapery "concealing yet revealing." Anyhow, you know what +I'm getting at. + +I closed the magazine and forgot about the matter--until shortly after I +had come out of the Broad Street Station. + +The modish scene I apprehended was, to an eye accustomed steadily for +some time to the natty abbreviations of Fifth Avenue, a refreshing, a +charming spectacle. I seemed suddenly to have left my "orchestra seat." +And to have returned again to a view of, so to put it, ladies in private +life. + +Though, indeed, occasionally in the distance I caught a flashing glimpse +of, according to Paris decree, the obsolete skirt length. + +Come to think of it, isn't this so, too: that there are in Philadelphia +more rose-cheeked damsels of hearty figure and athletic-heel swing than +you usually come across in other cities? + +At any rate, there are quite a number of very unusual things about +"Phila," as I believe intimate friends of the city affectionately call +the place. Things which it may be you have not noticed lately--perhaps +because you haven't been there recently, or maybe because you live +there, and so see them every day. + +One of the unusual things about Philadelphia is that so many ladies and +"gem'men" who do light housekeeping on and around Manhattan Island (in +other words "New Yorkers") apparently find it easier frequently to get +to Chicago, or Palm Beach, or London, or Santa Barbara than to journey +to Philadelphia. I suppose the reason for this state of mind is the same +as the cause of my sometimes feeling that it would be about as simple +for me to undertake a trip from the Grand Central to Buffalo as to get +from Times Square down to Fulton Street for a luncheon appointment. A +place which is only half an hour, or two hours away, is a place, you +think, that you can run down to any time. And--well, just at the moment +with everything so pressing and all that. To become keyed up about +taking a "real" trip is another matter. + +And when I myself do get there I always feel that it is an unusual thing +that I have allowed so long a time to lapse since I came before. Because +it is so unusually pleasant and restful a ride that it makes me sore to +think what an unusually deuce of a thing I am put to every night going +home in the rush hour to Dyckman Street on the subway. + +It is an unusual thing (or, at least, so it seems to me) that in +Philadelphia cards in windows advertising rooms to let should be (as +they are) labelled "Vacancies." + +It is an unusual thing that here so many undertakers' shops should be +conducted in what appear to be private residences. It is an unusual +thing that there should be so many ways of paying your fare on the +street cars--in some you pay when you get on, in others when you get +off. It is an unusual thing that in Philadelphia there are more +different kinds of street lamps than (I suspect) there are in any other +city in the world. There are powerful arc lamps, high on tall poles, +cold white in their light. There are lower down, particularly pleasant +in the twinkle of their numbers in Washington Square, gas lamps glowing +a mellow yellow through their mantles. Various other kinds of lamps, +too. But the ones I like best are those squat fellows throughout +Independence Square. Octagonal iron-bound boxes of glass, small at the +base, wide at the top, with a kind of ecclesiastical derby hat of iron +as a lid. They somehow suggest to me the lamps which I fancy before Will +Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. + +Here golden Diana with her bow does not poise high on her slender +Spanish tower. But from far above the "Public Buildings" Brother Penn +looks down on more banks, United States Mints, trust companies, firms +dealing in securities, places handling investments, and such-like +business concerns than (one has a feeling) can be found in any other +city in Christendom. There are too, I should guess, in Philadelphia +about as many different styles and periods of architecture as in any +other municipality between the two great seas: Georgian, Colonial, +bay-window, London brick row, ramshackle frame, modern mansion, +skyscraper, etc., etc., etc. And certainly I don't know where one could +go to count more different kinds of porches. Nor where one could find so +many such pleasant oddities of today as hitching-blocks, doorway +foot-scrapers, and those old friends of our childhood the front yard +stone storks. + +And where, Oh, where! (not even in London) can one find so many alleys +to the square inch? Many of them, lanes of but a few blocks in length, +highly respectable, even aristocratic, quarters of the town. Such as +Camac Street, tucked away between Thirteenth and Twelfth Streets, one +block of it either side of Locust, and the home or haunt of those of +artistic persuasion. Here the famous Franklin Inn Club, the charming +Poor Richard Club, and divers other clubs of kindred spirit. Unusual +this quaint street of art in this: in fixing it up for its present +purpose its quaintness and its "artiness" have not been overdone. Far, +far finer in effect than New York's over eccentric alley of painters, +Washington Mews, its original loveliness has simply been restored. It is +as jolly to look upon as London's artist nook, Cheyne Row. Perhaps even +jollier. + +Now another unusual thing about Philadelphia is that Philadelphians +standing within three blocks of the place can't tell you where South +Carlisle Street is. Professional Philadelphians, such as policemen, +firemen, postmen, street car men, can't do it. In the attempt they +contradict each other, and quarrel among themselves. For the benefit of +both Philadelphians and visitors to the city I will set down here +exactly the location of South Carlisle Street. West of Broad, south of +Pine, it runs one block from Pine to Lombard Street. After a jump, where +there isn't any of it, north of Market Street there is more of it. + +But what the dickens is South Carlisle Street, and why should anybody +care where it is? Well, though it isn't in the books on Historic Shrines +of America it is a street you "hadn't ought to" miss. It's about twelve +feet (or something like that) from wall to wall. The doorways seem to be +about three feet wide. There, in South Carlisle Street, Philadelphia's +mahogany doors, fan-lights above, white pillars before, marble steps +below, her immaculate red brick, her freshly painted wooden shutters, +her gleaming brass knockers are in their most exquisite perfection. + +A wealthy and cultivated gentleman or two "took up" the street a year or +so ago, decided to make their homes there, and it has become quite +"class." Same idea, more or less, that Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt has +concerning the "exodus" of her set from Fifth Avenue to unheard-of +Sutton Place over among the tall yellow chimneys by New York's East +River. + +Considering the great wealth in Philadelphia and its environs, +particularly those patrician environs lying toward Harrisburg, it is, I +think, unusual that you never see on the streets there a Pekingese or a +Pomeranian attended by a personage in livery. + +Unusual, too, that in a city of the first class along the eastern +seaboard so few canes are "worn." + +And, by the way, that's an unusual railroad service from Philadelphia to +New York. Conductor calls out: "Train for Newark and New York. Newark +first stop." Train slides a few feet--halts at West Philadelphia. Spins +along a bit again, and pulls up at North Philadelphia. Stops later along +the way at Trenton, Newark, and Manhattan Junction. I really do not see, +putting a wreck out of the calculation, where else it could stop. + +I took from a boy in the Pennsylvania station a copy of one of New +York's most popular evening papers. It came apart in the middle. +Straightening it out, I caught a headline on the "Talks to Women" page. +It read "Short Skirts Remain." Below a cut of a beaming lass attired, +the caption said, in "frock of navy blue ruffled taffeta with short +sleeves and 'shorter' skirt." + +When I came out onto the street the temperature (in skirts) seemed to +have risen since my departure a couple of days before. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OUR LAST SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT AS A FINE ART + + +I have just witnessed a revelation. At least, it was a revelation to me. +I'm keen on telling you all about it. + +One of my earlier articles in this series had to do with the +establishment here and there in a great city of those gentlemen engaged +in the estimable business of packing you up for keeps--that is the +"parlors" of various sorts of "undertakers." I had been much struck by +the vast number of cozy little places catering, so to say, to the poor +and humble who have forever (as Stevenson puts it) "parted company with +their aches and ecstasies." And I had wondered at how very few places +there were in evidence on the streets to take care of the "remains" of, +in a manner of speaking, the first-cabin passengers in life, those who +have travelled through their days in a fashion de luxe. The +establishments of this type which now and then I did see were very +palatial indeed--and didn't look at all as though they would +countenance the corpse of just an ordinary person such as you and me. + +Also, all the undertaking establishments visible to me in my goings and +comings about town were quite obviously undertaking establishments. They +displayed within and without the air, the accoutrements, the +paraphernalia traditionally associated with one's last social engagement +on earth, his funeral. They varied only in this: some were rich and +haughty in general effect, others simple and perhaps dingy in +appearance. But each and all of them looked as much like an undertaking +shop as a barber shop looks like a barber shop. You could not possibly +have mistaken any one of them for a Turkish bath establishment, or a +Carnegie library, or an office for steamship tickets. + +As I say, I wrote that article telling all this and that about what +anybody may see any day as he goes about on his rounds through the thick +of the city. But when the article appeared--originally--it soon +developed that I was not abreast of undertaking matters at all. I had +not in the least kept track of the remarkable advances which have to +date been made in the art of being buried--and a very fine art, in the +advanced phases of the affair, it certainly has become. I did not even +know the present-day, the correct, name for what I, in so old-fashioned +a condition of mind, called an "undertaker's." No. + +That word, "undertaker," has long, long ago been discarded by the elite +of the profession. What a queer word as a business title it was, anyway! +How did it originally ever come to be used in its mortuary relation? No +one in the business that I have asked has been able to tell me. And why +in the dim past when names were being given to trades did not this word, +undertaker, seem to be equally descriptive of the career of physician or +attorney? Indeed, does not he that sets himself the highly hazardous +task of saving a living fellow being from disease or the gallows +undertake to do more than he who merely performs the quiet office of +laying us away? + +And then, oddly enough for its tragic associations, the word acquired in +our minds something of a ludicrous turn. It was reminiscent of Dickens, +of hired professional "mourners," and that sort of thing. At mention of +the word, a picture popped into our mind of a grotesquely angular being, +of sallow, elongated features and lugubrious manner, garbed in a rusty +frock coat and "stove pipe" hat, who put together before him the tips of +black-gloved fingers and spoke with a hollow sound. We would say to our +friends when they were feeling blue: "What's the matter with you? You +act like an undertaker." + +Well, as doubtless you have noticed, the term "funeral director" more or +less recently pretty well superseded the word undertaker among +progressive concerns. It is a phrase much more in the modern spirit, +like "domestic science" for (what used to be) "household work," +"modiste" for "dressmaker," "maid" for "hired-girl," "psychic" for +"fortune teller," "publicity engineer" for "press agent," and so on. And +it has a good, business-like, efficient sound. + +Still (I discovered) to be buried by a funeral director is not the very +latest, the most fashionable thing. The really smart way nowadays of +bidding good-bye to the world is to go to the establishment of a +"mortician." + +Yes; that's what the gentleman said in his very cordial letter: would I +care to look over a "real mortician's establishment in New York City?" I +replied that nothing could give me greater pleasure. So at the time +appointed a couple of days later his car came round for me. + +When I told people of the visit I was about to make, they all laughed, +very heartily. Now that brings to one's attention a curious thing: why +should they laugh? Honestly, between you and me, think hard and tell me +what really there is funny about going to see a burial establishment? + +Paradoxical indeed is the attitude of mind of practically everyone +toward this subject of being ushered out of life. Sundry totally +contradictory emotions are aroused in the very same person by slightly +different aspects of the same subject. If you remark that you are going +to spend the afternoon at the undertaker's that is awfully amusing. At +the same time, is not nearly everyone down in his heart a bit scared of +undertakers' shops? Uncomfortable, gruesome places, would not most of us +feel, to have next door? + +At any rate, as we glided along I was told by the gentleman who had come +to fetch me that the feeling was very general that the presence of a +funeral director's establishment depreciated the value of property in +the immediate neighborhood. Though, he asserted, this popular idea +frequently had not at all been borne out in fact. + +It developed (from his lively conversation) that nothing so much annoys +a funeral director, or a mortician, as for a visitor to pull old gags +which he thinks are smart--such, for instance, as the remark: "I see +your business is pretty dead." I gathered that this jocular pleasantry +was the stock joke of all near-wits who visited undertakers--I mean +morticians. + +No; there is another thing which annoys these gentlemen (morticians) +even more than such punk puns as that. They deeply resent, I discovered, +any disrespectful allusion to their silent clients, such as calling them +"stiffs," or something like that. How would you, they ask, like to have +someone of yours--someone who but yesterday returned your heart's clasp, +now dumb and cold--made game of by such ribaldry? Certainly, I cannot +say that I should like it. + +Another paradoxical contradiction! Tell me (if you can) what strange +spring of his being prompts a man to think it big and bold and hearty of +him to speak with such cynical contemptuousness of a fellow man returned +to rigid clay. + +We had arrived at our destination, I was told. But I saw nothing, but +what was (seemingly) a rather handsome private residence, set in a +pleasant lawn. Though I did discern by the door a modest plate which +read (as I recall the name) "Wentworth Brothers," nothing more. +Wentworth Brothers might have been, for all the exterior evidence to the +contrary, architects, or teachers of dancing and the piano, or breeders +of pedigreed dogs, or dealers in antiques, or physical instructors, or +almost anything you please. + +This I soon learned was the fundamental principle of the sensitive art +of the mortician--to scrap all the old stage properties of the bugaboo +type of undertaker. + +We passed into a charming hall, light and cheerful, furnished in +excellent taste, altogether domestic in effect. A number of bright +looking people, apparently attached to the premises, were lightly moving +about. I had somewhat the sensation of having come to a most agreeable +afternoon tea. + +I was presented to my host, as cheerful, wholesome and cordial a young +chap as anyone would care anywhere to see. The senior, he, of the +brothers. I had been a little depressed that morning, having a bad cold +and being fretted by a number of gloomy things, but as we proceeded +through the house my spirits picked up decidedly. I experienced a +feeling of mental and physical well-being, so attractive was everything +about. + +A dainty reception room opened off the hall at the front. My impression +was of a nice amount of charming Colonial furniture. Altogether such a +room as you might see in an illustration in the magazine _House and +Garden_. Secluded back of this rooms having a brisk atmosphere and +serving as offices. Peopled by very trim and efficient looking young +people. + +We descended to the "stock room," a most sanitary looking place of +cement floor, ceiling and walls, where was a large store of caskets of +many varieties. Behind this a spick and span embalming room which +(except for the two tables) somewhat suggested an admirable creamery. +Here I discovered that to the mind of the mortician towels belong to the +Dark Ages. The up-to-date way of drying hands is by holding them before +a blast of air turned on from a pipe. + +We ascended to the third floor. Here were the chapels, rooms which might +have been designed to accommodate fashionable audiences attending +literary lectures. In connection with them a tiny "minister's study," +not unlike the sanctum of a university professor. Also here small hotel +suites, each with bath attached, available for the bereaved from out of +town. Here, too, snug quarters for wakes. And a spacious chamber wherein +friends may sit for a little last visit with the departed. The dominant +article of furniture in this room an Empire lounge such as we see +supporting the figure of Madame Recamier in the famous portrait by +David. A consummate refinement was shown me on this floor: telephones, +concealed behind panels in the wall, with no bells to jangle over-tried +nerves, but with a tiny red electric globe on the wall to light as the +signal. + +The top floor a dormitory for male employees, having much the effect of +rooms for boys at college, gay soft cushions, pipes and mandolins +scattered about. + +I lingered for a smoke and a chat with my host on the ground floor in an +oak panelled room like the library of a gentleman's club before leaving. + +I came away with (I very much fear) an idea that I should like to go +back tomorrow and see some one of my friends so agreeably buried from +that place. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +WRITING IN ROOMS + + +I remember that I was somewhat surprised when E. V. Lucas expressed +surprise that I was writing in my room at the hotel where we both +happened to be at the same time for several days last summer. He +declared with an expression of sharp distaste that he could not write in +hotel rooms. But said he had no difficulty in writing on trains. That +rather got me, because I can't write at all on trains. And possibly +because I was a bit peeved at the easy way in which he spoke of doing +that exceedingly difficult thing, writing on trains, I asserted in reply +that anybody ought to be able to write in _any kind_ of a room. But I do +know, what every writer knows, that the particular room one may be in +can make a good deal of difference in the way one is able to write. + +Of course, it does appear to be true that there are writers of a kind +that can write anywhere in any circumstances, apparently with equal +facility and their customary standard of merit, whatever that may be. I +suppose war correspondents must be like that, and reporters for daily +newspapers. We know that a good many war books were announced as having +been written in dugouts, trenches, pill-boxes, tanks, submarines, +hospitals, airplanes and so on. In the matter of some of them I should +not undertake to dispute that they had even been written in asylums. + +I have known, and known well, men of that type of mind which seemed to +be so completely under control that at will it could be turned on or +off, so to say, like the stream from a water faucet. My friend Joyce +Kilmer had such a head. It has been told how some of his most moving +poems--for one instance "The White Ships and the Red"--were the result +of hurried newspaper assignments: how he could leave a poem in the +middle of its composition, go out and lunch heartily for two hours, +return and finish the writing of it; how early in his career he would +walk up and down a room of his home in suburban New Jersey at two in the +morning and dictate (without a pause) to his wife while carrying a +shrilly crying child in his arms; how one of the best of his "Sunday +stories" was dictated directly after having been taken to a hospital +with three ribs fractured by being hit by his commutation train--and how +much more. A young man with a brain in perfect practical working +condition. But even he was not free from the mysterious tricks of +creative writing. For we know that after a daily round sustained for a +number of years of high productivity, when he went into the war, which +inspired countless others to _begin_ writing, he suddenly ceased to +write, practically altogether. + +Poets and trains being up, brings to my mind my friend the Reverend +Edward F. Garesche, S. J., a source of amusement to many of his friends +because of his method of composition. He travels continually. Frequently +he will excuse himself from a group with whom he is talking, go to his +own seat, request the porter to bring him a card table, get out his +travelling typewriter, rattle off several poems, return to his party and +resume conversation at about where he had left off. Some of his poems +are very good; some (I'm sorry to have to say) are--not so good. + +And so round we come again to the matter of writing in rooms. We know +how Booth Tarkington writes: in what he calls a "work spree," in a room +upstairs at home, a pile of freshly sharpened pencils ready to his +hand--and that, doubtless, he wouldn't be able to write anything in an +office if he were to be hanged for not doing it. (Probably never goes to +an office.) Meredith Nicholson, on the other hand, declares that the +only way it is possible for him to write is to go regularly at nine +o'clock every morning to an office he has downtown; where he tells +anyone who may ask over the telephone that he'll be there until five in +the afternoon. + +There are persons who like to have others around them, moving about, +while they write. And people there are who find it necessary to lock +themselves up, and can have no one else in the room. Though in some +cases such persons would not mind the bang of a bass-drum just the other +side of the door. I know a man who had an office in lower Manhattan +where for a considerable period just outside his open window a steam +riveter was at work. Terrific it was, the way the noise of this machine +smashed the air into tiny particles like a shower of broken glass. +Callers who found this man contentedly writing would hold their ears and +look at him with their hair on end from amazement. A man of highly +nervous organism, too; one who would be very upset if his typewriter had +a pale ribbon, or be spoiled for the day if he couldn't find the right +pen--worn over just to his liking at the point. But, after the first day +or so, Mr. Soaping (name of the gentleman I'm telling you about) I know +didn't hear the riveter at all. + +Then those exist, Royal Cortissoz is one, who, dictating all they do, +can have in the room while they work only their secretary. Frequently is +it the case, too, that none but the amanuensis to whom they have been +long accustomed will do. A stranger throws 'em completely off. A +novelist I know, the writer of a very good style, who becomes very much +fussed up, and is practically destroyed, when he suspects a secretary of +giving critical attention to the manner of his prose. An embarrassing +thing about most stenographers, I have found, is that they are greatly +grieved if you say "'em" for "them," or anything like that. Or else they +won't let you do such things at all, and edit everything pleasant back +into perfectly good copy-book English. Some of them won't even let you +split an infinitive. + +Who was it, Voltaire, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, somebody, who could +write only when elaborately got up in his satins and ruffles? It is what +not long ago was called a bromidium to say that humorists are sad +people. I'd probably be thought humorous if I should call myself any +particular flier as a humorist, but this I know: wherever in my writing +I may have approached being amusing that generally was written when I +was considerably depressed. Forenoon is the best time for some to write; +late at night for others. "Ben Hur," I seem to recall, was penned +beneath a noble tree. At any rate, we frequently see pictures of +novelists, particularly in England, at work in their gardens. The most +familiar photographs, etchings, medallions and so on of Mark Twain and +of Robert Louis Stevenson at work are those of them writing in bed. Now +I can't (as some so take their breakfast) eat in bed; and I'm quite sure +I should never be able comfortably to write anything there. I do not +tell you how it is with me because I regard it as of deep interest to +you to hear how it is with me, but merely to aid me in assembling a +collection of facts concerning the freakishness of writing, and to +suggest to you how very different it may be with _you_. + +And I couldn't write under a tree. One writer, perhaps, writes more +easily in the winter than in the summer, or it is the other way round. +The mind of one, it may be, is stimulated by the companionship of an +open fire, and that of another (for aught I know) by the companionship +of an ice-box. Personally, I think that it is well in writing for the +weather to be cool enough to have the windows down; and that night is +the best time, for the reason that your mind (or, at least, my mind) is +more gathered together within the circle of light at your desk. + +Frequently, however (as you know), after sitting for hours with your +mind plumb stalled, it is not until shortly before your bed time that +that eccentric engine, your brain, gets buzzed up. Then, probably, you +can't call the thing off if you want to. I will tell you a story: + +A man there is, of some renown as a writer, who started a new book early +last spring. For some considerable time he had been much discouraged +about his writing. Hadn't been able to make it go. Could only lift +heavily and painfully one stilted sentence after another. Used to take +up now and then one or another of his early books and look into it. +Marvelled how it was that he ever could have written such clever stuff. +Like Swift when late in life he re-read "Gulliver," so did this man +exclaim: "What a genius I had at that time!" He felt that the fire had +gone out; his inner life seemed to have completely died; he was a hollow +shell; could now neither receive nor impart anything worth half a +jews-harp. When, one day, he heard rosy, young Hugh Walpole say of +himself that of course what he had written was merely a beginning to +what he felt he might do, this man looked at rosy, young Hugh Walpole +with a deeply gloomy and very jealous eye. + +But, lo! as I say, this man started this new book. It began as a series +of articles for which he was to be paid--that was _why_ it was begun at +all. Now see! With him it was as Professor George Edward Woodberry says +of Poe in his admirable "Life"--for a time his genius had "slept." With +the start of the new book he awoke. It began to run right out of the +ends of his fingers. Took (that book) hold of him completely. He +couldn't leave it. Go to bed, have to get up and go at it again. Try to +go out for a round of exercise. After a block or so from his quarters, +walk slower and slower. Miserable. Tortured. Turn back. Immediately +happy again. Soon be back at work. Anybody who entangled him with an +invitation anywhere enraged him beyond measure. + +New book finished. Everything fine. Got another commission. Easy enough +job. Set to at it. Empty vessel again! In despair. He'd make all sorts +of excuses to himself to leave his place early in the morning to +postpone beginning work. He'd go anywhere, with anybody, to keep as long +as possible from facing that task again. Couldn't give any sensible +explanation of his prolonged delay to the publishers. Kept putting them +off again and again, with one cripple-legged excuse after another, in +the hope that he'd come round. Matter became a disgrace. + +Still queerer cases than that I know. Fellow who shared an apartment +with me one time. When according to the accepted law of nature his mind +should have been in a very bad way, then always was he at his best. +After leading a regular, wholesome life for a period his mind would +become dull, stale and unprofitable. When, following a very different +sort of period, he should in all reason have awakened with a splitting +head, a swollen eye and a shaking hand, he would get up at about dawn +one morning in rattling fine spirits, his mind as clear as a bell, and +with an impassioned desire to work. Could, then, write like a streak. +But doesn't William James touch upon such a matter as this somewhere? + +And Stevenson, how wrong he got the thing! What is it he tells us as to +the years of apprenticeship to writing: + + It is only after years of such gymnastic that one can sit down at + last, legions of words swarming to his call, dozens of turns of + phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice, and he himself + knowing what he wants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man's + ability) able to do it. + +Only last night it was I was talking to Jesse Lynch Williams. He said +nothing of "legions of words swarming to his call," nary a mention of +"dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice." +Instead, he asked if I found that writing came easier as time went on. +No, he said, it seemed to him that writing became harder and harder the +longer one wrote. That he had torn up everything he had done for a long +while. + +Always the paradox! Again, there are men who write with astonishing +ease, or at least with astonishing rapidity, and write well. Not so long +ago I began a novel in collaboration with a writer known and admired +from coast to coast, a frequent contributor to _The Bookman_, and one of +the best. We were to do this thing turn and turn about, a chapter by me, +then a chapter by him, and so on. For something like ten days I toiled +over chapter one. I labored and I groaned. When it was finished I was +spent. I handed him the manuscript; he stuffed it into his overcoat +pocket and went whistling away. Returned within a few days and handed me +a wad of copy covering, I think, three chapters. Again I toiled in the +sweat of my brow. Gave him another chapter. When, after a couple of +weeks or something like that, he returned and I had read what he had +done I discovered that he had got people married that I hadn't known +were yet born. The collaboration busted up. + +My excellent friend does not like me to tell this story, because he +thinks it represents me as the conscientious artist and him as the +shallow scribbler. Well, that was not so; his chapters were far better +than mine. Nevertheless, his name I shall not give; I'll merely say +that it has very much the sound of a name borne by one of the +Elizabethan dramatists. + +Then there is that sort of human head-piece which can only write when it +absolutely has to. I allude to the magical instrument of coercion known +as a "copy date." I know people, dozens of them, who having a month and +a half ahead of them in which to do an article can't possibly get +started on it until it is almost too late for them to get it in on time +to go to press--when a mad frenzy seizes them, their indolence vanishes +like mist before the rising sun, their minds open like a flower, and all +is well. + +And the "galley slaves," those poor devils who for years have lived +under the whip of copy day every day. How they dream of the "real" +things they might do, given time. If (they think) the Lord would only +subsidize them! Now and then the Devil takes one of them and does this +very thing. The happy man gets some sort of a sinecure. All he has to do +is to go write. And (in all probability) that's all there is to that +story. He is like those things Riley tells about who "swaller +theirselves." He gets nothing written. + +What do you write with? And why do you write with whatever it is you +write with instead of with something else? Why did Mr. Howells (in all +the writing of his which I have seen) use a script-letter typewriter +instead of a Roman-letter machine? Why does Mr. Le Gallienne do so much +of his copy (if not all of it) by hand? Why is it that Mr. Huneker could +never either dictate or learn to run a typewriter? How is it possible +for those Englishmen--Swinnerton and Bennett, for instance--to put forth +in a few months whole novels in the monkish hand of an illuminated +missal? (I have seen the original manuscript of "The Old Wives' Tale," +every page like a copper-plate engraving, and hardly a correction +throughout.) And why is that it seems to me most natural to write some +things with a pen, others with a pencil, most things on a typewriter, +and yet again mix the use of all three implements in one composition? I +cannot tell you. + +Some authors, if they are going to write about a slum, have to go and +live in a slum while they are writing about a slum. Other authors, if +they are going to write about life in an Ohio town, go to Italy to write +about life in an Ohio town. In his excellent book "On the Trail of +Stevenson" Clayton Hamilton says: + + Throughout his lifelong wanderings, Stevenson rarely or never + attempted to describe a place so long as he was in it. For his + selection of descriptive detail he relied always on the + subconscious artistry of memory. He trusted his own mind to forget + the non-essential; and he seized upon whatever he remembered as, by + that token, the most essential features of a scene--the features, + therefore, that cried out to be selected as the focal points of the + picture to be suggested to the mind's eye of his readers. + +The author of the thirteen volumes known as "The Chronicles of +Barsetshire," a detailed picture of the English clergy of his time, had +never associated with bishops, deans, and arch-deacons; he built them up +(to use his own expression) out of his "moral consciousness." + +But round to rooms again. Often has it been told how Anthony Trollope +worked. How he accomplished so much--thirty-odd novels besides as many +tales--by a method he recommended to all who wish to pursue successfully +the literary career. In the drawing room of the Athenaeum Club, in a +railway carriage, or on the ocean, wherever he might be he seated +himself for three hours as a limit, with his watch before him; and +regularly as it marked the quarter hour he turned off two hundred and +fifty words, undisturbed by any distraction about him. We know that the +unlettered man of genius, John Bunyan, wrote his immortal allegory "The +Pilgrim's Progress" in Bedford jail. And there is being advertised now a +book recently written in an American prison. And much writing has been +done in garrets. Then here's our old friend George Moore. Again and +again he has told of exactly the places it was necessary for him to live +in while he wrote certain books. I open at random "Ave"; and I find +this: + + I descended the hillside towards the loveliest prospect that ever + greeted mortal eyes.... And I walked thinking if there were one + among my friends who would restore Mount Venus sufficiently for the + summer months, long enough for me to write my book. + +Now, to be quite frank with you, I didn't intend to write this paper at +all. You may remember that when I set out I was merely in disagreement +with Mr. Lucas concerning the matter of writing in a hotel room. One +thing (as it will) led to another; and the upshot has been all this +pother. However, there are, I hope, no bones broken--and that's saying a +good deal for any kind of a discussion in these unsettled times. + +What I am coming to is (the fashionable thing to come to nowadays) the +psychic. A fellow I know was much puzzled. He recently got back to 16 +Gramercy Park from a trip around the world. I saw him there having some +toast and a pot of tea. He told me these interesting circumstances. He +would be at a superbly appointed hotel in some city. Beautiful suite of +rooms. Commodious bath-room with lovely bay-window. Everything to make +for perfect mental and physical well-being. Impotent to write there. +Later runs into some terrible dump of a lodging house. Horrible din of +low noises all about. One dirty window looks out on scene of squalor. So +cold at night has to put chair on bed and sit there to be nearer gas +jet. Gets on wonderfully with writing. Strikes another place, handsomest +of all; writes pretty well. Comes to most fearful place yet; can't write +at all. + +Couldn't make head nor tail of the matter, this fellow. Discussed the +thing with many people. Finally found young woman who gave convincing +explanation. It's like this: Undoubtedly you are, in any room, affected +by something of the spirit which lingers there of former occupants. +Maybe they were persons, whatever their station in life, sympathetic to +your spirit--maybe not. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +TAKING THE AIR IN SAN FRANCISCO + + +A few days ago, in the warm and brilliant winter sunlight there, I was +strolling along the Embarcadero. Now all my life I have been very fond +of roving the streets.... + +And that confession reminds me: + +I one time heard a minister (a clergyman of considerable force of +eloquence) preach a sermon against streets. His idea seemed to be that +streets were not good for one--that they were very bad places. He +admonished mothers to keep their children "off the streets." He regarded +it as very reprehensible in a wife for her to "gad the streets." The +footpad (he said) plied the street at night, while the righteous were at +home in bed. What so sad as "a child of the streets"? If we wished to +describe a worthless canine we called it a "street dog." The outcast has +his home in the streets. The drunkard makes his bed in the street. It +was painful (I gathered) for a civilized being to hear the "language of +the street." And so on. + +But I very much fear that the eloquence of this gentleman was greater +than his Christianity. If we are to love our neighbors as we do +ourselves, we will find him in greatest variety in the streets. If we +are to give away our cloak, the beneficiary, I should think, would be a +citizen much accustomed to the streets. And, as far as I can make out, +there is more rejoicing in heaven over the arrival of a sister who has +"walked the streets" than attends the reception of a nun. + +Certainly I admit that roaming the streets (like everything else) can +doubtless be overdone. Nevertheless, to most people, people of ordinary +ways of life (like myself), I highly recommend the practice, as a most +healthful exercise, as a pleasant course of profitable education, as a +source of endless amusement, and as a Christian virtue. The trouble, I +think, with most of us is not that we see too much of the streets but +that we do not see as well as we might the streets we happen to be on. +We do not read as we run. + +So I would write an article In Praise of Streets. + +As I was saying (when that minister switched me off), I was strolling +along the Embarcadero. Among all the different sorts of streets there +are none I think more beguiling than those which lie along the water +front of a town or a city. The water-front streets of all seaport +cities, of course, partake very much of the same character. Particularly +in the picturesque aspect of the shop windows. + +Here along the rim of San Francisco Bay you pass the sparkling pier +buildings (now and then of Spanish mission architecture) of the Toyo +Kisen Kaisha Oriental S. S. Co., of the American Hawaiian S. S. Co., the +Kosmos Line, and the Pacific-Alaska Navigation Co., among others. While +on New York's West Street you see the structures of the White Star Line, +the Cunard Line, the Red Star Line, erected in masonry of a sort of +mammoth and glorified garage architecture, funnels and masts peeping +over the top; and further down the frame sheds of the Morgan Line, the +Clyde Steam Ship Company, Savannah Line, Lackawanna Rail Road, Hoboken +Ferry, and so on. But the tastes of the sailor man as a shopper appear +to be very much the same whether he is along the London docks, on West +Street, by Boston piers or here on the Embarcadero. In this the West +and the East do meet. + +The aesthetic taste of the water front inclines, very decidedly, to the +ornate. As (presumably) a present to a lady and a decoration for the +home the favorite object seems to be a heavy china plate. A romantic +landscape, or a moonlight scene, or perhaps a still life study of portly +roses is "hand painted" in very thick pigment on its face. Its rim is +plaited in effect, like the edge of a fancy pie, and through numerous +openings in this rim is run a heavy ribbon by which to hang it on the +wall. + +Next in prominence in the window displays of water-front bazaars is the +set of bleary-colored glass ware (upper edges bound in gold) which I +take to be designed for the purpose of serving punch, or perhaps +lemonade--a large bowl of warty surface, with a number of cups to match +hanging from hooks at its brim. + +The water front obviously is strong for the amenities, the arts and the +refinements of life. Bottles of perfume (with huge bows of ribbon at +their necks) are in great abundance in its shop windows; as also are +packets of boudoir soap (Dawn Lilac seems to be the favorite), toilet +powders, silk initial handkerchiefs, opera glasses, ladies' garters of +very fluffy design, feminine combs ornamented with birds in gilt, +exceedingly high stand-up collars for gentlemen, banjos, guitars, +mandolins, accordions (of a great variety of sizes), harmonicas, playing +cards, dice and poker chips. + +As for the rest of the display, it is a multifarious collection: rubber +hip-boots, hair clippers, money belts, brogans, bandana handkerchiefs, +binoculars, tobacco pouches, spools of thread, pitch-black plug tobacco, +hand searchlights, heavy underwear, woolen sox, razor strops, tin +watches, shaving brushes, elaborately carved pipes, trays of heavy +rings, and here and there some quaint curiosity, such as a little model +of a sailing ship in a bottle which it could not have entered through +the mouth, or some such oddity as that. + +One old friend of mine on West Street I missed on the Embarcadero. And +that is (very battered and worn are the specimens of him which remain as +the last of his noble race) the cigar-store wooden Indian. + +And (I much regret) neither on the Embarcadero nor on any other water +front in America do we have the rich costume ball effects that you find +about the docks of London. There (as you remember) about the East India +and the West India docks may be observed tall, dark visaged figures in +loosely flowing robes and brilliant turbans solemnly pushing along high +laden trucks and, high above on the decks of ships, hauling away at +ropes. + +But on the shore side of the San Francisco water front, my fancy was +much taken by the salt sea savor of the signs of the houses of +entertainment--signs reminiscent of the jovial days of briny romance, +echoed in the chantey in "Treasure Island," which has as its refrain: + + Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum. + +I passed, among others, the Marine Cafe, the Navy Cafe, the Admiral +Cafe, the Harbor Bar, and the Ferry Cafe. + +I did not turn up Market Street, but went on around the nose of the +peninsula, which is the foundation of San Francisco. I passed a +three-masted ship, the _Lizzie Vance_, lying by her wharf, with men +aloft in her rigging. Then I clambered up endless relays of rickety +wooden stairs mounting Telegraph Hill. On either side of the ladder-like +steps, ramshackle cabins bedecked with lines of fluttering "wash." Like +the celebrated editor of _Puck_, H. C. Bunner, I might say that in my +travels I've missed many a cathedral but I never missed a slum. + +I went along through the Latin Quarter, slid down the steep slope of +Kearny Street, and found myself wandering into that quaint little park, +Portsmouth Square, where R. L. S. in his most stressful days lounged in +the sun and listened to the tales of the vagabonds of the Seven Seas. +Somewhat bigger than tiny Gramercy Park, hardly as large as little +Madison Square, this park. In the center of the bit of rolling lawn, +before a towering screen of rustling trees, the graceful little stone +ship, buoyant on its curling stone wave, rides atop its tall stone +pedestal graved "To Remember Robert Louis Stevenson," and on the face of +which is cut that most fragrant of creeds, which (as everyone knows) +begins: "To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little and to spend a +little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence" +... + +Behind the bench on which I rested was the establishment, so proclaimed +the legend printed on its front, of Wing Sun, Funeral Director. For, as +you know, Portsmouth Square is embraced on one side by prosperous +Chinatown, and on the other by the Italian quarter of San Francisco. And +the races, Latin and Oriental, mingle in the little park to take the +air. + +What here is still more colorful and picturesque, frequently there is a +striking and amusing mixture of races in the costume of an individual +figure. A Manchu lady, it may be, of waxen, enigmatic features, draped +in flowing black silken trousers, hobbles along on high-heeled, +pearl-colored American shoes. And there a slim reed of an Oriental +maiden, with a complexion like a California orange, whisks by in the +smartest of tailored suits--without a hat, her gleaming black hair done +in Chinese fashion, long ornamented rods thrust through it, a vivid +pendant of bright blossoms at one side of the head. + +Sitting there, I thought of the nature of public parks and what pleasant +places they are. + +Splendid thing, elaborate park "systems," whereby you may go for miles +through a grimy city, and move among groves and meadows and bosky dells, +with inspiriting glimpses of mirror-like ponds and flashing streams all +the way. And of course I enjoy the great parks of a great city. + +But more appealing to me than the gorgeous spectacle of Hyde Park, or +Van Cortlandt, or Fairmont, or Jackson, or Forest Park are the little +places tucked here and there in the seething caldron of the town. These +are a lovely department of the streets--they are the little parlors of +the streets. Here calls are made, and infants sun themselves--they have, +these parklets, their social and their domestic life, under the +democratic heavens. + +Now soon is a time to watch with joy these plots of open space in the +city's rushing life. Spring is more winsome on Boston Common and at +Union Square than in the country. A tuft of green shoots seen against +canyon walls of steel and stone--one must be in the city to savor the +tenderness of spring. + +And when summer comes and (in our eastern climate) all the town swelters +under a blanket of gritty dust and heavy heat, then one comes upon one +of these small areas of greenery with the refreshment of spirit with +which at the meal hour one greets the appearance of a nice, cool, green +salad. + +I arose from my seat in Portsmouth Square and wandered off for the rest +of the day through the Streets. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +BIDDING MR. CHESTERTON GOOD-BYE + + +The note, which came altogether as a surprise, read: "My husband +suggests that if you have nothing better to do perhaps you would look in +upon us on Wednesday evening at about eight-thirty." Mrs. Chesterton +further said, in giving the address, that they had a little apartment +lent to them for the last week of their stay here. She had asked Mr. +Woollcott to come, too, and Gerald Stanley Lee.... "We can only promise +you smokes and talk." + +I wondered, as I hurried for the 'bus, whether I'd have time to get my +shoes polished. It was precisely the hour appointed when I reached what +I took to be the door. The hall-man declared that he had "gone out." I +insisted that the hall-man telephone up. "No answer," he said, after a +bit, and hung up. Now what do you think of that! Well, I'd take a walk +and return a little later. + +As I was rounding the corner coming back I saw an agile, rotund figure, +with a gleam of white shirt-front in the half darkness, mounting the +dusky steps instead of descending into the lighted areaway. Looked kinda +like Mr. Woollcott. If so, the gentleman was going wrong, so I called to +him. + +"He has not come back," the hall-man asserted, but assented to our +demands to ring up again. No response. "It was about an hour ago he went +out," he replied to our question. Standing there, Mr. Woollcott and I +contrived several theories. One was that Mr. Chesterton had intended to +return by now but had lost track of the time. Another was that possibly +Mrs. Chesterton had invited us on her own hook and had overlooked +notifying Mr. Chesterton of the matter. "Has a third gentleman been +here?" we asked, meaning Mr. Lee. No. We went for a stroll. + +It was nine o'clock. And Mr. Woollcott's manner indicated that he was +inclined to take some sort of revenge on the hall-man. Was he, the +hall-man, certain that he had everything straight? "Sure," he nodded; +"it's Mr. Cushman's apartment." Mr. Cushman's apartment! Had we, then, +been blundering in the wrong place all this time! "Mr. Chesterton!" +roared Mr. Woollcott. Yes, yes; he understood that ... the gentleman had +come in yesterday. That was right according to the note I had had from +Mrs. Chesterton; so we demanded that the man make another effort at the +telephone. Ah!... he heard something. "It's all right," he mumbled; +"they are there." + +As we got out of the car Mr. Chesterton was cramming the tiny hall. He +was in an attitude which I took to be that of a bow, but I later +discovered, as he shuffled back and forth about the apartment, that he +walks that way all the time now when in the privacy of his own quarters. +Mrs. Chesterton greeted us as we entered the room, Mr. Chesterton +trailing in behind us and continuing a welcoming murmur which had +somewhat the sound of a playful brook. Mrs. Chesterton ensconced herself +behind a tea table. Mr. Chesterton lumbered about with cigars. He +disclaimed the great easy chair by the electric table lamp in which it +was unmistakable that he had been sitting, but was prevailed upon to +return to it. + +In apology for the lateness of our arrival we mentioned our difficulties +in discovering that he was in. Mr. Chesterton seemed bewildered by the +circumstance. He shook his head and (evidently referring to the +hall-man) said he was not able to understand "that foreigner" at all. +"That foreigner?" we smiled at the Englishman. I think it most likely +that the explanation of his not having heard our earlier rings was that +he was not familiar with the system of bells in the apartment. They had +not been out, he declared; oh, yes! they had been out, too, a good while +ago, to get something to eat. "We are camping here," he said, "in a +rather Bohemian fashion." Didn't they enjoy that as a change from life +in fashionable hotels? Oh, yes! Very much. + +They wondered if Mr. Lee were not coming. Yes; he had assured me that he +was, when I had seen him that afternoon at the club. In fact, we had +discussed what we would wear, and had agreed on dinner jackets. Mr. +Chesterton was wearing a braid-bound cutaway coat of felt-like material +(very much wrinkled in the skirt) and dark striped trousers of stiffish +quality, but not recently pressed. His bat-wing collar had a sharp +crease extending outward at one side as though it were broken. Though it +was a very warm night for early spring--a hot night, indeed--he wore +uncommonly heavy woolen sox, which were very much "coming down" about +his ankles. His comically small English eye-glasses, with a straight rod +joining them across the top, were perpetually coming off his nose. On +one finger he wore a rather large ring. I noticed that for so large a +man his hands were somewhat small, and were delicately made. At one side +of him were three ashtrays (one of them a huge brass bowl well filled +with tobacco ash) and at the other side of him one tray. + +Well, what sort of a time had he been having? How far west had he got? +He had been as far as (I think) Omaha. "Halfway across," he said. He had +been much mystified by a curious character he had run into there: a +strange being whose waistcoat and coat front were covered by symbolic +emblems, crescents, full moons and stars. This person had accosted him +in the street saying, "And so you are a lecturer." The man had then +informed him that he also was a lecturer. He lectured, he said, on +astronomy. "Indeed, in my country," Mr. Chesterton had said, "it is not +the custom for astronomers to display on their person devices symbolic +of the science in which they are engaged." Next, the man had opened his +coat and exhibited the badge of a sheriff, or some sort of officer of +the peace. Mr. Chesterton had been astounded to discover the functions +of a man of science, a lecturer and a policeman united in one and the +same person. It was quite evident that this (as I assume he was) +harmless lunatic had made a most decided impression upon Mr. +Chesterton's mind; he took the eccentric individual with much +seriousness, apparently as some kind of a type; indeed, I feared that we +would never get him switched off from talking about him; and I have no +doubt that, in the course of time, this ridiculous astronomer will +appear as a bizarre character in some fantastic tale, a personage +perhaps related to Father Brown, or something like that. + +Mr. Chesterton observed that he had enjoyed the opportunity of seeing +various grades of American life, that he had been in the homes of very +humble people as well as in houses of persons of wealth and social and +intellectual position. In a former article I noted how Mr. Chesterton +had been greatly startled to find (what he then called) "wooden houses" +in this country, and such multitudes of them. He now returned to this +phenomenon. What was his one outstanding impression of the United +States? Well, he remarked that he had said it before, but he continued +to be chiefly struck by the vast number of "frame houses" here. + +Mr. Lee arrived. A gentleman who looks very much as though you were +looking at his reflection in one of those trick mirrors (such as they +have at Coney Island) which humorously attenuate and elongate the +figures before them. Or, again, perhaps more justly still, a gentleman +who looks as though Daumier had drawn him as an illustration for "Don +Quixote." In his evening clothes (to put it still another way), a +gentleman who looks much like a very lengthened shadow dancing on a +wall. Mr. Whistler would have made something very striking indeed out of +Mr. Lee in a dinner coat, something beautifully strange. I do not know +that I have ever seen anything finer, in its own exceedingly peculiar +way, than Mr. Lee, thus attired, with a cup of tea in his hand. + +"Do you like wine?" Mr. Woollcott asked Mr. Chesterton, and told him of +a restaurant nearby where this could be obtained. Our prohibition, Mr. +Chesterton said, did not bother him so much as might be thought, as for +reasons having to do with his health he was (as you or I would say) +"off the stuff" at present. + +One of us, Mr. Woollcott I think, commented upon the sweep of Mr. +Chesterton's fame in the United States. The opinion was advanced that +the evening of the day he landed his arrival was known in every literate +home in New York. Mr. Chesterton was inclined to think that his +"notoriety" in large measure came from his "appearance," his +"avoirdupois." Knowledge of him had spread through the notion that he +was a "popular curiosity." It was contended that his writing had been +well-known over here ten years before his pictures became familiar to +us. (Though, of course, I myself do think that the pictorial quality of +his corporeal being has been very effective publicity for him.) + +Then there was another thing which Mr. Chesterton thought might to a +considerable degree account for his American celebrity. That was this +"tag" of "paradox." People loved "easy handles" like that, and they went +a long way. Somehow or other we let this point pass, or it got lost in +the shuffle, and the discussion turned to the question of whether there +was an American writer living whose arrival in England would command +anything like the general attention occasioned by Mr. Chesterton's +entrance into the United States. We could not think of anyone. + +Mark Twain, of course; yes. O. Henry, doubtless, too. And, indeed, in +the matter of years O. Henry might very well be living now. Mr. +Chesterton quite agreed as to the English welcome of Mark Twain or of O. +Henry. Tom Sawyer and Huck, he said musingly, certainly were +"universal." Then, ponderingly, he observed that English and American +literature seemed to be getting farther and farther apart, or more and +more distinct each from the other. That is, he remembered that when he +was a boy his father and his uncles simply spoke of a new book having +come out whether it had been written in England or in the United States. +As in the case of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table": when it +appeared it was enjoyed and talked about by everybody in England; but +not spoken of there as a new American book: it was a new book, that's +all. Now, however, with Englishmen impressed by the "Spoon River +Anthology," "and rightly so," or by "Main Street," "it would not be that +way." + +He had much liking for O. Henry. But he had begun by not liking him. He +had been puzzled by the "queer commercial deals" on which so many of the +stories turned--"buying towns, selling rivers." He had, even now, to +re-read much of the slang to get the meaning. And so we talked awhile of +slang. + +"You have an expression here," said Mr. Chesterton, shaking his head as +though that were something very remarkable indeed, "_a bad actor_" Much +mirth from Woollcott, Lee and Holliday. "Now in England," Mr. Chesterton +continued, "we mean by that one who has mistaken his vocation as to the +stage. But I discovered that here it has nothing to do with the +theatrical profession." Then, it developed, some reporter in the West +had referred to him as "a regular guy." At first Mr. Chesterton had been +for going after the fellow with a stick.... Certainly a topsy-turvy +land, the United States, where you can't tell opprobrium from flattering +compliment. + +Then one of us told Mr. Chesterton a story of a prize line of American +slang. He (the teller of the story) had got a letter in which a friend +of his had been spoken of in a highly eulogistic fashion. Thinking this +opinion of him would please his friend this man showed the letter to +him. The gentleman so much praised in it read the letter and remarked: +"Well, whenever I get the hand I always see the red light." Mr. +Chesterton looked dazed. "You'll have to translate that to me," he said. +It was explained to him that the meaning of this was that whenever this +person heard applause of himself he always scented danger. "Oh, oh! I +see!" crowed Mr. Chesterton, "the hand, the hand," and he began clapping +his hands in illustration of the figure with much glee. + +"Glee," yes. And "crowed," also. They are the words, some of the words, +to describe Mr. Chesterton's sounds. His utterance was rapid, melodious. +The modulations of his softly flowing voice had curiously somewhat the +effect of a very cheerful music-box. His easy and very natural command +of a great multitude of words was striking. And yet there was something +decidedly boyish about the effect of his talk. I think the cause of this +was, for one thing, the rather gurgling enjoyment with which he spoke, +and for another thing, in his impulsive concern for the point of his +idea he frequently did not trouble to begin nor end sentences. He just +let 'er go. But the fundamental source of this boyishness of spirit I +think was this: I do not believe I have ever seen a man who had borne +the brunt of life for some forty-five years and still retained such +complete, abounding, unaffected and infectious good humor as Mr. +Chesterton. + +"As I believe I have said somewhere before," Mr. Chesterton was saying, +"it seems to me that the best known character in literature is Sherlock +Holmes." Mr. Woollcott was inclined to consider Svengali. Dear me! +Svengali may have been in the running at one time, but it strikes me +that today he has pretty much gone by the board, somewhat to mix the +figure. + +As to detective stories: "They are essentially domestic," declares Mr. +Chesterton. "Intimate, all in the household, or ought to be. The +children's nurse should murder the Bishop. These things where the +Foreign Office becomes involved and" (chuckling) "Indian rajahs and +military forces come in are never right. They are too big. The detective +story is a fireside story." + +Had Mr. Chesterton been much to the theatre while here? No; the only +thing he had seen was "The Bat." Something like anguish on the face of +the dramatic critic of the New York _Times_. Why, he, Mr. Chesterton, +had liked "The Bat," a good deal. Speaking of plays, the American +presentation of "Magic" came into the conversation. It was remarked that +the extremely mystical character of the setting rather crushed the +mysticism of the play itself. The idea was advanced that a very simple, +matter-of-fact, even bleak setting, would have been the thing to act as +an effective foil to this play. Mr. Chesterton seemed to be not the +slightest interested in stage-settings. And he knew next to nothing at +all about the career of "Magic." He wasn't even sure whether or not he +held any proprietary rights in the play. There was, he said as though +fumbling around in his mind, something involved about the matter. Friend +of his wanted a play. Necessary to finish it in a hurry. He didn't +really know, answering a question to this purpose, whether or not he +received any royalties from it. + +Mrs. Chesterton again handed about some fudge. The collection of +ash-trays and bowls surrounding Mr. Chesterton had become jovially +freighted with tobacco ash and cigar ends. He smoked his cigars in an +economical fashion, down as far as they could comfortably be held. + +There was one thing (the talk had turned to his lecturing) Mr. +Chesterton "wished you wouldn't do in this country, or that we didn't do +in England, either." That was for the gentleman who "introduced" a +lecturer to refer to his "message." In his own case, for instance, how +ridiculously was this term misapplied. The word "message" conveyed +something "quite the opposite of personality." Or, that is, before its +popular corruption it had meant something very different. It meant that +something was carried. One with a message was a messenger, a vessel, an +envelope. It was hard to think of a figure who could rightly be said to +have a message. The Old Testament prophets, Mohammed, perhaps. Whitman, +now certainly you couldn't say that Whitman had a message. + +A ring; and Mr. Cushman came in. Youthfully cropped grey hair. A +gentleman who looked like a habitual first-nighter. + +Yes, Mr. Chesterton was telling us, it was a curious thing. He had +always heard that Americans worshipped machines. A machine everywhere +here, and a machine brought to an amazing state of mechanical +perfection, was the elevator, as we called it. When he had first got +into an American elevator he had been arrested by the fact that the men +entering it took off their hats and stood silently with bared heads as +it ascended. It is so, he had said to himself, they are at worship, at +prayer, this is some religious rite, mystic ceremony, the elevator is +their temple. + +Had he been in our subway? was asked. No; he had been down in a station +one time, but he had not ridden on one of the trains. I wish now that I +had thought to cut into the rapid battledore and shuttlecock of the +conversation to learn why he had not been. Was he scared of 'em? + +What were the things which Mr. Chesterton particularly liked in the +United States? Well, for one thing, he very much liked the "elevated." +He thought it was grand up in the air that way. + +And what had be especially _disliked_? Mr. Lee apparently had knowledge +of a memorandum book kept by Mrs. Chesterton, known to their ultimate +little circle as her "Book of Likes and Dislikes." She was, with some +difficulty, prevailed upon to read from this--which she did very +guardedly, clutching the book very firmly before her. Among the things +put down in it as not liked were ice cream, ice water, "American boots" +(by which was meant women's high-heeled shoes), and interviewers, +reporters and camera men. Things especially liked included parlor-car +seats. Mr. Chesterton: "I don't dislike it, now. I've got the evil habit +of ice water." + +"Lift," it was generally agreed, was a happier word than "elevator." +Mrs. Chesterton thought that the scientific, technical, correct, or +whatever you call them, words for things always took all the feeling of +life out of them. "Aviator," for example, had no color at all. But how +fine in the spirit of the thing was the popular term "flying-man," or +"fly-man"! + +The conversation had got momentarily divided into groups. Mr. Chesterton +was heard saying to Mr. Woollcott, "The time I mean was when Yeats was +young--when mysticism was jazz." + +Just how he got started in on them I do not recall. He began with +Belloc's most entertaining and highly vivacious ballad which has the +refrain, "And Mrs. James will entertain the king"; a kind of a piece +among friends, which unfortunately is not in any book. He recited with a +kind of joyous unction, nodding his head forward and back from side to +side, thus keeping time to the music of the verse, punctuating the close +of each stanza with bubble of chuckles. On and on and on and on he went +through goodness knows how many bits of rollicking literary fooling. + +It was half past eleven. I saw Mr. Chesterton, when someone else was +speaking, yawn slightly now and then. The four callers arose to go. Some +one of us asked Mr. Chesterton if he expected to be back in America +soon. Through a wreath of smiles he replied that he was not getting a +return ticket on the boat. + +The two of them were framed in their doorway as we got into the +"foreigner's" car. Mrs. Chesterton called to us that she hoped to see us +all in England, "singly or together." As the car dropped from their +floor both were beaming a merry, friendly farewell. + +Suddenly it struck me that they were very like a pair of children--they +were so happy, so natural, so innocent of guile, and obviously so fond +of one another. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +NO SYSTEM AT ALL TO THE HUMAN SYSTEM + + +I think I'll tell you about myself. Maybe it's the same way with you. +Anyhow, it's a mighty queer thing. And we ought to try to get some light +on the matter--why there is, apparently, no reason or logic at all about +our systems. + +You see, I go along a pretty fair amount of the time feeling all right; +nothing wrong with my system; nothing, at any rate, that I can notice. +Everybody says: "How well you're looking! Great color, you've got." And +so on. + +Then, maybe, I see in the paper that there is an epidemic scheduled to +devastate the city pretty soon. This news lays hold of me right off. The +paper goes on to say that it behooves all citizens to take thought to +fortify their systems against the ravages of this terrible disease which +is rapidly approaching. + +Or I read, say, that Thrift Week was such an enormous success (for +everybody else) that a campaign is under way to inaugurate a Health +Week, which (I read) will greatly reduce the mortality in the community. +The way to reduce my own mortality (I read with considerable attention) +is for me to Stop, Look and Listen in the matter of my health. And To Do +It Now! I don't like those profane words, like mortality. They disturb +me. And occasionally get me into no end of trouble--as you'll see. + +Or, perhaps, I notice around in cars and places an unusual number of +advertisements instructing you what firm to consult in order to +"safeguard the interests of your heirs." A died (one of these cards may +say) and left his estate to B, his widow, naming C as executor. C died +suddenly shortly afterward. B (the widow) met E, with oil lands in +Hawaii--and so on. The advertisement winds up: Are you A? + +Not yet; I'm not! But I'd better watch out. I know this is a good +advertisement because it gets into my mind the way it does. + +Or, again, perhaps there are just a number of little things that I come +across. A gentleman one day tells me at luncheon, we'll say, that he +can't drink tea because it gives him uric acid so bad. Good gracious! +And I (maybe) subject to uric acid! + +An octogenarian (we'll suppose) is interviewed. He attributes his +longevity to abstemiousness in the use of inexpensive cigarettes. (I at +once put mine out.) + +A chemist (very likely) gets a lot of publicity by declaring that you +are to Look Before You Leap in the matter of drinking water. (And but +the night before I drank from the spout in the kitchen!) And so on. +Well, things such as these set one to thinking. + +I say to myself when I get that way (to thinking, I mean) a stitch in +time saves nine; there's no loss so bad as the loss of your health, +because if you have that you can obtain aught else; a word to the wise +is sufficient; make hay while the sun shines; little drops of water wear +away the stone; take heed for the morrow while it is yet May; be not +like unto the foolish virgin who spilt the beans. And many other things +of this kind, which (doubtless in wise measure) are both good and true. + +Well, in short, I determine to "build up," to get myself in thoroughly +"good shape." + +I swear off smoking. I put away the home brew. I do not eat fresh +bread. I procure myself overshoes against the rain. I rise with the +lark. I (religiously eating an apple first) go to bed betimes. I walk so +many miles a day--also skip a rope. I shun all delicacies of the table. +I take those horrid extra cold baths, for the circulation. I do "deep +breathing." I "relax" for twelve minutes each day. I shun the +death-dealing demon "worry." I "fix my mind on cheerful thoughts." I +"take up a hobby," philately, or something like that. I eat the skins of +potatoes. I watch the thermometer at the office, and monkey continually +with the steam radiator. Everything like that. + +When you undertake a thing (even if it's only shelling peas) be thorough +in it, that's my motto. I don't, indeed, in this regimen get much work +done, but it's better to be slow and sure. + +Well, what happens? + +When I set out to build up this is what happens to me: First thing, +maybe, I get pimples. No; no maybe about it. I sure get pimples. Then, +very likely, I get a carbuncle. (I have just asked my assistant how you +spell that word. She inquires if I mean the gem, or--or the other. I +have told her I mean the other.) + +Next, very probably, I "contract" (as they say) a cough. This cough +"develops" into a cold.... You have (I trust) had that sort of cold +which hangs on for months. Nothing recommended is of any help to you. +You become resigned (more or less) to the idea--just as a man who has +lost a leg (or his mind) must resolve to do the best he can with the +rest of his life without his leg (or his mind), so must you adapt +yourself to the stern condition imposed by Fate of always having a cold. +That's the kind of a cold I mean that I get. (Only worse!) + +My cold branches out into several little side lines, such as acute +neuralgia and inflammatory rheumatism. Stiff joints impede my agility in +getting down the hill to my morning train to the city. I slip on the ice +and break my glasses. + +Not having my glasses causes me at the office to greet Mr. Sloover as +Mr. Rundle, and this sort of error breathes a chill upon the nice +nuances of business. + +Or in my personal correspondence (if I were that kind of a person) I +might put my letter for Penelope into the envelope for Pauline. This, +when I had discovered the calamity, would doubtless perturb my thoughts. +My thoughts being perturbed, I might walk out of the restaurant without +my change of three dollars and eighty cents. Thoroughly upset by now, I +walk under a ladder. Realizing that I have done this, my nervousness is +the occasion of my dropping my watch. Enough! I recognize that there is +no use in my going back to the office that afternoon. I telephone in +that I have gone home to bed with my cold. + +On coming out of the cigar store where the telephone booth is, I see +Christopher Morley, Don Marquis and Franklin P. Adams walking down the +street arm in arm. (I can see very little without my glasses, but well +enough to recognize such a spectacle as that.) Something, I say, must be +on. And I cheer up considerably. Some cheering up certainly is just what +I need. I overhaul the company. And I ask it (the company) where it is +bound. It says: "For 'Mecca.' Come along." Don hands me a pocket flask +(largely empty), Chris presents me with a large green cigar, and Frank +gives me a match. It is agreed that we roll a little pool for a few +hours while waiting for the cab. + +Well, you see, I've been led to abandon the idea of building up my +health--but I don't care, one may as well die happy. + +I have a great time at that show. (My cold is immensely better.) I fix +on one eye-glass so as to see something desirable. And I cut up a lot. + +But--when we turn to leave I discover the president of my company going +out just ahead of me. Well, I suppose I'll have to take what is coming +to me tomorrow. + +That one good meal, anyhow (after the pool), has strengthened my spirit +immensely. I plan to have a regular, genuine breakfast in the morning. +The kind I used to enjoy before I started in to get myself in fine +shape. A breakfast of sliced pineapple, eggs, steak, fried potatoes, +cottage-cheese, hot rolls, and two pots of good strong coffee. A pipe +afterward. + +When I get out to the house I find that my uncle (from whom I had been +estranged for years) has died, and left me his fine, ninety carat, forty +jewel, repeater watch. + +I wake up bursting with joyous life. The girl tells me that those +especially handsome glasses I lost last New Year's Eve have been found. +Down at the station the station-master comes out to greet me. He says +so many people have slipped on our hill that next week the railroad is +going to install a free coach service. I see by the morning paper that +the horse I took a twelve to one shot on in the Buenos Aires derby came +out the length of the stretch to the good. On the train into town I +smoke a couple of packages of cigarettes--as I become a bit bothered +about the situation at the office. + +A girder, or something, had fallen across the track. The train is held +up. For a couple of hours it stands there. I become more than decidedly +nervous. Now this is awful bad doings. Everything had been coming so +right again. It seems as if there is no reward in this world for +anything. Here for a whole month or so I had been subjecting myself to +the most rigorous and unpleasant kind of discipline solely in order to +make myself more efficient in my work, and so more valuable to the +house. Nothing else. Then by an accident I am kept away from the office +one afternoon, and this has to go and happen just to keep me away +probably the whole of the forenoon. Everything will, of course, be +misunderstood and misinterpreted. Instead of getting just credit for +what I've done, I'll probably get bounced. If anyone wants to have the +moral of this story pointed out to him: it is that there is not much use +in trying, you can see that. + +When I do get to the office my secretary is in quite a flurry. She tells +me that Mr. Equity, the president, has been inquiring for me. In +fact--she hesitates--wants me to step in to see him as soon as I arrive. + +So, there you are! + +Mr. Equity (a most unusual thing in any circumstances) shakes my hand +with great cordiality. He smiles, not benignantly but rather +deferentially. Says that he has recognized for some little time that I +have not had a salary commensurate with my services. Times, however, are +not of the best. Would I be willing to continue with the firm at--a +pause--well, double my present salary? Everything, he adds, would be +made as pleasant for me as possible. + +His secretary whispers to me in an outer office: "He has been so +flustered. He was scared you weren't ever coming back." + +I discussed this matter of the strange workings of the human system with +a friend of mine outside the office. "Ah!" he said, "you didn't +persevere long enough in looking after yourself. If you had kept it up +for a year instead of only a month, you'd be a well man today. And," he +added seriously, "a successful man, too." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SEEING THE "SITUATIONS WANTED" SCENE + + +"What a lot of things they put in the papers!" Hilaire Belloc observes +somewhere in one of his essays. Indeed, it is so! + +I fear, however, that one of the features "they" put in the papers does +not have anything like as popular a reading as it deserves to have. +Those of the governing class, personages who employ people, probably +consult fragments of this department of the newspaper now and then. But, +it may fairly be claimed, nobody reads, with the delicious pleasure and +the abundant profit he might read, that part of the paper fullest of all +of, so to say, meat and gravy. + +The story it tells is probably the deepest grounding in life to be found +in print. There as it stands in today's paper Shakespeare (I fancy) +could not have written it, nor Balzac, nor Dickens, nor Arnold Bennett, +nor O. Henry, nor Sinclair Lewis. This newspaper feature is called +"Situations Wanted." It might just as accurately be called "The Human +Scene," or "The Heart of the World," or "The Cry of the Soul." Its tale +is of what all men are seeking (and have ever sought), each in his own +degree, and after his fashion--bread, a place in the sun, a level higher +than that of today. + +Let us, briefly, survey this Page of Life. + +The most conspicuous figure in the vast and motley throng is the Bold +and Confident Man. He that knows his superior worth and does not propose +to hide his light, he that has the spirit to attack the conqueror. His +method is to fling a large and arresting headline across his "ad." "I AM +THE MAN YOU WANT!" he begins. Or, "PAR-EXCELLENCE," he announces in big +type. Or, "Mr. Busy Manufacturer," he says in good sized "caps"; in +smaller letters asks: "Are you in need of _a competent manager_?" If Mr. +B. M. is in such need, it is squarely put up to him: he "will do well to +address X." To the employer who hesitates this vital opportunity is +lost. The ad says: "Write now--_Right Now!_" Undoubtedly this is the +horse to put your money on; the hero to marry your daughter to. He will +not want. + +Our bold, aggressive friend frequently writes, barring a bit of +"bounce," an admirable, clean-cut account of himself. He has, he +declares, acted for some of the leading concerns in the country; he has +never yet failed to give satisfaction; every employer he ever had will +testify to his ability and character. He invites the closest +investigation of his record, and he is open for any engagement where +faithful work, absolute integrity and devotion to his employer's +interests will be productive of "a fair living salary." It is, indeed, +difficult to avoid the impression that this man "has the goods." + +Akin to him in his method of a bill-board-like headline is another, of +whom one is not so sure. He does not so much command attention as seek +to beguile it. His particular "lay" is the Ingenious. Here is one +example of his style: + + AN ADVERTISING ADVENTURER + + offers 16 years' experience + + (scarred by a few notable defeats and a thorough knowledge edge of + what NOT to do) to a manufacturer, for whom he will SAVE more than + his wages; a bad man, who does not drink, never was out of work, is + married and proud of it; age 32; would rather work than eat. + Address: Alert. + +Then there is the Challenge Not to Be Denied. Here is a sample: +"_Accountant_.--Are you one of the progressive firms? If you are, you +want----" etc. Frequently one comes across the Facetious Advertiser. He +runs some such headline as this: "_Editor for Rent._" Or perhaps he +says: "'_Secretarial Services' For Sale._" In contrast to him is the +advertiser with the Tremulous Appeal. He may begin: "_Who Wants My +Services?_" And go on to say: "I am hard worker and steady, and willing +to go anywhere. Salary about $12 a week." Or perhaps he says: +"_Privilege_ of meeting man who can utilize my services." Or maybe it is +thus: "$15 per Week and an Opportunity." Such a very human ad as this is +likely to continue somewhat like this: + + Can you use a young man of twenty-one--one of really serious + purpose? I have had enough business experience and training to know + that to be of help I must do well whatever I am given to do. Of + course I am looking for a future--but I know that it does not + matter so much what I do as how I do it. Therefore, I believe any + reputable business holds a future. I am from Kansas, in New York on + my own resources and so must have $15 per week to start. I have a + high school education, and have read a great deal, and have + attended Business School. + +Next is the Poignant ad. The purest example of this which in my studies +I have discovered is headed: "_Who Will Talk With Me?_" A step beyond +this we come upon the Altogether Pitiful. I mean like the one I here +copy out: + + WILL you please find or give office employment to an educated, with + physical defect, young man; just a chance to work two weeks without + salary desired? + +Akin to the poignant situation-wanted advertisement is the Urgent: +"_Advertising Writer_, college man (Princeton), urgently needs +situation." Or: "_Proofreader_, educated young man, requires position +_immediately_." It is, such is the inference, defective philanthropy in +an employer to delay. A touching figure, too (because he does not +suspect that he is a touching figure), is the Cheery and Hopeful. We +have him here: "_Ambitious_ young American (28) desires position; will +try anything; moderate salary to start." + +A wily fellow is the Ingratiating advertiser. Sometimes he is a "Spanish +young man" who offers to work altogether without salary as Spanish +correspondent in some export house "where he could practice English." +Occasionally he is a "copy writer" who, wishing a position with an +agency or mercantile firm, is "willing to demonstrate ability for two +weeks before drawing salary." Now and then a still more positive +character baits the hook with the offer of gratis services. In this +morning's paper a stenographer releases the seductive declaration that +"one trial will demonstrate my value to you." + +A role played on the stage of the "Situations Wanted" page which I have +always much admired is that of the Highly Dignified. The Bold and +Confident Man, the Ingenious, the Tremulous, the Poignant, the Hopeful, +the Ingratiating--the voices of all these figures touch one with a sense +of the harsh clash of life, its trickiness, its vicissitudes, its pathos +and its tragedy. But "_A Gentleman_ of 50," who, "having a considerable +private income, desires dignified occupation; salary unimportant," +revives the poetic idea that (at any rate, now and then) God's in His +heaven and all's right with the world. The highly dignified advertiser +certainly is a very enviable character. It must be very nice to be able +to say, as in this advertisement before us: "_Light Occupation of an +Important Nature_ is sought by middle-aged gentleman capable of assuming +control and conducting any normal business enterprise." + +A very colorful feature of the "Situations Wanted" page is the +interesting qualifications frequently set forth. Glancing at the paper +in hand I find a young man of twenty-five who seeks a "permanent +position" with a publisher recommending himself as being "affable." Also +here is a "refined gentleman" who desires a "compatible" position and +lists among his accomplishments skill in the art of "tasty drawing." A +"keen discreet American" looking for a job with a "corporation" mentions +his "suave manners." A butler unemployed regards himself as "very nice." +A college graduate of twenty-eight who wants to "begin at the bottom" +asserts that he is a "fluent talker." A "young man with literary +ability" flings out the intimation that he "desires position where it +will be of some use." A dressmaker states that in her calling she is +"perfect." A clerk is "very smart at figures." A nurse puts forward her +asset as a "plain writer." You are pleased to discover that so many +people have a "pleasing personality." And that among stenographers there +are so many who may be described (they say) as an "attractive young +girl." Here is one who introduces herself as both "prepossessing" and +"brainy." A "woman of education" who seeks occupation at "anything +useful if there is friendliness" gives as her leading characteristic a +"sense of humor." Now and then the recommendations offered somewhat +mystify me, as in the advertisement of the lady, "age 29, fine +personality (widow of P. M. of F. and A. M.)." Then there is that great +company who have but one merit to display. They may be represented in +the "Female" column by the "_Respectable_ young woman" who "wishes day's +work." And in the "Male" column by the "_Sober_ man" who (simply) +"desires position." Sometimes here it is difficult to determine the +degree of sobriety maintained, as in the frequent advertisement of the +chauffeur who discreetly states that he is "temperate." + +In case you should write down your idea of your own "appearance," what +would you say? I confess that such a problem would puzzle me. It does +not puzzle some. "Situation Wanted" ads record that there are numerous +young men of "exceptional appearance." Though occasionally we come upon +a young man of almost painful conscientiousness who feels that he should +not go further than to say that he is of "fair appearance." + +The queer dissimilarity of human aspirations echoes through the +"Situations Wanted" page. Here is a "_Gentleman_, excellent education +and personality, linguist," who wants a position as a companion, or +"courier, &c." A "_Highly_ educated French lady would gladly take a +child for walks every day from 10 to 12." A "_Lady_, 27, of literary +bent desires position as companion around the world." It is remarkable, +the number of persons there are in the world of "literary" tendency. +Remarkable, too, how many people with an inclination to travel. Here is +a "_Cornell Graduate_" who has, apparently, no aversion whatever to +spending the winter in "a warm climate." There are "_Two_ young men, +partners," who "wish to join an expedition, any destination." But there +are home-keeping souls, too. A "_Cultured_ elderly man, neat," craves +"household duties." And so on. + +What a rich variety of characters throng the populous scene of the +"Situations Wanted" page! Here, in today's paper, following the +advertisement of a "sculptor" comes that of a "former policeman." A +"_Physician_, practicing twenty years in Paris, speaking English, +French, Spanish, German, Italian, seeking situation," is cheek by jowl +with a "_Plumber_, good all round man." A young man who has "put 9 years +at sea as steward" nonchalantly asks "What have you?" A "_Former +College Professor_, 30, seeks field of occupation in advertising." And a +"_Cavalry_ man, excellent record, wishes position at anything." A +"_Cultured Visiting Governess_ of good family, social position, trains +ladies, English, grammar, literature, elegant correspondence, art of +conversation, current events, social etiquette." A remarkable +"gentleman" presents himself as "qualified to do most anything." And a +"Christian, age 38," wishes a position as "manager of a laundry." + +A strategic device frequently employed by the humble is that of getting +someone whose position has weight to present them. For instance, "Rev. +Dr. Moffett recommends a colored man for janitor of a loft building." +And numerous are the gentlemen who, laying up their cars, are interested +in placing their chauffeurs elsewhere. + +"_Boy_" is perhaps the word which dominates the page. Most boys, +apparently, are not particular in their choice of a calling. They are +"willing to do anything." Now and then one declares that he is a "good +fighter," or something like that. Here is one who demands a "position +where mental ability will be necessary." Here is another who is very +specific, thus: "15-1/2 years old, 5 feet 8-1/4 inches tall." + +Sometimes one meets a very extraordinary character in these columns. The +other day no less a distinguished person than this put in an ad: + + I am compelled, through severe strain, to discontinue my work + (involving the mental faculties) with which I have puzzled the + scientific world for several years, and which has netted me a + weekly income of over $200; I have no other source for a livelihood + and consequently appeal to the business world for an opportunity to + grow up in a new endeavor. WHY NOT MEET ME AND TALK IT OVER? + +A genuinely touching ad, sensible and obviously quite sincere, in which +you hear the appealing voice of a fellow being in trouble, but an ad +which I fear is rather futile, is one like this: + + Am 43 years old; defective hearing prevents continuation of + salesman's career; I want situation where this impairment does not + prevent satisfactory discharge of required duties. + +A great, and a grave, lesson may be learned from the "Situations Wanted" +page. And that is to be found mainly in the section where the first word +of each advertisement is simply "MAN." Men there are in it of every age. +I mean in considering the plight of the world one should ponder that +great army whose business is "anything." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +LITERARY LIVES + + +"My God!" exclaimed the old lady in the railway carriage to Mr. Le +Gallienne, "Tennyson is dead!" + +Have not many of us as we have turned the daily papers these last +several years frequently experienced the sensations of this dear old +lady? Whistler, Swinburne, Meredith, Henry James, Howells. They are +dead. Walt Whitman (wasn't it?), when he heard that Carlyle was dead, +went out, and looked up at the stars, and said he didn't believe it. + +We have been stirred to these emotional reflections by chancing to come +early this afternoon in the Main Reading Room of the New York Public +Library upon what would commonly be called a well-known book of +reference. We had no intention of doing more than peer into it. Night +found us there--the book still open before us. + +The excellent Solomon Eagle (otherwise known as J. C. Squire), in one of +his delightfully gossipy, though erudite, papers contributed to _The New +Statesman_ of London (collected, many of them, into a volume, bearing +the title "Books in General"), remarks of works of reference that they +"are extremely useful; but they resemble Virgil's Hell in that they are +easy things to get into and very difficult to escape from." He +continues: + + Take the Encyclopaedia. I imagine that my experience with it is + universal. I have only to dip my toe into this tempting morass and + down I am sucked, limbs, trunk and all, to remain embedded until + sleep or a visitor comes to haul me out. A man will read things in + the Encyclopaedia that he would never dream of looking at + elsewhere--things in which normally he does not take the faintest + interest.... + + "Who's Who" takes me in the same way. Ordinarily I have no + particular thirst for it. I should not dream of carrying it about + in my waistcoat pocket for perusal on the Underground Railway. But + once I have allowed myself to open it, I am a slave to it for + hours. This has just happened to me with the new volume, upon which + I have wasted a valuable afternoon. I began by looking up a man's + address; I then read the compressed life-story of the gentleman + next above him (a major-general), wondering, somewhat idly, whether + they read of each other's performances and whether either of them + resented the possession by the other of a similar, and unusual, + surname. Then I was in the thick of it. + +Even so. But an afternoon spent in reading, straight along, the work of +reference we have in mind could not be called wasted. Indeed, quite the +contrary; such an afternoon could be nothing less than one of those +spiritual experiences which suddenly give a measure of growth to the +soul. + +The work which we came upon, in the circumstances indicated, was "The +Dictionary of National Biography"; and the volumes which, by chance, we +took down were Volumes II. and III. of the Second Supplement of the +Dictionary. They contain, these volumes, memoirs of 1,135 noteworthy +English persons dying between January 22, 1901, and December 31, 1911. +The alphabet extends from John Faed, artist, to George, Lord Young, +Scottish Judge. The contributors number 357; the list of these names is +a roll of the most distinguished, in all departments, in the English +Nation of our day. This publication, we should say, is the most +interesting to English-speaking people, as in all probability it is the +most important, generally, issued within at any rate the year of its +publication. And though we cannot rid ourselves of a melancholy feeling +in contemplating this survey of the great stream of brilliant life +ended, we feel there is more good reading for the money in these pages +than in any other book one is likely to come across at random. + +The toll these ten years have taken! The chronicle is here of some born +to greatness, like Queen Victoria; of those, like Cecil Rhodes, who have +achieved it. And the stories are told of some whom the world's fame +found but within the last hour, then dead: John Millington Synge +(contributed by John Masefield), and Francis Thompson (by Everard +Meynell). + +The proportion of biographies of men of letters predominates in +considerable measure. Science follows in the list, then art. The least +but one, sport, is the law. Among the names of women, forty-six in +number, are Florence Nightingale, Kate Greenaway, Charlotte Mary Yonge, +and Mrs. Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes). + +Three illustrious lives entered the twentieth century in England as full +of years as of honors. Meredith, Whistler, and Swinburne were born in +the Spring of the nineteenth century, in 1828, 1834, and 1837 +respectively, and the bloom of their days was with the giants, now +legends, of the Victorian reign. The Kings in the history of art and +letters have been--have they not?--gallant men. We suspect that it takes +a gallant man to be a King in these callings. Of these three--two +wished to be soldiers--the most gallant spirit was the great-grandson of +a rather grand tailor. + +He won what men can and he bore what men must, is some ancient line. + +The most extensive article in these volumes is the "Meredith," by Thomas +Seccombe. It is the richest. Twelve pages is its compass. As a biography +we are disposed to rank it with--let's see?---Froude's "Carlyle" (4 +vols. 8vo.). Perhaps, on the whole, it is better. To go into any detail +in our notice of the appearance of these books, and maintain any +perspective, would carry us to a vast length. The bibliographer is +deeply impressed with the character of Meredith, as a man, throughout +his life, of noble aspect. His critical verdict reduced to one word is: +"Thoroughly tonic in quality, his writings are [as Lamb said of +Shakespeare] essentially manly." This is one of the pictures which most +brightly sticks in our head: + + On the terrace in front of the chalet, whence he descended to + meals, he was often to be heard carrying on dialogues with his + characters, and singing with unrestrained voice. Whimsical and + sometimes Rabelaisian fabrications accompanied the process of + quickening the blood by a spin [a favorite word with him] over + Surrey hills. Then he wrote his master works, ... and welcomed his + friends, often reading aloud to them in magnificent recitative, + unpublished prose or verse. + +If there is anything upon which an article could be "based" not included +in Mr. Seccombe's list of sources, it's a queer thing. + +The "Swinburne" is furnished by Edmund Gosse, whose adequate equipment +for the task includes "personal recollections extending over more than +forty years." Passages of his portrait of the radiant poet are the most +colorful in these volumes of the Dictionary. By way of critical +discussion the writer says: "It is a very remarkable circumstance, which +must be omitted in no outline of his intellectual life, that his +opinions, on politics, on literature, on art, on life itself, were +formed in boyhood, and that though he expanded he scarcely advanced in +any single direction after he was twenty. If growth had continued as it +began, he must have been the prodigy of the world. Even his art was at +its height when he was five and twenty." The Whistler article is by Sir +Walter Armstrong (who writes also on Holman Hunt) and is, one feels, the +most judicial summary that has appeared on the most controversial +subject, one can readily recall, of the epoch closed. A very clear +statement of a principle of the art of painting is this: "For years his +work bore much the same relation to Japanese art as all fine painting +does to nature. He took from Japanese ideals the beauties he admired, +and re-created them as expressions of his own personality." + +There is one delightful anecdote, in E. V. Lucas's sketch of Phil May. +His Punch editor, Sir Francis Burnand, tells a story to the effect that +on being asked at a club for a loan of fifty pounds, May produced all he +had--half that amount--and then abstained from the club for some time +for fear of meeting the borrower, because he felt that "he still owed +him twenty-five pounds." + +Sensible persons will read with satisfaction the just article by T. F. +Henderson on that fine figure Henley, "one of the main supports," said +Meredith, "of good literature in our time." Many good folks will like to +look up Leslie Stephen, the first editor of this Dictionary, "who +enjoyed the affectionate admiration of his most enlightened +contemporaries." The article is by the present editor, Sir Sidney Lee. +AEsthetically minded persons may read about William Sharpe. Among the +painters are Watts (biographer, Sir Sidney Colvin) and Orchardson. The +"Seymour Haden" is furnished by A. M. Hind. Memoirs of Sir Henry Irving, +Sir Theodore Martin, and Herbert Spencer come in this supplement. And so +on. A piece of American history is related here, too, in the account of +Edward Lawrence Godkin, founder of _The Nation_. + +A subject of emotional literary controversy at the present moment is +treated by Thomas Seccombe in his article on George Gissing. The general +qualities of the Dictionary may be clearly observed in this notice. When +the first volume of this second supplement--A to Evans--was issued not +long ago rumors reached us of some agitation occasioned in England by +the unepitaphical character of the memoirs of Edward VII. Well, +discrimination was not made against a King. The frankness of this high +tribunal in its calm recital of facts is striking. + +After some steady reading of the great Dictionary we wonder if printed +forms had been sent to the contributors, upon which they composed, in +answer to the questions there, their articles: the order of progress of +all the memoirs is, in effect, so uniform. Each says at (it appeared) +about the same point: His appearance was this. Each seems to conclude +with a list of the portraits. + +And this idea recalled to us a story. A foreigner entering our country's +gates, upon being asked to fill out papers setting forth his +nationality, age, color, and so on, wrote beside the query, +"Business?"--"Rotten." In this intelligent interpretation of the +question, the "business" of many whose lives are recorded in honor here +was "rotten" for many a long year. + +The story of literature has not ceased to be a sorry story; still, as +was said on a time, comparable to the annals of Newgate. A tale it +continues, in a large measure, of outcast experience, of destitution, +"seeking a few pence by selling matches or newspapers," or development +through suffering, of hospital sojourns, of contemplated suicide, of +unfortunate "amorous propensities," of "ill-considered" marriage, of +that immemorial "besetting weakness," of "a curious inability to do the +sane, secure thing in the ordinary affairs of life," of "ordering his +life with extreme carelessness in financial matters," of the weariness +of reward for work of high character long deferred, of charitable +legacies "from a great-aunt." + +Mr. Wells speaks somewhere of the amazing persistency of the instinct +for self-expression. Where it exists, one reflects in musing on these +biographies, you can't kill it with a club. + +Very imposing we felt the literary style of this Dictionary to be. It +treats of a man much as if he were a word, say, in the Century +Dictionary. This is the sort of biographical writing, we said, that a +man with whiskers can read. It does sound something like a court +calendar. Its tone is omniscient, indeed. But the Recording Angel here +does not drop a tear upon the oath of any Uncle Toby and blot it out +forever. No. He says, of one we tremble to name, "his language was often +beyond the reach of apology." Fine is the dignity with which sordid +things are related. "The return journey he was under the necessity of +performing on foot." Almost grotesque is the neglect of the caressing +touch of sentiment. "His own wish was to be a jockey." The treatment of +the theme of love is entertaining. "At the age of nineteen he married." + +August is the passivity in the presence of the Reaper who mows the +golden grain. Without poetry, oh, Death, where is thy sting! In these +volumes, of none is it sighed: At twilight his spirit fled. Had he but +lived ...! It is: He died December 14, 1908. He left no issue. A fair +portrait of him by Charles Ricketts is in the possession of Mr. Edmund +Gosse. + +We arose after several hours' reading with a sense of having perused for +a space two recent volumes of the Book of Judgment. We were full of +emotion. We felt the mystery of the destiny of man. How admirable he is +and how pitiful! Throbbing, we went forth into the throbbing city. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +SO VERY THEATRICAL + + +There is a young woman I thought of taking there for luncheon the other +day, but when I called for her it did not seem to me that she had used +her lip-stick that morning--and so we went somewhere else. + +She is pretty good-looking and was dressed not at all unfashionably. She +would have done all right at the Waldorf, or at the Vanderbilt, or +Biltmore, or Ritz-Carlton, or Ambassador. Indeed, I don't know but that +at some such place as that I should have been rather proud of her. + +But, you see, for the place I had in mind her skirt was a little too +long--it came almost halfway to her ankles. Her bosom was quite covered. +She moves with fair grace, but without striking sinuousness. And I +suddenly recollected that she does not smoke much. + +No; I saved myself just in time; I should have been chagrined, +embarrassed, most decidedly uncomfortable; she would have been +conspicuous. I should probably have lost caste with the waiters, too; +and not again have been able to get a table after the plush rope had +been thrown across the entrance to the dining-room; which, so keen is +competition for places there, is shortly before one o'clock. + +If you know where this place is, why, of course, all right. But nobody +has any business to go shouting all over the housetops exactly where it +is. People who aren't just naturally by temperament a part of the +picture oughtn't to know how to find it. Though it is a perfectly good +bet that bunches of them would like to know. + +But that's just the way so many of these havens of the elect get ruined. +A lot of curious "visitors" go piling in right along; the scene soon +loses all its authenticity; and shortly becomes bogus altogether. Why, I +can remember when artists--painters and writers--lived in Greenwich +Village. There, in those days.... But all that was years ago. + +This much only will I tell you about the location of the most +_distingue_ place there is in which to have luncheon. The centre of the +inhabited world is, of course, Longacre Square, that widened curving +stretch of Broadway looking north several blocks from the narrow stern +of the gracefully towering Times Building, rising from its site of a bit +of an island surrounded by four surging currents of traffic. A few miles +away (from Longacre Square) the provinces begin. But there, the most +gleaming spot on this our globe under the canopy of the purple night, is +the quintessence, the apex of human life.... I am here speaking, of +course, in the spirit of those of that nomad race whose hopes for gold +and fame lie through the "stage entrance"--I mean the ladies and +gentlemen of the theatre. + +To the east just off Longacre Square along the crosstown streets is a +medley of offices of divers theatrical and screen journals, chop-houses, +and innumerable band-box hotels whose names doubtless only a district +messenger boy could recite in any number. The particular one for which +we are headed is famous enough to those familiar with fame of this +character. Here the "Uncle Jack" of the American stage, Mr. Drew, for +some time made his residence. It is always the stopping place in New +York of perhaps the finest of our novelists, Joseph Hergesheimer. That +mystical Indian gentleman, Mr. Rabindranath Tagore, has found it a not +unworthy tent on his western pilgrimages. And so on. + +You cannot be long in its rich little lobby without overhearing struck +the high note of its distinctive clientele. "Where do you open?" asks +someone of someone else. And the answer is not unlikely to be: "At +Stamford. When do you close?" In the subdued light bare satin arms and +enspiriting lengths of colorful stocking flash from the deep chairs +where feminine forms are waiting. A graceful hand opens a telephone +booth to expel a smoking cigarette. + +Here enters Walter Prichard Eaton, come down from his Berkshire farm for +the height of the theatrical season. A tall, leisurely, very New +Englandish, smooth-shaven young man, now coming decidedly grey just over +the ears. Entering the dining-room we come plump against our old friend +Meredith Nicholson lunching with a bevy of friends. A youthful fifty +perhaps now, the author of one of the best sellers of any day, "The +House of a Thousand Candles." Clean-shaven, with a physiognomy +suggesting that of a Roman senator. What has brought him just now from +Indiana? Well, he is revolving in his mind the idea of writing a new +play, as soon, he adds, as he "can find the right ink." Hasn't been +able to get hold of any that just suited him. + +But much more important to his mind, apparently, than this play is +another mission in which he has become involved. He is going to have +himself "mapped," that is, have his horoscope cast. Yes, by one of the +ladies of his party, who, it appears, is eminent as a professor of this +science, now rapidly coming into a period of great vogue. When he has +supplied her with the data concerning his birth she will reveal to him +the course of his career through 1922. + +On a number of the tables are cards marked "Reserved." Around two sides +of the room upholstered seats running the length of the wall seat +couples in greater intimacy of tete-a-tete side by side before their +little tables. Most of the young women present--but could you really +call many of them young women?... Their most striking feature, after the +dizziness of their beauty, and the ravishing audacity of their clothes, +is the bewitching tenderness of their years. More than several of these +dainty, artfully rose-cheeked smokers look to be hardly past seventeen. +Their foppishly dressed male companions frequently are in effect far +from anything like such youth; and in a number of cases are much more +likely to remind you of Bacchus than of Apollo. + +Two of these misses nearby are discussing with one another their +"doorman." "Isn't he," exclaims one, "the very dearest old doorman you +have ever seen in all of your whole life!" Yes, it would seem that, +peering down the long vista of the past, from out of their experience of +hundreds of theatres, neither of these buds of womanhood could recall +any doorman so "dear" as their present one. + +The dominant group in the room is a gay and populous party about a large +round table in the centre. And undoubtedly the dominant figure of this +party is, you recognize, Alexander Woollcott, dramatic critic of the New +York _Times_, invariably at this same table at this same hour, a very +spirited, a very round plump young man, very dapper to the end of every +hair in his trim little black moustache. Next to him who is that? Why, +goodness me! if it isn't Edna Ferber, who, though I doubt not she would +not want to be counted in the fledgling class of some of our soubrette +friends here, indeed does seem to be getting younger all the while. + +Joining this party now is an odd and rather humorous looking figure, +tall, amusingly stooping and amusingly ample of girth for a character of +such apparently early manhood, an intensely black crop of hair and a +very blackish streak of moustache, soft collar, unpressed clothes. Sits +down, hooping himself over his plate with a suggestion of considerable +shyness. Gives you an impression, perhaps by the brightness of his eyes, +of Puckish mirth playing within his mind. Heywood Broun. + +At the table on our right we perceive a very popular lady known to us, +Miss Margaret Widdemer, or, as she now is, Mrs. Robert Haven Schauffler. +Her general air breathing the simplicity of a milkmaid amid this scene. +Under her mammoth floppy hat reminding you of an early summer rose. She +is discussing with a spectacled person who looks as if he might have +something to do with book publishing whether her next book should be a +light romance on the order of her "Wishing-Ring Man" and "Rose Garden +Husband" or she should come into the new movement of serious "Main +Street" kind of realism. + +And there, on our left, certainly is a publisher, Mr. Liveright of the +firm of Boni and Liveright. Young fellow, thirty-five perhaps. Maybe he +is talking about some of his striking successes, such as "Potterism" and +"From Mayfair to Moscow." With him Ludwig Lewisohn, literary and +dramatic critic. + +Back of us we detect young Burton Rascoe, former literary editor of the +Chicago Tribune, newly arrived in New York as managing editor of +_McCall's Magazine_, and to whom (by the way) the suppressed novel +"Jurgen" was dedicated. You wouldn't think anybody would be so frowning +as to want to suppress Mr. Rascoe. He looks as if he might be twin +brother to any dewy bud here. + +Who is that he is with? Theodore Maynard, I declare. Young English poet, +critic and novelist. And the other side of him is a gentleman, Oliver +Saylor by name, who at the height of the revolution went to Russia to +study the Russian drama, and engrossed in aesthetics lived for a time in +quarters midway between the contending military forces. Beyond we see a +young lady recently come on from Ted Shawn's song and dance studio in +Los Angeles. + +And yonder you see a young man who is just as dear and sweet as he can +be. He served his country during the war by knitting a sweater and a +"helmet" for a poet he knew in the army in France. He, this dainty +youth, looks pretty much lip-sticked himself. In order not to sin +against daintiness this young person has a habit of powdering his nose. +A coarse friend of his forbade his doing this, and the next time he met +him neatly powdered rebuked him for it. Whereupon the young man replied: +"Oh! You wouldn't (would you?) let a little powder come between +friends." + +And, finally, here most happily we are ourselves. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +OUR STEEPLEJACK OF THE SEVEN ARTS + + +There is a rather frisky looking apartment house there now, a pastry +shop and tea room occupying the ground floor--behind it, the other side +of a venerable brick wall, a tiny, ancient burying ground. But in days +of yester-year here stood a tavern of renown, the Old Grape Vine, which +on this site, Sixth Avenue at Eleventh Street, had given cheer since +Sixth Avenue was little more than a country road. A sagging, soiled +white, two-story frame structure, with great iron grill lamps before the +door. Within, the main room was somewhat reminiscent of London's Olde +Cheshire Cheese. + +The proprietor was a canny Scot, one MacClellan. ("Old Mac"! Whither has +he gone?) I was coming along by there the other day, and I asked a man +with whom I chanced to walk if he remembered the Old Grape Vine. "Ah! +yes;" he said; "they had mutton pies there." They did. And excellent +ale, also, served in battered pewter mugs. "They" had here, too (some +fifteen years ago), excellent society beneath the dingy light. Roaring, +roistering George Luks (as he was then) very much to the fore. At the +rickety mahogany table where Frans-Halsian George held forth frequently +was to be found the painter William J. Glackens and his brother "Lew," +humorous draughtsman for _Puck_. Ernest Lawson sometimes came in. A Mr. +Zinzig, a very pleasant soul and an excellent pianist and teacher of the +piano, often was of the company. A Mr. FitzGerald, art critic in those +days of the _Sun_, sometimes "sat in." And a delightful old cock, Mr. +Stephenson, art critic then of the _Evening Post_. Among the most +devoted habitues of the place was an old-school United States army +officer turned writer of military stories. (When the proceedings had +progressed to a certain stage of mellowness it was his habit to go home +and return directly arrayed in his uniform.) There was, too, a queer +figure of a derelict journalist associated with _Town Topics_. There was +an inoffensive gentleman of leisure whose distinction was that he was +brother to a famous Shakespearean scholar. (As the hour grew late he +would begin to whistle softly to himself through his teeth.) There was a +rotund being of much reading who perpetually smoked a very old pipe and +who was editor of a tobacco journal. There was a man of the sea who +continually told stories of Japan. (After eleven he was somewhat given +to singing.) There was an illustrator for a tu'penny magazine, who (so +as to seem to be a large staff) signed a variety of names to his work. +From the land of R. L. S., he. One time while in a doze (somewhere else) +he was robbed. His comment upon his misfortune became a classic line. It +was: "By heaven! As long as whiskey is sold to lose ten dollars is +enough to drive a Scot mad!" (This was long before anybody had ever +heard of the now illustrious Mr. Volstead.) And many more there were. +Ah, me! ah, me! How the picture has changed! + +Well, the point of all this (if it have any point) is that it was in the +Old Grape Vine (of tender memory) that I first saw James Gibbons +Huneker. I think that, in his promenades as an impressionist, he was +there but seldom. Though we know that high among the Seven Arts he rated +the fine art of drinking Pilsner. The old places of Martin's and +Luechow's (headquarters on a time for the musical cognoscenti) were ports +of call on his rounds; and he moved freely, I believe, among the places +of refreshment along the foreign quarter of lower Fourth Avenue. At the +Grape Vine, I understand, he was an especial friend of Luks, and +probably of Glackens and Lawson. And, though he was a very famous man, +he seemed to like the motley company. + +Ten or twelve years ago I was earning a living more honestly than +perhaps I have been making one since. I was a clerk in a book store--the +retail department, it happened, of the house which publishes Mr. +Huneker's books. And there, from my position "on the floor," I +frequently saw him moving in and out. Moving rather slowly, with the +dignity of bulk. A distinguished figure, quietly but quite neatly +dressed, very erect in carriage, head held well back, supporting his +portliness with that physical pride of portly men, a physiognomy of +Rodinesque modelling--his cane a trim touch to the ensemble. He was, I +distinctly remember, held decidedly in regard by the retail staff +because he was (what, by a long shot, a good many "authors" were not) +exceedingly affable in manner to us clerks. + +The moment I have particularly in mind was when Samuel Butler's volume +"The Way of All Flesh" first appeared in an American edition. We all +know all about Butler now. But, looking back, it certainly is +astonishing how innocent most all of us then were of any knowledge of +the great author of "Erewhon." Even so searching a student of literature +as W. C. Brownell was practically unacquainted with Butler. He was +taking home a copy of "The Way of All Flesh" to read. Mr. Huneker was +standing by. In some comment on the book he remarked that Butler had +been a painter. "A painter!" exclaimed Mr. Brownell, in a manner as +though wondering how it came about he knew so little of the man. "But +this," said Mr. Huneker, referring to the novel, "is not his best stuff. +That is in his note-books." Brownell: "And where are they?" Huneker: "In +the British Museum." Mr. Brownell made a fluttering gesture (as though +to express that he "gave up") toward Mr. Huneker: "He knows everything!" +he ejaculated. + +We should, of course, be surprised now that anybody _did not_ know that +Butler had been a painter. When, just a short time ago, W. Somerset +Maugham adapted for the purposes of his sensational novel "The Moon and +Sixpence" the character and career of Paul Gauguin, it was in the pages +of Huneker that many first looked for, and found, intelligence +concerning the master of the Pont Aven school of painting. Well, Gauguin +is now an old story. And Ibsen, Tolstoy, Wagner, Richard Strauss, +Rimbaud, De Gourmont, Nietzsche, Meredith, Henry James, William James, +Bergson, Barres, Anatole France, Flaubert, Lemaitre, Huysmans, +Maeterlinck, Baudelaire, Stirner, Strindberg, Faguet, Shaw, Wilde, +George Moore, Yeats, Synge, Schnitzler, Wederkind, Lafargue, Rodin, +Cezane, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, George Luks, that wondrous "flock of +Unicorns"--they all are old stories, too ... now. But it was our +Steeplejack, James Huneker, who was our pioneer watcher of the skies. +And what in the large sweep of his vision of the whole field of the +world's beauty he saw, he reported with infinite gusto. "Gusto," as H. +L. Mencken in the Huneker article of his "Book of Prefaces" says, +"unquenchable, contagious, inflammatory." + +The extent of the personal contact which Mr. Huneker enjoyed and +maintained with the first-rate literary men of the world was amazing. +While I was with the book shop I speak of, "presentation copies" of each +new book of his, to be sent out "with the compliments of the author," +were piled up for forwarding literally several feet high. They went to +all the great in letters, in every country, that you could think of. +Anatole France, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, George Brandes, Edmund +Gosse, George Moore--people like that. + +Vast was the incoming stream of books to him, presentation copies, +review copies, "publicity" copies; so great a flood that it was +necessary for him periodically to call in an old book man to clear his +shelves by carting away a wagon-load or two of--genuine treasure. A +catalogue I one time saw of such volumes "from the library of James +Huneker" was sufficient in riches to have been the catalogue of the +entire stock of a very fair shop dealing in "association" volumes, first +editions, and so forth. And a survey of the books themselves made it +quite apparent that a reader who has read every word that Huneker ever +printed (and that would be a person who had read a good deal) may yet +(very likely) be a reader who has not read some of the best of Huneker. +I refer to "Jimmie's" humorous, pungent marginalia. + +Mr. Huneker's close friends have taken occasion since his death to speak +warmly of his kindness toward obscure, struggling talent. There was a +side to him, akin to this, which I have not seen commented upon. +Huneker's fame as a critic had been for years accepted throughout +Europe. When his "New Cosmopolis" was published (a book I did not myself +think so highly of) Joyce Kilmer, then newly come to journalism, +reviewed it for the New York _Times_, very eulogistically. Mr. Huneker +went to the trouble of looking up Kilmer to thank him very simply for +his praise. + +Mr. Huneker was a loyal and disinterested servant of good literature +wherever he found it, and his happily was the power to be an ambassador +to success. So short a time as about four years ago very few people had +heard of William McFee. "Aliens," his first book, had met with no +appreciable success. The manuscript of "Casuals of the Sea" (or the +English "sheets" of the book, I do not recall which) came into the hands +of a publishing house at Garden City. A member of the editorial staff of +this house at this time was Christopher Morley. And I happened at the +moment to have a job as sort of handy man at editorial chores around the +premises. Morley immediately became a great "fan" for the book. +Undoubtedly a fine book, and it was accepted, but (there was a question) +could it be "put across"? It was very long, not of obviously popular +character, and the author's name commanded no attention at all. + +The first "advance" copy of the book sent out went (at Morley's +direction) to Mr. Huneker. He was then writing regularly critical +articles for something like a half dozen publications. "Casuals of the +Sea" (such things did not turn up every day) was a "find" for his +enthusiasm, He "pulled" two columns of brilliant Hunekerean firecrackers +about it in the New York _Sun_; wrote another article of length on the +book for the New York _Times_; gave the volume a couple of paragraphs of +mention in his department on the Seven Arts at that time running in +_Puck_, and perhaps mentioned the book elsewhere also. With the weight +of such fervor and authority "Casuals" was most auspiciously launched. +It could not now, by any chance, be passed by. + +I do not, of course, mean to imply that there was anything artificial or +"manufactured" about the "vogue" of "Casuals." First, Mr. Huneker was +not a reviewer but a critic, if not thoroughly a great one, certainly a +very real one; and about the last man going who could be got to "push" +anything he did not whole-heartedly believe was fine. And secondly, +"Casuals" had "the goods." + +Through my connection with the matter of "Casuals" I suppose it was that +a correspondence came about between Mr. Huneker and me. And in all my +days I have never seen so energetic a correspondent. It seems to me that +I got a letter from him about every other morning. I dropped out of the +publishing business and went to Indiana for a time. I let him know when +I got there, my motive in this being mainly to notify him that I _was_ +out of the publishing business and so was no longer in a position to +give any business attention to letters relating to books. But letters +from him continued to reach me with the same regularity. While, I +hardly need say, I enjoyed this correspondence enormously, I was +decidedly embarrassed by it, as I could not but keenly feel that I was +taking up his time to no purpose. Still, of course, I felt that I should +answer each letter of his without an impolite delay, and no sooner did +he get my reply than he answered back again. Gradually, however, we got +the thing slowed down. + +His letters were prodigal of witty things. I am afraid I have not kept +them; if so I do not know where they are--I move about a good deal. One +neat play of words I remember. I do not know whether or not he himself +ever used it elsewhere. I did use it in a book, giving due credit to Mr. +Huneker. I had told him that I was going in for writing on my own. His +comment was: "He that lives by the pen shall perish by the pen." Some of +his letters, I recall, were signed, "Jim, the Penman." + +And it was no simple trick to read them. He used a pale ink. The +handwriting was small, curious, and to me almost illegible. Why +compositors did not mob him I do not know. He wrote everything by hand; +never would learn to use a typewriter, and declared that he could not +acquire the faculty of dictation. + +This leads me to the story of one of the articles he contributed to _The +Bookman_. When, upon my return to New York, I became (for a time) editor +of this magazine I pursued him for contributions. Yes, later on he would +send us something, but always it was later on, later on. I had about +given up hope of ever getting anything from him when a bulky wad of +closely-written "copy" on yellow paper arrived. Expecting that it would +take me a couple of days to decipher the manuscript, I joyously +acknowledged receipt of it at once, without a thought of questioning the +nature of the article. When I tried to read the article, after I had +held the first page sidewise, next upside down, then examined it in a +mirror, I "passed the buck" and sent the copy straight on to the +printers. If printers had read him before printers ought to be able to +do so again. I advertised the article to appear in the next number of +the magazine. When I got the article back in galley proofs--I got a +jolt. It wasn't "_Bookman_ stuff" at all, all about a couple of "old +rounders," as Mr. Huneker called them, taking a stroll. + +I do not think that Mr. Huneker has as yet since his death, to the time +these rambling remarks are being written, received anything like +adequate recognition in the press. The "obituary" articles in the +newspapers have carried the air that he was hardly more than an +excellent "newspaper man"--somewhat older, but something like (dare I +say?) Heywood Broun or Alexander Woollcott. Ah! no; James Huneker was a +critic and an artist, and a figure, too, in our national life. Though he +was all his days until almost his last breath a hard-working journalist +with an immediate "copy date" before him. And though he most naturally +thought of himself, with common-sense pride in his calling, as a +journalist. I remember his one time speaking of Arnold Bennett as "a +hard-working journalist as well as a novel writer." Indicating his great +esteem for the character of journalist. And he used to speak, too, with +fraternal pride and affection in inflection, of young men who had +written good books, as being among "our men," meaning associated with +the same paper as himself. + +At the remarkable funeral service held in the new Town Hall in New York +high and touching honor was done his memory by the stage and the musical +profession, but literature seemed to be officially represented by the +person of Richard Le Gallienne alone, and painting and sculpture not at +all. The articles by Mr. Huneker's colleagues among music critics have +seemed very largely to claim him as quite their own. True, no doubt, his +most penetrating writing was done in the field of musical criticism. +But, also, Huneker was an evangel who belongs to the Seven Arts. + +One thing should be added. It is a sad thing, but it is of the nature of +life. A good editorial in _The New Republic_ began: "James Huneker named +one of his best books 'The Pathos of Distance.' In a single day his own +figure is invested with the memorial gentleness there described." No, +not altogether in a single day. He had already begun, and more than +begun, to recede into the pathos of distance. His _flair_ was for the +championship and interpretation of the "new" men. And, for the most +part, his new men had become old men. His stoutest admirer must admit +that Mr. Huneker's work was "dated." + +But where (and this is sadder still) is his like today? + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +FORMER TENANT OF HIS ROOM + + +There are certain things which must be done, to yield their best, when +one is young. For one thing, there is only one time in life to run away +to sea. If you did not run away to sea when you were a lad, it is too +late now for you to get any sport out of it. 'Tis something the same +with living in a garret or in a hall bedroom. If you did not read +"Robinson Crusoe" when you were a boy there is no use for you to read it +now; you will not understand it. There are some other things you can +enjoy when you are old--grandchildren, for instance. But the time to +come up to a great city is when one is young. The time to walk up +Broadway at night, and feel a gusto about it, and Fifth Avenue by day, +is when one is young. That is an enchanted time, when it is a fine +dashing thing to be doing, to live at a second-rate boarding house; when +discouragement is adventure; when it is worth while even to be poor; +when one makes life-long friends at sight; when young love is sipped; +when courage is ever stout in one's breast; when one's illusions are +virgin yet; and all's right with the world. At that season one can swell +with a rich personal pride in "Shanley's" and, almost at the same time, +eat one's own theatre supper in a "Dairy Lunch" room, where every +customer is his own waiter as well, and where his table is the broadened +arm of his chair against the wall. + +Richard Day, student at the law, munched his egg sandwich (egg sandwich +was the favorite dish at the "Dairy Lunches" until eggs got so high) and +drank his coffee from a cup that remarkably resembled in shape a shaving +mug and was decorated in similar fashion. The blocks of sugar (two for +Richard) for this stimulating beverage (made out of chicory) were taken +by the customer with his fingers from a heaping-full sort of great +punch-bowl mounted on a pedestal in the middle of the room. It was drawn +from a nickel-plated engine with glass tubes by a young man in a white +coat like a barber's, who served it, with crullers, piece of pie, or +sandwich, across a kind of little bar at the rear end of the long room. + +Day scorned the packed, parading trolley cars, and swung vigorously up +the street. Far up the thoroughfare an enormous electric sign (in its +size suggesting that it had been somehow brought back by Gulliver from +the country of Brobdingnag and mounted here upon a sturdy little +building for awful exhibition) its gigantic illuminated letters spelling +"Arthur Pendennis Ten Cent Cigar," lighted the mist for blocks +approaching it, and marked the north boundary of the dominion for +revelry. The sidewalks were much quieter now. One of those birds of the +urban night deftly wheeled his vehicle alongside our pedestrian and +pulled his clattering quadruped violently back upon its haunches until +it slid along the slippery pavement. "Cab, sir? Cab?" Then he whisked +away again. It was not long before Richard had entered into the district +of slumbering residences, and not much longer until he ran up the steps +before his own door, or, speaking more literally, his own landlady's +door. It is not much to mount three pairs of stairs in the brave days +when one is twenty-one, and Day was in the little room, where, rich only +in the glory of his rising sun, in his youth, he weathered it so long. + +This apartment was the width of the dark hall, which was face to face +with it, about fourteen feet long, and furnished in tune, so to speak. +An uncommonly small, old-fashioned, wooden bedstead, a bantam-size +"dresser," a washstand its shorter brother, a small table or "stand," +and two half-grown chairs, mature before their season, were the +principal articles of furniture. The room was heated by an oil stove +that had passed the age of vanity in one's appearance; it was lighted at +night by a gas-jet, without a globe; by day through a single window, +which occupied between a half and a third of the wall space of the front +end of the room, and which balanced in decorative effect with the door +at the other end. A row of books was arranged along the dresser top +against the lower part of the small looking-glass. Two pictures (the +property of Day), one of Lincoln and one of Roosevelt squinting in the +sunlight (this is a land where every young man may hope to be +President), were tacked on the walls. In company with these were a +combination calendar and fire-insurance advertisement and a card +displaying a lithographed upper part and idealistic legs of a blithe +young woman wearing, stuck on, a short, bright skirt made of sandpaper +and streaked with match-scratches, who in fancy letters was ingeniously +labelled "A Striking Girl." These bits of applied art were properties of +Mrs. Knoll's establishment. + +Day's dresser had several small drawers and a little square door. He had +one day discovered adhering to the back of this door a hardened piece of +chewing gum, and from this he had deduced that a former tenant of the +room had been a woman, presumably a young one (for surely there is an +age after which one knows better). He sometimes speculated on the +subject of the former tenant, and he was of three minds about her +vocation. Sometimes he thought she had been a school-teacher, sometimes +he thought an art student, and again a clerk in a store. He +reconstructed her as having had red hair and having been a bit frowsy. +But whatever she had been she had slept on a mighty hard little bed, and +he felt something like a tenderness for her on that account. + +When he had got home from the theatre, Richard sat on the edge of his +bed (it seemed always somehow the most natural place in the room to +sit), and smoked his pipe. One Christmas Day he and his bosom friend had +gone together and bought pipes exactly alike, then each had given his +to the other. Years later Day was compelled to give up smoking, and he +was never exactly the same again. But when he was young the gods blessed +him. He smoked his pipe out, then he slowly pulled off his shoes. That +is, he pulled off one shoe and sat abstractedly a considerable while +with it in his hand. He had many thoughts, mainly associated with an +unknown young lady he had seen that evening at the theatre. He wished he +had had on a different style of collar--and he would have had if his +laundryman had kept his word. However, he thought rather sadly what +booted it to him now. Then he roused himself, slowly undressed, put on +his pajamas (his mother had made them for him), turned off his light, +pulled up his window curtain (so the morning light would waken him), and +got into bed. + +Richard fell into a great many adventures in his night's sleep. He +fought bandits, with never any cartridges in his gun; he travelled +across plains that appeared to be constructed on the principle of a +treadmill; he visited sundry peculiar places and did divers queer things +with solemnity and without surprise. After a while it seemed to him +that he was somewhere talking with, or rather to, the former tenant of +his room. But the former tenant did not have red hair; her hair was the +loveliest brown; nor was she the least bit frowzy; she was the very +opposite extreme to that. Nor clerk nor teacher nor student was she. She +was a bright princess. Her complexion had rather more of the rose than +of the lily. Her pure and eloquent blood spoke in her cheeks. She and +the lady he had seen at the theatre were one and the same person. He +could not make out exactly how he came to know she was the former +tenant, but that seemed to be considered so very well understood he felt +ashamed to speak about it. + +He was saying to her some of the cleverest things he had ever heard. He +surprised himself as he listened to himself; and he was much elated; for +if ever he wished to speak well, now was the time. Now Day was really a +very clever fellow, as well as a comely one (this is only a story of his +youth, but in after life he became a distinguished man), and, like all +very clever fellows, he was never perfectly happy except when his +talents were recognized and appreciated. Here in his dream he had come +into his own. It was a night to be marked with a white stone. One of the +things that particularly impressed him in this dream was his impression +that it was not a dream. + +In the morning it was always colder in Day's room than at night, and +always it seemed somehow lonesomer. It was bare then, and not cozy. To +come directly from such an especially comfortable dream into the cold, +grey dawn, and find one's window opaque with frost and one's breath like +steam in the air, requires a little time for one to adjust oneself to +the transition. Richard lay a little time generating courage to get up. +He did not immediately shake off his dream entirely; but crumbs of it +stuck to his mind, like the last of a fine cake on the face. But it was +as if his cake had turned cold in the mouth. He squirmed in bed with +embarrassment when he reviewed those clever things, on which he had so +plumed himself, that he had said to the former tenant. They were so very +poor and flat that he tried to stop his mind against the recollection of +them. And even the former tenant herself, as she faded now more into the +night, and he came more out into the morning, was like Cinderella as +she fled from the hall back to her kitchen. But Richard caught up the +crystal slipper that remained to him and in his bosom bore it forth into +the day. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +ONLY SHE WAS THERE + + +Directly in the intense emphasis of white light from an arc lamp +overhead, and standing about midway in the long, dark, thickly-packed +line of people waiting, was a young man decidedly above the middle +stature, in a long outer coat. He was broad in the shoulders, formed in +excellent proportion, apparently in about the first or second and +twentieth year of his age. His forehead was intelligent, his nose +exceptionally good, his mouth rather big and lips full, his chin round +and with a cleft in the centre. His hair, chestnut, moderately cropped, +discovered, what of it was visible below his hat, a decided inclination +to curl. He was redolent of health and the unmined masculine vigor +pertaining to his time of life. As the earliest ancestor of this kind of +historical writing would have said, "He was one of the handsomest young +fellows that hath ever been seen"; in short, he was not unlike one +Jones, Christian-named Tom. This young man was Richard Day, student of +the law, and he had come from his silent "furnished room" to refresh +himself, at a minimum cost, at the dramatic presentation of an immortal +story of love. + +On the occasions when the entertainment to be is of a superior order, +the price of admission is doubled or trebled, and the patrons of the +theatre gallery are of an exceptional character. They comprise school +teachers in abundance, miscellaneous students, matinee girls driven high +by the prohibitory prices below, young clerks, and a sprinkling from the +usual ranks of the gallery-god, the better sort of them, however, the +more wealthy and more aspiring. The original line containing Richard Day +had assembled an hour or so before time, to be on the spot at the +opening of the doors at a commendable production of "Romeo and Juliet." + +There came a sudden jolting, like the coupling of railroad cars, then a +denser packing of the line, a being pushed off one's balance and being +pressed back into it again, and slowly, jerkily, the crowd began to move +forward; then swept toward the entrance. The doors had been opened. As +the throng began to move, a woman's voice rose near Day ejaculating +breathlessly, "Oh! Oh!" Simultaneously a shrill cry arose, "Oh, there's +a sick lady here! a sick lady! Oh, please! Oh, please! Won't you make +room for a sick lady!" Day with all his force made what room he could, +conceiving that the thing desired was to get the stricken lady out in +the open as quickly as possible. A little peaked woman in a light coat +took instant advantage of the slight breach then opened, impetuously to +advance herself in the line. When the momentary gap had closed again, +piteously the crying was resumed, and it continued at intervals almost +the entire distance to the box-office, though it was in a slightly +different neighborhood and observably proceeded from exactly the point +of vantage gained by the little peaked woman; who, it might be inferred, +was a dual personality, comprising in the same lady both a sick lady and +another who was her good Samaritan and assumed the care of her. + +Nothing railed the crowd into a straight line on one side, though on the +other a wall held them so. The impatient crowding forward from the rear +convexed the outer edge of the line of people, much against the will of +those persons who found themselves being swept out of the direct way +and felt the main current surging past them. What was yet more agitating +to these was that ahead of them an iron railing did begin, at the foot +of some steps, fencing in a narrow approach to the ticket office. If +they should be swept past the mouth of this lane on the outside, their +chance of admittance was hopeless. Day stemmed the swerving current +himself by the strength of his body and by a kind of determined exercise +of his will. But he felt directly behind him someone less strong losing +hold with every step of advance; then suddenly this despairing someone, +realizing herself pushed quite to one side, with a little scream, caught +at his crooked arm; which he instantly, involuntarily clapped firmly +against him, hooking on in this manner and towing safely and rapidly +along someone frailer than himself. When they had come to the rail he +saw that he would get in by so narrow a margin himself that, himself +inside, he would then but tow her along outside, which of course would +be a less than useless thing for her. So he backed water, so to speak, +with all his might, bracing himself against the end of the rail, until +he had got a little space before him, around into which he drew her +whom he thought robbed of her place by the frantic selfishness of the +crowd. + +But in doing this, it seemed he had inadvertently held back for a moment +the little peaked woman, who was at his inside elbow. She, finding +herself delayed for a brief period almost at the goal in her desperate +bargain-counter sort of rush for the ticket-window, blew out into a +spitting cat kind of impotent fury. "Ain't you got no semblance of +decency! you great big brute!" she screamed in his ear. "Ain't you got +no ideas of gentlemanliness at all! If I was a man I'd teach you some +shame, tramplin' on a woman, a poor weak woman! a woman!" She fairly +writhed with scorn at this depravity. Day attempted to humble himself to +her, for her pacification; but another woman's getting in ahead of her +at that instant drove her almost mad, and her frenzy interfering for the +moment with her articulation she could only glare at him with an +expression suggesting some kind of feline hydrophobia. When her breath +returned more to her command she continued to revile him as they went +along. Although Day had done nothing to merit shame, he squirmed +inwardly with something not unlike that feeling, and he blessed the +general commotion which drowned a vixen's voice. He felt ashamed, too, +to be where he was, though he had not thought of it that way before; he +should not have brought himself into a crowd more than half of women. + +His reflections became rather abstract and levelled themselves somewhat +against the feminine temperament in general. He felt the littleness of +it (so he saw it), the peevishness of it; its inability to take +punishment good-naturedly; its incapacity for being a "good loser"; its +lack of the philosophic character which accepts humorously discomforts +and injustice, real as well as imagined; its lack of broadness of view; +its selfish lack of the sense of fair play; its +not-being-square-and-above-board way; its sneakiness, its deceitfulness; +the contemptible devices that it will resort to, assuming them to be its +natural weapons against a superior strength, both physical and of the +understanding. He knew that in a crowd of men if anyone of them had had +the despicable disposition of this woman his dread of the hearty, +boisterous ridicule of his fellow brutes which would inevitably have +followed his meanness would have forced him to stifle his temptation in +silence. He knew that there is no place where one may better learn to +appreciate what may be called the good-natured easy-goingness of the +male animal generally than in an uncomfortable crowd of men. He thanked +heaven he was of the superior sex. When a young man thanks heaven that +he is of the superior sex it may not be uninteresting to observe in what +manner he conducts himself subsequently. + +As fast as the crowd was served with tickets it ran up the multiplied +flights of stairs, moved in single file past the ticket-chopper, then on +to come out, high up, into the vast bowl of the theatre. Here from one's +seat the impression of the weird, ship-at-sea like effect of the curves +of the galleries, balconies, and tiers of boxes, sweeping back from the +light in front, dropping away from the vaulted ceiling; the impression +of being high up close under a great roof and far from the stage; the +impression of the myriads of vague elusive faces in the half-lit, thick, +scintillating atmosphere of the hot, crowded place; the impression of +the playhouse scheme of decoration, red walls and tinsel in the dusk, +cream color and tinsel bas-relief in the highly artificial yellow light, +casting purplest shadows, and the heroic mural paintings in blue and +yellow and green, the sense of the infinite moving particles of the +throng; the sense of its all facing one way, of the low hum of it, and +of its respiration--all this is stuff that puts one in the mood for a +play. The keen actualities fade and become the shadows; sense of one's +own life and vanity and disappointment slips away; one is to enjoy a +transmigration of soul for a brief time. "Now for the play!" thought +Richard. + +A man was climbing up the steps of the aisle, some distance away, +flinging an inadequate number of fluttering programs into the crowd. +None fell in Day's neighborhood, to the indignant consternation of all +there. A chorus of exclamatory sighs went up from a feminine flock just +settled at his right, all faces following the disappointing program +distributor. A stocky young man at Day's left hand arose, and clambering +out between the parallel two rows of seats, occupants getting on their +feet to allow him passage, started after the disappearing man of +programs. + +A full-throated feminine voice burst almost in Day's right ear: "Oh, +please tell him to get one for us!" Day lunged after the stocky young +man, reaching for his coat-tails, and cried out, "Hey there! Hey! +Fellow! Hold on!" until it was quite hopeless to continue. The sea of +people closed in between him and his quest; the stocky young man, his +ears plugged with the multitude of voices, shook himself free from the +narow, clogged passage, and was gone. Day turned to the owner of the +feminine voice, "He will bring a lot, I think; if not I'll get you +some," he said. And he caught an elusive impression of cheeks precisely +the color of cheeks that had just been smartly slapped, suggesting the +idea that if one should press one's finger against them one's finger +would leave streaks there when taken away; and he caught an impression +of eyes that were like deep, brimming pools reflecting lights; and an +impression of a cloud of dusky brown-like hair which reminded him of a +host of rich autumn leaves. She of these cheeks and eyes and this hair +was, apparently, in a party with two companions, whose peering faces +showed indistinctly beyond her. In one significance of the word, she +might have been called a girl, or she was a young woman, a miss, a lass, +a young lady, as you please; as were they her companions. Merry +school-girl spirits lingered in them all, supplemented by the grace and +dawning dignity of young womanhood. She was at that sweet nosegay +period when young ladies are just, as it is sometimes said, finishing +their education. Her age was that enchanted time, holiest of the female +seasons, which hangs between mature girlhood and full womanhood. Day +felt a suspicion, though without perceptible foundation, that this was +the very person he had towed along outside. + +The stocky young man returned presently, showing an uncommonly blunt +face and with the programs, which proved sufficient in number. There was +an interval in which to read them; then the huge place fell suddenly +much darker, except directly to the fore, which burst into great light; +the immense curtain majestically ascended, and the time was that of the +quarrels of the houses of Capulet and Montague in the sixteenth century. +Richard Day passed out of his body sitting upright on the seat and lived +in this incarnation of the master dramatist. + +But unwittingly he had inhaled a liquor, that was even then feeding his +blood; he was even then continuing to inhale it; it crept in at the +pores of his right side; it was stealing its sweet breath about his +brain. This liquor was the magnetism of a powerful pleasant young +feminine presence near to him--too near. Too near for a clean-cut young +man, in his second and twentieth year, redolent of health, with +moderately cropped chestnut hair inclined to curl, intelligent forehead, +good nose, rather big mouth, full lips, and round chin with a cleft in +the centre--too near for him even to remain in the hands of the master +dramatist. A warm glow suffused him. His intellectual perception of the +illuminated, noble spectacle before him in a frame of night numbed in +his brain and he was conscious only of the rich sensation that +circulated through him. Metaphorically, senses and emotions lolled on +rich colored divans, spread with thick rugs, in the tropical atmosphere +of his head. The magically spoken lines of Shakespeare became as so much +unfelt, unrecognized, distant sounding jargon. What he had come to be +thrilled by, as the dark, breathless audience like a sea about him was +thrilled, was in a moment nothing to him. And yet he had not touched +her, nor again spoken with her, nor glanced at her. + +Only she was there! + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A HUMORIST'S NOTE-BOOK + + +I admit that (though, indeed, I can claim a very fair collection of +authors as acquaintances) I share the popular interest in the +idiosyncratic nature of the literary profession. I am as curious as to +the occult workings of the minds of authors, the esoteric process by +which subtle insinuations of inspiration are translated into works of +literary art, as though I had never seen an author--off a platform. I +would read the riddle of genius. I am fascinated by its impenetrable +mysteries. I would explore the recesses of the creative head. + +Therefore, in the presence of the treasure of such incalculable value +which is before me, I experience tense intellectual excitement. In the +thought of its possession by myself I find the uttermost felicity. What +it is is this: it is _a humorous writer's note-book_. + +I must tell you the wonderful story--how this came into my hands, and +how, romantically enough, it is, so to say, by the bequest of the author +himself, your own possession. The strange circumstances are as follows: + +Something like a week ago I received through the post at my place of +residence an oblong package. It was similar in shape to an ordinary +brick; not so heavy, and somewhat larger. I had ordered nothing from a +shop, and so, as the parcel was plainly addressed to myself, I concluded +that it must contain a present. As I am very fond of presents, I was, +with much eagerness, about to open the package, when I suddenly +recollected the newspaper reports of the recent dastardly Bolshevist +bomb plots; the sending through the mails, by some apparently organized +agency, to prominent persons in all parts of the country these +skillfully disguised engines of death and destruction. They were +outwardly, I recalled, innocent looking parcels, which when opened blew +housemaids to bits, demolished dwellings and, in some instances, +accomplished the murder of the personage who had incurred the enmity of +the criminals. + +I bounded some considerable distance away from the object before me. +Though, after a moment, I did, indeed, reflect that I was not what +would probably be regarded as an eminent citizen, and had never felt a +sense of power in the government of my country, I could not dissolve a +decided distaste toward my undoing this mysterious parcel. Also I did +not enjoy seeing it remain there on my table. And, further, I had no +inclination to carry it from the room. + +In this dilemma it occurred to me to summon the janitor of the apartment +house where I reside. When I had explained to him that, because of my +having a sore thumb (which made it painful for me to handle things), I +wished him to open this package for me--, when I had explained this to +him, he told me that he was very much occupied at the moment mending the +boiler downstairs, and that he must hasten to this occupation, otherwise +the lower floors would shortly be flooded. And he withdrew without +further ceremony. + +I sat down to consider the situation. I realized that it was a +bothersome moral responsibility--placing the lives of others (even if +janitors) in jeopardy. But something must be done; and done +soon--perhaps there was a time fuse in this thing. A thought came to me +(the buzzer of our dumb-waiter sounded at the moment); I decided to go +further down the scale in the value of human life to be risked. So I +communicated down the shaft to our iceman (one Jack) that I desired his +presence in the apartment. Well, the upshot of the matter is that Jack +showed no hesitation whatever about coolly putting the package in a pail +of water and afterward undoing it. + +The parcel proved to be an ordinary cigar-box (labelled outside, in the +decorative fashion of cigar-box labels, "Angels of Commerce"); within +was a letter resting upon a note-book, and beneath that the manuscripts +of two short stories. The submersion of the box would have (most +disastrously) obliterated, or gone near to obliterating, the message of +the letter and the writing in the note-book and the manuscript, had not +(happily) these things been packed tightly into the box by surrounding +waste paper. + +The letter was from Taffy Topaz, known to us all--a humorist if there +ever was one. I cannot say that I had been on intimate terms with Mr. +Topaz; indeed (to admit the truth) all my acquaintance with authors is +slight. I admire authors so much that it is the joy of my life to be +acceptable to them in any degree. I put myself in their way at every +opportunity. I regard it as a great privilege (as, certainly, it is) to +spend freely of my income in entertaining them at meals. And in this way +and that it is that I have attained the honor of hobnobbing with a +number of writers, when they are not otherwise engaged. + +As I say, I had not been on intimate terms with Mr. Topaz; and so I was +no little surprised (and, I admit, no little flattered) at this decided +attention (whatever it might mean) to me. The letter was not (oh, not at +all!) a humorous letter. It was a very solemn letter. It said that Mr. +Topaz was just about to go to the war. I was, naturally, puzzled at +this: the war is (theoretically) over. I hunted round and found a piece +of the wrapping paper which had enclosed the box. On it was the postmark +(the paper had dried somewhat); and the stamp bore the date of October +1, 1917. I was still more puzzled as to where the box could have been +all this while. Then, I recollected the heroic labors of the post-office +in maintaining any kind of a schedule of delivery during the war. My +poor friend's box had been goodness knows where all this time! + +The letter stated (as I have said) that Mr. Topaz was about to go to +the war--as a newspaper correspondent. It said (oh, it almost made one +weep, so solemn was it!) that he might never return from "over there." +In case he did not come back (the letter continued), he (Mr. Topaz) +wished me to undertake the charge of placing the enclosed manuscripts +with some magazine or magazines; the money got from them, though it was +inadequate he knew (so he said), he prayed that I would accept as +payment for the advances which I had made him from time to time. (Alas! +my poor friend, what were those miserable loans compared to the wealth +of his society! How I remember that proud day when he called me, so +pal-like, a "poor fish"!) But this is not a time to indulge one's grief; +I must press on with my story. + +The remainder of his literary effects, he said (meaning, of course, the +note-book), he desired me (as he knew I had some connection with a +certain magazine) to present to the editor of that journal. Little more +remains to be said here of Mr. Topaz (my friend). He was not called upon +to lay down his life for his country (or his paper); after the armistice +he went valiantly into Germany; and there (as the papers have reported) +he contracted a marriage; and is little likely again to be seen in these +parts. + +The first page of the note-book contains these entries. It is headed + + JOTTINGS + +"Good name for a small orphan--Tommy Crandle. + +"Fat person--shrugged his stomach. + +"Name for a spendthrift--Charles Spending. + +"Aphorism--Fear makes cowards of us all. + +"Billy Sparks--Fine name for a lawyer. + +"Nice name for a landlady--Mrs. Baggs. + +"Humorous Christian name for a fat boy--Moscow. + +"Name for a clerk--Mr. Fife. + +"Good name for someone to cry out on a dark night--Peter Clue! Peter +Clue! + +"Good name for a sporting character--Bob Paddock. + +"Aphorism--A fool and his foot are soon in it. + +"Good name for a tea room in Greenwich Village--The Bad Egg. + +"Epigrammatic remark--Though somewhat down in the mouth he kept a stiff +upper lip." + + * * * * * + +Then follows this on umbrellas, evidently the opening of an unwritten +essay: + + And, like umbrellas, with their feathers + Shield you in all sorts of weathers. + + MICHAEL DRAYTON. + +"Among all the ingenious engines which man has contrived for his +ornament and protection none, certainly, is more richly idiosyncratic +than the umbrella. Literary genius has always instinctively recognized +this; and doubtless the esoteric fact has been vaguely felt even by the +unthinking; but it is a profound truth which, I fear, has had but slight +popular appreciation. + +"The use of this historic and peculiarly eloquent article of personal +property, the umbrella, illustrates pictorially a proverbial allusion to +the manifestation of intelligence: it shows that a man has 'sense enough +to go in out of the rain.' It reveals not only the profundity of his +judgment but the extraordinary play of his cleverness, as it exhibits +him as the only animal who after crawling into his hole, figuratively +speaking, pulls his hole in after him, or, in other words, carries his +roof with him. Further than this, in the idea of carrying an umbrella +you find the secret of man's striking success in the world: the +intrepidity of his spirit in his tenacious pursuit of his own affairs +defies both the black cloud's downpour and the sun's hot eye." + + * * * * * + +There is this, headed + + HUMOR + +"There was once a man who was nearly dead from a disease. One day while +taking the air a friend cried to him encouragingly, 'Well, I see that +you're up and about again.' 'Yes,' replied the sick man good-naturedly, +'I'm able to walk the length of the block now.' This notion was so +irresistible that both the quick and the dying burst into laughter." + + * * * * * + +Among the longer entries in this note-book is the following remarkable +psychological study, having as its title + + TEMPERAMENT + +"That morning Kendle had seen himself famous. As he worked he began to +feel good in his brain and in his heart and in his stomach. He felt +virile, elated, full of power, and strangely happy. The joy of creating +a thing of art was upon him. Thrills ran down his spine and into his +legs. As he looked at his work he admired it. He knew that this was good +art. He felt that here was genius. He saw himself in a delectable +picture, an idol applauded of the multitude, and loved by it. For he +believed that the multitude was born, and ate and slept, and squabbled +among itself, and acquired property, and begot offspring, but to await +the arrival of genius. And the only genius he knew was genius in +eccentric painting. The only genius worth while that is, for there is a +genius that invents labor-saving machines, telephones, X-rays, and so +forth; but nobody loves that genius. It occurred to him that he was a +very lovable man, with all his faults (his faults were the lovable ones +of genius), and he would soon have achieved a distinction that would +make any woman proud of him. He determined to renew his addresses +to----. + +"Somehow in the evening his intoxication had died down. He felt very +sad. His work lay before him with so little eccentricity to it that he +was ashamed. His sense of power had quite departed. And now he dismally +felt that he would never amount to anything. He was a failure. An idle, +wicked, disgraceful fellow, no good in the world, and not worth any +woman's attention. His heart felt sick when he thought this. He was very +miserable. He despised himself. So he sighed. It would have been better, +he thought, if he had apprenticed himself to the plumber's trade in his +boyhood. He would in that case have grown up happy and contented, +remained at home and done his duty, respected by his neighbors and +himself, though only a plumber. A plumber is a good honest man that pays +his debts. + +"At home! Why was he not there, anyway? What good was he doing away from +there? There was his mother, in her declining years. Was his place not +by her side? He would never desert his mother, he thought. And Sis! +there was Sis. He would never desert Sis. How good they had been to him! +How they believed in him! (he squirmed) how they believed in him still. +He imagined them showing his most sensible pictures around to the +neighbors. 'My son is an artist,' he heard his mother say. His flesh +crawled. How mad he had been! How contemptible he was! Still a man was +not hopeless who had a soul for such feelings as he had now. He would +reform. He would henceforth eschew the company of such as Walker. He +enumerated his vices and renounced them one by one. He began life over +again. He would bask in the simple domestic pleasures of his mother in +her declining years, and Sis. He would get up very early every morning +and go to his humble toil before it was quite light. He felt himself +walking along in the chill of dawn--the street lamps still lit. He would +work hard all day. He would always tell the truth. Every Saturday night +he would come home tired out, with fifteen dollars in his pocket. This +he would throw into his mother's lap. 'Here, mother,' he would say in a +fine manly voice, 'here are fifteen dollars.' His mother would put her +apron to her eyes, and look at him through tears of pride and joy. He +would wear old clothes and be very honest and upright looking, the sort +of young man that Russell Sage would have approved, that Sis might +dress. He would not mind the sneers and gibes of the world, for he would +be _right_. + +"He looked defiantly around the room for a few sneers and gibes." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +INCLUDING STUDIES OF TRAFFIC "COPS" + + +The other day it was such a pleasant April day I thought I'd take the +afternoon off. It was such a very pleasant day that I didn't want to go +anywhere in particular. Do you ever feel that way? I mean like you just +wanted to be by yourself and sit down and think awhile. + +Later on, you have an idea, you'll come back into things much refreshed. +But the thought of answering these letters now, or of doing this or +doing that, kind of lets you down inside your stomach. Your brain seems +to have dropped down somewhere behind your ears. If that fellow across +the office comes over to pull another of his bright ideas on you you +think you'll probably scream, or brain him, or something. He's getting +terrible, anyhow. + +You have any number of excellent friends, and (ordinarily) you are quite +fond of them. Perhaps you will go to see one of them. There's Ed, you've +been wanting for you don't know how long to go round and see him. Never +seemed to have time. But no; you don't want to see Ed--today. Same way +with all the others, as you go over the list of them in your mind. +Couldn't bear to see any of 'em--not this afternoon. For one thing, +they're all so selfish.... So interested in their own affairs. + +As I was straightening up my desk an idea came to me about jobs. Seems +to me that when I have a job I'm all the while worrying about how to +break out of it. I think: Well, I'm tied up here until the first of the +year; but I'll sure shake it after that; too cramped and limited. And +then when I am out of a job I immediately begin to worry about how to +get another one. That's Life, I guess. + +I turned uptown and floated along with the current of the Avenue throng. +It was a glittering April throng. The newest stockings were out. I had +not seen them before. The newest stockings (you will have noted) are so +very, very thin and the pores (so to say) in them are so large that they +give the ladies who wear them the agreeable effect of being bare-legged. + +At Thirty-fourth Street the traffic policeman on post at our side of +this corner, by an outward gesture of his arms pressed back the +sidewalk stream for a couple of moments of cross-town vehicular traffic. +He stood within a few inches of the front row of the largely feminine +crush. Whenever an impatient pedestrian broke through the line he had +formed and attempted to dart across the street he emitted a peculiar +little whistle followed by the admonishment, "Hold on, lady!" or "Hey +there, mister!" Thus having returned the derelict to cover, he would +smile very intimately, with a kind of sly cuteness, at the more handsome +young women directly before him--who invariably tittered back at him. +And thus, frequently, a little conversation was started. + +Now as a vigilant historian of the social scene this matter of the +gallant relations of traffic policemen to perambulating ladies of +somewhat fashionable, even patrician aspect, I find highly interesting. +It is a subject which does not seem to have been much examined into. + +Why, exactly, should flowers of debutante-Bryn-Mawr appearance look with +something like tenderness at policemen? Seems to me I have read now and +then in the papers strikingly romantic stories wherein a mounted +policeman in the park (formerly a cowboy) saved the life of an +equestrienne heiress on a runaway mount, and was rewarded the next day +(or something like that) with her hand. Such a story my mind always +gladly accepts as one of the dramatic instances where life artistically +imitates the movies. Crossing Thirty-fourth Street, however, seems to me +another matter. + +And what system of selection operates in the Department whereby this +officer or that is chosen from among all his brethren for the +paradisaical job of being beau of a fashionable crossing? And would you +not think that a more uniform judgment would be exercised in the +election of men to such Brummellian duties? Adonises in the traffic +force I have, indeed, seen (there is one at Forty-second Street), but +this chap of whom I have just been speaking (the whimsical whistler) +certainly was not one of them. He was what is called "pie-faced." +Hunched up his shoulders like an owl. Yet his ogling of loveliness in +new spring attire was completely successful, was in no instance that I +observed resented, was received with arch merriment. Indeed, his heavy, +pink-tea attentions were obviously regarded as quite flattering by the +fair recipients! As he let the tide break to cross the street it was +plain, from bright glances backward, that he had fluttered little hearts +which would smile upon him again. And so, in such a Romeo-like manner, +does this bulky sentimentalist, armed with concealed weapons, have +dalliance with the passing days. What you 'spose it is about him gives +him his fascination in flashing eyes haughty to the rest of the +masculine world--his bright buttons, or what? + +Yes; these curious and romantic little relationships between traffic +cops on social duty, so to say, and their dainty admirers are not (in +some instances at least) so transient as to be merely the exchange of +roguish words and soft glances of the moment. There is that really +august being of matinee-idol figure at--well, let us say at Forty-second +Street. Sir Walter Raleigh could not with more courtliness pilot his +fair freight across the Avenue. So it was the day after Christmas I saw +not one but several of his young friends blushingly put dainty packages +into his hands. + +Is there not an excellent O. Henry sort of story in this piquant city +situation? + +Well, floating like a cork upon a river I drifted along up the Avenue. I +passed a man I had not seen for several years. Yes; that certainly was +the fellow I used to know. And yet he was an altogether different being +now, too. The sort of a shock I got has perhaps also been experienced by +you. Only a short time ago, it seemed to me, this friend of mine had +been robust and ruddy, masterful and gay, in the prime of his years. I +had somehow innocently expected him always to be so. Just as I find it +very unreal to think of myself in any other way than I am now. Don't +you? As to yourself, I mean. He was quite grey. His shoulders hung +forward. His chest seemed to have fallen in on itself. His legs moved +back and forth without ever altogether straightening out. He had a +whipped look. Wrinkled clothes and dusty black derby hat, he was +conspicuous in the peacockean scene. And yet on a time he had been, I +knew, as much a conqueror of hearts as any policeman. So would it +sometime be with me--like this? + +What do you know about that! In the next block another acquaintance of +old I saw. But when I had known him he was stooped and little and thin +and dried up and cringing. He worked in a basement and did not wear a +collar, at least by day. He used to look very old. Now here he was +swinging along looking very much like Mr. Caruso, or some such personage +as that. + +How may this phenomenon be accounted for, what was the misfortune of one +of these persons and the secret of the other? I know a man who has a +theory which, at least, sounds all right. It is not buttermilk nor +monkey glands, he contends, which will keep a man young and stalwart so +much as (what he calls) an objective in life--a distant rampart to take, +a golden fleece to pursue. That is why, he declares, scientists and +artists frequently live happy and alert to such a great age: Thomas A. +Edison, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Jap chap (what's his name? Hokusai) +who at a hundred and ten or thereabout was called "the old man mad about +painting." + +Maybe it was thinking of that idea, maybe it was the fearsome thought of +that dusty derby hat of my friend's which haunted my mind, or maybe my +competitive instincts had been aroused from spring slumber by the +spectacle of my Caruso-like friend careering along, anyhow a decidedly +bugged-up feeling began to flow through me; I wavered in my loitering, I +turned, my sails (so to speak) caught the wind, and I laid my course +abruptly back to the office. I had suddenly a great itch to get at all +those letters. + +I was very glad to see that fellow across the office from me. He is a +good fellow and very helpful. I said to him, "Look here, what do you +think about this idea for getting business?" + +"Oh, my goodness!" he said; "it's altogether too fine a day to think +about work. I'd just like to go out and wander up the Avenue with +nothing on my mind but my hair." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THREE WORDS ABOUT LITERATURE + + +A friend of mine (and aside from this error a very fine friend he is, +too) not long ago published a book which he declared, in his Preface, +should be read in bed. He insisted, to such an extent was he the victim +of a remarkable and pernicious fallacy which I find here and there, that +this book could not otherwise be properly enjoyed. + +Now the difficulty about this particular book, that is the circumstance +wherein my friend has got me in a position where it is not so easy for +me to overturn him all at once, is this: one, not knowing any better, +might take the author's advice, and find pleasure reading the book in +bed, not being aware that this simply was because here was a book that +one would find pleasure in reading anywhere. But because you have got +hold of a book which it is possible to enjoy reading in the wrong way, +it naturally follows (does it not?) that you'd enjoy it much more +reading it in the right way. That, I should say, was simple and logical +enough. + +I know, I know! I'm coming to that: there are plenty of other people who +have this ridiculous reading-in-bed idea. There, for instance, is +Richard Le Gallienne. I had a letter from him awhile ago, in which he +remarked that it was his practice to do most of his reading in bed. Then +I had a letter recently from Meredith Nicholson, in which there was some +such absurd phrase as "going to bed and reading until the cock crows." +Also I one time read an essay, a very pleasant essay outside the +mistaken notion of its main theme, by Michael Monahan, which was largely +about the pleasure of reading in bed. Spoke of the delights of being +tucked in, with what satisfaction you got the light just right, and all +that. + +It must, of course, be acknowledged that all these gentlemen are, if +perverse in their method, persons of some reading. However, a fact such +as that, an accident as you might say, cannot be permitted to upset the +course of a profound argument. Why! as to that, a suspicion just occurs +to me that maybe someone could dig up Lamb, Hazlitt, Mark Twain, +Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Cowper (perhaps all of them, and more) to the +effect that it is pleasant to read in bed. Didn't Thackeray have some +nonsense about "bedside books"? _I_ haven't time to refute each of these +persons separately. It is sufficient, I take it, to roll into one point +of attack all this bed-reading heresy, from whatever quarters it comes, +and put an end to that. + +Understand me; I have no complaint against the reading in bed of persons +confined there through physical disability. The world war which brought +more people to bed for indefinite periods than any other matter since +time began thereby probably got more souls into the way of reading than +seventeen times several hundred schools ever did. All of them, however, +would find that they were much better off in the matter of reading when +they had got out of bed. What I say is that, in a manner of speaking, +there is no use in taking the air in a wheel-chair if you can take it on +horseback. Why do a thing in a halfway fashion when you can go to it +right? + +Another thing. There are people (I've seen them at it) who read on +porches. Sometimes in swings, rocking to and fro. Even in hammocks, +slung above the ground from trees. On trains, too. I have (with my own +ears) heard people say that they would "take a book" and go out into the +park, or into the woods, or out in a boat, or up on the mountain, or by +the sea, or any conceivable place except where one should go to read. + +All of these ways of reading are worse, if anything can be worse than +that, than reading in bed. Because in bed you do, at least, have your +mind sandwiched within doors. You do not feel the surge and rumble of +the world--the sound and movement of the things of which literature is +made; but any contact with which (at the moment of reading) is +destructive to the illusion which it is the province of literature to +create. + +For literature (reading it, I mean here) is, in this, like love: Richest +are the returns to that one whose passion is most complete in its +surrender. And a man lapping his frame in soft indolence, though he have +a book in his hand, is indulging in sensuous physical pleasure at least +equally with intellectual receptivity or aesthetic appreciation. No. +Reading should not be taken as an opiate. + +The way to read, then--but, a moment more; a couple of other points are +to be cleared up. There is much babble of slippers and dressing-gowns, +easy chairs and "soft lights" in connection with the comments about the +pleasures, the "delights" as I believe some people say, of reading. + +What is wanted to _know_ the relish to be got from reading is, first (of +course), an uncommon book. And by that term is meant merely one +uncommonly suited to the spirit of the reader. (The only perfect +definition, that, of a "good book.") Some people still read Stevenson. +Well, there's no great harm in that. Providing you read him (or anybody +else) as follows: + +You should read as you should die--with your boots on. You take a wooden +chair, without arms, such (this is the best) as is commonly called a +"kitchen chair." It has a good, hard seat. You sit upright in this, +crossing and recrossing your legs as they tire. Nearby you is a good, +strong light, one with a tonic effect, a light that keeps your eyes wide +open. You sit facing a dull, blank wall. No pictures or other ornaments +or decorations should be on this wall, as, in case such things are +there, and you happen to raise your eyes for an instant, in ecstasy or +in thought, your vision lights upon one of these things; and the heart +which you have given your author is, certainly in some measure, +alienated from him. Maybe, indeed, you go back to him almost at once. +But then harm has been done--you have not read with supreme abandon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +RECOLLECTIONS OF LANDLADIES + + +There is no figure in the human scene which makes so unctuous an appeal +to our relish of humanity as the landlady. When the landlady comes upon +the stage at the theatre, we all awaken to an expectation of delight in +the characteristic manifestations of her nature, and seldom are +disappointed. The genius of the greatest of authors always unfolds with +particular warmth in the presence of their landladies. A moment's +reflection will recall a procession of immortal landladies. Whether it +is that the colorful calling of landlady cultivates in one a peculiar +richness of human nature, or whether landladies are born and not +made--those with characters of especial tang and savor instinctively +adopting this occupation,--I cannot say, but the fact is indisputable +that landladies are not as other persons are. No one ever saw a humdrum +landlady. A commonplace person as a landlady is unthinkable. + +Now I think I may say that all my life, or nearly all, I have been an +eager and earnest student of landladies. I am, indeed, much more +familiar with the genus landlady than with courts and kings, or with +eminent personages generally such as supply the material for most of +those who write their recollections. Thus I am competent, I think, to +speak on a subject curiously neglected by the memorist. + +One who makes a culture of landladies comes in time to have a flair for +these racy beings, and is drawn by a happy intuition to the habitats of +those most resplendent in the qualities of their kind. Of course, one +never can tell what life will bring forth, but it seems to me that my +present landlady marks the top of my career as a connoisseur, an +amateur, of landladies. She is strikingly reminiscent of an English +landlady. And England, particularly London, is, as all the world knows, +to the devotee of landladies what Africa is to the big game +sportsman--his paradise. There the species comes to luxuriant flower, so +that to possess with the mind one or two well-developed London +landladies is never to be without food for entertainment. My present +landlady, to return, is of course a widow. While it may be, for aught I +know, that all widows are not landladies, with very few exceptions all +landladies worthy of the name are widows. Those who are not widows +outright are, as you might say, widows in a sense. That is, while their +husbands may accurately be spoken of as living, and indeed are visible, +they do not exist in the normal role of husband. The commercial impulses +of the bona-fide husband have died in them, generally through their +attachment to alcoholic liquor, and they become satellites, hewers of +wood and drawers of water, to the genius awakened by circumstances in +their wives. + +I one time had a landlady of this origin in Norwalk, Connecticut. She +was a woman of angular frame, with a face of flint, a tongue of vinegar, +and a heart of gold. This, I have found in my travels, is the type of +the semi-widowed landlady. I had another such an identical one in +Topeka, Kansas. The asperity, doubtless, is occasioned by biting +disillusionment in the romance of long ago, but it is external; frost on +the window; at the heart's core wells the sense of universe-embracing +maternity which makes the character of the landlady by vocation +sublime. All semi-widowed landladies have (it is their divine +inspiration) large families of half-grown sons. My landlady of Norwalk +grumbled continually; she could be heard out in the kitchen complaining +in a shrill, querulous tone that, with things as high as they were, +people would be crazy to expect meat twice a day. Yet she had at her +board the meanest, most low-down, ornery, contemptible, despicable cuss +in human form I ever knew, and the only fault I ever heard her find with +him was that he didn't eat enough. + +The erudite in landladies have, of course, cognizance of a class which +are in no degree widows. Those of this department of the race, however, +frequently are not landladies in fibre, but merely incidentally. They +are young wives who for a transient period seek to help out in the +domestic economy by taking a few lodgers who come with unexceptionable +references. As wives doubtless they are meritorious; but no monument +need be erected to them as landladies. Though I should like to see in +the principal public square of every town and city a monument designed +by an artist of ability placed to the enduring glory of the landladies +of that place. For are not landladies ancient institutions fostering +the public weal, and in their field not a whit less deserving of homage +than governors and soldiers? I would say to a nation, show me your +landladies and I will tell you your destiny. I should be remiss, +however, in my chronicle did I not note that among these partial and +ephemeral landladies occasionally are to be found pronounced landlady +potentialities. I recall a landlady I had on Montague Street, Brooklyn +Heights, whose passion for cleaning amounted to a mania. This young +person's housewifery frenzy always put me in mind of another soul who +could not rest--Hokusai, who at about a hundred and ten was spoken of as +"the old man mad about painting." + +Hovering about, tortured by a desire to begin, when I left for my +breakfast, she was still at it upon my return from my morning stroll, my +door barricaded by articles of dismembered furniture; still at it when I +came back a bit impatiently from a second walk; still at it while I read +the paper in her dining-room. And so without surcease throughout the +march of days and seasons. She unscrewed the knobs of the bed to polish +the threads thereof; she removed penpoints from penholders and made them +to shine like burnished gold. I had another landlady moved by the same +springs of feeling, on Spruce Street, Philadelphia. Later, I heard, her +husband died, and she espoused her latent career. + +There is in the galaxy of landladies quite another type, an exotic plant +in the wondrously competent sisterhood, specimens of which may be found +blooming here and there like some rare orchid. I mean the fragile, lady +landlady, the clinging vine bereft of the supporting husband oak. Such +was Mrs. Knoll, of Central Avenue, Indianapolis, a little, plump, +rounded body, exceedingly bright, pleasant, intelligent, amiable, and +helpless; all of which qualities shone from her very agreeable face and +person. In her youth no doubt she was a type of beauty, and she remained +very well preserved. "Life and vanity and disappointment had slipped +away" (in the Thackerian words) from Dr. Knoll some years before; and +his widow and only child, Miss Knoll, were left in possession of the old +family home, and nothing more. They could not bear to leave it, that +would "break their hearts," said good, ineffectual Mrs. Knoll; so it was +viewed by them, unfortunately somewhat fallaciously, in the light of a +possible support. + +The Doctor evidently was a man of books, and his widow had sought, more +and more, companionship in reading. Life--the actual world about her, +that is--, and vanity, but not disappointment, had, in a manner of +speaking, slipped from her, too. And she had turned to that great world +of shadows. "In books," she said, "I can choose my own company." She had +plighted her troth in youth to Dickens and to Thackeray, and to these +she had remained ever faithful. In a world of false books and unsafe +friends she knew that she had by the hand two true spirits. Jane Austen +she loaned me with tremulous pleasure. And she was very fond of Mr. +Howells, with whom, she said she lived a great deal; and the Kentons, +the Laphams, and the Marches, were characters better known to her "than +her next-door neighbors." But it must be confessed that the tender +perfume of Mrs. Knoll was not altogether an equivalent in the sphere of +her passive efforts to the homely vegetable odor of the authentic +landlady. + +In great cities, amid the sheen of civilization is to be found just +adjacent to smart quarters of the town the tulip in the variegated +garden of landladies--the finished, polished stone gathered from the +mine, the bird of plumage of the species; I mean, of course, the +landlady _du beau monde_, the modish landlady, or perhaps I should say, +the professional hostess, as it were. For it seems rather vulgar, a +thing repellent to the finer sensibilities, to touch this distinguished +figure of immaculate artificiality with the plebeian term of "landlady." +The personages of this type are, so to say, of the peerage of their +order. Such a Lady Drew it was whose guest I became for a time on +Madison Avenue, New York. With silvered hair like a powdered coiffure; +softly tinted with the delicate enamel of cosmetic; rich and stately of +corsage--this expensive and highly sophisticated presence presided, in +the subdued tone of the best society, over the nicely adjusted machinery +of her smart establishment by the authority of a consciousness of highly +cultivated efficiency and an aroma of unexceptionable standards. + +This consummate hostess type of landlady is, of course, one which the +passionate collector will preserve in the cabinet of his mind with +tremulous happiness in the sheer preciosity of it. I cannot but feel, +however, myself, that this type fails of complete perfection as a work +of art in this: that in every work of the first genius, it cannot be +denied, there is always a strain of coarseness. And perhaps I should +confess that my own taste in landladies, though I hope it is not +undiscriminating, leans a bit toward the popular taste, the relish of +the Rabelaisian. + +Stevenson has observed that most men of high destinies have even +high-sounding names. And anyone who has reflected at all upon the +phenomenon of landladies must have been struck by the singularly +idiosyncratic character of their names. Indeed, an infallible way to +pick out a competent landlady from an advertisement is by her name. Is +it a happy name for a landlady? Go there! As her name is, so is her +nature. I one time had a landlady on Broome Street, New York, whom the +gods named Mrs. Brew. I one time had a landlady (in Milligan Place, +Manhattan) of the name of Mrs. Boggs. One time I had a landlady just off +the East India Dock Road, London, whose name was Wigger. I shall always +cherish the memory of the landlady I had down in Surrey, Mrs. Cheeseman. +One and all, these ladies, as landladies, were without stain. + +Regarded as a bibelot, Mrs. Wigger was, I think, of the first +perfection. In her own genre, so to say, she was as finished, as +impossible of improvement, as an Elgin marble, a Grecian urn, a bit of +Chinese blue and white, a fan of old Japan, a Vermeer, a Whistler +symphony, a caricature by Max Beerbohm. She was of massive mould and +very individually shapen. Her face was very large and very red and +heavily pock-marked. In her bizarre garments, in some indefinable way +she imparted to the character of the born slattern something of the +Grand Style. Her utterance was quavered in a weird, cracked voice, which +had somewhat an effect as of the wind crying high aloft in a ship's +rigging. She slipslod about, always a bit unsteadily. Her movements and +her manner generally, I felt, made it not unreasonable to suppose that +she had in secret certain habits no longer widely approved by society. +The apple of her eye was an unkempt parrot which spent its days in +vainly attempting to ascend the embracing sides of a tin bathtub. + +Landladies, beyond all other persons, have the esoteric power of +becoming for one the geniuses of places. It would, for instance, be +quite impossible for anyone to visualize my Mrs. Cheeseman torn from, as +you might say her context. If you were asked to describe Mrs. Cheeseman +you would naturally do it in this way: You would say, "Well, I wonder +what has become of the sweetest, quaintest, fairest old inn in all +England!" And into your mind would come a rapid cinematograph picture: + +A highway winding out of Dorking, stretching its way between hills to +the sea. You round a turn and see before you long, low, glistening white +stables--the stables, evidently, of a coaching inn. And presently you +come into view of an ancient, white, stone building with a "Sussex +roof." From a tall post before the door swings the board of the "King's +Head." White ducks ride in a pond at the roadside there. Round this inn +which you are approaching is the greenest, handsomest hedge ever seen. +And along the road beyond you perceive the cottages of a wee village. + +"We know that all things work together for good to them that love God." +The romance of destiny which in its inscrutable way has been leading you +all your long life long to the bosom, if I may so put it, of Mrs. +Cheeseman, reveals its beneficence now by carefully graduated steps. At +the other side of the main bulk of the "King's Head," which it was given +you first to see, you come upon a delicious little flagged yard leading +to another arm of the house, older still, very venerable, with a high +roof low descending, a roof which tucks under its projecting wing many +oddly placed little latticed windows gayly sporting innumerable tiny +panes. Like a miniature cathedral spire, a tall, quaint chimney stands +sentinel at one corner, and several chimney-pots peep over the roof's +dark crown. + +Up this little yard, bounded on one side by a multicolored flower garden +whose fragrance bathes you in a softening vapor of perfume, you enter, +by a door which requires you to stoop, the wee taproom. Here: a +cavernous fireplace, settles are within against its sides, a gigantic +blackened crane swung across its middle, and a cubby-hole of a window at +its back. Above it is swung an ancient fowling-piece. The stone floor of +the room, like the ancient flags without, is worn into dips and hollows. +Along the window-sill of an oblong window measuring one wall is a bright +parade of potted plants. + +It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that there is something psychic +about landladies. As you look about you at the environment in which you +find yourself, you experience a premonition that you are nearing an +affinity in the landlady world. It is strange, too, that there are +places where you have never been before (in the life which you +consciously remember) that give you at once completely the feeling of +your having arrived at the home familiar to your spirit. And there +presently occurs here an event in your career predetermined (I doubt +not) aeons and aeons ago. A buxom body with the most glorious complexion +(you ween) in all England--which is to say in the world--enters the +ancient room: a lass whose rosy, honest, pedestrian face and bursting +figure are to become forever more for you the connotation of the name +"Maggie." The daughter, this, (you later learn) of your Mrs. Cheeseman. + +Soon it is all arranged, and you are having your tea--a "meat tea"--in +the sitting-room of the "King's Head," your sitting-room now. A bucolic +slavey--a person whose cheerful simpleness is like to that of the little +creatures of the field--attends you. In this commodious apartment of +yours is a great scintillation of chintz; flowers, in pots and vases, +everywhere caress the eye; and the fancy is kindled by the spectacle of +many stuffed birds in glass cases. On the heavily flowered wall hangs a +handsome specimen of the "glass" (invariably found in England) for +forecasting the weather; a "pianoforte," as piquantly old-fashioned as a +cocked hat, crosses one end wall; and venerable paintings (which time +has mellowed to the richness and the general color effect of an old plug +of tobacco), bright sporting prints, and antique oddities of furniture +to an extent that it would require a catalogue to name, all combine to +give an air of true sitting-room opulence to the chamber. + +But of landladies, and the connotations of landladies, one could write a +book of several volumes; and it being a very fair day, and a Sunday, and +the first cool breath after a very hot summer, I do not think I shall +write those volumes this afternoon; I shall go out for a bit of air and +a look at the world. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +AN IDIOSYNCRASY + + +Then there's the matter of these dedications. Several weeks ago I +received a communication. I think it was sent by Miss Katherine Lord, or +maybe it was Hamlin Garland. Anyhow, it was an invitation. The upshot of +this invitation was that the annual exhibit of the "best books of the +year" held at the National Arts Club, New York City, under the auspices +of the Joint Committee of Literary Arts was now going--or was just about +to go. Further, it was conveyed that the opening evening of the exhibit +would be devoted to a reception for the authors of the books exhibited. +Also, that on this evening speeches would be made by a number of +distinguished persons acquainted with this matter on the subject of the +idiosyncrasies of authors and editors. Further than this, this +invitation made clear beyond all manner of reasonable doubt that the +pleasure of the evening would be generally felt to be sadly incomplete +without the presence there among the speakers of myself. + +The reasons why I was (I am sorry to say) unable to rise to this +occasion were two. For one thing, I have known long and intimately a +considerable number of authors and editors. Also, I have had the honor +of having been several times to the National Arts Club. And (such is my +tact and delicacy) I could not feel that this was any fit place for me +to discuss the (as the term is) idiosyncrasies with which a decidedly +checkered career has acquainted me. Then, as to one of my own +idiosyncrasies: I am like George Moore in this which he says, that he is +"the only Irishman living or dead who cannot make a speech"--except that +I am not an Irishman. + +All of this, however, is merely picking up the threads of my thought. +What I have in my eye is an idiosyncrasy of authors which doubtless I +could have discussed with some propriety. That is, if I were able to +discuss before an audience anything at all. Though with this subject, as +many of those present were authors (who had their toes along with them) +I should have had to exercise more than a little caution, and +considerable skill in maintaining a honeyed amiability. Maybe this +theme wouldn't have done at all either. + +You see, it's this way: Many people, I believe, do not read the +introductions, prefaces, forewords (and whatever else such things are +called) to books. I always do. Perhaps this is a habit formed during a +number of years spent as a professional reviewer. If you read the +introduction, preface (or whatever it's called), to a book you can +generally pick up pretty much what the author thought he was about when +he wrote it, the points he intended to make in the work, the +circumstances in which he wrote it, and so on. This is a great time and +labor saving procedure. All you've got to do then is to read a bit in +the volume here and there to taste the style, pick up a few errors of +fact or grammar, glance at the "conclusion," where the author sums up, +to see whether or not he got anywhere--and so far as you are further put +out by having this book on your hands it might just as well never have +been written. But I am drifting. That's one reason I can't make a +speech. Never can recollect what it was I set out to say. + +Oh, yes! About these dedications. Less people than read prefaces, I +fancy, read the dedications of books. I always read 'em. I read them +when I have no intention whatever of reading the volumes which +they--well, dedicate. They are fine--dedications. Better, far better, +than old tombstones. But never judge a book by its dedication. + +I one time knew a man, of a most decidedly humorous cast of mind, who +was a great spendthrift, an A 1 wastrel. He ran through everything his +father left him (a very fair little fortune), and then when he had run +through, in advance of that gentleman's death, everything his wife was +to inherit from his father-in-law he had no means whatever. He had a +daughter. Without, it was clearly evident, the least suspicion of the +pleasant humor of this, he named her Hope. She was a small child. +And--it's absurd, I know; but 'tis so; there was not a particle of +conscious irony in it; this child's name was the one blind spot in her +father's sense of the ridiculous--her parents frequently referred to her +affectionately as "little Hope." + +So, quite so, with dedications. Whenever, or perhaps we had better say +frequently, when a man writes a particularly worthless book he lays the +deed (in his dedication of it) onto his wife, "without whose constant +devotion," etc., etc., etc., "this work would never have come into +being." Amen! Or he says that it is inscribed "To--my gentlest +friend--and severest critic--my aged Grandmother." Or maybe he accuses +his little daughter, "whose tiny hands have led me." Again he may say +benignantly: "To--my faithful friend--Murray Hill--who made possible +this volume"; or "the illumination of whose personality has lighted my +way to truth." + +Doubtless he means well, this author. And, in most cases, highly +probable it is that his magnanimous sentiments are O. K. all round. For +to the minds of what would probably be called "right-thinking" persons +is not having a book dedicated to you the equivalent, almost, of having +a career yourself? I know a very distinguished American novelist--well, +I'll tell you who he is: Booth Tarkington--who has told me this: Time +and again he has been relentlessly pursued by some person unknown to him +who, in the belief that did he once hear it he would surely use it as +material for his next book, wished to tell him the story of his life. +This life, according to the communications received by the novelist, +was in every case one of the most remarkable ever lived by man. It was, +in every case, most extraordinary in, among a variety of other singular +things, this: the abounding in it of the most amazing coincidences. And +so on, and so on, and so on. One of these romantic personages nailed the +novelist somewhere coming out of a doorway one day, and contrived to +compel him to sit down and listen to the life story. He was an old, old +man, this chap, and firmly convinced that the tale of his many days (as +simple, commonplace, dull and monotonous an existence as ever was +conceived) was unique. Now he did not want any pay for telling his +story; he had no design on any royalty to come from the great book to be +made out of it; no, not at all. All he asked--and that, he thought, was +fair enough--was that the book be dedicated to him. And so it was with +them all, all of those with the remarkable, obscure, romantic, humdrum +lives. So much for that. + +Dedications run the whole gamut of the emotions. A type of author very +tonic to the spirit is that one whose soul embraces not merely an +individual but which enfolds in its heroic sweep a nation, a people, or +some mighty idea. What, for instance, could be more vast in the +grandeur of its sweep than this--which I came upon the other day in a +modest little volume? "To the Children of Destiny." The Great War, which +has wrought so much evil and inspired so much literature, is responsible +for a flood of noble, lofty dedications. The merest snooping through a +bunch of recent war books turns up, among a multitude more, the +following: "To the Mothers of America." "To--the Loyalty and +Patriotism--of the--American People." "To the Hour--When the Troops Turn +Home." "To All the Men at the Front." + +I should not affirm, of course, that there is anything new under the +sun. And it is very probable that ever since this psychic literature +began (whenever it began) authors resident beyond the stars have, +naturally enough, dedicated their manuscripts submitted to earthly +publishers to folks back in the old home, so to say. But with the War, +which has so greatly stimulated literary activity on the other side of +life, the dedications of these (to put it so) expatriated authors have +perhaps become (in a manner of speaking) loftier in tone than ever +before. As a sample of the present state of exalted feeling of authors +of this sort I copy the following dedication from the recently published +book of a writer "gone West": "To the heroic women of the world, the +mothers, wives and sweethearts who bravely sent us forth to battle for a +great cause:--we who have crossed the Great Divide salute you." + +I wish, I do wish, I had at hand a book which I saw a number of years +ago.... As examples of persons to whom books have been dedicated may be +specified The Deity, The Virgin Mary, Royalty and Dignitaries of Church +and State, "The Reader," and the author himself. Many of the pleasantest +dedications have been to children. Besides armies and navies, countries, +states, cities and their inhabitants, books have also been dedicated to +institutions and societies, to animals, to things spiritual, and to +things inanimate. An attractive example of a dedication to Deity is +furnished by one John Leycaeter, who, in 1649, dedicated his "Civill +Warres of England, Briefly Related from his Majesties First Setting Up +his Standard, 1641, to this Present Personall Hopefull Treaty"--"To the +Honour and Glory of the Infinite, Immense, and Incomprehensible Majesty +of Jehovah, the Fountaine of all Excellencies, the Lord of Hosts, the +Giver of all Victories, and the God of Peace." He continued in a poem, +"By J. O. Ley, a small crumme of mortality." + +But about that book I saw some time ago. You, of course, remember that +prayer in "Tom Sawyer" (or somewhere else in Mark Twain) where the +great-hearted minister called upon the Lord to bless the President of +the United States, the President's Cabinet, the Senate of the United +States, the governors of each of the states, and their legislatures, the +mayors of all the cities, and all the towns, of the United States, and +the inhabitants--grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and wives, +husbands and fathers, sons and daughters, bachelors and little +children--of every hamlet, town and city of the United States, also of +all the countryside thereof. Well, this book of which I am +speaking,--this minister in the august range and compass of his prayer +had nothing on its dedication. It was published, as I recollect, by the +author; printed on very woody wood-pulp paper by a job press, and had a +coarse screen frontispiece portrait of the author, whose name has long +since left me. What it was about I do not remember. That is a little +matter. It lives in my mind, and should live in the memory of the +world, by its dedication; which, I recall, in part was: "To the Sultan +of Turkey--the Emperor of Japan--the Czar of Russia--the Emperor of +Germany--the President of France--the King of England--the President of +the United States--and to God." + +But it was in an elder day that they really knew how to write sonorous +dedications. If I should write a book (and the idea of having one to +dedicate tempts me greatly) I'd pick out some important personage, such +as Benjamin De Casseres, or Frank Crowinshield, or Charles Hanson Towne, +or somebody like that. Then I would take as the model for my dedication +that one, say, of Boswell's to Sir Joshua Reynolds. I am afraid you have +not read it lately. And so, for the joy the meeting of it again will +give you, I will copy it out. It goes as follows: + + My Dear Sir,--Every liberal motive that can actuate an Authour in + the dedication of his labours, concurs in directing me to you, as + the person to whom the following Work should be inscribed. + + If there be a pleasure in celebrating the distinguished merit of a + contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of vanity not altogether + inexcusable, in appearing fully sensible of it, where can I find + one, in complimenting whom I can with more general approbation + gratify those feelings? Your excellence not only in the Art over + which you have long presided with unrivalled fame, but also in + Philosophy and elegant Literature, is well known to the present, + and will continue to be the admiration of future ages. Your equal + and placid temper, your variety of conversation, your true + politeness, by which you are so amiable in private society, and + that enlarged hospitality which has long made your house a common + centre of union for the great and accomplished, the learned, and + the ingenious; all these qualities I can, in perfect confidence of + not being accused of flattery, ascribe to you. + + If a man may indulge an honest pride, in having it known to the + world, that he has been thought worthy of particular attention by a + person of the first eminence in the age in which he lived, whose + company has been universally courted, I am justified in availing + myself of the usual privilege of a Dedication, when I mention that + there has been a long and uninterrupted friendship between us. + + If gratitude should be acknowledged for favours received, I have + this opportunity, my dear Sir, most sincerely to thank you for the + many happy hours which I owe to your kindness,--for the cordiality + with which you have at all times been pleased to welcome me,--for + the number of valuable acquaintances to whom you have introduced + me,--for the _noctes caenaeque Deum_, which I have enjoyed under your + roof. + + If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the subject + of it, and whose approbation, therefore, must ensure it credit and + success, the Life of Dr. Johnson is, with the greatest propriety, + dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was the intimate and beloved + friend of that great man; the friend, whom he declared to be "the + most invulnerable man he knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him, + he should find the most difficulty how to abuse." You, my dear Sir, + studied him, and knew him well: you venerated and admired him. Yet, + luminous as he was upon the whole, you perceived all the shades + which mingled in the grand composition; all the peculiarities and + slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus. Your very warm + commendation of the specimen which I gave in my "Journal of a Tour + to the Hebrides," of my being able to preserve his conversation in + an authentik and lively manner, which opinion the Publik has + confirmed, was the best encouragement for me to persevere in my + purpose of producing the whole of my stores.... + + I am, my dear Sir, + Your much obliged friend, + And faithful humble servant, + London, April 20, 1791. + JAMES BOSWELL. + + + * * * * * + +In a more modern style of composition the epistolary form of dedication +is still employed. I wish I had not (one time when I was moving) lost +that copy I had, English edition, of George Moore's book "The Lake." I +have a feeling that the dedicatory letter there, in French, was an +admirable example of its kind of thing. If you happen to have a copy of +the book, why don't you look it up? + +When poems are written as dedications an established convention is +followed. You affect at the beginning (in this formula) to be very +humble in spirit, deeply modest in your conception of your powers. You +speak, if your book is verse, of your "fragile rhyme," or (with Patmore) +you "drag a rumbling wain." Again perhaps you speak (in the words of +Burns) of your "wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble," or you call +Southwell to witness that: + + He that high growth on cedars did bestow, + Gave also lowly mushrumps leave to grow. + +And so on. At any rate, you always do this. Then you say that his (or +her) eyes for whom the book was written will change the dross to gold, +the "blind words" to "authentic song," the "mushrump" to a flower, or +some such thing. So, after all, you skillfully contrive to leave your +book to the reader on a rather high, confident note. Any other way of +writing a dedicatory poem to a book of verse (being out of the tradition +altogether) is, I take it, bad, very bad, literary etiquette. + +Numerous dedications have considerable fame. There is that enigmatical +one to "Mr. W. H.," prefixed by Thomas Thorpe, bookseller of London, to +Shakespeare's Sonnets. And Dr. Johnson's scathing definition of a patron +when Lord Chesterfield fell short of Johnson's expectations in the +amount which he contributed to the publication of the famous dictionary +men will not willingly let die. Another celebrated dedication is that of +"The Gentle Art of Making Enemies"--"To the Rare Few, who, early in +life, have rid themselves of the Friendship of the Many." Laurence +Sterne's solemn "putting up fairly to public sale" to an imaginary lord +a dedication to "Tristram Shandy" is not without merit. John Burroughs +was felicitous in his dedication of "Bird and Bough"--"To the kinglet +that sang in my evergreens in October and made me think it was May." And +a very amiable dedication prefixed to "The Bashful Earthquake," by +Oliver Herford, illustrated by the author, is this: "To the Illustrator, +in grateful acknowledgment of his amiable condescension in lending his +exquisite and delicate art to the embellishment of these poor verses, +from his sincerest admirer, The Author." Mr. Herford's latest book (at +the time of this writing), "This Giddy Globe," is dedicated so: "To +President Wilson (With all his faults he quotes me still)." + +A clever dedication, I think, is that of Christopher Morley's +"Shandygaff"--"To The Miehle Printing Press--More Sinned Against Than +Sinning." A dedication intended to be clever, and one frequently seen, +is, in effect, "To the Hesitating Purchaser." A certain appropriateness +is presented in a recent book on advertising, "Respectfully dedicated to +the men who invest millions of dollars a year in national advertising." +And some nimbleness of wit is attained in the inscription of the book +"Why Worry"--"To my long-suffering family and circle of friends, whose +patience has been tried by my efforts to eliminate worry, this book is +affectionately dedicated." As cheerful a dedication as I have come +across is that prefixed by Francis Hackett to his volume "The Invisible +Censor"; it is: "To My Wife--Signe Toksvig--whose lack of interest--in +this book has been my--constant desperation." + +Miss Annie Carroll Moore, supervisor of work with children at the New +York Public Library, tells me that the other day a small boy inquired, +"Who was the first man to write a book to another man?" I'm sure I don't +know. Perhaps this is told somewhere. A number of books and articles +concerning dedications, I have heard, are to be found in studious +places. I have never read any of them. I remember, however, reviewing +for a newspaper a number of years ago (I think it was in 1913) a book, +then just published, called "Dedications: An Anthology of the Forms Used +from the Earliest Days of Bookmaking to the Present Time." It was +compiled by Mary Elizabeth Brown. The volume made handy to the general +reader a fairly representative collection of dedications. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE SEXLESS CAMERA + + +There is no nicer point, perhaps, in the study of photography as the one +true, detached observer of mankind than here: It sees, what man has not +seen--as his own representations show, his paintings, his drawings, his +sculptures--the feminine underpinning with a quite passive, sexless eye. + +In this interesting matter there are two human conceptions. There is the +chorus girl style of leg, the expression of piquancy, which does not +perhaps appeal to the noblest emotions, but the fascination of which has +always haunted man whenever he has delineated anything in a stocking. +Then there is the chaste, nude feminine limb of the painter and the +sculptor. Both photography shows to be idealization. + +When the camera reproduces the chorus girl herself, suddenly strangely +plain and painted, there is to the observing and reflective instead of +sauciness the hollowness of sauciness. There can be few things more +awful than those silent photographs of some gay chorus, reproducing, as +they do, the spectacle with solemn critical aloofness from the spirit. +It is as though the dawn of Judgment Day had suddenly broken upon the +unspeakably wretched and tawdry scene. There is something, it would +seem, indescribably tender, affectionate, in the irony of the gods which +arranges that men should display in theatre lobbies, as an inducement to +buy tickets of admission within, these death's heads of frivolity. As if +the Comic Spirit itself were touched by the charm of the naivete of man. + +But, indeed, twinkling in the sympathetic light upon the Broadway stage, +the professional chorus girl leg, well selected no doubt to begin with, +and shaped with all the science of art, has beguiled even the +reflective. A light intoxicant, it swirls in the veins like champagne +for the careless moment it makes. It is pleasant because it is false. + +The real leg, remarks the camera, is the amateur leg; it is depressing, +but terribly convincing. As it stands in the raw light of the cheap +photographer (and this too, too human document, the likeness of the +poor girl who has performed somewhere in curiously home-made looking +"tights," and been photographed thus afterward, is one of the stock +exhibits of that most realistic of historians, the cheap photographer) +the amateur leg decidedly lacks dash. The knee joint somehow seems to +work somewhat the wrong way. Sometimes, in circumference, this limb is +immense, sometimes the reverse. But the terribleness of it always is +that it is so human. That is, it is the leg of an animal. Subconsciously +it suggests surgery. + +Conspicuous among the postures assumed for its iconoclastic purpose by +the genius of photography is that of "art." That fetish of the great +body of the unenlightened, the dim feeling that to the enlightened +bodily nakedness in pictorial representation is something very fine, is +played upon. The "art photograph" is an ironic tour de force. If +specimens of this have ever fallen in the way of your observation, then +you have reflected upon the strange discrepancy between the female nude +as presented in painting and sculpture and in photographs. (Oh, souls of +Fragonard, Boucher, Watteau, what romantic rogues you were!) You will +have perceived, with some grim humor, that until the invention of +photography, nobody, apparently, had ever seen a nude female figure. + +Now there is Edgar Degas,--and it is a curious reflection that in +comparison with the work of this pessimist genius who has deliberately +brought cynicism to bear upon the female nude, photographs purporting +(over their sneer) to be reflections of beauty, give by far the most +distressing impression. In the painful realization that they have a kind +of truth beyond human art these abominable humbugs are a kind of art. +What (you exclaimed) was Schopenhauer's remark about the clouded +intellect of _man_ which could give the name of the "fair sex" to "that +under-sized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, knock-kneed race"? + +It may be a long "drive," but it strikes you as a thoughtful observer +that there is some biological analogy between "art photographs" and the +photographs, to be seen in travel books, of native African women. What a +philosopher the camera is! The French savant was very probably +contemplating the photograph of some member of a savage tribe when he +wrote, in "The Garden of Epicurus" (addressing modern ladies): "But +never think too highly of yourselves, my sisters; you were not, at your +first appearance in the world, perfect and fully armed. Your +grandmothers in the days of the mammoth and the giant bear did not wield +the same dominion over the prehistoric hunters and cave-men which you +possess over us. You were useful then, and necessary, but you were not +invincible. To tell the truth, in those far-off ages, and for long +afterwards, you lacked charm. In those days you were like men, and men +were like brutes. To make of you the fearful and wonderful thing you are +today--veils: the Empire, crinoline, decollete, tube, pannier." And, the +sexless camera explains, the poetry of man. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +I KNOW AN EDITOR + + +I know a young woman--a very handsome young woman she is, too. (I have a +decided penchant for handsome young women.) But that is beside the +point. As I was about to say (when a pleasant but an extraneous idea +interrupted me): this young woman the other day took her young husband +by the hand and conducted him to the offices of a publisher. Here she +mounted him upon a chair (very much, I fancy, as though the child were +about to have his hair cut), and she said to the barber--I mean she said +to the editor, with whom she had some acquaintance--she said: "This is +my husband. He is just out of the army. I have brought him in to have +his head shingled"---- No, no! that isn't what she said; I am getting my +wires crossed. She said, "I have brought him in to get him a position +here." + +Said the editor, "What would your son, I mean your husband, like to +do?" + +"I want him," replied the young woman, "to be an editor." + +"Has he ever been an editor?" inquired the editor kindly, as he admired +the shape of the young woman's nose. + +"No," she answered, stroking his hand (the hand, that is, of her +husband), "why, no." + +"What has been his experience?" asked the editor, as the thought of all +the hard work he had to do in the next hour and a half wrestled in his +mind with his pleasure in the young woman's voice. + +"Why," she said, "before he went into the army I don't know that he had +any particular experience. He was just out of college, you see." + +"Oh!" said the editor, "I see. And why," he asked musingly, "do you want +him to be an editor?" + +"Well, I don't know exactly," answered the young woman, "I just thought +it would be rather nice to have him be an editor." + +Even so. Day after day, come into publishing houses young persons, and +indeed people of all ages, who have a hunch (and apparently nothing more +to go by) that they would like to be "an editor." Also, in every other +mail, come letters from aspirants in distant parts setting forth (what +they deem) their qualifications. + +Now and then someone makes such an application who has been an editor +before. It (editing) is probably the only business he knows, and perhaps +it is too late (or his spirit is too broken) for him to take up another. +So, disillusioned but not misguided, for him there is charity of +thought. But the fledglings are in the great majority. Their +qualifications (is it necessary to say?) usually are: a university +degree, perhaps some association with a college paper, maybe the credit +of an article (or a poem) or two published in a minor magazine issued +for the Intelligentzia, a very sincere attachment to books of superior +worth, a disdain for empyreal literature, openness to a modest salary +(to begin), and an abysmal lack of any comprehension of the business of +publishing books or magazines. Every little bit turns up one who (it +develops) wants a job on the side, as it were, merely to sustain the +real business of life, which (maybe) is taking a graduate course at +Columbia, or some such thing. And in many cases (it is obvious) the real +business of life is writing poetry, or fiction, though to this end a +job must be endured--doubtless temporarily. + +Now why anyone should want to be an editor beats me. No, I retract. 'Tis +quite plain. Ignorance, ma'am, sheer ignorance of the calamity. I know +an editor; in fact, I know six. One, indeed, is a brother of mine, +another is a cousin, a third an uncle. Before they became editors they +used to read books and magazines--for pleasure, sometimes; or again for +profit to their souls. Now they do neither. They read only +professionally. They can't read anything unless they have to, in the way +of business. Before they became editors they led intellectual lives; +spiritually they grew continually. They used to be perfectly delighted, +excited (as people should be), by hearing of books, of authors, new to +them. They were fascinated by the journey of their minds. They might +have gone on thus through their years, interested in themselves, +interesting to others, pillars of society. They might even, for all +their thoughts (then) were inspirations, have written delightful things +themselves. In fact, two of them did. But they became editors. + +Now they, subconsciously, count the words of manuscripts. They cut +articles, like cloth, to fit. They gauge the "rate" to be paid for +this, for that. They cannot take an interest in this because something +like it has just appeared somewhere else. They can't take an interest in +that because it is not like something that has just made a hit somewhere +else. Now when they have something to read they say (like Plim, Bimm, +whatever his name was, the veteran hack novelist in the early Barrie +story), "I'll begin the damn thing at eight o'clock." + +Worst of all, they have lost, totally lost, that shield against +adversity, that great joy in days of prosperity, that deep satisfaction +of life. I mean, of course, the relish of _buying_ books. Everyone knows +that to revel in the possession of a book one must covet it before one +feels one should buy it. Everyone knows that to love a book jealously +one must have made some sacrifice to obtain it. That a library which +supplies unending strength to the spirit means in all its parts, a +little here, a little there, some self-denial of other things. + +But editors, poor fish, are impotent in this high and lasting pleasure; +they have lost the power to spend their money for books. They expect +books to be given to them free by the publishers. Their money goes for +Kelley pool and cigars. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +A DIP INTO THE UNDERWORLD + + +"When I go back home," he said, "and tell them about this they won't +believe it." + +It was a pleasant April Sunday afternoon. We were sitting very +comfortably in a saloon over Third Avenue way about the middle of +Manhattan Island. Throngs of customers came and went through the front +door, whose wicket gate was seldom still. Whiskey glasses twinkled and +tinkled all along the long bar. Only here and there in the closely +packed line of patrons stood one with a tall "schooner" of beer before +him. Harry and Ed, in very soiled white jackets, led an active life. + +You see, since theoretically intoxicants were not being sold, there was +no occasion for the pretence of being closed on Sunday and confining +business to the side door and the back room. On the table between us lay +a newspaper. Its headlines proclaimed yesterday's "liquor raids," +thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of "rum" confiscated by the +city police in the progress of the campaign resulting from the recent +passage of the New York State "dry" law. + +At the bottom of the page was a little story of the conviction of a +delicatessen dealer somewhere on the outskirts of Brooklyn on whose +premises had been discovered by the authorities a small amount of wine +containing more than one-half of one per cent alcohol. + +Pete came in hurriedly. Harry and Ed glanced at him questioningly. He +nodded to them as though to say "yes," and dropped into the chair before +us. "They're comin'," he remarked. "About half a block off." Every +whiskey glass had suddenly disappeared from the bar. + +Pete, a little grey man now of about fifty who arises for the day at +about noon, has had an interesting career. Once upon a time he was a +"bell-hop" in Albany. He is a devoted patron of the silent drama and a +man of intellectual interests--making a hobby of clipping from +newspapers poems and editorials which impress him and reading them +several months later to chance acquaintances who are too drowsy to +oppose him. His connection with this establishment is light and +picturesque. His duties are chiefly social. That is, he sees home one +after another customers who require that friendly attention. He is +perpetually agreeable to the suggestion of gratuitous refreshment. He is +very cheerful and gentlemanly in the matter of accommodating his tastes +to any liquid from ten-cent beer to ninety-cent Scotch which the +purchaser is disposed to pay for. + +Here they were! The two police officers strolled in slowly, smiling. In +their blue and their gold buttons they looked very respendent against +the somewhat shabby scene. Ranged along before the bar were a number of +young men in the uniform of private soldiers. There were several +sailors. Here was a postman cheering himself on his rounds. There was a +huge fellow the nickel plate on whose cap announced that he was a piano +mover. The centre of a group, there was a very large man who looked as +though he had something darkly to do with ward politics. At one place in +the line was a very dapper little Japanese, who produced his money from +a wallet carried in his breast pocket. But mostly the motley company was +of the riff-raff order of humanity. That is another one of the curious +developments of "prohibition." Here, in all places of this character, +you may find an endless number of the sort of men who used to be +accustomed to paying as little as ten cents for a drink of very fiery +and inferior whiskey, now standing before the bar by the hour and paying +from fifty to seventy-five cents for whiskey (if you can call it that) +considerably worse. How on earth can they do it? I do not know. + +The two policemen moved the length of the room, and came to a halt at +the open end of the bar. Here they stood for a couple of moments, +observing (I felt with some amusement) Harry and Ed serving their +beakers of beer. Then, as though suddenly having a bright idea, one of +them made his way along back of the bar to the cigar case at the front +end. He stooped, opened the sliding panel at the bottom of this and +poked around inside with his club. As he came along behind the bar back +to the open end he stooped several times to peer at the shelf below. He +joined his comrade, the two of them thrust their heads into the back +room, and then moved out through the side door. + +"Well, we're safe for another hour," said Pete. "Why couldn't they find +the stuff?" I asked him. "I'll bet you couldn't find it if you'd go +behind the bar yourself," he answered. Harry and Ed had found it within +two seconds after the shadow of the law had lifted. And the room was +humming with the sound of renewed, and somewhat hectic, conviviality. +"We'll get caught pretty soon though, I guess," observed Johnnie, the +Italian "chef," who on week-days served the economical lunch of roast +beef sandwiches and "hot dogs." Harry and Ed laughed in a rather +uncomfortable way. But for the present, at least, business was too brisk +for their thoughts to be distracted more than a second or two from the +job. + +"The old man," remarked Pete, referring to the proprietor, "is on a toot +again. Been under the weather for about a week now. He always gets that +way whenever one of the new law scares comes along. Gets worried or sore +or something and that upsets him." + +Pete hadn't been very well himself for several days. Sick in bed, he +said, yesterday. He never used to be sick at all, "in the old days," he +declared, no matter how much he had taken the day before. Never had a +headache, or bad stomach, or anything like that. A little nervous, +perhaps, yes. "But it's the kind of stuff we get nowadays," he thought. +"There hasn't been time since prohibition started for the system to get +trained to react to this TNT stuff, like it was to regular liquor. Maybe +in ten years or in the next generation people's systems will have got +adjusted to this kind of poison and it'll be all right with 'em." It's +an interesting idea, I think. + +A customer was requesting Ed to "fix him up" a pint flask. No, it +couldn't be done just now, as the supply was running too low for it to +be passed out that much at a time. The disappointed customer tried to +content himself with endeavoring to absorb as much of a pint as he could +obtain through a rapidly consumed series of single drinks. And pretty +soon it was officially announced from the bar that there would be "no +more until nine o'clock in the morning." I gathered that the reserve +stock was upstairs or downstairs and that the "old man" had gone away +with the key. + +We went forth to take a walk, Pete accompanying us as a sort of +cicerone, and discoursing with much erudition of bar-rooms as we went. +"These places are getting scarce," he observed. "There don't seem to be +any, or there seems to be hardly any of the old places uptown," I +remarked. "Oh! no; not in residential neighborhoods," he replied; and I +inferred that the law was, in deference to the innocent spirit of +domesticity, keener-eyed there. "And there ain't but very few below the +dead-line downtown," Pete said. + +They have, the bars, very largely disappeared from Broadway. Have been +gone from that thoroughfare for some time. And in this thought we come +upon one of the great mockeries of the situation which has existed since +the Eighteenth Amendment went (more or less) into effect. What I mean is +this: A great many people who had no ferocious opposition to the idea of +a cocktail being drunk before a meal, or wine with it, or even a liqueur +after it, did detest the saloon. It was the institution of the common, +corner saloon, I fancy, at which the bulk of American temperance +sentiment was directed. + +The perverse operation of prohibition then was this: It ceased to be +possible (openly) to obtain any alcoholic beverage in anything like +wholesome surroundings, in a first-class restaurant or hotel or in a +gentleman's club. But in New York City, as is known to everybody who +knows anything at all about the matter, the saloons, and particularly +the lower class of saloons, have flourished as never before. + +As we crossed Broadway Pete pointed out one place which had been going +until a short time ago, an odious looking place (as I remember it) +within. It was but a short way from a club of distinguished membership. +So much had this doggery become frequented by these gentlemen that it +became jocularly known among them as the "club annex." + +Continuing on over into the West Side, here was a place, now a shop +dealing in raincoats, but formerly a "gin-mill" where throughout this +last winter there had been an extraordinary infusion of Bacardi rum, +drunk neat, as their favorite drink, by its multitudinous customers. And +there was a place, a baby carriage exhibited for sale in its window now, +which as a saloon had burned out one night not long ago; when its +proprietor accepted the catastrophe with striking cheerfulness, withdrew +his business activities to his nearby apartment and took up calling upon +old customers by appointment. Innumerable the places over which Pete +breathed a sigh, which had lately turned into tobacco stores or candy +shops. + +We turned in at a door on Sixth Avenue. A little more caution seemed to +be observed here than at the place we had just left. But Pete, of +course, would pass any scrutiny. The liquor bottle, you noted, stood +within the safe at the inner end of the bar, its door hanging ready at +any moment to be kicked to. The barman covered with his hand the little +glasses he set out until you took them, and admonished, "Get away with +it!" The drinks were eighty cents a throw, but they had the feel of +genuine good-grade rye. + +Night had fallen. We passed into the back room, where a pathetic object +was banging dismal tunes on a rattle-trap of a piano. A party of four +entered. The young women were very young and decidedly attractive. The +two couples began to circle about in a dance. Next moment came a +terrific thundering on the front of the building. "Cop wants less +noise," said the waiter to the dancers; "you'll have to quit." "Throw +that into you," he said to the seated customer he was serving, and +directly whisked away the glasses. + +"When I go back home," said my friend from the Middle West, "and tell +them about this they won't believe it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +NOSING 'ROUND WASHINGTON + + +I + +I came very near to being shot in the White House grounds the other day. +Yep! You see, my friend is a bit on the order of what the modistes call +"stylish stout." Rather more than a bit, indeed. Looks something like a +slightly youthfuller Irvin Cobb. Also wouldn't consider it decent of him +out of doors not to "wear" his stag-handled cane. Altogether, not +unlikely to be taken for a real somebody. He was fishing round in his +breast pocket for the letter his senator from "back home" had given him +to the President's secretary. Drew out what may have seemed an important +looking document. + +As we came along the path toward the executive offices there was an +up-stage looking bunch thronging about the little steps--rollicking +gamins, smartly turned out flappers, a sprinkling of rather rakish +looking young males, and (in their best black silk) a populous +representation of those highly honorable and very ample figures who have +generously mothered the young sons and daughters of the American +prairies. + +Suddenly from the side lines they popped out--a whole battery of them, +with their bug-like machines on tall stilts. The motion picture camera +men were taking no chances that anything important would escape their +fire. Evidently they couldn't quite place us, however, so we got through +the door without further incident. + +When we had entered the grounds through the gate at the far side of the +lawn my thoughtful friend had thrown away his lighted cigar, feeling +that promiscuous smoking here would be taboo from danger of fire to so +precious a national jewel as the White House. Within the anteroom to the +executive offices the scene very decidedly suggested one of those jovial +masculine gatherings termed a "smoker." The seething and motley company +of (obviously) newspaper men put one in mind of the recent arrival at a +military training camp of a nondescript batch of drafted men not yet got +into uniform. General air about the room of loafing in a corner cigar +store. + +Then, suddenly, a rising murmur and a pell-mell push toward the door. My +friend and I were swayed out upon the step, and saw at the gate directly +at the street corner of the building the movie camera men very +vigorously clearing for action. They had halted close before them a +tall, striking and very distinguished figure. You instantly recognized +him by the insignia which he wore on the slope toward his chin of his +under lip--a wisp of whisker (light straw color) such as decorated the +illustrious countenance, too, of the late James Abbott McNeil Whistler. + +He was, this gentleman, looking very sheepish, continually bowing in a +rather strained manner to the camera men and lifting his black derby hat +to them. They were scrambling about the legs of their engines and +cranking away with a rattle. "Over this way a little, Mr. Paderewski!" +yelled one. "Hold on, Mr. Paderewski, there you are!" bawled another. +Boisterous mirth about the doorway.... "That's good!" "Sure, he's only a +premier." + +Then, a deferential scattering to make way for him as he approached. +Held him up again, the camera guerrillas, on the steps. He was bowing +with an effect of increasing strain and the intensity of his +sheepishness becoming painful to contemplate. His hair a white bush +thrusting out behind. Ghostly white bow tie. His black clothes +beautifully sleek and pressed. At close up, his features blunter, less +sensitive in chiselling than appears in his photographs. The flesh of +his face striking in the degree of the pinkness and fairness of +complexion of the races of Northern Europe. + +My friend and I had not yet seen Mr. Christian. Had that morning called +upon Mr. Tumulty on a matter of business. Found he had set up shop in a +business structure called the Southern Building. Transom Legend: Law +Offices ... Joseph P. Tumulty. On entrance door: Joseph P. Tumulty, +Charles H. Baker. Outstanding feature of ante-chamber a life-size cream +plaster bust, on tall polished wood pedestal, of Woodrow Wilson. Mr. +Tumulty, stocky of stature, driving in manner, bustled forth from his +private office. Exhaled atmosphere of ruddiness. + +My friend at times (I fear) speaks with some circumlocution. Our real +business here settled, he was ambling on toward the expression of his +hope that we might possibly be able sometime, just for a moment, to see, +just get a glimpse of.... + +"The President," Mr. Tumulty cut in, with an anticipating nod. My friend +looked a bit confused as (I could see) the words "the ex-President" were +about to come from him. But, undoubtedly, both of them meant the same +gentleman. + +In the executive offices we trailed along with the newspaper men for +their daily afternoon interview with Mr. Christian, my friend bathing +himself in tobacco smoke as complacently as anyone of the party. Entered +a sort of council chamber. Long table down the middle. Conspicuous +ornament of the apartment, on a mantel, a plaster cast of a humorous +Uncle Sam in a dress coat, holding aloft an American flag, and flanked +by a turkeyfied looking eagle. + +Congregation pressed close about the table, behind which in a swivel +chair sat in a relaxed and rather pensive attitude an angular figure, +swinging leisurely looking legs which terminated in very white sox and +low-cut shoes. A rather thick thatch of greying hair, large aquiline +features, a rather melancholy cast of expression, eyes cast downward at +the table, clothes not recently pressed and which no one would be +inclined to call dapper, Mr. Christian in general effect suggested a +good deal one's impression of a somewhat dusty "reference librarian" at +the information desk of the New York Public Library being besieged by an +unusually large number of questioners. + +"Well, gentlemen," he uttered very quietly and slowly, "what have you +got on your mind?" + +"George," asked a figure with pad and pencil in hand, "what about this?" +Mr. Christian appeared to ponder the matter a good while, and the upshot +of his cogitation appeared to be that there wasn't much of anything +about it. "And what is there to that?" inquired another. Well at length +there didn't seem to be much to that either. A few items of information +were given. And the audience briefly closed. + +When we had filed out with the company from the room my friend and I +took seats in the corridor. He had given his letter to the doorman. A +couple of soldiers in uniform, a group of very spruce, robust and +cheery-looking Catholic priests, an elderly individual of very dejected +pose, and a miscellaneous assortment of humanity also were waiting. The +doorman was being continually accosted. "Just want to shake hands with +him, that's all," and "Just want to say 'How de do'," were solicitations +frequently overheard. + +The doorman beckoned to us and told us to go into an apartment which he +indicated and "take a seat." Probably my friend didn't hear that +instruction, as he marched straight up to Mr. Christian directly upon +entering the room flooded with afternoon light pouring through an +imposing row of tall and beautiful windows. Mr. Christian slowly arose +from his desk, coming gradually to his full height, and yielded a +cautious hand to my friend. He looked at the bright and somewhat +flustered countenance of my friend rather sadly, as it seemed. Though at +some sally of my friend's about the pronunciation of his name he smiled +with considerable natural human warmth. Then very gravely he stated that +with so many appointments at present to be made, and with the +multitudinous labors now upon him, and so forth and so on, it was hardly +possible that he could just now arrange for my friend to have a word +with, as he said, ... "the Senator." + +My friend was, obviously, a bit taken aback by the term, as his mind +had been careering along with visions of his seeing no less a person +than the President. But there was no doubt that both he and Mr. +Christian were referring to the same gentleman. + +I should add that my friend's self-imposed mission of shaking hands with +Mr. Harding and writing an article about his impressions of him before +the President had yet given an audience to the accredited +representatives of the press was more or less audacious. And I should +add still further that Mr. Christian seemed genuinely reluctant to +dismiss my friend without a ray of hope, and suggested that he call +again after a few days. Suggestion was at Mr. Christian's own volition. + +As we turned to leave the room we saw that the bevy of Catholic Fathers +and several other persons had also been admitted, and were all beaming +with bland cheerful confidence. + +We strolled along the driveway leading by the front entrance to the +White House. The baggy looking policeman lazily sunning himself beside +the portico recalled to my mind with amusing contrast the snappy +Redcoats who briskly pace back and forth before Buckingham Palace. + +They are superbly haughty and disdainful beings. A charmingly democratic +character, this policeman. "'At a fierce cloud over there," he observed +to us as we paused nearby. + +A splendid looking army officer together with a caped naval commander +emerged with springy step from the White House door, both carrying an +air of high elation. A sumptuous car rolled up and halted beneath the +portico roof extending over the driveway. From it a lady leaned out +extending a card. Out pranced a gleaming negro flunky to receive it with +bows of elaborate courtliness. As he turned to re-enter the White House +it struck me that I did not believe I had ever seen a happier looking +human being. Also, in his beautiful dark blue tail coat with bright +silver buttons, and delicately striped light waistcoat, he brought to my +mind (incongruously enough) the waiters at Keen's Chop House. The lady +rolled on. + +A bumptious looking character mounted to the entrance, and sent in a +card. It was evident in his bearing that he expected within a moment to +stride through the doorway. A figure in a skirt coat emerged. Bumptious +being springs upon him and begins to pump his hand up and down with +extraordinary verve, straining the while toward the doorway. Skirt coat +(his hand continuing to be pumped) deferentially edges bumptious +character outward toward descending steps. + +It had been an exceedingly hot day for early spring. Traffic policemen +had stood on their little platforms at the centre of the street +crossings under those mammoth parasols they have to shield them from the +rigors of the Washington sun. As we proceeded toward our exit from the +grounds, approaching to the White House came a diminutive and decrepit +figure muffled in an overcoat extending to his heels, bowed under a tall +top hat, a pair of mighty ear-muffs clamped over his ears. + +We had that morning visited the Capitol. My friend had been much more +interested in the guide-conducted touring parties than in the atrocious +painting of the Battle of Lake Erie, and so on, expatiated on to them. +Parties which, he said, made him feel that he was back again at the +Indiana State Fair. We had sat, in the visitors' gallery of the Senate, +in the midst of a delegation of some sort of religious sect, whose +beards had most decidedly the effect of false whiskers very insecurely +attached. Had been much struck by the extreme politeness of a new +Senator who bowed deeply to each one in turn of a row of pages he passed +before. Had responded within a few minutes to the command of "All out!" +because of executive meeting, and sympathised with the sentiments of +fellow citizens likewise ejected who went forth murmuring that they +hadn't "got much." + +We had wandered through the noble and immaculate Senate Office building, +and been much impressed by the scarcity of spittoons there, an abundance +of which articles of furniture we had since boyhood associated with all +public buildings. We had sat in the outer office of our state's senator, +and listened to one lady after another explain to his secretary in this +wise: "I just made up my mind ... I just decided to go right after it +... I just determined ... I just thought ... Otherwise, of course, I +shouldn't presume to ask it." + +In the Library of Congress we had been much interested to hear an +European gentleman of vast erudition connected with the Library declare +that "there was more intellectual life in Washington than in any other +city in America--that it was an European city, in the best sense." We +had been accosted on the street by a very portly and loud-voiced man who +introduced himself by inquiring where we were from; who confided that +his business in Washington had to do with an alcohol permit; and who +asked to be directed to Corcoran Gallery. We had run into an old actor +friend who was here playing, he said, "nut stuff"; and who observed that +Washington was "more of a boob town than ever." We had been assured by a +newspaper friend that Washington was so full of inventors and blue law +fans that if you "dropped a match anywhere a nut would step on it." + +We had been charmed by the vast number of elderly couples apparently on +a final mellow honeymoon before the fall of the curtain. At lunch had +overheard an inland matron inquire of a waitress if scollops were +"nice." Had enjoyed hot corn bread with every meal. Had been unable to +account for the appearance on the streets of so many wounded soldiers. +Had made the mistake of getting up so early that in the deep Washington +stillness of half past seven we were scared to run the water for our +baths for fear of rousing the sleeping hotel to angry tumult. Had noted +that nowhere except in London is the fashion of freshly polished shoes +so much an institution. Had speculated as to why the standard model of +the American statesman's hat should be a blend of an expression of the +personalities of W. J. Bryan, Buffalo Bill and Colonel Watterson. + +And, finally, listening in the evening to the orchestra in the corridor +of the New Willard, we discussed the large opportunities for a serious +literary work dealing with the varieties and idiosyncrasies of the +Washington hair cut. There is the Bryan type, with the hair turned +outward in a thick roll above the back of the neck, and forming a neat +hat rest. There is the roach back from a noble dome. There is the grey +curly bushy all around. There is the heavy grey wave mounting high over +one side. And--well, there seem to be an almost endless number of +styles, all more or less peculiar to the spirit of Washington, and all +of distinct distinction. + + +II + +"Who's the old bird gettin' so many pictures took?" inquired a loitering +passerby. + +A hum of much good nature was coming from the motley throng about the +steps before the executive office of the White House. "Beer and light +wine," called out someone, apparently in echo to something just said by +the queer looking character being photographed by the battery of camera +men, and a rattle of laughter went around through the group. + +"That's old Coxey," replied someone. "He's down here to get Debs out," +he added. The amiable and celebrated "General" who a number of years ago +had led his "army" on to Washington was smiling like a very wrinkled and +animated potato into the lenses of the cameras which had been moved to +within a couple of feet or so of his nose. + +My friend and I crossed the street to the State, Army and Navy building. +We had been there the other day to see a young man in the State +Department to whom he had a card. Had been much struck by his beauty. +And had wondered if handsomeness was a requisite for a statesman in this +Administration. + +Now we sought the press room. Presented our credentials to a press +association man there. Cordial chap. Said, "Stick around." Others +floated in. Pretty soon press association man heartily calls out to my +friend (whose name is Augustus), "George. Come on!" And we trail along +with about fifty others into the ante-chamber of the new Secretary of +the Navy, who at half past ten is to give his first interview to the +newspaper men. + +Funny looking corridors, by the way, in this building. Swing doors all +about, constructed of horizontal slats, and in general effect bearing a +picturesque resemblance to the doors of the old-time saloon. + +I noticed that as we went along my friend punched in one side of the +crown of his soft hat and raked it somewhat to one side of his head. He +felt, I suspected, uncomfortably neat for the society of this bonhomie +crowd of bona fide newspaper men, and did not wish to appear aloof by +being too correct in attire. + +The company passed along the corridor and into the anteroom under a +heavy head of tobacco smoke. There the press association man presented +each of the flock in turn to a chubby little fellow behind a railing, +whom I took to be secretary to the Secretary; and presently the +delegation was admitted to the inner office, a spacious apartment where +one passed first an enormous globe, then a large model of the _Old +Kearsarge_ in a glass case; and at length we ranged ourselves closely +before a mountain of a man in a somewhat saggy suit. Clean shaven, +massive features, very bald dome, widely smiling, Secretary Denby looks +just a bit (I thought) like Mr. Punch. His voice comes in a deep rumble +and he has entirely ample ears. Trousers too long. + +No; he had not seen the story in that morning's paper which was handed +to him by one of the reporters. He would not confirm this; he would not +deny that. After all, he had been "only a week in the job." And one +might so very easily be "injudicious." "Wily old boy," was one comment +as the party trailed out and made for the press telephones, discussing +among themselves "how would you interpret" this and that? + +Next, at eleven o'clock, the Secretary of State was down on the +newspaper men's schedule. We went into a kind of waiting room across the +corridor from the real offices of the Secretary. Most conspicuous +decoration a huge painting of a Bey of Tunis, the presentation of which +(the inscription said) had something to do with condolences from France +on the death of Lincoln. Also on one wall a portrait of Daniel Webster. + +Mr. Fletcher, Under Secretary of State, appeared before us. Very dapper +gentleman. Athletic in build. Fashionable clothes. Grey hair but +youthful in effect. Handsome, smooth-shaven face. Suggested an actor, or +perhaps a very gentlemanly retired pugilist. Held beautiful shell +spectacles in hand before him. Stood very straight. Had another fellow +alongside of him to supply information when himself in doubt. When asked +concerning someone who was in jail, inquired "Where is the old boy?" +Smiling cordially, seeking continually for an opportunity for some joke +or pleasantry, trying bravely to keep up a strong front, but obviously +becoming more and more uneasy under the ordeal of rapid-fire questions +about Russia, Germany, Japan and so on and so on. On being asked +concerning diplomatic appointments under consideration, bowed briskly, +replied "A great many," and escaped--almost, it might be said, fled. + +Secretary of War next on the list. Full length portraits in his offices +of Generals Pershing, Bliss and Petain. Many flags, historic ones +(presumably) in glass cases. Heavy build, Secretary Weeks, very wide +across the middle. Straggling moustache, drooping. Very direct and +business-like in manner. Entered room saying, "Well, there are a number +of things I have to tell you gentlemen." Frank and positive in his +statements and denials. Stood twisting a key-ring as he talked. Wore +neat pin in tie. When told that the War Department was supposed to have +such and such a thing under consideration, he replied, tapping himself +on the breast, "Not this part of the War Department." One questioner +sought to obtain from him a more direct reply to a question that had +been put to the Secretary of the Navy. He answered, "I know nothing +about the navy." When there was apparently nothing more that he had to +say, he concluded the audience very deftly. + +"He's a different guy, ain't he?" was one correspondent's observation as +we passed out of the room. "One of the biggest men in the government," +he added. "Gives the impression of knowing as much about that job now as +Baker did when he left." + +To the National Press Club we went for lunch. It is pleasant to see in +what esteem this club holds those two eminent journalists, Eugene Field +and Napoleon Bonaparte, whose portraits hang framed side beside on one +of its walls. Napoleon, however, is held in such very great regard as a +newspaper man that another and larger picture of him hangs in another +room. + +The newspaper army had shifted to the business office of the White +House. As we entered Secretary Weeks was departing. He pressed through +the throng of reporters clustered about him. "Nothing to say," was +apparently what he was saying. "We are referred to Warren," said one of +the men. "Looks like we really were going to see him," said another. The +President had not yet given an interview to the press men. So we took +seats among the rows of figures ranged around the walls. + +While waiting we were given an audience, so to say, by Laddie, the White +House Airedale. Curly haired breed. "How old is he?" we asked the small +colored boy whose office includes charge of him. "A year," he said. The +dog stands well, and holds his stump of a tail straight aloft, correctly +enough. But there is altogether too much black on him, we observed; +covers his breast and flanks, instead of being merely a "saddle" on his +back. "Yes, everybody says it," answered the boy. + +Secretary Hughes was seen coming down the corridor on his way out. The +newspaper men pressed forward forming a narrow line through which he +walked, very erect, smiling broadly, bowing to right and left, and +continually moving his black derby hat up and down before him. "Gets a +great reception, don't he?" said one reporter, glowing with a sort of +jovial pride at Mr. Hughes. + +"You'll have to see the boss," Mr. Hughes repeated a number of times as +he came along, and turning slightly made one last very good-natured bow +as he moved out through the door. + +"Are they all here?" called out Mr. Christian, then marshalled us +through his office and into the large, circular and very handsome office +of the President. + +While we awaited him he could be seen, through a doorway, talking, on a +porch-like structure opening out along the back of the building. He was +very leisurely in manner. I think my first outstanding impression of my +glimpse of him was that he was a very handsome man, most beautifully +dressed in a dark blue serge sack suit, very sharply pressed. + +He came in, moving slowly, stood close behind his desk, and said, +"Well, gentlemen, what is there that I can tell you?" He spoke very +quietly and deliberately. The Cabinet he said had discussed problems +relating to the "hang-over" (as he put it) of the War, in particular the +trade situation of the world. He mentioned that he did not desire to be +quoted directly. He had not been "annoyed" but he had been "distressed," +he said, by having been so quoted not long ago. The top button of his +coat was buttoned. His cuffs were stiffly starched. He inclined his head +a good part of the time to one side. Sometimes half closed his eyelids. +Then would open them very wide, and make an outward gesture with his +hands, accompanied by something like a shrug of the shoulders. Close up +I was struck by the bushiness of his eyebrows. He wore a single ring, +mounting a rather large light stone. No pin to his tie. He swung +backward and forward on his feet. Put on shell-rimmed nose glasses to +read. Sometimes pursed his lips slowly. As he talked absently rolled a +small piece of paper he had picked up from his desk into the shape of a +cigarette. His talk had a slightly oratorical roll. He was exceedingly +patient and exceedingly courteous. His general atmosphere was one of +deep kindness. In conclusion he said, "Glad to see you again." + +"That's pretty nice," was the comment of one of the newspaper men as we +emerged from his presence. + +As we moved away through the grounds my friend dilated on a somewhat +whimsical idea of his. This was to this effect. In motion picture plays +(my friend insisted) kings were always much more kingly in appearance +and manner than any modern king would be likely to be. But (he declared) +it would be very difficult for a motion picture concern to get hold of +any actor to play the part who would look so much like an American +President as President Harding. + +We stopped in to look at the east room, now again open. A character who +had evidently not been born in any of the capitols of Europe was +admiring the place vastly. He looked with especial approval at the +enormous chandeliers, those great showers, or regular storms, of glass. +"Pretty hard to beat," was his patriotic comment. + + +III + +It's a big old building, dark inside, the Washington Post Office. He +looked like some sort of a guard about the premises who was too tired +to stand up and so did his guarding sitting in a chair. My friend had +got so accustomed to inquiring our way to the office of Secretary +Hughes, and of Secretary Weeks, and so on, that he asked where we would +find Secretary Hays. + +The man looked at us very contemptuously. "The Postmaster General?" at +length he boomed. Well, he was on the fifth floor. As we stepped from +the car my friend remarked on the practice universal in Washington of +men removing their hats when in the presence of women in elevators. + +Our appointment was for ten o'clock. We had got quite used, however, to +waiting an hour or so for the gentlemen we sought to see. Several other +callers were ahead of us here, and we sat down in the outer office when +we had presented our cards to a very kind and attentive young man who +appeared to be in charge. + +Within a very few minutes, however, we were ushered round into a +secluded inner office. "The General," the young man said, "will be in in +a moment. He sees them in two different rooms at the same time." This +large room was entirely bare of painting or other decorations. + +Speaking of decorations reminds me of the striking handsomeness of the +Cabinet officers we had so far been seeing. Beginning with the President +himself (prize winner of the lot in this respect) the spectacle of this +Administration had up to this moment been a regular beauty show. + +The physiognomy of Mr. Hays, of course, strikes a somewhat different +note in the picture. Though he is not, I should say, as funny looking as +some of his pictures suggest. + +He fairly leaped into the room. Spidery figure. Calls you by your last +name without the prefix of Mister. Very, very earnest in effect. No +questions necessary to get him started. He began at once to talk. Poured +forth a steady stream of rapid utterance. Denounced the idea of labor as +a "commodity." Said: "We have a big job here. Three hundred thousand +employees. Millions of customers. I think we can do it all right, +though. But our people in the department all over the country everywhere +must be made to feel that a human spirit is behind them. It's in the +heart that the battle's won. It's because of the spirit behind them +whether our men throw a letter on the floor before a door or put it +through the door." Made a gesture with his hands illustrating putting a +letter through a door. Looked very hard at the very clean top of his +desk much of the time as he talked. Now and then looked very straight +indeed at us. Gave us a generous amount of his time. At length arose +very briskly. + +Routed us out around through some side way. Had a private elevator +concealed somewhere in a dark corner. Turned us over to the colored man +in charge of it with the request, "Won't you please take my friends +down?" + +As we were crossing the street we ran into our old friend from New York +who edits a very flourishing women's magazine. Down here, he said, to +get an article from Mrs. Harding. Had found her altogether willing to +supply him with an article, but in so much of a flutter with her new +activities that she didn't see her way to finding time soon to write it. +What, we asked, was the article to be about? Well, Mrs. Harding's idea +was to revive all the old traditions of the White House. And what were +those traditions? Mrs. Harding hadn't said beyond the custom of Easter +egg-rolling. + +We were on our way over to see Assistant Secretary of the Navy +Roosevelt. He is not in the State, Army and Navy building where Mr. +Denby is, but some ten minutes' walk away, in the long, rather fragile +looking Navy Department building constructed during the War. + +Here numerous gold-braided officers continually come and go. The +building is filled with very beautiful models of fighting ships. At one +side of Roosevelt's door is a model of the _San Diego_, at the other +side a "sample U. S. Navy Patrol Boat." + +As we gave him our cards a young man asked us if we knew "the Colonel." +An old Washington newspaper man had told us that morning, "He will go +far under his own hat." Several very large men, also waiting, were +smoking very large cigars while we waited. While all male visitors to +public offices in Washington appear to smoke continually, those in +government positions apparently do not smoke during office hours. And +government business hours there seem to be queer. The Senate goes into +session at just about lunch time. The President seems to be around in +his business office throughout the whole of the middle of the day. And +the office of the Secretary of State telephones you at six o'clock +Saturday night. + +The young man showed us in. Mr. Roosevelt arose from his desk, shook +hands very cordially, said "How do you do?" sat down again and at the +moment said nothing further. It was up to us to swing the conversation. +So my friend launched out: We had nothing to do with affairs of state, +had no design to interview him as to naval matters, simply were curious +to see if we should find him eating an apple and wearing white sox, or +what. With hearty good nature, Mr. Roosevelt replied that he was not +eating an apple because he did not have one to eat, and that he had only +once worn white sox, woolen ones, when a boy at school. + +He was very neatly dressed in a suit of quiet dark material, wore rich +dark red tie, with a stick pin to it. Curiously weather beaten looking +complexion. As he has just published a book we asked him if he intended +to carry on more or less of a literary career together with his public +life. He said, well, perhaps more or less. But he wouldn't have time for +much such work. He "practised" writing on Saturdays and Sundays, but +mainly for the purpose of attaining to clearness in expressing himself. +He insisted that the great bulk of his father's writing had been done +_before_ the full course of his political activities and _after_ he had +retired from them. + +After we had arisen to go he walked up and down the room with us, with a +somewhat arm-in-arm effect. Declared we should know a friend of his up +in Boston, because we'd "like him." Said to look in on him again any +time when in Washington. Very affable young man. + +We went out on S Street to see Wilson's new house. Handsome enough +structure, but, undetached from the building next door and fronting +directly on the sidewalk, we decided that it looked somewhat more like a +club than like a private residence. Were told later that the part of +that house to look at is the back of it, as there are wonderful gardens +there. + +One cannot fail to note in the numerous art shops where pictures of +Harding, Roosevelt, Washington, Lincoln and Cleveland are displayed in +abundance the relative absence of pictures of Wilson. + +Why do august statesmen in the lobby of the New Willard cross their legs +so that we can see that their shoes need to be half-soled? Why do so +many distinguished looking gentlemen in Washington wear their overcoats +as though they were sleeveless capes? What on earth do so many Oklahoma +looking characters do in Washington? Why is it that there the masses do +not, as in New York and Chicago and Los Angeles, stroll about at night? + +We stopped in again at the executive office of the White House. +Remarkable number of doormen there got up somewhat like policemen, so +that you repeatedly have to explain yourself all over again. Man new to +us on today. Suspiciously asked our names. Then (though what just our +names could have meant to him I cannot see) shook hands with immense +friendliness, and told us his name. + +Quite a throng waiting. Busy hum all about. Different crowd from usual. +Hardly any reporters. Old gentlemen. Stout red-faced fellows with large +black slouch hats. Several youngish women with very generous bosom +displays. Some sort of a delegation, apparently. We did not make out +just what. But the scene somewhat suggested a meeting of the Los Angeles +branch of the Ohio Society. At length the company lines up. We trail in +through with the rest. + +The President, looming in the centre of his office, shakes hands with +each caller in turn, in a manner of paternal affection. Holds your hand +very gently within his for a considerable while. Rather odd position he +takes when shaking hands. Right shoulder lifted. Looks (though I felt +that he was unconscious of this effect) somewhat like a pose that a +painter might put his model into when about to paint him shaking hands. + +He bent over us in a very fatherly fashion. Said, yes, yes, he had got +our letters while in the South. Which was quite a mistake, as we hadn't +written him any letters. But his kindly intention was quite +unmistakable. + + +IV + +Senator New's secretary, in his room on the second floor of the Senate +Office building, was opening a wooden box that had come by mail. No; he +wasn't exactly opening this box, either. He was looking at it +suspiciously and cautiously tipping it from side to side. "Feels like it +was a snake," he said fearsomely. "Soft, live-like weight in there. I +don't believe I'll open it. You see," indicating the stamps, "it's from +India, too." + +"But why would anybody be sending Senator New a snake?" inquired my +friend. + +"Goodness gracious! We get lots of things just as queer as snakes," +replied Mr. Winter. "I guess the Senator must be coming in pretty soon," +he remarked, glancing about. "So many people coming in," he added, and +continued: "It's a remarkable thing. Visitors seem to have some sort of +psychic knowledge of when the Senator will be in. Same way out in +Indianapolis, we could always tell when Tom Taggart was likely to be +back soon from French Lick--so many people (who couldn't have heard from +him) looking for him at the Denizen House." + +"Everybody," someone observed, "always comes to Washington at least once +a year." All United-Statesians, at any rate, one would say looking about +the city, probably do. And among visiting United-Statesians not +habitually seen in such profusion elsewhere one would certainly include, +Indians, Mormons, Porto-Ricans, Civil War veterans, pedagogues, +octogenarians, vegetarians, Virginians, Creoles, pastors, suffragettes, +honeymooners, aunts, portly ladies of peculiar outline, people of a very +simple past, and a remarkable number of gentlemen who still cling to +white "lawn" ties, hard boiled shirts and "Congress shoes." + +Also, of course, that vast congregation of people who "want" something +in Washington. "What are you looking for around here?" a remark commonly +overheard in the hotel lobbies. + +But there are other American cities to which "everybody" goes, too, now +or then, though the visitors are not perhaps so recognizable. Coming out +of the Capitol, passing through the grounds of the White House, what do +you frequently overhear? Frequently some such remark as this: "Haven't +you ever been in the subway? To the Bronx? When you go back you +certainly must go in it." + +And out in Los Angeles they boastfully tell you that one way in which +Los Angeles "is like New York" is this: That whereas a man may or may +not happen to go to Richmond or to Detroit, sooner or later you are +bound to see him on the streets of Los Angeles. That, as I say, is what +they tell you out there. + +But what are those aspects of Washington which are peculiar to that +city, and make it so unlike any other city in the United States? And +which in some cases make it an influence for the bad to many of its +visitors? And which in some cases it is so strange should be the aspect +of such a city? + +For one thing, the first thing which must strike any stranger to the +city is the enormous extent of the souvenir business there. It is +perhaps natural enough that this should be so, and that souvenir shops +should range themselves in an almost unbroken stretch for miles. What is +not altogether so easy to answer is why nearly all of the souvenirs +should be the kind of souvenirs they are. + +Printed portraits of the present President and of former Presidents, and +plaster busts of these personages, of course. That many of the articles +for "remembrance" should be touched with a patriotic design, of course, +too. But why today should so many millions of the "souvenir spoons" +(with the Capitol in relief on the bowl), the "hand painted" plates +(presenting a comic valentine likeness of George Washington), the +paper-weights (with a delirious lithograph of the Library of Congress +showing through), the "napkin rings," butter knives, and so on and so +on--why should such millions of these things be precisely in the style +of such articles proudly displayed in the home of my grandmother when I +was a boy in the Middle West? + +Outside of Washington, as far as I know in the world, any considerable +exhibition of wares so reminiscent of the taste of the past can only be +found along the water fronts of a city where men of ships shop. And +there, along water fronts, you always find that same idea of ornament. + +Another thing. Where in Washington are shops where real art is +sold--paintings of reputable character and rare specimens of antique +furniture? They may be there; I do not swear that they are not, but they +are remarkably difficult to find. + +Painting reminds me. The Corcoran Gallery is, of course, a justly famous +museum of art. But a minor museum, containing no Old Masters, but an +excellent collection of American painting, particularly excellent in its +representation of the period immediately preceding the present, the +period of the men called our impressionist painters. Its best canvas, I +should say, is the painting by John H. Twachtman, called (I believe) +"The Waterfall." My point is, that visitors there certainly are seeing +what they are supposed to be seeing there--art. + +What I am coming to (and I do not know why someone does not come to it +oftener) is this: That hordes of people who come to Washington will look +at with wonder as something fine anything which is shown to them. The +numerous beautiful works of architecture--to which is now added the very +noble Lincoln Memorial--they see, and probably derive something from. +But the cultural benefits of their visits to their Mecca of patriotic +interest must be weirdly distorted when they are led gaping through the +Capitol and are charged twenty-five cents apiece to be told by a guard +who knows as much about paintings as an ashman a quantity of imbecile +facts about prodigious canvases atrociously bad almost beyond belief. + +The Embarkation of the Pilgrims and Washington Resigning his Commission, +and so forth, indisputably are historic moments for the American breast +to recall with solemn emotion. And the iniquity of these paintings here +to minds uninstructed in works of art is that by reason of their appeal +to sentiments of love of country these nightmares of ugliness are put +over on the visitor as standards of beauty. + +Still speaking (after a fashion) of "art," another aspect of Washington +hits the eye. And that is the extremely moral note here. In Los Angeles +(that other nation's playground of holiday makers) perhaps even more +picture cards are displayed for sale. A very merry lot of pictures, +those out there--all of "California bathing girls" and very lightly +veiled figures, limbs rythmically flashing in "Greek dances." Such +picture cards of gaiety of course may be found in windows here and there +on some streets in New York and other cities. But after much window +gazing I fancy that anybody bent upon buying such things in Washington +would have to get them from a bootlegger or someone like that. + +And whereas, as I recall, in other centres of urban life, and especially +on the Pacific Coast, the photographers' exhibits run very largely to +feminine beauty and fashion, in photographers' windows in Washington, +you will note, masculine greatness dominates the scene. + +Speaking of photographers and such-like suggests another thing. Let us +come at the matter in this way. A good many women of culture and means, +I understand, choose to live in Washington; probably in large measure +because the city is beautifully laid out, because it is a pleasant size, +because there are no factories and subways there, and so on. We know +that numerous retired statesmen prefer to remain there. There is society +of the embassies. In consideration of all this, and in consideration +further of the comparatively large leisure there for an American city, +you would suppose that, behind the transient population, in Washington, +a highly civilized life went on. Very well. + +True, they have the third greatest reference library in the world and +the numerous scholars associated with it. But where do the people _buy_ +their books? One bookstore of fair size. Another good but quite small. A +third dealing mainly in second-hand volumes. Not one shop devoted to +sets in fine bindings, first editions, rare items and such things. +Though in Philadelphia, for instance, there is one of the finest (if not +the finest) bookshops dealing in rare books anywhere in the world. In +San Francisco numerous bookstores. Larger cities? Yes (as to that part +of it), of course. + +But it does seem queer that not a single newspaper in Washington runs +book reviews or prints any degree at all of literary comment. + +Alluding to San Francisco, that happy dale of the _bon-vivant_, how does +he who likes good living make out in Washington, unless he lives in a +club, an embassy, or at the White House? A grand public market, two +first-class hotel dining-rooms, and many fine homes. But an earnest +seeker after eating as a fine art could find tucked away none of those +chop-houses and restaurants to dine in which enlarge the soul of man. + +But, of course, perhaps you can't have everything at once. From the +visitors' gallery the spectacle of the Senate in active session is a +game more national than baseball. "There he goes!" cries one ardent +spectator, pointing to a "home player," so to say, moving down the +aisle. "That's him! Gettin' along pretty good, ain't he?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +FAME: A STORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE + + $10,000! + IN PRIZES FOR SHORT STORIES! + + _You_ have a story. We want to read it. Every human life has one + great story in it. Every man, every woman, has at least one story + to tell. + + THIS MEANS YOU! + + From your experience, from your own heart history, you can draw a + tale. You may not know that you can write. But you never know what + you can do until you try. We believe there are thousands of + unwritten little masterpieces, waiting only for the right + encouragement to be produced. Here is our offer---- + + +BENJAMIN KEYESER drew a long breath. "This means you"--there was no +doubt about that. These printed words had read his heart. He felt that +deep was answering unto deep. + +A brief resume of his life passed through Keyes's mind. And he was +touched, as never before, by the romance of destiny. He had not +contrived to be called up to public charges or employments of dignity or +power in the world. When Ol' Necessity had tapped him on the shoulder he +had cut his scholastic pursuits short of college, and a family friend, +Dr. Nevens, had got him a fifth-rate job in a third-rate business +concern. Here it seemed extremely probable that he would spend a good +many of his days. By the continued exercise of steadiness of character, +diligence, and application, he might hope, as Dr. Nevens by way of +encouragement occasionally pointed out, to advance at the rate of a +couple of dollars or so every couple of years. Clerkdom hedged him about +as divinity doth a king. + +The city directory rated him, "B. C. Keyes, Clerk." Should he be killed +in a railway accident, chosen as a juror, or arrested for homicide, the +newspapers would report that B. C. Keyes, a clerk, of 1120 Meredith +Street,--etc. There was, he felt when he looked at it fairly, no way +out. In the "Americans of Today" magazine articles, men rise from +bootblacks to multi-millionaires, but these legends, Keyes felt numbly, +had about as much relation to his own life as the hero tales of ancient +Greece. His lot was cast in the bottom of a well. + +And yet,--Keyes had been considered a bright youngster at school; he +regarded himself as a rather bright young man now; and sometimes even +yet, in wayward, impractical moments, he saw in his mind a picture of +himself breaking away from the field (so to say) and coming rounding +into the home stretch to bear down on a grandstand wild with applause. +He bore about within him a subconscious premonition, as it were, which +apparently would not die, that something remarkable was to happen to him +sooner or later. An unpleasant circumstance was that it was getting +later now all the time. Still the estimate of his worth returned to him +by life did not rid him of the belief that he had been originally +intended by his Maker for higher things than he had found. + +When, occasionally, the gloomy contrast of his life as it was with his +career as he conceived it had been meant to be depressed him too +untowardly, a young lady whom Keyes called Louise would administer +spiritual stimulants. + +Louise was a very clever person, and she knew a superior young man when +she saw one. She did not care for your common men at all. She was +intellectual. She read everything, her friends said. She often told +Keyes that he ought to write. She knew, she declared, that he could +write better than most of the people who did write. + +This idea of writing had, now and then, occurred to Keyes himself. He +was rather fond, in his odd hours, of reading periodical fiction, which +he liked to discuss with serious people like Louise. Sometimes with the +exhilaration occasioned by the reading of a particularly good story, a +romantic impulse to express himself welled up in him, and then +evaporated. Generally in these instances he wanted to write a kind of +story he had just read. He felt the glamour of the life of adventurous +tales. He thrilled in response to the note struck in that sort of +romance best exemplified, perhaps, in one of his favorites, "The Man Who +Would Be King." Or he longed to be like O. Henry, wise with the wisdom +of the Town. But there was one sort of story which always ignited in his +mind the thought that he really did know a story of his own. This he +sometimes positively yearned to tell. This the advertisement had put its +finger upon. "Every human life has one great story in it." It was even +so. "From your own heart history ..."--Benjamin Keyes felt that emotion +which is the conception of a work of art. + + * * * * * + +He was pregnant with his idea. He rose from his bed betimes. He breathed +a strangely fragrant air. He looked at the beautiful world. He wrote. He +mentioned his little employment to no one: he felt rather ashamed of it, +in fact; but it infatuated him. He encountered some awful tough spots, +and at times he almost despaired--but he could not give up. Something +within him, which he himself was conscious he did not understand, +tortured him to go on. All day long, while at his business, his meals, +his shaving, his story turned and twisted and talked in the back of his +head. Despair alternated with exultation. At hours there came a gusto to +his work; words that he had heard or read, forgotten and never used, +came back to him from heaven knows where, and sprang to his pen at the +felicitous instance. He felt that his mind was more alert than he +remembered it to have ever been; he felt that his eyes were brighter; +his hands, his whole right arm, felt strong. He knew as he worked that +this was character, and this was sentiment, and this was humor. He was +shaken by the respiration of a heady drama. He felt that this--was +almost genius! And he was aghast that he had lived such a dull life +hitherto when this capacity had been in him. + +He possessed little theoretic knowledge of writing; his story grew +naturally, like a tree: he was intelligent, and he had a story to tell +which must be told. In the matter of technical construction he followed +in a general way, intuitively, unconsciously for the most part, without +elaborate examination, the form of a short story as he was acquainted +with it through his reading of stories. He wandered alone at night, +oblivious of anything else, thinking, thinking his story over; and he +felt good in his brain and in his heart and in his stomach. He felt +virile, elated, full of power, and strangely happy. The joy of creating +a thing of art was upon him. Thrills ran down his spine and into his +legs; he would grin to himself in the dark streets; and sometimes he +laughed aloud. Everything else he neglected. He could not even read the +newspapers; he stayed at home two days from business; he worked early +and late, and walked up and down, throbbing, meantimes. + +The story was almost finished. The story _was finished_. What would +Louise say? Would she think that he ought not to have written, ought not +to make public, so intimate a history? Then in the story he had carried +things further than they were in fact: the artistic instinct had +formally plighted the lovers' troth. He thought of submitting his +manuscript without showing it to Louise. Would it not be fine for her to +discover the story in print! But Keyes had to read that story to someone +or blow up. + + * * * * * + +His evening with Louise began awkwardly. The pleasant interchange of +being did not, as usually so happily it did with Louise, flow naturally +along. Keyes was accustomed to feel that with Louise he talked better +than before anyone else. He now and then wished that certain other +people, upon whom he felt he had not made so favorable an impression as +he deserved, could overhear him sometime with Louise. Now, curiously, +with her he felt as he had with them: he could not somehow get his real +machinery started. Three or four times he determined to embark upon the +subject in his mind, and as many times the rising fulness in his chest +and the sudden quivering of his heart daunted him. As he looked now at +Louise, sitting there before him, the dignity of her as a young woman +struck him, and it occurred to him as extraordinary that he could have +been so intimate with her. He about concluded to put off his story until +another time, at which immediately he felt much relieved. + +His gaze wandered about among the familiar objects of the little +parlor--the ordinary articles of the family furniture, the photographs +on the mantel, the hand-painted plate on the wall,--then rested upon the +framed Maxfield Parrish, which Keyes knew, with a glow of pride, to +express the superior refinement of Louise's own taste. Keyes shared +Louise's interest in art; he knew, and very much admired, the work of +Dulac, James Montgomery Flagg, N. C. Wyeth, Arthur Keller, and many +others; this was one of the fascinating bonds which united them, in +division from a frivolous, material, and unsympathetic world. He glanced +again now at the sumptuous Rackham book on the table, which it had been +such a delight to him to give her at Christmas; and the revived +discussion of aesthetics led him fairly comfortably into the subject of +his own entrance into work in that field. His manuscript came out of +his pocket; and, straightening up on the edge of his chair, a little +nervous again in the still pause that ensued, he cleared his throat, +and, in a rather diffident voice, began to read. As he proceeded and +knew that his effort found favor, his want of confidence left him. He +fell into the swing and color of his work; and the heart of it he tasted +like fine wine as he read. In the more moving passages his voice shook a +trifle, and tears very nearly came into his eyes; it was all, he felt, +so beautiful. When he had concluded there was in Louise's eyes--as he +looked up, and saw her sitting, leaning forward with her chin on the +back of her hand, her elbow on her knee,--a strange light. It occurred +to Keyes that he did not remember ever to have seen a woman's face look +exactly that way before. Probably not. This was a light some men never +find on land or sea. It does not shine for any man more than once or +twice. They sat awhile, these two in the little parlor, and happiness +roared through their veins. Louise told Keyes that she had always known +that he "had it in him." + +Then they arose, and they were near to each other, and their hearts +were filled, and beneath the chandelier he moved his arms about her. His +lips clasped hers. It was thus as it was in the story. + +Keyes emerged from the brightly lighted doorway with Louise beaming +tenderly after him. In his blissful abstraction of mind he neglected, on +the dark porchway, to turn the corner of the house to the steps; but +walked instead, straight ahead, until the world gave way beneath him, +and he collapsed with a crash among the young vines. + +The next week Louise, who held a position in the "Nickel's Weekly" +Circulation Branch office in the Middle West, neatly typed the +manuscript on one of the firm's machines. One evening they went together +to post the story.... The ancient, imperturbable moon observed this +momentous deed. + + * * * * * + +When Keyes put that manuscript into the mail box, he _knew_ that it +would be accepted. He felt this in his bones. He felt it in the soles of +his feet and in the hair on his head. + +For several days succeeding, a sensuous complacency pervaded young +Keyes. In a rich haze he saw himself acclaimed, famous, adored. His +nature was ardent, and he had always craved the warmth of approbation; +but he had not had it, except from Louise. Now there were moments when, +in a picture in his mind, he saw an attractive figure, which he +recognized as himself somewhat altered, come jauntily along, amiably +smiling, swinging a cane. He had always secretly desired very much to +carry a cane, but he had felt uncomfortably that the humbleness of his +position in life would make this ridiculous. In his moments of ambition +he had hoped, sometimes, that walking-sticks would not go out (to put it +so) before he came in. In the background of his mental picture Keyes +recognized among the doting multitude the faces of about all of his +acquaintances, some brought for the occasion from rather remote places. + +Keyes felt a slight wrench of conscience in winking at this poetic +liberty taken with realistic probability. When a name occurred to him +the physiognomy of whose person was absent, Keyes's sense of probity was +smothered, with a slight twinge of pain, by the ardor of his +imagination; and place in the press was found for this person, very +kindly well up in front, where a good view could be had by him of the +celebrity--at this point the celebrity in the delectable vision was +observed gaily to light a cigarette. Discernible in the throng, too, +were some few whose mean and envious natures writhed, the psychologist +in Keyes perceived, at this handsome recognition of the worth of a young +man it had once been their wont to snub. + +In this balmy temper of mind Keyes got down to business one morning a +little late. The humdrum of a business life had begun to be somewhat +more irksome than hitherto to Keyes's swelling spirit. He ruminated this +morning, as he stood before his tall stool at his ledger, on the curious +ill-adjustment of a universe so arranged that one of his capacity for +finer things could remain so unsuspected of the world about him, and the +rich value of his life to some unmeaning task-work be allowed to give. A +sudden electric buzzing beneath his high desk signalled him that his +presence was desired by his chief. "What now?" he thought, a little +tremulously and a little irritably, as he went: he had been caught up on +several slips lately. He paused respectfully in the private office +doorway. Mr. Winder, from his swivel-chair, flashed up his white +moustache very straight at Keyes. "Sit down," he directed. The suavity +which was his habit was quite absent. Keyes felt the presence in the air +of a good deal of masculine firmness. + +"This," said Mr. Winder, his eye steadily on Keyes, "is a place of +business. It is not a gentleman's club. Now, I want you to take a brace. +That will do." + +As Keyes took up his pen again and began to write, "By merchandise," his +breast was full with resentment: a sense of the real integrity of his +nature welled up in him. His mind rapidly generated the divers manly +replies he wished, with an intensity amounting to pain, he had thought +of a moment before. He saw himself, now exasperatingly too late, saying +with frank honesty to Mr. Winder: + +"I realize that I have of late been a little delinquent. But (with some +eloquence) it has always been my intention to be, and I believe in the +main I have been, a faithful and conscientious employee. I shall not be +found wanting again." + +But here he was a rebuked culprit. He felt the degradation of servitude. +He experienced sharply that violent yearning so familiar to all that +are employed everywhere, to be able to go in and tell Mr. Winder to go +to the devil. And though he felt at bottom the legitimacy, in the +business ethic, of Mr. Winder's attitude, he also felt forlornly the +coldness of the business relation, the brutal authority of worldly +power, and its conception of his insignificance. And he was stung at the +moral criminality, as he felt it to be, of a situation which placed such +a man as Mr. Winder over such a nature as his own; Mr. Winder he did not +suppose had read a book within the last ten years. + +As, at that hour which sets the weary toiler free, in the gathering dusk +Keyes stood on the curb amid the hurrying throng homeward bound,--oh! +how he longed for that establishment in the eyes of men which the +success of his story would bring him. Oh, when would he hear! As he +bowled along in the crowded trolley the thought stole through him, until +it amounted almost to a conviction, that the great letter awaited him at +home now. He could hardly bear the tedium of the short journey. +Restlessly he turned his evening paper. + +In him had developed of late a great interest in authors; he peered +between the pages, a little sheepishly, at the column, "Books and Their +Makers." He read that Mr. So and So, the author of "This and That," was +a young man thirty years of age. Instantly he reflected that he himself +was but twenty-seven. This was encouraging! He had formed a habit +recently of contrasting at once any writer's age with his own. If he +learned that Mr. Galsworthy, whose books were much advertised but which +he had not read, was forty-something, he wanted to know how old he had +been when he wrote his first book. Then he counted up the number of +books between that time--comparing his age at that time with his +own--and now. He was absorbed in the literary gossip of the day. That +Myra Kelly had been a schoolteacher, that Gertrude Atherton lived in +California, that Mr. Bennett had turned thirty before he published his +first book, that such a writer was in Rome, or that some other one was +engaged on a new work said to be about the Russian Jews,--he found very +interesting. He read in his newspaper the publishers' declaration that +Maurice Hewlett's new creation recalled Don Quixote, Cyrano, d'Artagnan, +Falstaff, Bombastes Furioso, Tartarin, Gil Blas. His notions concerning +the characters of this company were somewhat vague; but he was stirred +with an ambition to create some such character, too. + +On leaving the car whom should he see but Dr. Nevens. They walked along +together. Dr. Nevens inquired about the business. A bad year, he +surmised, for trade. Trade! Keyes felt his heart thumping with the +temptation to confide the adventures of his literary life; which, +indeed, he had found exceedingly difficult to keep so much to himself. +But his position gave him clairvoyance: he divined that no sort of +ambition receives from people in general so little respect, by some +curious idiosyncrasy of the human mind, as literary aspiration. With +what coarse and withering scorn had an intimation--which had escaped +him--that he had sought to give some artistic articulation to his ideas +been met by Pimpkins the other day at the office! + +The personality of Dr. Nevens, however, suggested a more sympathetic +attitude, by reason of the dentist's cultivation. Dr. Nevens was spoken +of as a "booklover." He had a "library"--it was, he implied, his +bachelor foible--the cornerstone of which was a set of the Thistle +edition of Stevenson that he had bought by subscription from an agent. +(Keyes had thought it odd one day that Dr. Nevens had not cut the +leaves.) And "the doctor" was fond of speaking familiarly of Dickens, +and gained much admiration by his often saying that he should like--had +he time--to read through "Esmond" once every year. Here, Keyes felt, +would be spiritual succor. + +But Keyes quickly learned that he was quite in a different case from the +author of "Esmond." Dr. Nevens was kind, but pitying. + +"Only one out of hundreds, thousands," he said, "ever comes to +anything." + +It did not occur to him, Keyes thought, as within the range of remotest +possibility that he, Keyes, _might_ be one of these. Then came the +doctor's reason. + +"You do not know anything," he said paternally, "anything at all." + +Keyes realized, with some bitterness, that this world is not an +institution existing for the purpose of detecting and rewarding inner +worth. He had known enough to write his story, he guessed. With some +flare of rage, he felt that simply unsupported merit is rather frowned +upon, as tending by comparison to cast others possibly not possessing so +much of it somewhat into the shade. He had a savage thought that when +he was Dr. Nevens's age he would not be a country dentist. He saw the +intense egoism of mankind. + +Dr. Nevens was determined to show a young man who had betrayed a +consciousness of superiority of grain, his place--economically and +socially. The selfish jealousy of the world! + + * * * * * + +His letter had not come. There was only a package from Louise--a copy of +"Book Talk," containing a marked article on "Representative American +Story Tellers"; from this, after dinner, Keyes imbibed most of the +purported facts about Booth Tarkington. Then he went to bed to sleep +through the hours until the return of the postman. + +The next evening still there was no letter. Keyes's spirit was troubled. +He sought the solace of solitude in the quiet, shadowed streets. A +reaction was succeeding his rosy complacency! Doubts pierced his +dissolving confidence. Was his story so good, after all? Somehow, as he +looked back at it now, it seemed much less strong than it had before. He +felt a sort of sinking in his stomach. A sickening suspicion came to +him that, perhaps, it was absurd. Maybe it was very silly. In a +disconnected way certain remarks and passages in it came back to him now +as quite questionable. Yes, they sounded pretty maudlin. He squirmed +within with mortification as a recollection of these passages passed +through his mind. He hoped his story would never get into print. A fear +that it might nauseated him. Then he was suffused with a sensation of +how little he amounted to. He felt, with a sense of great weakness, the +precariousness of his job. A horror came over him that he might lose it. +He wished he did not know Louise, who expected things of him. He felt +how awkward it was so to fail her. In the position he had got himself +into with her, how he had laid himself open to humiliating exposure! Oh, +why had he ever sought her? He wished he did not know anybody well. He +was an ass and he would never come to anything. He felt the futility of +his life. Why could he not slink away somewhere and live out his feeble +existence unobserved? As he got into bed he felt that very easily he +could cry. + + * * * * * + + The August + FAVORITE MAGAZINE + This number contains + The Great Prize Story + by + BENJAMIN CECIL KEYES + GET IT!! + + * * * * * + +... Keyes stood before a downtown news-stand. Hurrying pedestrians +bumped into him. An irascible character or two, thus impeded, glared +back at him--what was the matter with the fellow! Did he think there was +nobody but himself in the world? + +B. C. Keyes walked home to the sound of a great orchestra reverberating +through him. He could not tolerate the thought of subduing himself to +the confinement of a car. He needed movement and air. + +It had come, his great letter, a few weeks before. At his sitting down +to dinner his mother had given him the envelope. _The Favorite +Magazine_--these words had seemed to him to be printed in the upper +left-hand corner; it had struck him that perhaps the strain on his +nerves of late had so deranged his mind that he now saw, as in a +mirage, what was not. "Benjamin C. Keyes, Esq."--so ran the address. +Keyes in his dizziness noted this point: people had not customarily +addressed him as _esquire_. Then, for the first time in his life, he +held in his hand a substantial check payable to his own name--wealth! +Courteous and laudatory typewritten words danced before his burning +eyes. + +He felt, though in a degree an hundred times intensified, as though he +had smoked so much tobacco, and drunk so much coffee, he could not +compose himself to eat, or read a paper, or go to bed, or stay where he +was; but must rush off somewhere else and talk hysterically. He got +through his meal blindly. He could not explain--just yet--to his mother: +he felt he could not control the patience necessary to begin at the +beginning and construct a coherent narrative.... He must go to Louise +who already understood the preliminary situation. + +It had occurred to Keyes on his hurried, stumbling way thither that the +whole thing was unbelievable, and that he must be quite insane. After he +had pushed the bell, an interminable time seemed to elapse before his +ring was answered. As he stood there on the porch he felt his flesh +palpitating. A terrible fear came over him that Louise might not be at +home.... Louise said, when her frenzy had somewhat abated, that she had +always known that he "had it in him." She told him there was now "a +future" before him.... Keyes had determined to go on about his business +as though nothing unusual had occurred; then when the story appeared, to +accept congratulations with retiring modesty. Before noon the next day +he had told three people; by night, seven. + +So, going over it all again, Keyes arrived at home, to learn that--"What +do you think?" His mother said "a reporter" had been at the house; an +occurrence--quite unprecedented in Mrs. Keyes's experience--which had +thrown her into considerable agitation. This public official she had +associated in her confusion with a policeman. He had, however, treated +her as a personage of great interest. He told her "there was nothing to +be ashamed of." He drew from her trembling lips some account of her +son's life, and requested a photograph. + +Next day the dean of local newspapers, vigilant in patriotism, printed +an extended article on the "state's new writer." And in an editorial +entitled "The Modern Athens" (which referred to Keyes only by +implication) the paper affirmed again that Andiena was "by general +consent the present chief centre of letters in America." It +recapitulated the names of those of her sons and daughters whose works +were on the counters of every department store in the land. It concluded +by saying: "The hope of a people is in its writers, its chosen ones of +lofty thought, its poets and prophets, who shall dream and sing for it, +who shall gather up its tendencies and formulate its ideals and voice +its spirit, proclaiming its duties and awakening its enthusiasm." Keyes +read this, as he took it to be, moving and eloquent tribute to his prize +story with feelings akin to those experienced, very probably, by Isaiah. + +Keyes received an ovation at "the office." The humility of Pimpkins's +admiration was abject. Keyes perceived the commanding quality of +ambition--when successful. Miss Wimble, the hollow-breasted cashieress, +regarded him with sheep's-eyes. Even Mr. Winder, in passing, +congratulated him upon his "stroke of luck." + +Wonders once begun, it seemed, poured. Two letters awaited him that +evening. One from the editor of _The Monocle Magazine_. _The Monocle +Magazine_, as Louis said, "think of it!" The editor of this +distinguished institution spoke of his "pleasure" in reading Mr. Keyes's +"compelling" story; he begged to request the favor of the "offer" of +some of Keyes's "other work." By way of a fraternal insinuation he +mentioned that he was a native of Andiena, himself. "Most of us are," +was his sportive comment. The "Consolidated Sunday Magazines, Inc.," +wrote with much business directness to solicit "manuscript," at +"immediate payment on acceptance at your regular rates for fiction of +the first class." + + * * * * * + +The extraordinary turn of events in Keyes's life brought him visitors as +well as letters. Dr. Nevens called, benignly smiling appreciation. His +impression appeared to be that he had not been mistaken in giving Keyes +his support. Of more constructive importance, however, was the turning +up of Mr. Tate, who had been Keyes's instructor in "English" at the +Longridge High School. A slender, pale, young man, with a bald, domed +forehead "rising in its white mass like a tower of mind," Mr. Tate was +understood to nourish a deep respect for literature. He had contributed +one or two very serious and painstaking "papers" on the English of +Chaucer (not very well understood by Keyes at the time), to "Poet-Lore"; +and had edited, with notes, several "texts"--one of "The Lady of the +Lake," with an "introduction," for school use. He reverenced, he now +made evident, the "creative gift," as he designated it; which, he +realized, had been denied him. He had come to pay homage to a vessel of +this gift, his former pupil, now illustrious. + +With the hand of destiny Mr. Tate touched a vital chord. Self-assertion; +to be no longer an unregarded atom in the mass of those born only to +labor for others; to find play for the mind and the passion which, by no +choice of his own, distinguished him from the time slave: this was now +Keyes's smouldering thought. Mr. Tate, from his conversancy with the +literary situation, reported that there never was in the history of the +world such a demand for fiction as now, and that "the publishers" +declared there was not an overproduction of good fiction. Editors, Mr. +Tate said, were eager to welcome new talent. He strongly encouraged +Keyes to adopt what he spoke of as the "literary life." In fact, he +seemed to consider that there was no alternative. And, indeed, already +in Keyes's own idea of his future he saw himself eventually settled +somewhere amid the Irvin-Cobbs, the Julian-Streets, the +Joseph-Hergesheimers, and other clever people whose society would be +congenial to him. + +For the present he cultivated his ego, as became a literary light; and +now, with Mr. Tate's assistance, he began to devote the time at his +command to preparation for his life's work, to study. Mr. Tate was +ardent to be of service; he felt that he had here connected himself with +literary history in the making. The great need for Keyes, he felt, was +education. The creative genius, Mr. Tate said, could not be implanted; +but he felt that this other he could supply. He recommended the patient +study of men and books. He thought that what Keyes needed in especial +was "technical" knowledge; so he went at that strong. Maupassant, Mr. +Tate said, was the great master of the short story. Keyes began his +evening studies in English translations of Maupassant. + +The galling yoke of his business life was becoming well-nigh unbearable. +His soul was in ferment. If only he did not have to get up to hurry +every morning down to that penitentiary, there to waste his days, he +could get something done. That sapped his vitals. And he was tortured by +a flame--to do, to read, study, create, grow, accomplish! He was +expanding against the walls of his environment. God! could he but burst +them asunder, and leap out! + +Mr. Tate had a high idea of a thing which he spoke of as "style." In +elucidation of this theme he suggested perusal of essays and treatises +by DeQuincey, Walter Pater, and Professor Raleigh, He felt also that the +"art of fiction" should be mastered by his protege. So Keyes pitched +into examinations of this recondite subject by Sir Walter Besant, Marion +Crawford, R. L. Stevenson, and Anthony Trollope. Keyes realized that he +had _not_ realized before what a lot there was _to_ writing. Mr. Tate +purchased out of his slender means as a present, "Success in +Literature," by G. H. Lewes. He unearthed a rich collection in titles of +books the consumption of which literature would be invaluable to one in +training for the literary profession. An admirable bibliography, this +list, of the genre which was Keyes's specialty:--"The Art of Short +Story Writing," "Practical Short Story Writing," "The Art of the Short +Story," "The Short Story," "Book of the Short Story," "How to Write a +Short Story," "Writing of the Short Story," "Short Story Writing," +"Philosophy of the Short Story," "The Story-Teller's Art," "The Short +Story in English," "Selections from the World's Greatest Short Stories," +"American Short Stories," "Great English Short-Story Writers." In the +reading room of the public library Keyes followed a series of articles +in "Book Talk" on the "Craftsmanship of Writing." He advanced in +literary culture, under Mr. Tate's zealous lead, to consideration of +"the novel," its history and development. And, too, to the drama, its +law and technique. His head was filled with the theory of denouements, +"moments," rising actions, climaxes, suspended actions, and +catastrophes. At times he had an uneasy feeling that all these things +did not much help him to think up any new stories of his own. But Mr. +Tate said "that" would "come." + + * * * * * + +And wealth and fame were even now at hand. The promoters of the great +prize contest advertising dodge had not been at fault in business +acumen; the winning story returned ample evidence of its popular appeal. +It was akin to the minds of the "peepul." _The Favorite Magazine_ was +sold during August by enterprising newsboys _on trolley cars_. That +great public whose literature is exclusively contemporaneous,--whose +world of letters is the current _Saturday Mail-Coach_, the _All-people's +Magazine_, the _Purple Book_, the _Nothing-But-Stories_, the _Modiste, +The Swift Set, Jones's--the Magazine that Entertains, Brisk Stories, +Popularity_, and the _Tip-Top_,--discussed the big features on front +porches. Keyes's story even attracted the interest of those _who seldom +read anything_. A number of letters from persons of that impulsive class +which communicates its inward feelings to authors personally unknown +were forwarded to Keyes from his publishers. A young lady resident in +St. Joe, Michigan, wrote to say that she thought the scene where the +boat upsets was the "_grandest thing_ ever written." + +Imagine a man like Keyes sitting his days away on an office stool. His +mother, however, could not "see" his resigning his position. His +"father had always" ... and so forth. Keyes foamed within. What a +thing--woman's maddening narrowness! At the office Keyes's situation +grew, in subtle ways, more and more oppressive. His position appeared to +become equivocal. Mr. Winder seemed to make a point of increasing +exactness. Keyes felt a disposition in authority to put down any +subordinate uppishness of feeling possibly occasioned by doings outside +the line of business. And he became conscious, too, of a curious +estrangement from his associates there. They, on their side, Pimpkins in +especial, seemed to feel that he felt he was too good for them. And, in +truth, he did. The mundane aims of those around him got on his nerves. +Their commonplace thoughts irritated him. They were _common_ natures. +But, with fierce secret joy, Keyes knew that an event was approaching +which promised, would command, deliverance from it all. + +Fall came. And the Favorite Publishing Company bound up the prize story +as a "gift book" for the holiday trade. Claud Clarence Chamberlain, the +well-known illustrator and creator of the famous "Picture-Hat Girl," was +commissioned to make the decorations. These were done with much dash in +highly colored crayon and popular sentiment. One was printed on the +paper jacket of the book, with the title in embossed letters. The +advertisement pronounced the work altogether "an exquisite piece of +book-making." It declared the production the "daintiest gift of the +season," and reminded "people of culture and refinement" that there was +"no present like a book." + +Indeed a hero is not without fame in his own country. The +Stanton-Merritt bookstore on Capital Street arranged a window display of +about a ton of "Will Rockwell Makes Good," with one of Mr. Chamberlain's +original illustrations, framed, in the centre. A monster advertising +banner was flung across the front of the store above the entrance and +windows. Just inside, a pyramid breast-high was built of the books, +beneath an artistic piece of work--a hanging board upon which was burned +in old English letters: "'A good book is the precious life blood of a +Master Spirit'--Milton." A lady who informed the salesman that she +thought "books" were "just fine," bought twenty copies for holiday +distribution. She inquired if there was not a discount on that number +purchased. + +Drugged with triumph, they returned together Saturday night from the +exhibition "down town"; and, in the now historic little parlor again, +Louise wept upon the shoulder of her affianced. Yes; they were formally +engaged. Keyes was not without a sensation that the situation was rather +chaotic. But destiny seemed to close in on him and bear him on. + +The reviewers got on the job. And they were there with the goods. +Statements from a few typical press notices follow. "An absorbing +story," said the Topeka _Progressive_, "throbbing with optimism." "Mr. +Keyes strikes a new note in this unusual production; vivid, +dramatic,"--San Francisco _Lookout_. "A story of vivid and compelling +interest," one critic declared. "A delightful story, rich in heart +throbs," was one good one. One reviewer said, "Here we have a real love +story, a tale of love, tender and true, delightfully narrated. There are +so many fine, tender passages in the episode of these two, who live just +for each other, that reading the little book is like breathing strong, +refreshing air." "The creator of 'Will Rockwell," said one paper, "has +here written a new idyl of America." "An inspiring picture," said +another. One very fine critique said: "Once in awhile, possibly once in +a lifetime, there arises before us a writer of fiction whose genius is +undeniable the instant it greets us." When Keyes read this, quoted in +his publisher's latest newspaper advertisement, he knew that he had +found his work in the world. And reasoning from his experience, he saw +before him a calling that would be ever a noble intoxication of the +soul, a kind that would know naught of headaches or remorse. + +But perhaps the best of all the critical dicta was this: "Written," it +declared, "with blood and tears and fire." Very impressive was the +number of times that were used such adjectives as "big," "vital," +"absorbing," "compelling," "remarkable," "insistent," and "virile." +"Optimism," it developed too, was the supreme merit of fiction. One of +the arresting terms employed was "economy of means." + +There were, it is true, a few dissenting voices from the chorus of +unrestrained praise, chiefly from certain notoriously dull, +conservative, killjoy journals. The New York _Evening Postman_ said: +"This somewhat amateurish little essay in fiction seems to be the +product of an untutored sincerity. In this, its sincerity, it is not +without a degree of vigor. We doubt, however, whether the author can +repeat the performance." And that irrepressibly ribald organ, the New +York _Beam_, could not forbear its customary jocular sport. Its smart +review of this little classic (as one bookseller already pronounced it) +began: "Hooray for 'Will'! Hooray also for 'Mabel'! They are the real +simegoozlia." + + * * * * * + +"Don't you think you could write something now, dear?" inquired Mrs. +Keyes, who did not see how scholarship pure and simple was, so to say, +to move the boat. + +This idea of writing something now had indeed occurred to Keyes; but +somehow he had not been able to think of anything in particular to +write. So he went on with his studies, at the same time keeping an eye +open for available material, characters, and plots. + +"Surely you can write something, Ben, that we could get some money for," +said Louise. A wife, after all, is only a woman, with a mind fitted to +petty things, such as groceries, family washings, clothing, and divers +household bills. It is irritating to a man of lofty mind who night and +day is racking his brain for an idea, to be prodded on in this fashion. +Keyes ground his teeth and bore it; he reflected that an author's life +is frequently a battle with mediocrity. Perhaps he was mistaken as to +where lay the mediocrity with which he battled. + +He fretted and worried and at length sat himself down to write without +an inspiration. He bethought himself of Trollope's example to literary +aspirants, and tried to grind out two hundred and fifty words every +fifteen minutes for three hours a day. He couldn't write twenty. He kept +doggedly on. He could not make his characters act or talk--the talk was +the most hopeless thing of all. He couldn't, as once he had done, cry +over them. Sometimes, in the stillness of the night with his clock +ticking before him, he almost thought that he had regained for a moment +a tithe of the power he once had; but in the morning when he reviewed +his work he admitted that he had been sadly mistaken. Now doubts haunted +his soul; even as he wrote another consciousness within not thus +employed whispered of his impotency. Fact is, Keyes had not at all the +creative gift. + +He struggled through a number of stories, some better and some worse. +When he mailed these it was with a faltering, doubting heart. Something +with a weak action away in his interior told him that they would not be +accepted. + +Keyes got thinner in flesh, more distressed in spirit, and poorer in +this world's goods as time went on. Sometimes he felt like an imposter +and was ashamed to face his wife; then he reread his press notices and a +fever to do something shook him. But a man cannot support himself and +his wife on a fever to do something. Benjamin Cecil Keyes could not +understand the thing: if he had literary genius why couldn't he write? +If he had not, how then had he written? To sit in full view of one's +wife day after day pretending to be interested in a book when the +bill-collector calls; and to be tormented all the time by a desire to do +something and not to be able to do it, or know when, if ever, one will +be able; and to be ashamed and afraid to tell one's wife this; but to be +compelled to be there, or to run away, or to hang one's self--this is a +situation more than uncomfortable. + +A thousand times Keyes decided to roll up his sleeves and do something +else--engage in any profitable employment; and a thousand times he +decided not to--just yet. A man often exists in this way until he gets +quite to the end of the string where the wolf is. + +"That was an accident, Louise," said Keyes sadly one day. "I find I +can't write." + +Keyes was mistaken again. No fine thing ever was made by accident. Keyes +managed to write that story because its theme was the most interesting +incident in his life; because it appealed to him more strongly than +anything else had in his whole experience; because he was thoroughly +familiar with the life and the people he featured in his story; because +he was absolutely sincere in his sympathies, appreciation, and emotions +here; he had no ideals set way beyond his power, no aping tendencies +after an effective style, no attention distracted by an ill-digested +knowledge of mechanical construction. The structure, and the style +simply came, probably because--and finally he managed to write that +story because--he was keyed up to it. + +A domestic woman often has a wretchedly unworshipful view of art and +fame. Keyes's confession did not kill Louise. I suppose he expected her +to go back to her parents in high dudgeon as one who had been grossly +swindled. + +"Do you care if you can't write?" she said, after a moment's silence. +"Just think how nice you are--how much nicer you were before you tried +to write! And how it has worried you!" + +Keyes got a job as a collector for a mercantile house. "My health +demands outdoor employment," he told his acquaintances. + + * * * * * + +Sometimes, alone with his lamp after the day's confounded drudgery, +Keyes got out the old magazine and reread his forgotten story. + + +THE END. + + +The following typographical errors have been corrected: +(note of etext transcriber) + +seene=>scene + +bibiographer=>bibliographer + +Bandelaire=>Baudelaire + +as you might saw her context=>as you might say her context + +inquired aonther=>inquired another + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Turns about Town, by Robert Cortes Holliday + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURNS ABOUT TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 36085.txt or 36085.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/8/36085/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +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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